Poll: Was Dead Space scary?

[Vrex360]

Well I had a lot of fun with Dead Space, it's another one of those games that just appealed to me, but it did not leave me terrified. As fun as it was and as cool as the dismemberment and stuff was there was no denying that I wasn't all that scared by it.

I still look forward to the sequel though, here's hoping they take a lesson from the first and axe any concept of making more meteor shooting sections.

 

[Vrex360]

I thought that at times the atmosphere was done incredibly well, but too often did it go back to jump scares. I mean, why couldn't you just keep going in a creepy environment instead of having to rely on jump scares. The atmosphere was very good and creepy, but almost all of the real scares were just "BOO!" scares. It was more... startling than scary. I hope that they use the environment to their advantage next round, but from what I read is that they were going to make it less scary and make it more like an action game which I think is really lame. We've got a billion or so action games for the 360 and maybe 4 or 5 really good survival horror games, the first Dead Space being one of them. I hope that they make the second one scarier instead of making it more actiony.

I have to agree with this, I liked Dead Space as a horror game not an action game even though it did feel kind of action packed at points. I'd rather see Dead Space 2 have more of an emphasis on fear than fierce action. It's kinda the same reason I'm unimpressed by all the promotional work for Bioshock 2, as much as I loved the first Bioshock, I much prefered it as a mystery game not an action game.
That said, I'm a Halo fan so obviously I love action. I'm just saying some games are better without it.
So yeah, I share your hopes good sir.

 

[evilartist]

I jumped at a couple of bits where the aliens poped out of nowhere and shit myself when undead Nicola jumps you at the end but apart from that it wasn't scary as such

Meh, I don't consider "jumping" as scared. That's just getting startled; that can happen to anyone. It's an instinctual reflex of self-defense, not genuine fear. I get startled occasionally, but I don't get scared of monsters, or dark quiet corridors.

I never said jumping was scary :S

Sorry, didn't mean to put words in your mouth. It's just that, with the title of the thread and peoples' common tendency to associate jumping/startling with being scared, I just wanted to make this technicality clear for anyone here who actually compares the two. Dead Space was much like Doom 3 and many of today's horror movies; it's all about cheap scares with sudden jolts of noise and sound.

 

[MiserableOldGit]

The only scary thing about that game was how successful it was- it was a pathetic mish-mash of other peoples work-the bad guys look they were plundered from Geigers cast off bin, which is fine as they'll feel right at home on the Nostromo, which lets face it, is what that ship was. The story line was robbed wholesale from Event Horizon, with a few other elements pilfered from here and there, and the characters were two dimensional plot devices I couldn't give a shit about. I got as far as the asteroid shooty bit, at which point I'd promised myself if the game told me to go to area B to press button C, killing bad guys D through to G en route, I'd turn it off. It did, so I did.
The problem is it doesnt know what it wants to be- it tries to give the impression that its a survival horror, but at the same time it can't bear not to be loaded to the gills with powerful guns and equipment, which means the bad guys are reduced to wandering round looking all disturbing until the power-armoured nutter rolls in and toasts them- I'd rather be playing Doom3 any day of the week; that was a game that knew its own strengths and weaknesses - shock value and visceral violence-if theres a bad guy, it won't be staggering round trying to scare me, it'll be chucking a fireball or leaping at my throat while I get right in its hostile little face with my shotgun

 

[Sovvolf]

I found it scary, I mean right at the beginning it was very scary for me. You were walking down dark corridors with bangs and shit going on and you hadn't fought a monster yet so you don't know what to expect... however in the later missions when you've killed enough monsters... no it's not scary, some jump here and there but not scary. I did feel genuine fear with the first encounter of the monster that regenerates... mainly because I was very low on ammo and well... it was regenerating however after the second encounter I just was no longer frightened by it.

 

[gigastrike]

The only scary part in the whole game was the part near the beginning where the leaper runs across the ceiling.

 

[IanBrazen]

I wasn't really scared by SH4. The only reason I stopped playing was that it was so bad in design that I couldn't stand it. The controls were frustrating, the main character seems like he can't even walk and chew gum at the same time, and the game was more set on annoying me than creeping me.

yeah i dont claim it to be a good game but there were a lot of things about it that just disturbed me.
maybe its just me but when I walk down the hall and find this

stairing at me, I (an 18 year old man at the time) almost screamed.
but mabey it effected me more than anyone else.
I still can barely look at that thing.

 

[CmdrGoob]

Decently scary. Some frights, some good tense uncertain stuff. I like how some of the enemies climb around on the walls and roofs, so it's hard to tell where the enemies are going to come from and you get kinda paranoid. And running from the regenerator was good, too.

 

[Lord Thodin]

Yea, Im ashamed to say I was scared the whole time I played. I never stopped due to fear. I jumped at....well...everything Dead Space wanted me to. I even stood up and was wriggling around while the Regenerator type deal was chasing me.

 

[Axle_Bullitt_19]

Compaired to other recent Horror games, it did a hell of alot better in the sense of feel than oh lets say Resident Evil 5.

 

[Danpascooch]

To be honest, Fallout 3 scares me a lot more. The thought that there could be an enemy behind me about to hit me, and I don't know it has led to a lot of my friends asking me why the fuck I spin around spontaneously.

Even if you scare easy, Dead Space wasn't really scary, just startling, there is a difference.

 

[iamthehorde]

a few scares got me shaking, but overall i find dead space not that scary. it´s more like you are constantly wondering where the hell those necromorphs show up next, like a constant threat. the monster design was also pretty disturbing, especially those necros with their lungs inside out or whatever, the things that exhale poisonous gas. killing them in the game felt really weird because they are harmless and look really fucked up. they seemed to be suffering so bad that it was almost euthanasia to kill them.

 

[Whispering Death]

Go play the 1999 game System Shock 2 for a good scare - Dead Space is not frightening at all.

System Shock 2 was the kind of game so frightening that you would hesitate before opening the next door because you didn't want to know what horrors awaited you on the other side.

It is a bit funny reading reviews/posts about Bioshock, because many of the things people seem to think novel about Bioshock were done to perfection 10 years ealier in that game.

There were times when I was surprised in Dead Space, but I was never really frightened the way great games do to you.

 

[MorsePacific]

I'm a jumpy little bastard, so my opinion doesn't count for much, but the game had me shitting myself. When the necromorphs decided that jumping out of ducts and walls to try to eat me was fun, and I don't hear them coming until a second before they start attacking was terrifying.

 

[IanBrazen]

Compaired to other recent Horror games, it did a hell of alot better in the sense of feel than oh lets say Resident Evil 5.

Well you have to admit RE is barely trying to be scary anymore, RE is an action game now, no matter what anyone says.

 

[AizenTheAzure]

It was indeed startling at times, but not frightening, I wasn't freaked out after I turned the game off or anything. Dead Space was a great game, good atmosphere, very epic at times, but not scary, not at all.

 

[Pimppeter2]

I don't know. I only faced one enemy before I gave up.

The camera game me a headache

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Dead Space tried; it really did. And these days it can be hard to find a game that tries. But unfortunately, every "Sweet Jeebus what IS that" moment was outnumbered by ten "JUMP OUT THROUGH THE AIR VENT RAAARRWWWGH" moments. By the time I hit Chapter 4 I could pretty much predict where creatures were going to attack me from and when.

I do have to say, though, there was one moment that really got to me, and it might have been unintentional on the part of the developers. After you get into the bar and retreive yet another key card, you come back to the long windows on the upper level. In the hallway outside, one of the Necromorphs with the glowing explosive sack on its arm clambers out of an air vent, walks up to the window and stares at you. And I realized for the first time that this particular Necromorph's face is split down the middle, and the two halves open and close like some demented set of jaws. It was a real "euugggghh" body horror [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BodyHorror] moment.