Horror in games

[IntoxicatedKnight]

There's a lot of criticism about horror in games, yet has there been a standout moment in your gaming experience that actually you though, "Wow, that was actually terrifying," Not an odd jump that you might get from Resident Evil or a slight shock?

How about your thoughts on improving horror in games and what developers can actaully do to intensify the experience and leave you horrified yet loving it?

(I searched to see if this topic has been done before, no results)

 

[Chickenlittle]

Only things I can think of are terribly inhuman things, racism, etc. that would leave most people stunned, except incorporate them for an entire game.

 

[Fightgarr]

Well don't do what FEAR did. In FEAR you would have a standard shooter level in a boring complex and then towards the end the game is like: "But look we're horror too" then flickers the lightswitch and throws a creepy little girl at you for a minute.

The horror elements should be integrated rather than added as an afterthought.

 

[IntoxicatedKnight]

That's a good point, actually focusing on more social side of horror and public fears would create something fresh for the genre, but like you say not actually using it throughout the game as a parade for racism!

 

[IntoxicatedKnight]

The horror elements should be integrated rather than added as an afterthought.

Exactly

 

[Chickenlittle]

The horror element should also be present during combat, or interaction. For instance, in Dead Space, usually a player's instinct is to fight. For a true horror game, the player's instinct should be to run away rather than fight, and not have the reason of flight lack of ammunition or low health.

 

[requiem408]

well to be honest, its my oppinion that developers need to stick with what is always known to scare potential players. the classic 'dark scary cave with unknown sounds' theme always seemed to work well, but then again i suppose repeating that constantly throughout ANY franchise will pretty much kill its 'thunder'

 

[Avatar Roku]

To be truly scary, games must do one or both of the following:1)Make a player feel invested in the main character and/or 2)Break the fourth wall.

 

[_Serendipity_]

Project Zero 2 ('Fatal Frame' outside Europe I think)

I'm a big fan of horror games, and have high 'scary' tolerances, but that is the scariest thing I've ever touched. The mere thought of it is making me look over my shoulder in fear...

It is very much like a Japanese horrer movie (Ring etc), and has ghosts rather than your standard zombie / Demon / mutated whatever enemy, with a frightened, unarmed girl as your character rather than a beefy soldier.

One early scene, maybe five minutes in, sees you (the main character) enter a darkened village with your sister, and, frightened, you hold her hand for comfort.
Then she walks past you.
You're still holding the hand.
Oh fuck.

It pulls gently from your grip, and when you turn round, nothing is there... and I wet myself.



See also, Silent Hill 2.

 

[Hellion25]

I thought Silent Hill 2 incorporated horror very well into the gameplay experience. Perhaps not so much on a visceral level, though sighting pyramid head would always cause a panic, but on a more psychological level. I have never felt so tense playing a game as I did with that, and there are few games before or since that have provoked as much thinking in terms of the game world as this one.

Perhaps not straight horror, but certainly psychologically brain scrambling was Killer7. That dealt with some very very difficult social issues in a way that was often designed to horrify/sicken the player. The statement more than made up for the mediocre game in my eyes, and I defy anyone to not be in the least bit horrified when...

a character in a cutscene is informed about the deaths of his family by having their heads thrown at him nonchalantly by their killer.

Both games are superb in their use of atmosphere within their particular game world to demonstrate both psychological or visceral horror, even if they do not always necessarily match up to the stereotype of what is meant to be scary.

 

[Bagaloo]

In S.T.A.L.K.E.R the overbearing sense of being alone really got to me at times.
Especially when the nasty things who lurk in your basement were about

 

[_Serendipity_]

I thought Silent Hill 2 incorporated horror very well into the gameplay experience. Perhaps not so much on a visceral level, though sighting pyramid head would always cause a panic, but on a more psychological level. I have never felt so tense playing a game as I did with that, and there are few games before or since that have provoked as much thinking in terms of the game world as this one.

There was one room in the Apartment block that, despite having no enemies, would always have me sprint through it in a panic simply due to the 'music' (for lack of a better word) in the room...
That's how you do scary.

 

[IntoxicatedKnight]

The psychological element is brilliant (in certain horrors) at tension building, are they watching you, where are they? etc. it's all about messing with your head

 

[Goldeneye103X2]

To be truly scary, games must do one or both of the following:1)Make a player feel invested in the main character and/or 2)Break the fourth wall.

I can fully understand. Examples:
1.James sunderland-silent hill 2
2.Eternal darkness

And why don't more games break the fourth freakin' wall these days?

 

[Denmarkian]

The real challenge with putting Horror in games, well, putting Horror in ANY storyline that follows one main character, is that you will never feel the true fear that they could die at any moment and the story would not be over. If you die in a "horror" game you understand that you can restart from a save point and attempt to overcome the challenge where you died previously.

The difficulty is tapping into people's fears, things that terrify, is almost as individualistic as fingerprints. There are books devoted to all the phobias that people have: agoraphobia, arachnophobia, claustrophobia, coulrophobia, hydrophobia, and so on. You can't make a story that will truly terrify everyone because different things scare different people.

The best storywriters have come up with is to focus on things that are inherently unnatural, and that really only is unsettling or creepy instead of being genuinely scary. Then they amp up the thrills by having things jump-scare you, which has been overdone so much that it's almost cliche.

There are only a few things that are almost universally scary; the dark/unknown, and things that could/want to kill you.

There's only so much you can do with that.

 

[Hellion25]

To be truly scary, games must do one or both of the following:1)Make a player feel invested in the main character and/or 2)Break the fourth wall.

I can fully understand. Examples:
1.James sunderland-silent hill 2
2.Eternal darkness

And why don't more games break the fourth freakin' wall these days?

I completly forgot the awesomeness of Eternal Darkness. That one messed with your head on so many levels. One second you character might randomly explode only to reappear as if nothing is wrong, then later on the game might tell you that your memory card data was corrupted. The game didn't just break the fourth wall, it positivly bulldozed it, to very good effect.

 

[IntoxicatedKnight]

Well, I did reply to a thread like this earlier but it was named funny so I can see how you missed it.

Anyway, I always thought horror games were never scary, ever, unless my immediate surroundings were scary, i.e. a dark room with creaky floorboards and a storm outside.

Don't really see how they could make it much better...

Virtual reality anyone? =p

Ha, I did a pretty good search ah well...

 

[Church256]

Although it was kinda designed to be horrorish, Halo when you first ran through it in the swamp with the false friendly friend or foe tags at the begining and the shapes in the green mist then in the library. You could feel you were alone. There was no background music, the first time you ran through it you wondered where the flood would come from and there was always the Master Cheif's breath just there. Listening to just a guy breathing while waiting on the next wave of enemies to launch themselves at you with thier heads bent at the wrong angle and thier limbs faling off is rather freaky especially when the enemies can run right up to you and die about 6 inches from your face after failing to smash your face in. If they'd done it perfectly right Halo could of been actualy really scary.

Take those elements then add enemies who actually look like thier rotting away and some truely creepy enviroments. You'd have quite a freaky night running the game the first time in the dark at 1am, high on caffine, jumping at the noises that naturally happen in your house.

 

[sirdapfrey]

To me a good horror game keeps you on the edge of your seat, pulse pounding throughout most of the game. I've only experienced this twice:

-the first Silent Hill for PS1 (of course this one could partly be because of my age at the time)
-an old PC game titled The 7th Guest (this one could still freak me out...if I still had it)

 

[SpriggsF73]

I see where you're coming from however there isn't much grounds for a decent argument there, most action games with the odd "scary" bit could be described as "Almost" scary games with some more stuff thrown in.