Why do you find Dead Space scary?

[Venom 3135]

Ok, so I personally have never found "Dead Space" or "Dead Space 2" even the slightest bit scary. But of course, I've seen a lot of people saying they think it's scary on the internet. The only thing I find even remotely creepy about the game is the fact that the only sound you ever hear from Isaac is screaming (In the first game). I think Isaac's voice in the second game ruined that, but I won't go into that now.

Basically, all I'm asking is, if you find "Dead Space" scary, why is that? I'm curious.

 

[Full]

The second I saw the title I thought "The fact that all he practically did in the first game was scream and die" but you took it. Also, the eye poker.

I thought the first game had some moderate subtle spookiness, but they threw that away in the second game for butt-clenching shooty bits, which I was okay with.

A thing that I felt was kind of scary was that in the first time I heard that very faint background chatter of "iiiiiisaaaaaaaac" etc. in the first game, and I thought, "Oh, cool". Then it repeated and got a little annoying, but then after awhile it just kind of imprinted into my mind and I was always just expecting it, with "when will that happen again" lingering in the back of my mind. Made me kind of feel like a psycho.

 

[Mikejames]

I think the games could have their moments, like the room with the disjointed "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and the more subtle "Make us whole" bits, but a persistent tension didn't really last for me. Partly because Isaac's a walking arsenal before too long, and partly because the jump out of vent attacks really only startled me the first few times.

There's also the concept of less is more. The sound of scratching from inside a locker in Silent Hill, or the somber whispering in Fatal Frame got to me way more than a mutating eviscerated man screaming at the top of his lungs in Dead Space.

 

[Venom 3135]

- Snip -

Yeah, I agree with this. The game was too easy and the tension wasn't right. I know It's a common opinion, but Silent Hill 1 & 2 did this perfectly for me. Absolutely terrifying games. I also thought that F.E.A.R was scary (The first game), because it took something so normal and put a horrifying twist onto it. I actually regretted killing the enemies in that game, since I would be alone afterwards.

- Snip -

I think you're right about the whispering in the background. And I also agree about the "shooty bits". I didn't mind the direction they took in the second game, because they did it well. It was a very fun, attractive game (particularly the deaths). And as I said, the first game was slightly scarier, but I was still disappointed with the horror factor of the game.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I don't find it scary.

The first game was as close as it got to being scary. I will agree with you that Isaac's silence, and only audible noises made were his breathing and screaming made things creepier. I also think they did a better job with the atmosphere in the first game.

Sure, you can say the game is an Event Horizon ripoff, and that the "atmosphere" in the first game was just Uwe Boll flicking the lights on and off. But I think it was more than that. For awhile, seeing the other 'survivors' as you explored the station was genuinely unsettling. Such as the "Man facing the wall" or "Hysterical woman cradling a very dead and decomposed corpse". There was a bit of subtlety with Isaac's crumbling psyche.

That and the necros were not pleasant encounters either. I played with headphones on, and the noises they made, the token-horror-movie-STARTLE-sounds whenever you laid eyes on one. If anything, it made the necromorphs nerve wracking and tense to fight.

That was, of course, before the "scares" became predictable and I was hemorrhaging ammo from my anus.

It was marketed as a survival horror, and carried itself like a survival horror and seemed to me that it had no idea the consequence of giving the player tons of ammo, tons of powerful weapons, and tons of aggressive enemies meant translating the game into "ACTION". Still, I believe it had a pretty good thing going.

Pretty much all the appeal from the first game was lost in Dead Space 2. Perhaps the worst of which to me, was that the subtlety of Isaac's insanity was now gone, with the game occasionally careening into "Crazyworld" with skulls and shit everywhere. To be honest, I laughed my ass off during quite a few of these sequences. Safe to say that once this happens, the scariness is gone entirely. And what a shame too.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I didn't (haven't played 2 yet, but doubt it is any different). To me, it seemed like the monsters would jump out, say "booga booga", then run at you. It was a horror game, but not a scary game. Never finished it due to getting stuck at one part while having 3 good guns and one crap gun, then only getting ammo for the crap gun.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

I've never really thought of the games as scary, but they are very atmospheric, at least for me anyway

 

[Venom 3135]

As you've all said, the atmosphere in the first game is decent. Watching the other "crazies" on the ship was nice, especially since Isaac didn't comment which gave an even bigger hint of insanity to his character.

 

[shrekfan246]

I was going to say "inb4 'IT'SNOTSCARY'" but I see it's a bit late for that.

As tired as the cliches that the first one used are, I did find it to build a great atmosphere of isolation and dread in the darkness of the ship. But then, I found the atmosphere of Bioshock to be terrifying as well, so there you go.
[sub]I thought Bioshock did the atmosphere better, though.[/sub]

I only ever played something like half an hour of the second game, so I can't really comment on it.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

Haven't played any of the games, but it really saddens me how 2 and 3 think fear works.

I mean, can we just say that a weird-looking thing SCREAMING at me for 8 hours isn't scary? Why do I need to clarify this?

Like, the DS3 demo? There was a boss fight with a drill (I know. I know.) and throughout the whole ten minutes of it there was never a single moment of silence - just the drill screeching across other metal and necromorphs screaming at you.

Captcha: gadzooks. Seems appropriate.

 

[oplinger]

I played it on the hardest difficulty right out of the box is why I found it scary. Ammo was scarce a lot of times, and any conflict was tense.

That's kinda the only reason. I played it on easy, and the atmosphere was not the same at all.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

What Dead Space (Dead Space 2 in my criteria) does right is provide you with an appropriate atmosphere for the horror setting. You are playing in the dark 99% of the time, there are noises and lights going on and off in the background, there's bodies and blood everywhere, and you generally are always tense knowing that you can be ambushed at any moment of the game.

But is it scary? I don't think so. Halfway through the game, the jump scares start to lose their effect; instead, when you see an enemy you take heed of your surroundings, get some distance between you and the Necs, make sure you are not surrounded by them, and just use stasis to hack away the Necs. I will admit that there are tense moments when you can become frantic and trigger happy and your ammo becomes scarce after a big fight without a save point or store.

This is coming from someone who doesn't play a lot of horror/survival horror titles. It's not that I don't enjoy them, I just always tend to go for games that have some interesting mechanics to them, regardless of the genre. When I heard about the Dead Space series, where you need to dismember foes to dispose of them and you are always in the dark, I was interested in buying it.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I thought the first Dead Space had some genuinely decent moments of suspense and tension, with a few decent jump scares. The game was never truly scary to me, but it still felt like a horror game.

Then Dead Space 2 comes along and took a page out of the James Cameron playbook for sequel-making within a horror franchise (à la Aliens) and opted to up the ante on action and set-pieces. The result was a blockbuster-styled action game in the trappings of a horror game. Still enjoyable, but definitely not scary.

 

[Korten12]

No, I have only played 2, which I loved but I didn't find it scary at all at any point. That's why I am confused about this hate for DS3 being less scary. The games were never scary, just had a dark atmosphere with horrorific monsters. I saw no more action in the DS3 demo then I did in DS2, just the fact that now I see two people instead of one.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I like the creepy atmosphere, note that creepy doesn't equal scary. And I'm okay with that.

 

[Fuzzed]

Dead space couldn't scare me if it told me my sister was just killed in the Sandy Hook shooting....Wait...did I just go there?

 

[Coach Morrison]

I was pretty bored with Dead Space 1, to the point that I still haven't finished it. All I remember was that every window, vent, or such was going to have an enemy exploding out of it and it relied heavily on jump scares. At least it amused me during one of the space sequences I turned the corner just to have one of them standing there starring at me until I shot it.

 

[Tamrin]

Dead space couldn't scare me if it told me my sister was just killed in the Sandy Hook shooting....Wait...did I just go there?

Too soon, dude. Too soon.

 

[Fuzzed]

Dead space couldn't scare me if it told me my sister was just killed in the Sandy Hook shooting....Wait...did I just go there?

Too soon, dude. Too soon.

Maaaaaaaaaan. I guess I should have waited a month or two