The Common Mistakes of Horror Games

[ExileNZ]

Chaos Engine, so that makes it 1993. That's the first game I played (or even read about) where the music was dynamic, changing up and down depending on whether you were fighting or not.

But Chaos Engine was an action game, not horror, so it suited it perfectly.

 

[Relict84]

You may not know the exact moment when they started to add responsive music swells to games, but I do. They made it an advertising point that they were the first to use it in the game Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. Didn't need to know that? Too bad, neither did I, but because I did, I'm going to make you suffer in that knowledge with me.

 

[GothmogII]

There's one game that did horror well (for the first hour anyways)...
Call of Cthultu: Shadow Over Innsmouth.

That's Dark Corners of the Earth. Shadow Over Innsmouth was the name of the book it was loosely based on.

And you're quite right about it. It did some aspects far better than others, and petered out after the first few sections. Still love it though :3

 

[Laggings]

Those are pretty good "rules" you pointed out. I've been thinking about these before. Some consciously (the music-bit), some I've only been noticing unconsciously (like the action-in-cutscene-bit), but now that you point it out, it's true.

I haven't played many of the Final Fantasy games but I remember in FF8 there was a part where you escaped from a prison in the desert that was shaped like a giant drill and could drill itself entirely into the ground. When that happened, there was a pre-rendered cutscene in which your character (being the only non-pre-rendered part) was hanging from a bridge and you had to climb to your safety to your safety by basically only holding down one button. But the fact that it was interactive made it super-tense (plus the fact that I didn't realize I wasn't just watching a cutscene and started a good 10 seconds late)

Now of course nowadays that's problematic, with games that don't have pre-rendered backgrounds all over the place, but I was surprised it wasn't done more often back then. At least I haven't seen much more of it.


As for cinematic aspect - I think I like a cinematic experience, to a degree. The pre-defined camera angles in Silent Hill 1-4 were pretty film-esque and their absence was totally noticable in Homecoming (that and the fact that it was shit all together). But then, I guess that's not really so cinematic as it's just a device to present an environment, real or CG, and it never takes interactivity away from us.

 

[Sovvolf]

Snipped

don't think you've got what I mean about creepy silence, probably my fault for not really explaining it as deeply as I could. Creepy silence doesn't always have to be 'silent', you can have music score in there... just not an overly loud score with violins and drum clashes everywhere. The score which I think of when I say creepy silence, is the score from Resident evil two when you enter the police station. The music is creepy and it set's the whole game for being creepy. Resident Evil also had complete silence at times which added to it. The music didn't warn you of a zombie... it didn't change to loud violin plucking for the zombies... you heard the zombies shuffling and moaning, that's what scared you.

Though I think we are talking about two different horrors here. L4D's horror is more apocalyptic than psychophysical, the music worked for L4D because we expected zombie hoards all over the place, we know zombies are going to be around the corner so we don't need the music to surprise us. Imagine L4D's music in Resident Evil 1 or 2... it would spoil the atmosphere... while the music in RE would spoil L4D's atmosphere because it would be too quite. Two different types of horror (both ironically featuring hoards of zombies) means two different approaches with music. Actually to add the example... put L4D's music in Silent Hill too... just wouldn't work would it?.

 

[Cyglor]

I totally agree with the bit against dramatic music surges when action comes about. I played EQ2 for a while, and like a few people mentioned about Oblivion, getting into a fight with anything, be it a bee, wolf or sentient pile of rocks would queue up epic swashbuckling music. It was cool music, but not everytime a bat the size of your head swooped down on you.

I hate to fall back on the old Silent Hill bit again, but the first few games really did it well. The first game had very little actual 'music'. The metal-on-metal screeches were usually programmed only to a room, and sometimes without any real necessity. There were times when you'd go into a completely empty room and be 'touching cloth' because the music had (up until that point) been preparing you for imminent scariness. Silent Hill 2 did this too, and it also did a cinematic bit that I really liked.

Spoiler, maybe?: In your first really nasty encounter with Pyramid Head, after he commits double-aggravated-sexual-assault on the mannequin halves, he corners you in a closet. James gets frantic (understandably), then looks beside him and sees a clip for his gun, loads it, and opens fire. Although the moment was tense and held me for its duration, I laughed in retrospect because the game had the cheek to say 'just in case you're a trigger happy maniac, here's some bullets when you actually NEED them, weirdypants'. TLDR; I lol'd.

One thing I really do agree with though, isn't so much in the Extra Punctuation, but in the Zero Punctuation video. That bit is the bit about the narration track. That would ruin all sense of immersion for me. Now, this is not to say I don't like it when a playable character or even an NPC chimes in with some necessary information or character development driven dialogue, but those aren't usually outlining what's happening like it's just being read from a storybook. Did you know that there were two versions of the movie Blade-Runner? One had the narration track, and one didn't. Being given an option like that is one way that I would hope video games and movies DIDN'T differ.

[Edit: Because anytime before noon, I'm so not a comprehensive writer.]

 

[bobhubba]

Quick question Yahtzee: How is the that Fun Space Game going?

Also I agree with the points, but would expand this to include all games, even RTS and FPS. Another tirade i whole heartedly agree with is a demand for a decent single player campaign. Serriously, I dont play a game to listen to a 12 year old who forgot to take is riddallin because his mommy doesnt love him, causing him to bury his feelings by obbsesively playing COD.

 

[captain underpants]

Very well said, Mr Croshaw. It's all about immersion. 'Cinematic' is something that interferes with immersion, imo, but then, the third person view is one step removed from 'full' immersion anyway, and some people like that. I like it myself sometimes. Red Faction: Guerilla is a personal fave (of course, the phrase 'biscuits and cardboard' always comes to mind when I play, but that just adds to the enjoyment)

I'm playing through Metro 2033. Holy Fuck is that an immersive game. It's you, alone in dark caverns and tunnels, no sound other than the howls of a monster that might be at the other end of the tunnel or RIGHT BEHIND YOU!

 

[Karacan]

Regarding Slow-Motion killings - There were two games that have done this amazingly well.

The top-game that comes to mind is Batman, where I *loved* the slow-mo final killing blow on the final dude in the room. For me, at least, that never get old and even on the fourth play-through, it managed to evoke the occasional "wow"-moment.

The other "headshot!"-nearly-slow-mo game that pulled this off (for me) was XIII. Whenever you pulled of a headshot or managed to get a particularly spectacular kill, a short comic-style cutscene would pop up, very much in spirit with the game. It simply worked, for me.

So, it's a force for good - if wielded well. I admit that Alan Wake and many other games don't.

 

[Orinon]

Changing difficulty in game would be handy but it would likely cause some glitches, not to mention it would create scenarios where some Xbox troll would complain that I don't deserve the achievement for completing the game on hardest difficulty since id dropped down to normal whenever the bosses got to frustrating.

 

[Orekoya]

- Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Oblivion had a beautiful soundtrack and sometimes I gained something that was quite rare in Oblivion. Immersion.. Walking down a forest with a soothing tune was excellent but god, any challenge or excitement was thrown OUT of the window when I heard a heart-pumping song, knowing an enemy found and is trying to get to me.

At this moment, you draw your sword and look around like a maniac to see where the enemy actually is. Because you are prepared, it takes away that 'WTF" moment when you find yourself mauled by some zombified creature.

I fixed that by turning music off. Musical cues just feel like cheating and frankly I think silence is its own atmosphere's setter too.

I'm not sure if that's what people mean when they say "cinematic."

When a game is being called "cinematic", they are saying that the game focused on the dramatic (by dramatic I mean a composition, especially one telling a serious story, that is intended for representation of the characters and performing the dialogue and action intended by the director) aspect of the game. This apples whether it has be done good or bad regardless; but when a game focuses on being cinematic, it begins to neglect the whole interactive/game aspect of the game, often to the point that your interactivity becomes little more than being the play button for the story to continue. The player character no longer is the personification of your ability, identity, skills and values but instead comes with his own that you must ascribe to.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

An interesting point (that someone else may have already highlighted in the 5 pages written so far, damned if I'm going to read them all to find out) is that the music starting up when the enemies arrive and going away when they're dead... is basically what Silent Hill did with static instead of music. And it's one of the most lauded aspects of the series, as it adds to the atmosphere. On the other hand, Silent Hill also subverts it, such as with the enemies in the sewers in the original which DON'T trigger your radio and can subsequently try to rip your head off without even the slightest warning, or the bit in the prison in Silent Hill 2 where you're in a corridor with your radio blasting static and you can hear an enemy moving above you but there's nothing there.

Silent Hill is also a great example of what Yahtzee says about not putting action in cutscenes or using them to highlight horror set pieces. Look at the first game- when the first monsters attack you in the dead-end alley you don't even get a warning before they swarm over you in real time and drag you down (and then you wake up in the diner). The only other monsters that get cutscenes are the first flier (where the scene quickly shows it crashing through the window and then leaves you to fight it) and some (but not all of) the bosses. Other monsters just walk up to you and start ripping at you without so much as a "how do you do"- and that makes them INFINITELY scarier. You panic and start blasting or clubbing at them and only when they're dead do you have the luxury to ask yourself "what the fuck was THAT?!" Same goes for the sequel. When Jaaaaaaaaaaames Sunderland first finds the radio in the dead end and gets cornered by the first patient demon, he grabs the plank- but then you're left to club it to death yourself, so you better not have put that controller down in the hope the game would do it for you. Again, the only other monsters to get introductory cutscenes are the bosses and even then they can surprise you- at least twice in the game you meet Pyramid Head with no warning whatsoever and the scene where he suddenly appears and starts chasing you and Maria down the corridor in the hospital basement is one of the scariest scenes in survival horror HISTORY. Yahtzee is right- in a horror game it's the GAMEPLAY that should be scary, not the goddamn cutscenes.

"Whenever a film has been adapted from a game, it has, without exception, resulted in something so hideous that only rampant fun-haters from the planet Puritan could tolerate it to exist."

Golden Eye was ace, Spiderman 2 was alot of fun, and alot of the star wars games have been good.

I don't mean to troll, but you're not the first so I would just like everyone to maybe try some reading comprhension tests or something, and I mean that in the nicest please don't ban me for coming off mean way possible.

Perhaps you should take a spelling test first!

No, he shouldn't. Right is right, regardless of whether he makes any typos or not. And he's right.

 

[Ferrious]

A little late to the conversation but I must say that there were things that Alan Wake did very well as a horror game, and one in particular that I feel has been missing since (early) Resident Evil:

"Here is a location where you are safe. You are safe here, my child, listen to the soothing music, let it calm your nerves. When you go back out there, you are not safe. You are prey. You are dead. But you must go back."

For me, this heightens the tension. I've just scraped into this 'safe haven' by the skin of my teeth, but now I can relax. If the tension state is maintained throughout the game, I find I become acclimatised to it - it becomes a base state and no longer has any real effect on me. Once you have these havens though you have moments of calm that prevent you adjusting to the tension. You also have a tool for raising the tension of "that long bit where you're low on ammo/health/energy/resource" by having a much larger gap before the next safe haven. If I find myself thinking "Oh my god, please let there be a haven soon" because I'm feeling overwhelmed, trapped, exhausted, etc then you've succeeded. If I'm thinking "where's the checkpoint, this level is taking forever", you've failed. I was happy to find that Wake fell into the former category.

As for the idea that you can't put players in danger by threatening their save file, didn't Resident Evil 2 give you certain rewards if you could do it without saving (or at least, without saving more than a few times)? I seem to remember finding that mechanic very appealing - suddenly your avatar's life really is on the line.

 

[Squilookle]

Action is ok in cutscenes as long as it's progressing the story at the same time, such as that billboard getting smashed in San Andreas or the chat/all out gunfight in the casino at the start of Just Cause 2.

And for the record, situationally aware music is one of the main reasons that Goldeneye, Driver, Mercenaries (1) and Tie Fighter are among my favourite games. Though to be fair none of them are horror games.

 

[eva243]

I would probably have to agree with a lot of what he said here, but one thing I should point out that is in Silent Hill 1, 2 and 3 you had a radio and/or music to show that a monster was in the same room as yourself. I mean I never played Alan Wake, but I will say I think Silent Hill was still scary as fuck even with this. I don't know maybe they did it right, but I think maybe a bit further detailed explanation would have been helpful.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Silent Hill 2 really beats the player over the head [or at least it did me] with the fact that you should not inherently identify with the main character. There is a chance he's not what he seems. This is of course old news in books and movies, but it's still fairly fresh on the gaming front.

-And I'm mixed on the idea of changing difficulty mid-game. It's nice as an easy way out, but it just seems to dampen the experience a bit when you shamefacedly switch it to 'beginner' rather than tearing your hair out figuring out how to do it on 'Hurt me Plenty'. I'm probably just bitter though.

 

[NaramSuen]

Absolutely dead-on about the "scary" music which conveniently chimes in when bad guys are near. Nothing breaks the flow or immersion then when that tell-tale music kicks in and tells you to be alert.

 

[Cyglor]

-And I'm mixed on the idea of changing difficulty mid-game. It's nice as an easy way out, but it just seems to dampen the experience a bit when you shamefacedly switch it to 'beginner' rather than tearing your hair out figuring out how to do it on 'Hurt me Plenty'. I'm probably just bitter though.

I definitely agree with you there, but if you think of it in the reverse, it's a pretty good idea. I know there have been alot of times when, playing a game for the first time, I start on normal or easy, and then wish I'd started off on hard mode.

I'd usually also rather not start out with hard mode, just in case the game turns out to be a real unforgiving monster. Maybe have it as an option upon loading the game from a saved point? So you'd actually have to restart the system to change, and couldn't just do it willy-nilly, like JUST for a boss or something.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

I actually like cutscenes, even action ones. But I see where he is coming from in that regard and Valve are definitely the masters and delivering story without exposition and letting you see everything they want you to see without a single break in the action.

Everything else in the article I agree 100% on.