What really scares you? (A Survival Horror Genre discussion)

[Nythengayle]

Ok, I despised that "Ghost Haunts at Midnight" quest in Bloodlines...There are only so many times an elevator can fall on my head before I get angry and start cheating. (The original copy of the game I had glitched me on that soooooo many times. Thank god for No clip!)..Though I do have to admit it was scary, and the atmosphere was well done. As an actual LARPer (for those not in the know, that's Live Action Roleplayer, I was pleased as punch to see White Wolf's visions of the various sets of creatures exist together in that spectrum, from Wraith: the Oblivion to Vampire: The Masquerade...though ashamedly, they missed Mage: The Ascention, Werewolf: The Apocolypse, and Zombie:The Risen.

 

[Kuranesno7]

Two feelings; one being feeling of trespassing in a place that is not kind to strangers, case in point, in the first Condemned (the only one I played), just about every goddamn place you have to go to in order to solve the mystery gives that feeling that you are not welcome, that you should not be there, That (to quote the Sin City comics) "this is a bad place, people have died here, the wrong way."

the second feeling would be that of insignificance. I'm not sure if the ideas behind Lovecraftien plots are scarier than the plots themselves, but in like Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requim, even though the main character keeps the Ancients out of the world, Mantarok is still there with an unbound essence and a cleared playing field. The idea that our actions are meaningless against the backdrop of beings of immeasurable power and that we as a species would go insane if we really understood our profound insignificance within the universe seems like some scary shit to me.

For example,

"Hey Bob, how was your day"

"Fine man, I just got thi-"

" That's great Bob, do you realize that your actions and very existence is meaningless since most of what we percieve is a sugar-coated illusion meant to keep us from realizing the abject terror of our own insignificance, which mind you can be easily snuffed out by imperceptible madness-inducing beings so powerful that to destroy the human race and earth would be to them like eating a rocky piece of candy filled with juicy souls or stomping out ants that scream?"

"Well now that you put it that way man, I believe I'm going to move to some remote location and start a cult that practises human sacrifice in hopes, however futile it may be, of placating to these aforementioned impercetpible beings of power so that I may be spared in the inevitable holocaust."

"I'm glad I got you to see things in a different way, Bob."

 

[TinCynic]

The idea that what you're fighting is so much larger than you. Not just in terms of height, but in power. Such as in the PS2 game Area 51, that game scared me because it got me thinking "Could this be true? Could the U.S. government really be collaborating with aliens that wish to kill us all?" That's really psychological, getting in your head and forcing you to question your own paradigms.

Any game that attempts to expose humanity's true nature is also a good scary game, like The Suffering. There's no part that really made me crap my pants in fright, but showing how low humans can sink is scary to me.

 

[Gonswell]

one thing that really scares me is the feeling of being powerless against supernatural enemies. like the beginning of dead space where you don't even have a plasma cutter yet, so you just have to run away from the necromorphs. you hurtle down the hallway, not daring to look behind you, but hearing them chasing after you and them jumping out of the pipes. you go into the elevator and spin around as quickly as possible, hit the up button, and the doors close. you think your safe... but then a necromorph rips and holds open the elevator doors and tries to get at you. you back up against the elevator wall, realizing that you have no weapons or attacks at all, and this thing is going to kill you. then the monster takes it's hands off the doors to lunge, but the doors shut again, snapping it in half. freaking awesome.

oh, and ravenholm from half life 2. for the same reason. there's very rarely any ammo, so all you have is a crowbar and your trusty gravity gun.

 

[Nouw]

Something dangerous screams, keeps screaming. It keeps screaming. You near the end of the mission and BAM! It comes to you and you have to kill it!

AVP2. Name the level and I'll give you an internet.

 

[Death God]

Anything I can't see. I don't mind the dark, I don't mind spiders. But anything, ANYTHING, I can't see just scare the heck out of me.

 

[Pearwood]

What scares me most is that people still use the term "Survival Horror." It's redundant. Like, aggressively redundant.

Also, I love it, but can we maybe stop talking about Silent Hill 2? Or think of another scary game for us all to fellate for a while?

It's not redundant. You have games like FEAR and Bio/System Shock, they're horrors but not survival horror. And nothing wrong with Silent Hill 2, I think Silent Hill 3 is the better horror but 2 has the best story and best way of telling the story.

On topic I was most scared by Project Zero 2, when I was around the "Why do you kill" girl I was probably more tense than I've ever been playing a game. Also the relationship between the two protagonists bordering on underage homosexual incest was just disturbing enough to add to the atmosphere but not so bad I was imagining the next ghost to be some form of tentacle monster.

 

[Nouw]

AVP2. Predalien was screaming since the beginning of the level, could strike any moment. Half-way through it, BAM! It comes!

 

[saintchristopher]

It's not redundant. You have games like FEAR and Bio/System Shock, they're horrors but not survival horror.

If not redundant per se, it is at the very least a completely unnecessary qualifier. I mean, if one were to examine the logic used to apply "survival" to the genre, then by that same logic, every game in which your character has a chance of dying than they must also be labeled "survival:" what happens if you don't bop that goomba, or jump over that gap, or take out the sniper in that tower? you don't survive.

It's a cornerstone of nearly every action or adventure game. And while I'm at it, FEAR and Bioshock are, to their core, action games. They throw some scary themes or moments at you, but any game in which you are granted abilities beyond those of an average person or made to feel more than human rather than less than human will always be ineffectual at truly being a "horror" game.

 

[Pearwood]

They throw some scary themes or moments at you, but any game in which you are granted abilities beyond those of an average person or made to feel more than human rather than less than human will always be ineffectual at truly being a "horror" game.

Well to me that's the differentiation between survival and action horror, survival goes for atmosphere and a more ominous kind of threat and action goes for direct fighting. I know survival isn't exactly descriptive but I guess a common theme in those games is you're alone with no idea what's happening and your one and only objective is to survive.

 

[Paulrus_Keaton]

The Inside of the Deku Tree used to scare me as a boy. Then I manned up I played the game. The Forest Temple also frightened me; probably because of the overall atmosphere of the place.

But regarding survival horror, which I don't play often, I remember being scared a bit in Resident Evil 4. First run. The whole aspect of being a one man army but then having to run for your little life when the tide turns: you run out of ammo, chainsaws, claws, "It" or the Regenerators (whose wheezes I dread to this day.) becoming to close for comfort, barriers break down, that feeling that not even the skin of your teeth can save you.

I got the same feeling when I was playing Left 4 Dead 2 a couple weeks back. I was on Mutation mode, expert. "Last Man on Earth". Thought this would be the easiest way to get those Expert achievements. Found myself having to run for my life, watch every corner. More than ever, without friends or Bots, I had to gun down my enemy before they gunned me down. This was certainly true for Swamp Fever where I was stabbing myself over and over with adrenaline to run from Tanks and Witches.

So what do I find scary? Being alone and poorly equipped. Having to drop the one-man army act when you remember that you don't always have the best toys at your disposal. I remember watching a friend play Fatal Frame for the PS2. I can imagine what it must've been for him. Your only defense is a camera and you have to get very close, sometimes too close, to use it properly.

Like that.

 

[Tdc2182]

reality. you can't get much scarier than the truth. :/

Ahh, but now I say the scariest thing is not knowing. Thats how videos like Marble Hornets get so popular. You have no idea what the fuck is going on, so it leaves your imagination to fill in the blanks.

 

[Miumaru]

The not so well known. Learning of what lurks in the water (though not in great detail) in that one Assassin Tomb in Assassin;s Creed II made falling into it really...unnerving.

 

[captaincabbage]

Spiders. I am so freaked out by them, that even the ones in "40 winks" on the PS1 give me the creeps. On the other side of the scale, the ones in resident evil games have been known to reduce me to girly screaming.

On a more advanced side of things, it's definately the anticipation of a scare than the scare itself.

Games like condemned, resident evil, and silent hill do this the best in my opinion.

Oh god I hate spiders. A fact endlessly reinforced by the fact that when I was nine, me and my brother were alone for the night and he was playing Resident Evil 2 I think it was.

Walking into a room and the door locking behind you, with only a pistol and a showgun with two shells in it, he looked around the room to find two giant tarantulas on the ceiling. When we shot them they fell to the ground and thousands of regular spiders crawled out of their abdomens.

 

[Dindril]

I think the thing that scares me the most is not knowing if I will win a fight or not. Most games can't really grasp this, as much of this requires a great deal of work with AI and/or contextual abilities (Such as, being too tired to aim a gun accurately, or something like that).
And no, not being able to fight doesn't really count. I feel the most scared I have ever been to do something in a videogame would have to be in some moments in Heavy Rain. Basically, not knowing what's going to happen, and knowing that a simple mistake could cause me to die. Really, what is needed is a fear of confrontation. Just the knowledge that if you get into a fight, you might not live.
This is also the main reason I wasn't scared by Condemned (2, never played 1), but was terrified of Silent Hill (Especially the Apartment).
In addition, another great thing is fear of the unknown. The reason Silent Hill 2's apartment still manages to scare me is that with all the things you do from that point on, I end up not remembering much of it, and the fact that it ends up being like the Water Temple for me in terms of confusion, that causes me to fill my pants with fear poop.

Anyway, that's enough rambling from me, now to post with without bothering to read through it...

 

[Dango]

I find the "Tower of Latria" level in Demon's Souls to be exceptionally creepy. Especially those tentacle-face guys that are so hard to kill.

 

[Amerikhan]

Half-Life 2 had some legitimately scary levels. I think it's the only game that's ever made me afraid to go around a corner.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Spiders. I am so freaked out by them, that even the ones in "40 winks" on the PS1 give me the creeps. On the other side of the scale, the ones in resident evil games have been known to reduce me to girly screaming.

ditto to that man, ditto to that.
I couldn't sleep after i played Limbo

or after watching the Extra Credits episode about survival horror for that matter

 

[Mikeyfell]

Oh god I hate spiders. A fact endlessly reinforced by the fact that when I was nine, me and my brother were alone for the night and he was playing Resident Evil 2 I think it was.

Walking into a room and the door locking behind you, with only a pistol and a showgun with two shells in it, he looked around the room to find two giant tarantulas on the ceiling. When we shot them they fell to the ground and thousands of regular spiders crawled out of their abdomens.

yeah, I'm going to have some trouble catching Z's after reading this comment
thanks...

 

[phohouse]

When I know it can see me but I can't see it. Also when the killer is wearing a mask. It's just less scary for me when I can see his face, despite it usually being scarred and deformed.