Should I play survival horror games

[trumpet-205]

I can watch horror movies but judging from what i've heard about silent hill.. seems scary.

I personally would divide survival horror game into two subgenre, visual and psychological.

Visual (western style) focuses on blood, zombie, gore aspect to create a spooky, horror environment. Example of it would be Resident Evil.

Psychological (eastern/Japanese style) focuses on tense tone, ghost, darkness, etc. It usually has a tragic story behind it. Example of it would be Fatal Frame and Siren.

In my experience most western style horror games are not scary at all. Try to play a Resident Evil game and a Fatal Frame game and compare.

 

[Ikki]

Recent Resident Evil games aren't survival horror, they are survival/action. The earlier ones were horror, but the recent ones are not.

Phrased the other way made it seem like recent RE games were the standard for the franchise.
Don't give Resident Evil a worse image than the recent games already delivered.

 

[SubliminalSegue]

Recent Resident Evil games aren't survival horror, they are survival/action. The earlier ones were horror, but the recent ones are not.

Phrased the other way made it seem like recent RE games were the standard for the franchise.
Don't give Resident Evil a worse image than the recent games already delivered.

I never said they were horrible games. Why does everyone on this forum put words in my mouth? Too many dicks in ears, I suppose.

The 4th game was great, but it was so far from the original formula, it made people think 5 was the way it was suppose to be. Now you're getting a flood of new RE games that follow that formula. Not horrible games, just not the way I feel RE should've ended up.

 

[Sop]

Another great game with some decent fear in it is... F.E.A.R
Tons of killing clone soldiers + slow motion = fun + scary =epic
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well psychological horror is what really scares me.. is doom kind of a survival horror?

 

[trumpet-205]

well psychological horror is what really scares me.. is doom kind of a survival horror?

Doom? Not so much in my opinion.

I suggest you play a Japanese horror games and watch a Japanese horror movies. You will be quite surprised.

 

[MFDC12]

"Horror" games are a dime a dozen. I love the Silent Hill series, recommend 1-4 (4 is good, don't let anyone tell you otherwise)

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i could argue the 4th is the scariest of the SH games (that and the first)

as much as i love silent hill.. 4 and 1 are the ones that have scared me the most and played the most (im playing 1 for maybe the 40th time right now).

but yeah, silent hill and fatal frame are musts for horror games.

f.e.a.r wasnt that good. maybe not a true horror game, but bioshock is very atmospheric.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

but yeah, silent hill and fatal frame are musts for horror games.

f.e.a.r wasnt that good. maybe not a true horror game, but bioshock is very atmospheric.

They really started making shitty Silent Hill games though where they focused on the combat and action instead of the horror. My friend got Homecoming or something and it looked so crappy. There were things that were definitely supposed to be scary but to me it was just "It looks gross, who cares". SH2 though definitely had some creepy aspects to it that were more than just "GORE SPAM" and "BLAAAAH I SCARED YOU!" Shattered Memories was really scary for a while but the fact that the enemies are identical throughout the game (and it's like only one monster) is a huge letdown. The storytelling was pretty good though and some of those "run away" sequences were still good, even late in the game.

I don't see what the big deal is with BioShock. My friend lent it to me a while ago and I played like 10 hours into the game and went "fuck it, this is bad" and quit. My friends go insane over this game but I can't see why. The shooting was rigid and sucked. The survival horror didn't even feel fair to me (I consistently found myself running out of ammo with no way to restore it). My game would also glitch or something and whenever I killed a Big Daddy with a Little Sister on it, the Sister would run away into those stupid holes in the walls and then respawn later... With another Big Daddy. So I'd be fucked on health and ammo fighting these Big Daddies and then get a bunch of other shit thrown at me. Plus the environment was not nearly as compelling as my friends made it to be. Wow, there's water, I stopped being impressed about an hour into the game. Maybe I just suck at BioShock, maybe my Xbox was off, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I just saw BioShock as a giant disappointment and severely overrated.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I though Fatal Frame 4 was balls scary. I was playing it with my friends and they thought it wasn't scary at all though (but they'd easily shit themselves at Silent Hill). I don't get it. They said it was because it was a "Japanese" style of horror or something (like ghosts and what not).

 

[CrimzonEyed]

I didn't use the weapons that much in bioshock (1). I hacked turrets and used my plasmid for the most.
So i was often running around with full ammo to all weapons

EDIT: was Bioshock really a horror game? Can't remember that i ever though it was that scary, just creepy.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I didn't use the weapons that much in bioshock (1). I hacked turrets and used my plasmid for the most.
So i was often running around with full ammo to all weapons

EDIT: was Bioshock really a horror game? Can't remember that i ever though it was that scary, just creepy.

I just found myself not able to consistently rely on turrets and plasmids. Plasmids can always run out and turrets aren't everywhere.

Well scary and creepy are still types of horror. There were definitely some horror aspects to it.

 

[MFDC12]

but yeah, silent hill and fatal frame are musts for horror games.

f.e.a.r wasnt that good. maybe not a true horror game, but bioshock is very atmospheric.

They really started making shitty Silent Hill games though where they focused on the combat and action instead of the horror. My friend got Homecoming or something and it looked so crappy. There were things that were definitely supposed to be scary but to me it was just "It looks gross, who cares". SH2 though definitely had some creepy aspects to it that were more than just "GORE SPAM" and "BLAAAAH I SCARED YOU!" Shattered Memories was really scary for a while but the fact that the enemies are identical throughout the game (and it's like only one monster) is a huge letdown. The storytelling was pretty good though and some of those "run away" sequences were still good, even late in the game.

Cant disagree with you there, 5 had awful combat system and did focus more on action among everything (and I hated that). However I think 4 did it right, it still focused on combat while being scary (at least to me). I know a lot of people hated ghosts, but I thought they were creepy as hell. The fast ghost in the subway (believe she was cynthia?) later gave me nightmares, honestly. I actually did not find 2 too creepy, it had great atmosphere don't get me wrong, but I think of more of it as a psychological drama with horror aspects, I find it more sad than anything (the 'in water' ending is so depressing). that being said.. pyramid head and his underground layer did make appearances in my dreams a couple of times afterwords

QUOTE(Guild McCommunist @ Apr 9 2011, 09:12 AM)

I don't see what the big deal is with BioShock. My friend lent it to me a while ago and I played like 10 hours into the game and went "fuck it, this is bad" and quit. My friends go insane over this game but I can't see why. The shooting was rigid and sucked. The survival horror didn't even feel fair to me (I consistently found myself running out of ammo with no way to restore it). My game would also glitch or something and whenever I killed a Big Daddy with a Little Sister on it, the Sister would run away into those stupid holes in the walls and then respawn later... With another Big Daddy. So I'd be fucked on health and ammo fighting these Big Daddies and then get a bunch of other shit thrown at me. Plus the environment was not nearly as compelling as my friends made it to be. Wow, there's water, I stopped being impressed about an hour into the game. Maybe I just suck at BioShock, maybe my Xbox was off, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I just saw BioShock as a giant disappointment and severely overrated.

To each his own I guess

What mode did you play on? When I play on hard mode, I find myself running out of ammo and EVE more often than medium/easy (also, ammo is expensive too and I always ran out of money). That is weird about the little sisters going into the air vents and respawning, I never had that happen. They should cry over the big daddy body until you rescue or harvest them. *shrug*

 

[Ikki]

I also think Bioshock is bad. I don't find it scary, I don't like how it plays.
The story might be kinda cool. I don't think it's a good game.

 

[ZAFDeltaForce]

I'd recommend the Fatal Frame series; they've got excellent storylines, great characters and leave no mercy in the horror department.

If you can sleep well after playing it at night, kudos to you good sir!

 

[DarkShinigami]

if your gonna start start with a resident evil one of the origional 3. DO NOT START WITH SILENT HILL you will regret it i couldnt sleep for a week thanks to that bad boy being my first. it does not fade me now but it will if its your first survival horror same with Fatal Frame(Project 0 in japan)