Survival Horror - Im Yella!

Agricola

Once in awhile a survival horror game comes along that whets my appetite. I read the previews, watch the videos, pour over the reviews and I think this could well be the game that means I'll finally get into this genre. Resident Evil, Silent Hill and most of their sequels got me interested. I love immersion and lots of atmosphere in a game and this genre has it in spades. This time its Dead Space 2. Problem is Im a big pussy! I avoid horror movies resolutely and have only owned a couple of these games and never finished any of them. I picked up Silent Hill 4 The Room, and it freaked me out so much, I quit it after just a couple of hours in!

Anyone else suffer from this condition? Do I need to just man the fook up and play these games!

marco_polo

About a chapter per fortnight of Dead Space

degrassinoel

i'm a big wuss too, clive barkers undying did a lot more harm to my enjoyment of the survival horror genre than anything else, except for maybe doom3.. and glutton for punishment as i am, buying deadspace2 tomorrow. :P

the untitled user

Thing about Horror games is that they get quite repetitive after a while as you start to cop onto the tricks and mechanisms they use to generate the suspense. Usually I find I'm ****ting it for the first hour or so but after that it wears off a bit.

Dead Space was a perfect example, first few levels were fantastic, particular for the ambient sounds and the whole 'fear emitter' thing they used to build suspense. But after a while I copped the distances and such so it had little effect, and as they added more enemies toward the end it started to break down totally. I found myself hoping for a scare that never really came.

SK1979

Well if its Dead Space that you're on about being scared, one way to play it would be with the sound off, or seriously low. Thats where all the scares come from tbh. Hearing things skittering around is far more scary than the actual necro's. Most of them look stupid.

For me, what makes it scary is playing it with surround sound, it is terrifying, but good fun. Play it without sound and it wouldn't be anything bad.

landsleaving

I have the same problem, I can't stand running away from things at all, so the more helpless the game makes me the more I panic and do badly. I've had to suck it up and play through some games though because they were too good to miss.

Project Zero though, it's too good as well, but it's so terrifying I can't bring myself to play it again ever, despite making it about halfway through a few years ago.

Weirdly though, I don't get scared by horror movies*, I think once I'm controlling the character it becomes me, so I have to watch myself die over and over, and be chased by the evil hordes of hell down dark corridors. I can't take it at all.


*Except Event Horizon, I can't even watch Jurassic Park anymore just in case Sam Neill goes nuts and starts killing dinosaurs.

Antar Bolaeisk

I can only play Amnesia the Dark Descent in small doses and even those can leave me sleepless

landsleaving

I was going to buy it in the steam sale but completely chickened out

Agricola

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

I can only play Amnesia the Dark Descent in small doses and even those can leave me sleepless

Yeah forgot to mention Amnesia. I was sooo tempted to pick that up on release. The whole premise really intrigued me. But I just know I would be going through fresh pants at rate of knots so I didnt bother in the end!

Have to say its nice to know others feel the same anguish about this!

I think I will make a real effort with DS2. Its slightly more amenable to me because it a space/sci-fi setting. If I keep telling myself its just a darker version of Mass Effect, I think Ill get through it.

nachoman

Don't wan't to veer too far off the subject,
I'm reading the horror book Metro 2033 and it's very good
then I'm thinking of buying it for the Xbox,
anyone play this, is it scary?

Agricola

nachoman wrote: »

Don't wan't to veer too far off the subject,
I'm reading the horror book Metro 2033 and it's very good
then I'm thinking of buying it for the Xbox,
anyone play this, is it scary?

That I did play. Even though its listed as a survival horror, I never thought it deserved that label. It reminded me more of Stalker or even a dark, fps Fallout 3. I suppose survival horror to me has to have zombies, ghosts, haunted houses, etc etc, all the traditional stuff.

I didnt really find it that scary. It was atmospheric and some sections were very effective at conveying tension and panic, but it was abit of a ham fisted affair technically which kind of overwhelmed the good aspects of it for me.

If you can get it real cheap (I got it for a tenner with Red Faction Guerilla included) then definitely go for it. Its an experience.

richymcdermott

Im too a wuss , i played dead space for bout 2 hours then left it aside for 4 months before going back to finishing it and the only reason i went back cause my cousin finished it. Im terrified to pick up dead space 2 :P

Hercule

i tend to play survival horror games like I would if I was doing a speedrun of an FPS - Its the equivalent of sitting in a haunted house ride going "LALALALALA IM NOT LISTENING/NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO SCARY STUFF" - Things will pop out and scare most people, I tend not to get a fright cus I am running through the game anyway, the atmosphere of fear is weakened if you bunny-hop through the game - without the fear element most horror games are just sub-par 3rd person/1st person adventures.

Having said that the bit in ravenholm in hl2 still gives me shivers, its a section of the game that you can't do quickly - the noise the poison headcrabs make and those big hulking zombies seem to have been deliberately put in the places you least expect.

Canis Lupus

I'm a big scardy cat with horror games. Currently playing Amnesia in 20 min bouts.

krudler

depends on the game, Dead Space is all cheap scares and jumps but they do wear off later, the opening few levels are amazing though the atmosphere is brilliant, the more tooled up you get the less scary it is though.

Stuff like Silent Hill that has an oppressive atmosphere the whole way through gets under my skin more, Silent Hill 2 was just constant on edge atmosphere, and the sound design is incredible.

There was a game on ps2 that I cant for the life of me remember the name of where you played as a young girl who had a dog and you were in a castle or something where the only enemy was a hulking simpleton who chased you around, it was pretty unnerving as hed show up out of nowhere in the middle of solving a puzzle and you had no weapons. anyone remember it?

Agricola

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Rose

Is it that?

Actually sounds more like this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunting_Ground

krudler

Haunting Ground, thats the one wonder do I still have that? must dig it out if i do.

there are some creepy levels in not strictly survival horror games. anyone whos played Thief 3 will know the Shalebridge Cradle level, what an awesome part of the game, creeped me out big time playing it, what is it about kids in video games that are so creepy?

Sticky_Fingers

While certain games have scared the bejesus out of me the only game I had to stop playing because it freaked me out too much was Condemned. I wasn't even that far into the game but the atmosphere was so oppressive and threatening that I put it down after about an hour and I have never gone back. I was tempted for some stupid reason to get Condemned 2 when it came out but I quickly came to my senses and realized that I wasn't up to it.

Antar Bolaeisk

It's official, I'm a wuss, even Minecraft scares me.

In my defence nobody told me there were Spiders, Zombies, Skeletons or exploding Cactai in the game. One of the spiders snuck up on me and scared the crap out of me at which point I promptly died and I still can't find the stupid tunnel I built to get there.

mayordenis

Yea I can't believe we're fighting over who the biggest wuss is but it's definately me, it took me the bones of a year to get past the opening menu in Dead Space.

Banjo Fella

I love survival horror games. They keep me up at night, through a mixture of being compelling and fun, and making me too creeped out to consider moving. My sleeping pattern took a turn for the worse last year when I decided to play through all the Resident Evil games consecutively... I can only imagine what'll happen when I get around to playing the rest of the Silent Hill games. o_o

Luigi's Mansion is quite a good horror game, and perfectly suited to us wusses. Although, I'm not really sure if it counts as a survival horror game after all. What is that game? It's like Ghostbusters meets Ducktales meets Mario.... 'tis good, anyway!

Anyone know if Clock Tower 3 is any good, by the way? Saw a little bit of it on YouTube and I liked the look of it.

funky penguin

krudler wrote: »

Haunting Ground, thats the one wonder do I still have that? must dig it out if i do.

there are some creepy levels in not strictly survival horror games. anyone whos played Thief 3 will know the Shalebridge Cradle level, what an awesome part of the game, creeped me out big time playing it, what is it about kids in video games that are so creepy?

And the beautiful thing about The Cradle level was that there was only....what? 2 enemies in the entire level? Still, I crept around, sobbing like a lost school boy...... ;_;

jaykhunter

If you really want to overcome this you'll just have to constantly watch horror films and build up a tolerance. Not watching them will lower it until you get used to it (ha, i've had this conversation with my bro lol)

Playing video games is much scarier (thanks to being an interactive medium W00T) and the game only ends when you finish it -- and being 5-10 times longer -- if you absolutely can't play it but want to I suggest :

1) Playing it during the day, lights on
2) Play it when u've people around
3) head over to GameFAQs and read up on the walkthrough so you know what's going to happen ahead of time
4) get someone to watch you playing it
or lastly
5) watch it while someone else plays it

Best of luck man, it's tremendously rewarding to be able to endure and overcome these games, and also grow an appreciation for them as a storytelling frame. Best of luck!