Poll: How defenseless should you be in a (survival) horror game?

[flyingh1ppo]

The First part of condemned 2 was good, you had to use the environment to stay alive, and guns were scarce.Weapon degregation is mostly a BAD idea though, unless you choose to use a weapon that could break easily, like a 2x4. Make the player get upclose and personal with the scary thing that is trying to kill them, I also think is is a better idea to use realistic villains, like serial killers and crazy hobos, I find serial killers to be much scarier than zombies, because zombies arent real. You can logically think your way out of being scared by the thought of zombies because you can tell yourself that zombies arent real, with serial killers the closest to that you can get is " I PROBABLY wont be killed by a maniac when I walk through this dark alley."

Dont throw in a superr power near the end, like the ability to scream so loud that your enimies heads explode, it supposed to be horror, not mortal combat. Make flashlights flicker at the right moments, with dramatic music and "rustling in the bushes", but dont use the surprise card too often or it will become expected, Like in the trailer for the "The Strangers" when there is one of the killers standing out in the open for a few seconds, when I saw that I was scared Sh**less, absolutely horrified, much more than if something had jumped out at me from a dark room, when that person was standing there, all I wanted in the world was for them to go away. Surprise is one thing, horror, true terror is something else completely.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

It really depends on what effect you want to convey. If you want the game to be scary, the easiest way to do this is make the character feel helpless. You could do this by making battles very hard, and making it a better idea to avoid enemies than fight them (Silent Hill), or you could give the player big guns and rely on surprising and overpowering them (doom).

I liked the way Doom3 did it best. Sure, you can just blast the living hell out of anything, and you've got the quicksave and quickload right there, but the game does such of good job making you paranoid about what's around the next corner.

 

[pieeater911]

I think Condemned defiantly had the best fighting system. It was fun. My next pick would've been RE:4 because I still play that game.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

No BioShock? Weapons are few, ammo is much, and you can use your body as a weapon?

No system shock would have been a better poll choice but that already fits with the whole "weapon degeneration and scarce supplies" kind of thing, but you still have biotic implants and such. Still, even on the toughest difficulties, after a few levels in Bioshock you have ****ing superpowers that can destroy everything in your path - and for some reason, you are the only one who has them in the entire city that also has access to those superpower vending machines...

Also I didn't think Bioshock was really a "Horror" game, it was a shooter at heart and it kept it that way but the "horror" parts were mainly just going for "disturbing" and not "spooky".


and BloodSquirrel that's a good point, I never realized how paranoid I really was in that game, I wasn't "scared" or "tense" but I was quicksaving a lot and I always thought "alright which weapon should I use before I turn this corner? Is it going to be an imp or those annoying spider things?"

Also flyingh1ppo I never thought of the "enemies" that way, now that I think about it, I'll take a mindless zombie over a serial killer in a real fight anyday. I'll admit though some enemies in Condemned 2 were ANNOYING, and they showed up in the very first level of the game and were constantly popping up from all directions. I'm talking about those stupid blob things that could die if you spit on them - when they are that easy to kill it turns from "scary" to "bloody annoying".

 

[Silver]

Penumbra style. And by that I mean that you should be in over your head. That goes for FEAR as well, sure, you can take out legions of troops, but then comes that time when all the weapons in the world isn't going to help you.

You need to feel powerless, just like you do in Penumbra. (Or for that matter thief when you're up against zombies.) Penumbra didn't do it perfectly though, because fear only works as long as you stay alive. After a while in Penumbra the odds were just stacked too much against you. There were too many of those darned dogs placed in the wrong places. I died a number of times and it just lost everything. I wasn't afraid anymore, it was just frustrating and annoying. It didn't feel like "oh, shit, I'm going to die" anymore, it felt like "what the devil were they thinking when they designed this place?". After that you just respawn ten times and try again, and suddenly you're not afraid anymore. You just don't care. You yawn and try again.

It's that balance that has to be struck. You should feel overpowered and like all the odds in the world are against you, but you shouldn't die, because that takes everything away (you should be VERY aware that you can die however).

 

[z121231211]

I voted Silent Hill because I liked the feeling that your just an average person.

 

[9574121795741217]

I think a survival horror game should make you feel helpless and reluctant to continue. You should feel like a normal guy trying to survive and using things around you to fight back. I didn't find Dead Rising scary though and once I got the mini chainsaws, I beat the game easily.

 

[Silver]

I think a survival horror game should make you feel helpless and reluctant to continue. You should feel like a normal guy trying to survive and using things around you to fight back. I didn't find Dead Rising scary though and once I got the mini chainsaws, I beat the game easily.

Exactly. This is what's important. Not how many guns you have. If you have weapons what matters is how effective they are, not how many times you can shoot with them. If you step around a corner with a uzi in hand, see something and spray with an entire mag not even slowing it down, you're going to be afraid (if it's done right, otherwise you'll complain about imbalance, granted, some people would do that right away, no matter how scary the situation). If you don't have any weapons and are followed around by a psycho with a knife and a tranquilizer dart you're also going to be afraid (again if it's done right).

 

[shatnershaman]

I'm not a good horror game guy. The scarier it is the less fun I find it. (Covenant levels > Flood levels have to put halo in my post)

 

[Gooble]

I reckon either lots of enemies, with limited ammo, or fewer enemies but you only have either melee weapons, extremely limited ammo, and at times you're totally defenceless and have to leg it to find weapons or ammo.

 

[Danny Ocean]

I think it's mostly the sound that makes me scared. I'd be scared if my grandma suddenly screamed like a banchee and came flying etherially at me.
Also that mouth stretching thing they do in 'The mummy' scares me every time.
Back on topic though: If you're just an average joe, or me, then I'd rather run than fight, and if it came to fighting I'd mostly use my legs for fear of touching them.

 

[DravenX23]

I picked Dead Rising. The ability to use anything as a weapon is more my style.

 

[Takatchi]

To me, a "Survival Horror" game pits you up against odds where you can survive, but it won't always be about toting around a BFG and annihilating everything you come across. I voted "Silent Hill" for this very reason. After playing Resident Evil: Director's Cut and Resident Evil 2 enough to know every trick and turn and enemy location and Small Key, I thought Survival Horror was a joke genre. Between RE's sketchy dialog, the characters' general untouchability (face it, once you get good at RE, you can clear them front to back without dying or using a first aid spray at all), and veritable arsenal, I was laughing at zombie flicks and MTS3King "horror" games with my friends. Silent Hill came along and I thought to myself "Huh, gee, another one of these."

But then Silent Hill tosses you in a completely eerie, unknown setting as a perfectly average Joe. It really made me stop and think to myself, "What would this really be like, could I survive in a world like this? Would I be the badass Chris Redfield or the helpless Harry Mason?" Granted, Silent Hill wasn't the definition of great survival horror and had its flaws, but to someone who thought he had "beaten" the Surival Horror genre, Silent Hill was motivational and challenging to a new degree, and honestly made me scared to pick up the controller.

In the end, I guess you could say I like having hope, where if your character encounters a monster or something creepy you have at least a 60% chance to survive it, either by killing it with something at your disposal or escaping it. I cannot play Fatal Frame to this day because something about being unable to see, interact with, or even harm the enemies in the game seems defeatist, not to mention it honestly scares the crap out of me when a game will overtly murder you with surprise-shock-moments that you can't do anything about.