Comments on: The Shambling Remains of Survival Horror

By: tareq salah

tareq salah — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 11:10:32 +0000

dead space 2 kind of reignited it. but yes resident evil needs to come back strong and shows them how its done.

By: Adam Franti

Adam Franti — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:04:05 +0000

@ angryrat – I understand the inclination toward allowing a player to have more freedom during a game; allowing exploration and investigation and the like can make a game more tolerable to play, certainly. But I don’t think that the genre needs another easy game. I absolutely love Bioshock, but I found the vita-chambers insulting. It was almost easier to just let my character die and respawn than waste time or money for medkits. For that reason, I found that it limited the game for me more than allowed me to explore. Why would I need to, if I could count on the magic fridge in the corner to knit back a perfectly good body with no lasting penalties?

Increasing the difficulty – take that however you will; making your character die more easily, introducing more powerful enemies, etc. – would, in a game that is made well enough (here’s the rub – whoever makes the game will have to ensure that the difficulty isn’t annoying inherently or annoying because the game is badly designed. See Call of Cthulhu for an example of the latter), actually increase the ability to explore. It would make a player more aware of alternate, possibly easier routes, it would make a player constantly hunting for a couple of extra bullets or a new weapon in order to ensure that you can survive when you encounter a powerful enemy.

I won’t praise Left 4 Dead 2 for much (I enjoy it and its predecessor, but it’s the epitome of a safe, harmless game experience to me), but its harder difficulties more than illustrate my point: surviving on realism mode is going to hurt, and you need to be prepared for it when it happens.

By: angryrat

angryrat — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:25:10 +0000

The Call of Cthulhu was a good game, but I stopped playing after about 30 min, when even while I knew what I needed to do, I couldn’t before the policeman caught me. Penalty for dying will only drive people away from the game – you don’t want to replay 10+ hrs of gameplay just because there’s no save option, and you forgot to check that dark corner. If you can save any time, you are more inclined to explore, to take risks, and hence immerse yourself into the game’s world by discovering hidden places, info, whatever.
I think the first Alone in the Dark was the perfect survival horror game; dark forces at work, you don’t know what you’re facing, and most of the time you had to get away from the horrors, and even though the graphics looks ridiculous, it scared the heck out of me. (Based on Lovecraft, of course.) The Undying was also a very good shot at this genre, though it was more of a shooter. (I still didn’t want to play it alone.)

By: Elliot Moore

Elliot Moore — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:49:04 +0000

Hi there,
I’m very interested in writing for your website.
I am curious, what are your requirements for hiring writers & is there any form of payment for writers?

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Elliot Moore

By: Morbieus

Morbieus — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:02:49 +0000

Did you ever play F.E.A.R.? It’s immersive and creepy

By: me

me — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:53:20 +0000

Penumbra Series, Amnesia: Dark Descent

By: Buck

Buck — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:52:31 +0000

I believe its mostly due to the fact that true horror games in general have low popularity. Most people now want instant gratification of killing and explosions or action or something, rather than having to truly think things through. But survival horror games are still out there, take Siren and Fatal Frame series for instance. Fatal Frame is more of a Japanese horror movie turned into a game with pop and scare the shit out of you elements though. Well that and your ‘gun’ is a camera

By: zack

zack — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 03:59:53 +0000

I feel that fan service and evolution of systems killed the survival aspect in horror games. The amount and access of save points made the user in more control of the game rather than the having the plot unfold the way it was intended too. Also, most titles attributed with the horror genre tend to spawn items when needed completely depriving survival of it’s definition.

By: amnesia

amnesia — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 03:43:04 +0000

LOL condemned.

Try amnesia or penumbra

By: robster707

robster707 — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 01:20:54 +0000

Condemned. nuff said. trust me.