5punk

I'm thinking horror games might be fairly divisive. I know we seemed to either love Alien or be underwhelmed by it. A new trailer came out for once-looked-promising underwater horror FPS Soma, and it made me think about my feelings towards horror games and why I don't enjoy them. Then I remembered that I'd already written it all down in a comment on the last Soma trailer. Nobody replied to my comment there, so I thought I'd post it here instead.

So, while watching both trailers I ended up wondering why it is I love weird horror movies like Hellraiser and Cabin in the Woods, but while I love the concept of similarly weird horror games I never really get on with the execution. I think it's because the monsters actually break the tension. You get drawn into the story, immersed into the creepiness, but then something comes along to kill you and you know that you're playing a game. Find a place to hide, as per the game rules, or die, reload, and play that bit again.

It makes sense when I think about it - I stopped playing Amnesia when I met the monster. I stopped playing Alien Isolation when people started shooting at me. I stopped playing Outlast when I had to avoid a crazy guy with a metal pipe. I stopped playing Penumbra when the monster appeared.

I've actually found that being able to kill the monsters is less immersion breaking for me - System Shock was less creepy in the quiet parts, and the monsters were tough, but I enjoyed it more. Dead Space hit the mark really well, but the controls killed it for me in the end.

On the other hand, little-known HL2 mod Alchemilla was all the better for them never getting round to putting monsters in it. Among The Sleep struck a nice balance - the 'monster' very rarely posed a threat, even when it was hunting you, but it lent menace to the general weirdness just by existing.

So I suppose for horror games in general my sticking point is the fear of having to replay bits of it.

I wanted to enjoy alien, because it was a really fucking good game, It looked like the movies, it played like it was meant to, I'd go as far as to say as far as I got was 10/10 territory. But I fucking hate that game.

Amnesia held my attention pretty well, until I got trapped with no escape and went mad in a stable.

I really enjoyed the amnesia free DLC short thing, something like 45 minutes of you die, the game closes.


I think you're on to something with the replaying sections, it utterly fucks the immersion if you have to smash your head against the same section, over and over again.

I think there is a big difference between scary films and scary games, despite them attempting to be the same genre. In a scary game there is no real threat, because you know it must be possible to get to the end of the game, so you know it isnt just going to up and kill you. In a film, on the other hand, there is no guarantee that even the main protagonist is going to make it to the credits alive. In horror films sometimes the bad guys win. That would make a sucky game. In a film anything can happen; if its got a sci-fi/supernatural leaning then literally so. In a game you end up learning how the game works, and get more able to predict its tricks in advance.

It all comes down to the fact that the really scary thing is the unknown, and by its nature its possible to just have more unknowns in a film than a game. Even before you start repeating stuff. Repetition really is the end of the horror in a horror game.

The only scares in games that ever get me are jump scares, and they will only work the one time. Similarly, the "oooh, it's coming to get you!" scares of games like Alien only work at first. Eventually you either learn that no, it isnt going to get you, or you get frustrated by doing the same bit over and over because the bastard keeps getting you. By the end of the game, Alien was scaring me. It was getting my stress levels up to near heart attack danger, but through frustration and alarm rather than being scared.

I've always been massively intrigued by all things horror, but despite being a seemingly simple concept not many films or games get it right. In games there is only one that stands out for me and that's Silent Hill 2, which for it's time was quite something.
Before Silent hill 2, most horror games just tried to emulate movies and made the baddies jump out at you at different points in the game at which point you can murder the shit out of them and carry on. In SH2, you find a little radio that start hissing static when a monster is nearby at which point you have the option to stand and fight or run. However, this being a Japanese game the fighting was awkward and difficult and your starting weapons are a kitchen knife, a wooden board and a lead pipe, none of which are great weapons. But if you chose to run the game didn't punish you for it, apart from the boss fights most encounters could be avoided. There was one section of the game where you have to go through a large outside part of the city (most of the game is indoors) where I simply ran past all the monsters because I could not be arsed fighting all of them which would've taken me ages, and not being punished for it was a blessed relief.
So in short; what set this game apart for me was that it wasn't just running through a large mansion waiting for the next jump scare to happen, your fear was constant because danger was everywhere and you're just a guy with a 4x4 with some nails in it.

And to this day, radio static still makes my skin crawl.

The Metal Gear series is well known for breaking the fourth wall and having the on-screen characters do things which relate to the player directly like reading your memory card, messing with the controller and faking game over screens. Games from the 8-bit era had a few tricks too, but it's something that doesn't happen that much anymore. Eternal Darkness had bunch of insanity effects and Batman Arkham Asylum has what looks like a crash when a scarecrow cutscene starts.

Having a game appear to delete your files or your achievements one by one would be pretty scary if you fell for it. Animal Crossing gave you a bollocking if you didn't save before quitting, that was pretty freaky given the incongruous setting. Doom 3 managed to give me a tingly spooked-out feeling which is the best sort of effect rather than just jump scares, the "looks normal but something's a bit off" feeling that makes you shiver watching a well-done horror film.

I guess it would lessen the impact if everyone starting doing it and a PC game developer has to be pretty confident to put in fake crashes, because there may well be real crashes where varying hardware is involved, and they would have to have massive balls to actually delete files instead of just appearing to. I think EVE did that last one, not on purpose though.