View Full Version : I hope survival horror really does become scary again!
Grace Saunders
12-01-11, 05:07
Cos I loved the old RE games, I was a bit put off by RE4 and RE5 which kinda threatened the genre a bit by incorporating more shooting and no Umbrella, and RE4 was not like RE as I remembered it, and other horror games like Fatal Frame remained loyal to their roots. But I think if Capcom could throw in a bold offering of an equal mixture of action n horror, things would be precisely scary again. Well, the new Resident Evil and Silent Hill titles look like they'll do the job! I've been a bit of an occasional RE fan now and again, but after about 2005, I went off it a lot.
thezombiemessia
12-01-11, 07:02
I disagree on Fatal Frame keeping to its roots, but couldn't agree more with the lack of Survival-Horror in the latest 2 RE games.
They're more Action-Horror than anything else.
As always, I say they should take inspiration from Dead Space, a truly terrifying game when you first play it (much like the original RE games), but it still retains the heavy action feeling of the current RE games.
RED-DRAGON-CRO
12-01-11, 08:15
Well from what we have seen and know Revelation brings it back to the old roots.
And about RE5 ur right about the lack of horror , about RE4 i got to tell it wasnt the classic horror but still it was scary in a different much more mystical way and thats why i count RE4 still as a horror game.
thezombiemessia
12-01-11, 15:49
I disagree with the "no horror" idea that people keep trying to push.
As with films, games have many types of horror to go in the horror genre.
RE5 wasn't a survival-horror, but was stilla type of horror game...action-horror.
While, I agree that there's clear horror elements in RE4+5 and have argued it before. I feel that perhaps the action should be toned down a little, but the third person camera should probably stay.
PharmacophobicMan98
15-01-11, 18:57
play re5 on pro nd scare urself
RED-DRAGON-CRO
15-01-11, 20:13
I m an RE veteran and playing on pro doesnt scare me only sometimes annoys me(dying cuz of a stupid reason:bash:)But i like a challange.
Peace:D
LeonBelmontX
15-01-11, 22:33
I found RE4 to be scary in parts, RE5 didn't scare me at all. Still, the best RE title I played was REmake on Wii - I hope we see more titles that have scary atmosphere like that.
Having machine guns and ammo supplies really takes away the scariness of zombies - in RE1 you really had to watch your supplies, and could get taken idown by a single zombie if you were'nt careful. I never got any chills down my spine in RE5 like I did with REmake.
PharmacophobicMan98
16-01-11, 00:24
I m an RE veteran and playing on pro doesnt scare me only sometimes annoys me(dying cuz of a stupid reason)But i like a challange.
Well, maybe we are getting old. So we should try poking real zombies, that's certainly scary :)
RED-DRAGON-CRO
16-01-11, 18:13
Too bad there aint a zombie killing simulator game(virtual reality) that would be fun
U are placed as yourself in the simulator and can do solo or with help of other people.And have different scenes combined with eachother(city,village,mansion,lake,sea,snow fields,...)That would be something u would scare urself realy good.Well until that far tehnology we have to wait.(weapons database with almost every weapon in the world and their characterictics,world database recreating all cities and places of our world,outfit database for having a choice of different clothing,equipment with of over a million of possible combinations,colors,textures,...;database of transports including all sort of traveling possibilities like cars,boats,helicopters,planes,...;medical/food suply database with every sort of itemes for regenerating life,healing wounds or whatever,...)That would be quite awesome.I could imagine the name of it: "Resident Evil:World Infection"
LOL Peace:D
PharmacophobicMan98
16-01-11, 20:37
Too bad there aint a zombie killing simulator game(virtual reality) that would be fun
U are placed as yourself in the simulator and can do solo or with help of other people.And have different scenes combined with each other(city,village,mansion,lake,sea,snow fields,...)That would be something u would scare urself realy good.Well until that far tehnology we have to wait.(weapons database with almost every weapon in the world and their characterictics,world database recreating all cities and places of our world,outfit database for having a choice of different clothing,equipment with of over a million of possible combinations,colors,textures,...;database of transports including all sort of traveling possibilities like cars,boats,helicopters,planes,...;medical/food suply database with every sort of itemes for regenerating life,healing wounds or whatever,...)That would be quite awesome.I could imagine the name of it: "Resident Evil:World Infection"
LOL Peace:D
Resident Evil:World Infection, it could actually happen in real life:D.
RED-DRAGON-CRO
17-01-11, 14:31
With those viral and genetic reasearchings something like that could happen(AIDS came out like that-human stupidity) LOL:rofl:Prepare ur self ppl.Lock n Load baby(Pulled out the gear,loaded guns and equiped knives)
Peace:D
PharmacophobicMan98
17-01-11, 20:49
With those viral and genetic reasearchings something like that could happen(AIDS came out like that-human stupidity) LOL:rofl:Prepare ur self ppl.Lock n Load baby(Pulled out the gear,loaded guns and equiped knives)
Peace:D
They would be artificial zombies, therefore not scary.:help:
As for AIDS, i heard it was the result of man having 6 with an ill gorilla in africa. Thats how it started.
Oh, that would be an awesome idea for the next game. Ill, HIV+ gorillas as enemies for resident evil 6. Is that scary?:D RESI world needs a new beging, and that would be it.
Cool avatar BTW, yesterday i couldn't see the animated version:confused:
thezombiemessia
17-01-11, 22:52
IIRC HIV has been traced back to a certain species of Monkey from a region in Africa.
It is thought that it originally got passed to humans through a bite or scratch, since HIV is passed through the blood.
Chances are, it came about through a local eating one of the Monkeys without cooking it properly.
RED-DRAGON-CRO
18-01-11, 11:19
From what i have heared those monkeys,gorillas were used for some kind of experiments and later set free for some reason(or those escaped)i m not totaly sure about that.But whatever...artifical zombies? lol sounds like a crazy idea :D
PharmacophobicMan98
18-01-11, 18:57
[...]...artifical zombies? lol sounds like a crazy idea :D
I want real zombies, fresh-smelling and STRAIGHT OUT OF A GRAVEYARD!
I think the problem is that zombies aren't quite human, the fear is in their mindless advances or their feral behaviours.
Los Ganados and Uroboros, however, contain human intelligence, and merely act as reckless humans, which most games consist of. I think Resi's lost track of what made the game truly 'scary'.
thezombiemessia
19-01-11, 17:59
Not true...take a look at Forbidden Siren 1 & 2, and Siren: Blood Curse.
The enemies in that (their name has escaped me recently) have human intelligence, but that series is still scary as all hell.
"Scary" changes for each person. It's a subjective term. Fear is all in the mind of the individual.
RE4 and RE5 are still horror games, that's undeniable...just as Saw and The Haunting can both be claimed as horror films despite covering different areas.
RED-DRAGON-CRO
19-01-11, 18:04
Yes i mean RE5 is still a horror game but not scary as it should be(well the DLC Lost in Nightmares gave a big boost on that)
thezombiemessia
19-01-11, 18:08
Yes i mean RE5 is still a horror game but not scary as it should be(well the DLC Lost in Nightmares gave a big boost on that)
Well no...it is as scary as it should be, it's just not as scary as you want it to be.
RE4 & RE5 are Action-Horror, not Survival-Horror.
To the right people, RE4 & RE5 are much scarier than the originals could ever be, etc.
It's all a matter of perspective.
RED-DRAGON-CRO
19-01-11, 18:11
Well ur right about that to me RE4 is realy scary,RE5 was at first aswell but later got used to it and wasnt that scary thats what i meant:D
thezombiemessia
19-01-11, 18:18
The same has happened to me with all the titles to be honest.
The dogs through the windows in RE1, and the Licker & crows through mirror/windows was scary at first, but was easy to live with after a while.
Same goes for all of the games...
A wild Dante appears.... With a huge post written on a cellphone, I boast.
The problem with survival horror is that its an extremely hard genre to craft properly. Developers are falling in to the bitter habit of clichés over atmosphere and ambience, and the freedom of the technology grants a little too much freedom. While these cheesy games are fun, they aren't in the least bit scary because they rely solely on startling players, not scaring them; Having a monster shout boo, rather than an omnious and looming threat that can hit home.
Really, being a horror veteran, I played the Dead Space 2 demo, I could tell what was going to happen before it did. Monsters lying on the floor? One isn't dead... Bingo! A monster is going to come around the corner or from behind the corner...watch out Mystic Meg!
So, why are the older RE games "scarier" than the new ones? Several reasons. Firstly, that RE1 was unique, to the point where people proclaim it was the "first survival horror" (even though its a stretch), it utilised camera angles effectively; zombies where slow but dumb enough to stand and wait for their meal to run in to them. Music and revisiting areas built up atmosphere, you went through that same corridor 8 times, then BOOM.
RE2 Was scary in a similar kind of way, tick all the boxes of the original, but then add something else; something we can BELIEVE happening. Sure, bioengineered viruses that raise the dead may not be real (or at least, we all hope not.) it preyed on the scenario, you can believe that Raccoon City was a real place. Nearly everyone you met died, and you felt you had to keep moving on.
RE3, While not as scary as the previous games, once again, added another aspect (if only borrowed from RE2 and enhanced), a powerful stalker. You've fought and killed zombies, they're no match now, but when you're struggling with zombies with hardly any weapons or munitions, a huge beast intent on killing YOU and YOU alone is headed your way.
Now, you see, those where some powerful ideas utilised on limited hardware, where did RE4 & 5 go wrong:
RE4 was atmospheric enough, but it suffered two major pitfalls. Firstly, you where an overpowered super agent with a gunrack strapped to your back and a Rambo quote repeating itself in your head, you wheren't scared of Ganados since you could simply blow their heads off and whatever followed out of the stump. Secondly, the location, whilst believable, was far too remote to prey on concerns like a major city could, you didn't know of these people, and you didn't care, they could've always been monsters for what its worth.
Buut, RE4 DID try hard, we had the Regenerator, and the Verdugo, both where near prefect monsters. Then we had the limited visibility night sequences, where I genuinely jumped after being attacked by wolves, but this horror didn't last, and while it was a good action and adventure game, it certainly was limited in the horror department.
And on to RE5.
Surprisingly, co-op didn't really bother how I felt about it in the horror department, whilst I expected it to be far more emotional with a partner (important in horror, I stress), Sheva was just another gun, on top of being a gun mule, neither helped nor hindered my experience as much as some other complaints would suggest.
But what did bother me was that it was more of the same, but a lesser horror experience. I recall hearing that a mechanic utilising momentarily being blinded was going to be in it, that was dropped in favour of brightly lit places everywhere.
Attempts to scare where reduced to the odd Majini breaking out from behind boxes, enemies where more creepy than scary. All of which suffered the same as RE4, it was unfamiliar territory, and for that reason I was apathetic, whilst there are many tradegies involving illness and poor communities, it was too unbelievable to strike a cord with me.
Few notorious enemies made it a whole lot less threatening, I wasn't scared of enemies that I'd seen before or where too outrageous to believe.
It was only after Gold Edition did we get some fixed areas that provided a dark and scary atmosphere, kinda lamenting how that came a little too late, but at least Lost In Nightmares was well made, and Desperate Escape was more akin to panic horror that forced you to ditch guns and run.
And what do the need to do to put this right?
Atmosphere is highly important, subtle touches as well as music work very well at building this, as well as the place where the story is set being common and recognisable to the point disaster hits home.
Do away with clichés and think up things we dont see coming, that monster lying on the floor is hardly a surprise should it spring to life.
As for combat? Tricky one.
Many games which have a "flee rather than fight" system seem to work, but its hard to do correctly. That monster isn't scary if he's foiled by the protagonist hiding under a curtain, just as much as if he manages to find you all the time, in which case, hiding is pointless.
And then there's going in with every gun known to man tied to your back, also a game breaker, its fun to shoot, but not fun in a long lasting memorable sense that stems from an atmospheric experience. One could argue that Panic horror, lots of enemies coming at you at once could work like that, but its tricky to maintain constant tension and pressure to keep moving without making it feel too much like action, then it becomes "horror themed".
RE1 had the right idea with limited supplies, that is the way forward, conservation makes you feel like a survivor, and not an overpowered super agent.
I think that with current technology, there could be some effective and memorable horror titles out there. But this also seems to be the problem when developers have too much choice and cluster everything in just so they could.
Story is a game-by-game basis, so its hard to pin down and define what makes a good horror story, cliché aversion applies though.
So yeah, atmosphere, the right amount of gameplay options and to take it slow are, what I feel, would make the perfect horror game.