Why do people have wrong idea that Survival horror = Scary

@torenojohn7

they were the same as the ones you get in the rest of the game.

@torenojohn7

They were the same controls as the main game. My sister can navigate them.

You not finding something scary, a TOTALLY subjective concept, doesn't mean something isn't scary.

That's kind of the definition of scary.

You're just not completely scared because you are always disconnected from the situation happening in the game/movie.

Nothing else scared me lulu.

@999777__Gengar

Some people have a crippling fear of having peanutbutter on the roof of their mouths.

Yeah but what if you had limited ammo and the enemies took double the hits to kill? like the original resi games? that's what i'm talking about.

@torenojohn7

Camera angles,

Aiming.

Controls....

They were different.

The camera angles were just like they were in old resi games.. or at least you had the option to use fixed camera angles..

The controls don't really matter i'd be more than happy to get rid of the absurd tank controls.. but i do want the fixed camera and stronger enemies back..

More importantly why would you want the return of Damage Sponges ?

@torenojohn7

Not to my knowledge. Exactly on which platform did you play Lost In Nightmares ?

No not bullet sponges.. more like limited ammo + tougher enemies like the hunters and crimson head zombies.

its actually a hidden secret you have to look through the mansion's main door 3 times and the game switches to fixed camera angle.

@torenojohn7

Interesting. are you saying the enemies in President Evil 5 weren't tough ?

Here's a video about horror games. Specifically, why horror games have awkward mechanics the majority of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawxkSB13J8

Well the definition of 'scare' is to 'cause great fear or nervousness' and that's what I feel when I play a good horror game. So yes, I'd say they scare me. When I want to cover my eyes and ears it's not because I'm unsettled or slightly disturbed, it's because I'm terrified.

@mastermetal777

Awkard is an understatement.

Its also not an excuse...

@Lulu_Lulu: It is an excuse, and a very deliberate one at that. You see, horror games are, and have always been, meant to make you feel powerless so that overcoming the monster (or yourself, if you end up being the monster) becomes all the more gratifying. Most horror games usually portray an everyman/woman placed into a desperate and seemingly hopeless situation, and the limited (we're going with that word for now) mechanics serve as the metaphor for that powerlessness. Why can't I dodge roll? Because nobody is naturally that agile. Nobody wants to see some commando taking down legions of the unknown in a defined horror game. That becomes an action game like Gears of War, and it's also why Resident Evil failed right from the beginning (at least for me) by putting trained soldiers against zombies in a mansion--ultimately, they're going to be able to get past it because they're trained to handle these situations, regardless of how freaky those zombies are. To be the everyman who has no special training and no real combat experience makes the experience that much more cathartic and ultimately engaging, such as in the Silent Hill series, where the first 3 games had you play as a writer, a clerk, and a teenage girl in that order. To work past the limits imposed by the game--and by extension, your own limits--horror games show that you can truly overcome that terror creeping in the back of your mind and calm it down enough to take control, even when it seems all hope is lost from the beginning. That's what horror games achieve: accomplishment through limits--limits that you know about since the beginning of the game--and what better way to portray that than the medium we've come to know as video games (or interactive experiences, whichever you prefer). Yeah, some people might not care for the mechanics, but as I've said before, it's meant to be that way.

@mastermetal777: The problem I have is that many horror games main character are laughably pathetic. Most are a joke. I can not be scared when it feels like I am playing tag with the monster.

The first RE games did it right. The threat is much worse when well train and armed officer are dying and those that live and panic and struggling to live that made the threat worse.

The moment that survival horror is when they started to focus too much on being scary than surviving a horror movie. I do enjoy the forest since it less about scaring you and more about survival.

@wiouds: They're everyday people put into bad situations, much like horror movies do. To me, that doesn't make them pathetic, but relatable. I don't relate to a heavily armed soldier, so I can't feel bad for them when they can't find a way through these situations when that's what they're trained to do in the fist place, and eventually do just that. There's no tension, just expectation.

@mastermetal777: The problem is I can not relate to people who are too worthless to win and yet some how they do live longer. I can not relate to those character that they only walk around, touch some items, and can only run away hid from monster. I am sorry, I have wide range of movement in my arm and I can walk and run so I can not relate to them.

I would not put people from RE outbreak into this group or from obscure. I put them with RE characters. I find the threat more dangerous and unsettling when heavy armor soldier that are better trained and armed are struggling to live. I can still relate these people dispite being better trainn than me.

I find the Xenomprhs in Aliens more scary that the one is Alien because of what they did to soldiers.

To me the predator is scarier that all slacer because of what it did to the skill soldiers.

I am not saying that super soldier should be in the game since that would hurt the survival part.

It also makes better game play. You make the character too helpless and you limit what you can do in the game. walking around a dark forest until it appears in front of you for an instance lost is not good game play.

I agree with idea of not being able to shoulder toss a zombie because your character isn't trained in judo, but I think games like Outlast overlook basic survival...there were a number of times in that game where I felt like I could sneak up behind something and shove it over a railing and then run. Maybe it doesn't kill him, but it buys me time. Or other things like just bashing something over the head with a pipe. When the only option is to cower, that's not very "everyman" either, but rather under cooked game design.

Good horror shouldn't force helplessness onto you, but rather allow you to feel that helplessness by being able to react the way anyone would in these situations and watching as your avatar still comes up short. I should be able to pick up that fire extinguisher and bash this guy's face. Telling me I can't because I'm supposed to be helpless when the fire extinguisher is clearly there to be grabbed is the videogame version of telling not showing. it's similar to how in the Last of Us, you can kill a guy who is clearly holding a shotgun, yet when you check his corpse you don't find a single shotgun shell. So...are all these guys just walking around with empty guns? The game designers wanted to create a certain pace but couldn't figure out how to do it realistically, so they just did unrealistic things like this to maintain the tension. That sort of thing shouldn't be glossed over but rather dragged out into the light and mocked for the poor design it is.

I think conceptually, you're right. But a lot of these games fail at the execution.

@Ish_basic: How do you feel about the Predator movie? It show that the main cast can take out an entire enemy outpost on their own yet getting ripped apart by one monster.

@mastermetal777

Peoples emotions don't work on a Checks and Balance system, atleast not normal non masochistic people, this sort of trickery is more likely to trigger relief... Not gratification, which is why Survival Horror will always be an "aquired taste", because its unappealing. scripted sequences are one of the most anoying things about most video games, and deliberately using bad mechanics and unbalanced gameplay is just another form of scripting, the author has no faith in the player so he pulls you by the ear, forcing you to experience his specific vision because appearently "You're surviving Horror wrong". Obviously some people like it.... Its still bad design.

I don't care if the character I play as is Cyborg Ninja or a defenseless New Born baby, my only concern will be if the scenario I'm in coinsides with the tools I'm given ? Naturally if you keep using real world Logic like "Shes a teenager, shes suppose to be weak, useless and annoying" then the game is flawed. It will make sense but it will still be mechanically flawed if she can't even swing a stick in a scenario designed for stick swinging. Meanwhile the the games that make little to no sense what so ever (Bayonetta, Portal 2, Super Mario, Mark Of The Ninja) are mechanically sound.

@Lulu_Lulu: I believe that the P.T demo was actually designed to be a pain to finish, if you watched the kojima interview at gamescom, he said himself he was hoping people wouldn't work it out for weeks, not sure what the point was behind it, but i guess it was to make it harder for people to work out.

co-op is good but i think it takes away the fear from alot of games, but that seems to be where games are going these days, be nice to have couch co op more than online co op.

@bezza2011

Yeah I get people design stuff to be unpleasant therefore I shall treat it no differently then other unpleasant things. Why should I cut them some slack because they deliberately fucked things up ?

Anyway... Couch CO-Op is fantastic ! :)

No they weren't but i do wish they were.

It does what it needs to to establish that the cast are elite soldiers, though maybe if Arnie and company would use their gun sights once in awhile they might be able to hit something. I don't think it would make a good single player game, but Evolve looks like it's doing the multiplayer equivalent of a Predator showdown.

Still, I don't need a hardened warrior as my avatar. I can get into guys like James Sunderland from SH2....maybe moreso because James is far less dude-bro than your typical space marine. But the game needs to establish the threat with gameplay rather than by denying me basic interaction like hitting the monster over the head with a 2x4. And the enemy doesn't have to be monstrous...you can have impossible odds like with zombies, and I find that effective. As long as the impossible odds are handled better than Dead Rising 3, where the game just feels like Dynasty Warriors: Zombie edition.

I partially agree with you man.. just because someone is a trained officer doesn't mean they can't be terrified by being trapped into a mansion full of monsters! they just have guns.. with limited ammo... it is only RE4 where leon started roundhouse kicking his enemies and became a completely unrelatable superhero.

But i really bloody hate protagonists who are completely helpless and can do NOTHING but run&hide.. that is just nonsense... even in real life humans protect themselves when they are threatened so it makes no sense why in some horror video games like amnesia you can't do that..

Though i don't think being helpless or unskilled makes the game laughably pathetic... in the original clock tower you are just a girl who is trying to escape before scissorman gets you.. or in silent hill where James who is horrible at using weapons..

The piano monster in Super Mario 64 and the spider people in Zelda Ocarina Of Time scared me more than any Survival Horror game I've ever played.

@torenojohn7

You're Wrong.

On what? which post are you replying to?

@torenojohn7

The President Evil Baddies are tough.

@torenojohn7

The President Evil 5 Baddies are tough.

This.

-Byshop

Are you kidding me? you must be really a noob if you think they're tough.. i've played so much mercenaries in RE4 that RE5 is a complete joke a game even in the pro difficulty.

In original Resident evil games you only had ammo so scarce that you wouldn't even want to waste your bullets.

@torenojohn7

I never said the Characters you play as weren't equally tough. Also theres the stupid Upgrade system that unbalances the game in your favour and I really really don't like it.

More importantly, The Original President Evil's baddies aren't tough, the character you're givin is just weak and useless, its technically tough but its just a tool for lazy developers to take advantage of "Teh Hardcore" fans ! Also do you honestly think I'm a noob ? I'm not going to say I'm not, I don't believe even you think thats true, perhaps you'l say it too win a petty argument but you know better than to believe it.

@Lulu_Lulu: RE4&5 are just action games most of the "challenge" comes from getting as much headshots and kill streaks as possible.

Original Resident evil games are survival horror games where most of the "Challenge" comes from managing your inventory and navigating through areas filled with B.O.W's as fast and efficiently as possible.

Getting "A" rank in Original Resi games is much harder than getting an "A" rank in RE4/5&6.

@torenojohn7

What if they don't have heads ? ;)

Judging by your desire to label people "noob". I'm going to go out on a limb and say you've atleas played two of the D Souls games extensively.

Being a masochist doesn't make you hardcore... Or maybe it does, either way, Artificial Difficulty sucks.

Firstly survival horror does not need to have original resident evil cameras or silent hill to make it survival horror.

Amnesia was intense and A Machine For Pigs was scarier.

P.T. actually made me feel freaked and im a horror game/movie veteran haha. Well i did play on headphones under the influence of a juicy Buds.

People keep forgetting about the "survival" part of survival horror. To me, it's the "survival" part that defines survival horror more than the "horror" part.

Your tolerance for what's scary or not is extremely subjective. I mean, do you also think what makes you sad or happy should make everyone sad or happy? Should a random stranger on the street be sad that something went bad for you?

I don't understand why they call everything Survival Horror anyways and not just Horror. There's only a few games that I can think of where survival is the primary gameplay objective and horror is the backdrop. Amnesia, the Penumbra Games, Alone in the Dark, and Alien Isolation are the ones I can think of, but I'm sure there's more. Most of these games like Outlast or Resident Evil are about completing an investigation or killing a certain big baddie.

@Jag85

I definately didn't forget it, I just don't like it.

@Lulu_Lulu:

I wouldn't consider a horror game to be a true "survival horror" without the "survival" part.

Resident Evil 2 was scary. You must be referring to the newer ones that are not scary.

@Jag85

but It would still be just a Horror game....

If you want some Idea of what I'm talking about, try, Dead Space, very scary yet no survival aspects.

For an even better example, try The Condenser from Beyond Two Souls, that was freaking terrifying despite not being a game at all.

Survival Horror is just far too rigind and uncomfortable for me, I actually want, Adventure Horror.

Because that's just you... to me P.T. was scary and nervracking. While SH1 so far has only proved to be creepy (i think when it originally came out in 98 that I would have been terrified of it), it's age has decreased the scary factor. I remember playing RE4 for the first time and being freaked out. My sister can sit and watch horror movies all day, but I cannot as I find them way more terrifying.

Horror generally means scary. In movies I honestly prefer PG-13 movies rather an R rated because it means they are actually freaky, while R rated ones are just freaking gory and feature nudity. I found Mama way more scary (caused me to jump) than say the new Evil Dead and many others. Because they rely more on shocks and suspense than trying to gross out the audience with gore.

I would love to have a remake of Silent Hill 1, because so far the PS1 game was not overly gory, and instead relied on design and creepiness to create it's atmosphere. It's just that it's so old now it's hard to be freaked out by it.

I'm not a big fan of survival horror and the only scary game I'm looking forward to evil within.

Nah.. i'm referring to basically every survival horror game.

I want to play a game about survival that doesnt have zombies or isnt focused on killing. I want to survive buy building wind turbines, managing resources, hunting. Idk, something more light hearted but still focused on intense survival in a game...ok maybe still have zombies

@Marduke1913

Why are people so obsessed with Resource Management ? The inventory systems these games use are extremely annoying, in every game I've played I eventually get used to setting my inventory a specific way everytime and it sucks that I have to manually rearrange and reorganize the clutter because theres no filing/storing system.

Anyway it sounds like you're talking about Rust. And I hated Rust.