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March 28, 2024, 08:20:47 PM

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Horror/Survival games that don't devolve into trite shite

Started by Clownbaby, March 30, 2020, 12:20:32 AM

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Clownbaby

I'm having a lil break from Rayman, got into Resident Evil 7. I'm not hugely familiar with the other Resis but the whole backwoods swamp redneck mutant thing, I am here for it. The dilapidated, but not cartoonishly so, houses wrapped in swamp mist, the convincingly lived-in but perverted main house, love it. Old school puzzles and mean-spirited mind games, yes. The family of yeee-hoooooing psychopaths who behave like redneck fleshy terminators on bath salts, yep, all good. I like it. Yes ''rednecks are savages'' is a common horror trope, but it can be quite an entertaining one if it's given some kind of natural quality, and I think in this game they pulled it off. I thought the way things spiralled out of control was oddly organic. The Baker family were solid, memorable and menacing antagonists. The story should have stuck with them.

Why, then, it seems to be repackaging itself as a ''infected spooky girl who makes black stuff and says ''I want you to be my mooommy'' and there's military stuff and a big grey boat and oh no the girl keeps running away and giggling and oh look she's wearing all black and has black hair and a pale face, I don't know. She's the cause of all this, the cause or the solution to misc. "scary infections''. It's almost ALWAYS a creepy or angelically innocent (or both) little girl. It's partly the story's complete shift and partly the way it was presented, which I thought was disappointing. It's a bland and horrendously overdone way to wrap it up and it's presented so boringly. As soon as you're away from the grimly detailed, labyrinthine swamp houses and on the ship with the crap Creepy Little Girl (Registered Trademark), nah. Piss off mate.

This is a recurring horror/survival game problem. Start off intriguing, the creativity wears off once they're designing the last part of the game.

bgmnts

That's why I like F.E.A.R because it throws the evil ghost girl straight at you.

In my head Condemned: Criminal Origins stays fairly consistent and doesn't devolve into a mess. Just pretty good serial killer chasing scary shit. The sequel goes full mental though.

But yeah how much better would Resi Evil 7 have been if it was just Texas Chainsaw Massacre with bioweapons? The first half of that game, running from Jack and Marge, is brilliant.

Clownbaby

I think a lot of games and, this goes for horror films as well, think they have to go bigger and bigger and toss in revelation after revelation, and wrap everything up or people will be unsatisfied. Not true. There would have been nothing wrong with Resi 7 following you in real time preparing a plan to escape through the swamp and get off their land. And for the explanation of the mutant situation to be lessbombastic and more vague and maybe rooted in voodoo, or a connection of voodoo and the biohazard element

popcorn

The dropoff in quality brought about through a change in setting in RE7 is the most shocking since Xen in Half-Life 1 I reckon. 5/5 for the first half, 2/5 for the second. Absolute bollocks.

It's a smaller thing, but I found it doubly disappointing because they'd established the caravan outdoors as the perfect central hub to expand on. But it's wasted on just the house and the barn (which is also not really quite as good as the house).

I sort of like how RE1 balances the haunted house of the first half with the scifi lab basement, though. It definitely changes the mood, but I'm not sure you could sustain that creepy horror thing for a whole game without some sort of shift, and the two settings feel connected overall.

But hmm. Surely it should be possible to make a horror game that maintains a theme the way the film the Ring does, for example.

C_Larence

I've been playing The Forest with some friends this week. After a plane crash leaves you stranded on an island infested with cannibals and mutants, you embark on a search for your kidnapped child. It's heavier on the survival aspect rather than the horror, although having 3 bastard fast cannibals run at you out of nowhere is excitingly scary. There's an extensive crafting mechanic, with which you can build anything from boats to forts. There's a single player mode too, but I haven't tried it.

Bazooka

For as good as it's gameplay is, Resident evil 4 is the goofiest of them all, with the LOTR troll (they just broke into Weta and stole files), Salazar, and the kung fu xenomorphs.

Obel

I think you might be highlighting Resident Evil as an entire series, to be fair. They all (the ones I've played anyway) start off in fairly mundane settings and end up plonking you in some mad schlocky environment by the end of it. I feel like the first 4 Silent Hill games stay tonally consistent throughout the whole game, it's one of their strengths actually!

bgmnts

Quote from: Bazooka on March 30, 2020, 08:37:29 AM
For as good as it's gameplay is, Resident evil 4 is the goofiest of them all, with the LOTR troll (they just broke into Weta and stole files), Salazar, and the kung fu xenomorphs.

Resident Evil 4 doesn't count as it's clearly taking the piss.

Kryton

DayZ was very good at atmospheric tension. Most players were genuinely were cunts and would shoot you on sight, but the rare time you found someone to team up with, it was fun.

Very atmospheric and there's nothing quite like the anxiety of running into a zombie filled city, knowing full well there's probably snipers littered about and other desperate people all searching for scraps and food.

Not played it in ages, but it was good.

Clownbaby

Quote from: C_Larence on March 30, 2020, 08:30:26 AM
I've been playing The Forest with some friends this week. After a plane crash leaves you stranded on an island infested with cannibals and mutants, you embark on a search for your kidnapped child. It's heavier on the survival aspect rather than the horror, although having 3 bastard fast cannibals run at you out of nowhere is excitingly scary. There's an extensive crafting mechanic, with which you can build anything from boats to forts. There's a single player mode too, but I haven't tried it.

I've been wanting to give The Forest a go, it looks right up my street. I eat up these survival games when they're good.


C_Larence

Quote from: Clownbaby on March 30, 2020, 10:49:08 AM
I've been wanting to give The Forest a go, it looks right up my street. I eat up these survival games when they're good.

I've been having a lot of fun with it, but it feels like a game that lives and dies on who you're playing with.

Blue Jam

Can anyone recommend any horror/survival games that don't feature zombies or anything similar to zombies? I like Prey, Subnautica and Alien:Isolation and the more sci fi-type ones. Ta.


Blue Jam

Played Dead Space 1 and 2 already, found them a bit frustrating but loved the atmosphere.

Sorry, I'm being a picky bugger here.

Clownbaby

#15
The Evil Within is the next one I put on after R7. The 2nd one. Oh look another little girl with dark hair and a pale face, wonder if if she crawls like a spider or bleeds from her eyes at any point or maybe giggles offscreen just before you see her so you don't get too much of a fright or maybe cries and says ''daddy'' and draws pictures. And a bonus cheesily voice-acted Troubled Bereaved Man Who Finds Out Long Dead Daughter Or Wife Might Not Be Dead After All (Registered Trademark) Fair play to them for laying down all the stupid wank right at the start so I don't bother with the rest of it though, I guess

Zetetic

Clownbaby - Deadly Premonition?

I've never played it and never intend to, but I enjoyed watching someone else do so. You might find it trite, or certainly overly derivative, from the start. But it seems to maintain an oddness alongside that throughout.

Combat looks mostly absolutely awful to suffer through.

Clownbaby

Quote from: Zetetic on April 01, 2020, 01:23:55 AM
Clownbaby - Deadly Premonition?

I've never played it and never intend to, but I enjoyed watching someone else do so. You might find it trite, or certainly overly derivative, from the start. But it seems to maintain an oddness alongside that throughout.

Combat looks mostly absolutely awful to suffer through.

To be fair, even though the bare basic horror tropes are so familiar they aren't shocking or unsettling anymore, if the same themes are presented in a more interesting way, it can work fine. A bit of weird flair and charisma can go a long way

bgmnts

If you like Twin Peaks and you do not like good gameplay mechanics, current gen graphics or anything to really work on any level, you will love Deadly Premonition.

It's one of the biggest "so bad its good" kind of games out there I think.

Not scary in the slightest either, if thats important to you in a horror game.

Clownbaby

Quote from: bgmnts on April 01, 2020, 01:32:19 AM
If you like Twin Peaks and you do not like good gameplay mechanics, current gen graphics or anything to really work on any level, you will love Deadly Premonition.

It's one of the biggest "so bad its good" kind of games out there I think.

Not scary in the slightest either, if thats important to you in a horror game.

Oh now see, I like being able to control my games, it's kind of a bare minimum. I want to get through Silent Hill 3 but I'm a fanny about the cumbersome horrible walking

bgmnts

Yeah I never liked Silent Hill's controls, Resident Evil's were much better.

And people will say "oh but thats part of the survival horror experience" and its like fuck off you can have a character control fluidly andbintuitively and still have them at an extreme disadvantage.

Basically, Alien: Isolation probably ruins everything because it's so good.

Clownbaby

Quote from: bgmnts on April 01, 2020, 01:46:37 AM
Yeah I never liked Silent Hill's controls, Resident Evil's were much better.

And people will say "oh but thats part of the survival horror experience" and its like fuck off you can have a character control fluidly andbintuitively and still have them at an extreme disadvantage.

Basically, Alien: Isolation probably ruins everything because it's so good.

Alien: Isolation is coming in the post after I got recommended it, I hope I like it. And I hope I actually find it scary cause I always thought the Aliens were quite pretty

C_Larence

Quote from: Blue Jam on March 31, 2020, 11:23:14 PM
Can anyone recommend any horror/survival games that don't feature zombies or anything similar to zombies? I like Prey, Subnautica and Alien:Isolation and the more sci fi-type ones. Ta.

Have you played Amnesia or SOMA? SOMA fits the sci-fi vibe, but neither of them feature anything like zombies.

Blue Jam

Oh yes, I love SOMA, and you have just reminded me that Amnesia exists so I'll try that next, cheers!

Frictional Games have apparently been working on "two new survival horror games" for the past couple of years, but the lockdown has probably put those back a bit.

The System Shock reboot was meant to be out in Q1 of 2020 but I guess there'll be a bit of a wait for that one too.

Blue Jam

Prey, Subnautica and Alien: Isolation are all on Game Pass, incidentally.

C_Larence

There was a rumour a week or two ago that Sony are going to buy the Silent Hill rights from Konami and finally release Silent Hills, the Hideo Kojima/Guillermo Del Toro/Norman Reedus game that PT was a Playable Teaser of, along with a separate reboot of the franchise. No idea of a timeframe for either, but something to look forward to eventually. PT is the scariest game I've ever played, so simple but so effective.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Clownbaby on April 01, 2020, 01:57:41 AM
Alien: Isolation is coming in the post after I got recommended it, I hope I like it. And I hope I actually find it scary cause I always thought the Aliens were quite pretty

It's genuinely terrifying, enjoy.

I have a confession to make: I never actually finished it as I stupidly decided to play on the second highest difficulty and got stuck on the St. Cristobal medical centre bit because I swear the xenomorph could actually hear me thinking about it and it kept appearing between me and the exit. I may just reinstall and try it again on normal difficulty.

bgmnts

I'm going to start Alien Isolation again on hard and complete it with ease to demonstrate my power.

Moribunderast

Quote from: Blue Jam on April 01, 2020, 11:43:30 AM
It's genuinely terrifying, enjoy.

I have a confession to make: I never actually finished it as I stupidly decided to play on the second highest difficulty and got stuck on the St. Cristobal medical centre bit because I swear the xenomorph could actually hear me thinking about it and it kept appearing between me and the exit. I may just reinstall and try it again on normal difficulty.

I never finished it either. Got stuck in a late game bit with not enough ammo and just didn't have the drive to go back to an earlier save and horde my resources better. It's a fantastic game but for an experience that's so relentlessly intense it is quite long. I do often think about going back to it but I think I'd have to start from scratch again and that's a hard mental hurdle to clear.

Egyptian Feast

Quote from: bgmnts on April 01, 2020, 01:32:19 AM
If you like Twin Peaks and you do not like good gameplay mechanics, current gen graphics or anything to really work on any level, you will love Deadly Premonition.

It's one of the biggest "so bad its good" kind of games out there I think.

*swerves to the side of the road repeatedly while talking to myself about The Deadly Spawn*

I fucking love Deadly Premonition. Everything shit about it is great.