Poll: Horror games: Atmospheric vs jump scare?

[Someone Depressing]

AMY is a shitty game that relies on things in the background sometimes moving and emitting shitty, not-always transparent decals, with the main character acting vaguely shocked.

Not scary.

I don't think that they're inherently bad but they can break vital tension and investment in a game. Atmosphere is more important, and enables decent jump scares in the first place.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

A game with a creepy, lonely, and uneasy atmosphere is infinitely more memorable than a game which makes you jump from time to time.

I'm not sure I agree. Or better yet, I agree from the other side of the coin. Certainly Silent Hill 2 is more memorable to me than Amnesia DD, but not in a good way. I remember than fuck all happened in SH2. I remember hours of endlessly walking back and forth in an empty town looking for a key or note or a map. I remember the occasional monster waving pleasantly and asking how my day was going as I lightly jogged past, completely unphased. I remember meeting a lot of stupid, useless people in this supposedly abandoned and lonely town. I remember playing babysitter with that one chick for a long time and not being able to tell which was worse; having a companion or not having one.

On the other coin, Amnesia scared the shit out of me. The game actually forced you to deal with monsters that were a legit threat. It didn't give you the option to bypass half the scares and monsters. It put a monster outside your room, said "Its going to eat you in 30secs, good luck!" and then sat back as you panicked. It didn't say "Oh yeah, there's a few monsters somewhere in the hospital, but they don't give a shit about you and there's a better than likely chance you'll never run into them."

I always got the feeling SH2 was ashamed of its crap story, so it kept shooing me away from it.

And I think that's the problem. So many games misinterpret "Lonely and uneasy atmosphere" as just having nothing happen for most of the game.
Take that new game, Kholat. Its boring as shit. Nothing happens for entire hours on end! Its like they took the Slender game and put it in Skyrim. And its atmospheric, i'll give it that. Very pretty and lonely too. But fuck me is it boring. Last night I was playing with my phone during a loading screen and I just kept playing Angry Birds even after the game loaded for several minutes.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Atmosphere all the way. Fuck jumpscares.

I like being creeped out and having to focus on powering ahead and trying to overcome the freakyness.

I don't like trying to play the *SCREEEEEE* game and then every *SCREEEEEE* minutes, something just *SCREEEEEE* in my face. It's not "Scary", just startling. It's dumb and I hate it.

If I'm playing a horror game, I want the scares to be organic. I want to scare myself by going "OMGOMGOMG is that monster?! ...Wait...oh thank God, it's a torch." or "I...I think that's a barrel, I...OMG IT'S MOVING HOLY SHIT". I don't want to be scared because out or nowhere *SCREEEEEE*. -_-

I don't really play either type, but I can never forget the haunted house in VtMB for example.

OMG, yes. Ocean house Hotel was an incredible segment of that game.

It's creepy as all hell despite the fact you're not in all that much danger throughout most of it. MASTERFUL design.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

It's not either/or. Both are necessary to varying degrees.

Good Horror incorporates both. Atmosphere with no "scares" is like a walk in the park at night. It's unsettling but not scary. Scares with no atmosphere is like someone jumping up behind you and shouting "BOO!", you feel a jolt and a sense of anxiety but 2 or 3 times and your just angry and want to punch the perpetrator in the face.

Someone jumping out of a bush and saying "Boo!" while you are walking in the park at night drastically escalates the horror.

The problem with us humans is that we rationalise things unconsciously. Repetition breeds familiarity. We get used to things. A drawn out segment of creepy music and sound effects in a dark dimly lit *insert spooky place* is fine for a time... until the brain starts to pull you back into reality. Then it becomes a corridor explorer simulator.

Without the physical stimulation that a good fright gives, you become resistant to the atmosphere (a scare you expect but never comes eventually loses its edge). The fright is basically the "pay off" to good atmosphere. It's exciting and distressing. It resets your brain back to "shits scary" again and allows the atmosphere to keep doing its thing.

Excessive or poor use of frights eventually leads to fatigue and frustration, which kills atmosphere anyway.

So yeah, a bit of both is essential to good horror.

[edit]
It should be noted that System Shock 2, Amnesia and Silent Hill have BOTH atmosphere and jump scares.

Remember this guy:

Suddenly appearing through a door you just opened and going "may I be of service" with that faulty synthetic voice before violently exploding is a pretty effective fright.

I would even argue that FNAF has atmosphere and pretty good atmosphere at that. The use of cameras that allow you to track progress of the creatures, the clever use of lighting effects, the not so random noises you hear, the sometimes random freak occurences.

What FNAF fails at is that, while effective at first, the jump scares become repetitious quite quickly. Each night brings a new potential fright which has some influence at diminishing the fatigue, but because the games systems are a little too obscure at first (and feels like it's completely random), you will fail A LOT and that causes a rapid drain on both the atmosphere and scares as it's replaced with impatience and frustration.

I can make the same argument and complaint about slender man.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I prefer atmospheric. Jump Scare horror, to me, is the crutch of a lazy writer.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Do you prefer horror games that are atmospheric (System Shock 2, Silent Hill 2, Amnesia, etc), or horror games that has jump scares(Freddy's, Slender man, etc)

You're a little mistaken there OP. FNAF and Slender are very atmospheric. And SH2 has quite a few jump scares, same for SS2.

See there's a problem with horror. Much like comedy..and porn, YMMV. FNAF for example is incredibly atmospheric and terrifying even without the jumpscares... if the game touches on one or two of your fears. CLaustrophobia ios one. ALso if you're the kind of person that would rather be locked ina room with a mangled corpse as opposed to a lifelike doll... yeah FNaf is bloody atmospheric and terrifying even without the jumpscares. If you're not then well all it is is jumpscares.


See where I'm going with this? Horror is personal. What you find atmospheric and tense, another person might find boring and slow. So it's kind of unfair to polarize the question like that. If you don't have the particular fears a game like FNaF or Slender are made to exploit then all you're left with is jumpscares.

If you don't have the particular fears that games like Amnesia and SH2 exploit well you're just left with a mediocre, slow puzzle game.

 

[Gray-Philosophy]

To me an atmospheric game is a lot more enjoyable. If it's able to keep me on the edge for a long time rather than throwing in a BOO every now and then.
But then again, I can really appreciate a good jumpscare. Paired with a scary overall atmosphere it does a good job of keeping me alert, cause I never know when the next one comes, but going on is frightening enough on its own!

 

[PinkiePyro]

atmosphere! any good horror game needs to cultivate this .. not to say jumpscares are bad or anything. its fine to use them here or there but they only have a short term effect and if used too much stop working... even games that rely on jumpscares like FNAF use atmosphere