Quote:Original post by Kest

Quote:Original post by horrorgamewriter35
Not to sounds rude against your reply.But you totally avoided the question. I do accept your tip however. But please reply again but on the topic this time. I am wanting to see what the members here think about this particular topic and voice their opinion about it...In future threads please keep your replies to the actual topic and not stray from it..I am asking not telling...

Sorry, I thought my tip would make my opinion obvious. Yes, I like horror. There's nothing quite like skulking around hallways with no armor and a pathetic weapon while zombies or demons are running amok.

Hence, my tip. I never seem to get frightened when I have a shotgun, regardless of the horrors that await me. That probably goes equally for machine guns, grenades, and other heavy smack down weapons. If you give the player too much authority, the fear dissipates.

I think you also need to have a serious reduction in enemy numbers, compared to typical action games. As a player, even if I am outmatched, having demons pouring out of the walls will turn my fear into gasoline. I'll just charge them. I already know I'm likely to die, so I have nothing to lose.

I think the trick is to keep the player on the edge of losing control, but without taking it away from them.

Hmmm maybe that was why FEAR was good. You had control but every once in a while they'd strip you of your control (usually with a freaky looking girl popping up into your face). The super fast enemies that disappeared and reappeared on you were insane too.

I think that normal weapons can be done well by giving them really limited ammo. If the game gives me near infinite ammo then yes I don't find that I get scared. But if I have a nice weapon with highly limited ammo then I'll tend to save it for long periods of time without using it. Once that happens (and especially if you throw in enough difficult or boss type fights) I'll be a whole lot more skittery.

I also ditto the comment about massive enemy numbers. In FEAR the last part where you are trying to escape from hordes of demons just didn't do it for me. I usually would blast a hole in them and then keep on running.

Please define horror. Is it running around with an assault weapon shooting everything you can see (think Dead Space). Or is it something where you walk around doing puzzles only shooting enemies when you really have to (think Silent Hill)?

Most of my fear is in anticipation. Lurking around, trying to complete the objectives, not sure where trouble might show itself. Once in a while, I'll find myself freaking out badly enough that I'll charge into a new room with my angry face on, just to get it over with.

Once I have a demon in my face, fear isn't much of an issue. I just dig in and prepare to do battle.

One thing I noticed that bothers me is when the enemies do things that are unexpected. Like one will run out of an opening, and I'll prepare to fight, and it will just run back into another opening. Now I know it's watching me from somewhere, waiting for me to become vulnerable. That sort of thing always grates on my nerves. Which is a good thing.

But yeah, I agree. Dead Space was seriously lacking in the fear department. Maybe aliens just don't scare me. Or maybe the player character was too tough. I did get a little spooked here and there, but not enough to entertain me.

Haha, clocktower.

What is it with schoolgirls and almost-rape?

The most Clocktower-esque game I've played in recent years has been Penumbra. It's got a really, really good feel to it, although it suffers somewhat in atmosphere due to rough visuals and a clunky interface. I think you can still find the tech demo around for free, and the game itself, at least the first episode, is around in bargain bins and worth $5.

In it, you use your mouse cursor and a rudimentary stealth system to navigate and interact with the environment. The first scene is you, lost in an arctic wilderness, finding a steel hatch with the handle encrusted with ice. You have to pick up a nearby rock and then smack it against the handle a few times to free it. It's awkward, but you're freezing to death, and your vision's blurring, and it's a more frantic gameplay sequence than most gunfights or zombie chases. Later in the game, you're stalked by mutant wolves, and if they spot you, you're pretty much doomed. Once, though, I had a hammer I'd been using to break through a boarded-up window, and I managed to knock the wolf over with a well-timed hit as it lunged at me. I ran over to it and hit it again and again as it tried to get up, and when it finally died, I was breathing hard and sweating at my PC. I've coolly stood down platoons of psychic alien ninjas, but that one freak dog flipped my wig. That experience, more than anything, made me think the game resembled a horror flick, that scene where two characters fight, and one winds up strangling the other with sweat and bloot streaking down his face, whimpering and screaming the whole time, is how I felt bludgeoning that enemy, because I knew if I stopped and he got to his feet, I'd never knock him down again.

Yes horror games should always be made, there is to much untapped potential in the genre to stop with them now.

Quote:
It'd be nice to have a combatless, supernatural-entity-less horror game, though I can imagine it would be ridiculously hard to pull off correctly. Having a dark house that's actually entirely safe and totally puzzle-based that doesn't get scary if you don't panic and start going wild, but gives out 'hallucinations' if you start to freak out - hallucinations that harm you... pure bliss to watch an unsuspecting victim play. Perhaps if you run too much, you start to attract things that make creepy noises, but never harm you? Anyway, a game that messes with the player without ever putting them in real danger would be brilliant.

I now I'm delving into the depths of the video game void here, but does anyone else remember the 7th guest or its sequel the 11th hour. Your comment just made those games pop up from the recesses of my mind. Both of them basically fit into the description that you gave there... geez I miss playing those games lol