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Lacklustre Hero posted:If Silent Hill 2 dropped it's horror tone and setting it would have been way less interesting I'm not advocating dropping the tone or setting, I'm advocating dropping the combat. The horror is in the atmosphere and design but even in the original Silent Hill I was ripped out of the game world once I figured out you could either run away from every slow monster or stun lock them with a metal pipe. Shattered Memories was a move in the right direction but that game wasn't confident enough to not focus entirely on the setting. PT was a perfect direction but Konami was done by that point. DreamShipWrecked posted:The thing with the SH2 monsters is that they are very easy to defeat if you are ready for them. It's pretty easy to let them get free hits if you are wandering around aimlessly, and that is their whole purpose. They aren't designed to be a mechanical challenge to beat, they are there to make sure that you are on your guard and moving cautiously through the world rather than just sprinting down every alley. By design the game makes sure you're ready for them. The radio lets you know they're coming before they're visible and in enclosed spaces it's very rare an enemy is placed so that they're aware of you before you're aware of it. And at most you'll get hit once as the enemies will back off after an attack. The most brilliant use of enemies in SH2 was the invisible prisoner who had me tip-toeing through that area for 15 minutes waiting for something that never happened. Everything else it's like "Okay, wait until they approach me and... MASH X MASH X MASH X." al-azad fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 16:37
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al-azad posted:I'm not advocating dropping the tone or setting, I'm advocating dropping the combat. The horror is in the atmosphere and design but even in the original Silent Hill I was ripped out of the game world once I figured out you could either run away from every slow monster or stun lock them with a metal pipe. I liked Shattered Memories but I agree that it became too much of an adventure game. Come to think of it, Outlast kinda does what Shattered Memories attempted way better and I'd love to see another attempt at an SH game like that.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:42
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Maybe I'm in the minority but after falling off Resident Evil 7 pretty hard I'm confident that combat ruins horror games. As soon as I have to fight something I've checked out of your atmosphere completely and now enter win-as-optimally-as-possible gamer mode.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:45
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al-azad posted:Maybe I'm in the minority but after falling off Resident Evil 7 pretty hard I'm confident that combat ruins horror games. As soon as I have to fight something I've checked out of your atmosphere completely and now enter win-as-optimally-as-possible gamer mode. I agree. If you feel empowered to defeat the enemies it feels less like danger and more like action with a side of spooky flavor.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:53
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Combat adds a sense of danger you can't really replicate any other way so I prefer my horror games with fighting.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:00
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Sakurazuka posted:The scariest things in SH2 are those normal enemies that skitter around on the floor like cockroaches on fast forward if you knock them down gently caress the one under the van. That rear end in a top hat got me good. al-azad posted:If Silent Hill 2 had ended up like a more expensive Clock Tower in terms of gameplay that would've been okay. I never played Clocktower, but aren't you running from a creepy child thing that's trying to kill you hiding from it? Sure, you can remove the shooting elements from SH2 but you'd still have a survival horror title. Remove those things and you have a walking sim with puzzles with a great story but it won't work as a game and definitely wouldn't have any horror too it. Looping back to Outlast, the game wouldn't work with realistic depictions of mental illness due to the gameplay it was going for. Also, making a survival horror title where you're supposed to be afraid of the characters with realistic depictions of mental health would be more hosed up than what Outlast is now. They could have ultimately dropped the insane asylum theme and just made them all experiments of the main doctor in a large castle or whatever and still have it work though I'm sure people will put together what they're trying to convey.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:11
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The danger can be artificial. It takes a skilled hand but it's not hard to trick me into thinking I'm in danger when really I'm not. Highlights of my experience with RE7 for example: looking down the dark stairway to the basement knowing something spooky is going to happen, Jack smashing through a wall as I'm running to what I think is safety, exiting a safe room to find granny just rocking there wondering when this creep will finally leap out of her chair to attack, the huge variety of ambient sounds that are just close enough to the player to be something you should be worried about. Moments that make me never want to play this game again: fighting anything. s.i.r.e. posted:I never played Clocktower, but aren't you running from a creepy child thing that's trying to kill you hiding from it? Sure, you can remove the shooting elements from SH2 but you'd still have a survival horror title. Remove those things and you have a walking sim with puzzles with a great story but it won't work as a game and definitely wouldn't have any horror too it. Yes, but the game's non-linear design means he can pop out pretty much anywhere until you intentionally learn where and how he spawns. That's the game's tension, this immortal killer chasing you that you can only delay. Silent Hill 2 has a character like that and it's one so iconic that people think of it first when you mention the series. It's not survival horror that I'm against, it's directly engaging in the horror. Once I defeat your monster I'm done, movie's over, lower curtain. al-azad fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 17:12
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Sakurazuka posted:Combat adds a sense of danger you can't really replicate any other way so I prefer my horror games with fighting. Or at least the illusion of it. The best example of this is Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs. It's a bit spooky until you realize that you are basically under no threat at all, then it is just wandering around pulling levers. Even Layers of Fear had the occasional monster wandering around. al-azad posted:The danger can be artificial. It takes a skilled hand but it's not hard to trick me into thinking I'm in danger when really I'm not. Highlights of my experience with RE7 for example: looking down the dark stairway to the basement knowing something spooky is going to happen, Jack smashing through a wall as I'm running to what I think is safety, exiting a safe room to find granny just rocking there wondering when this creep will finally leap out of her chair to attack, the huge variety of ambient sounds that are just close enough to the player to be something you should be worried about. "Monsters are only scary as long as they are hidden" It's the threat of violence that freaks you out. When there is an actual visible enemy to fight then it is a lot easier because you have a real target. That's why Outlast fell short later in the game, you had so many batteries that they couldn't really hide the monsters in the dark anymore and it just became a game of chicken. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 17:13
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al-azad posted:Maybe I'm in the minority but after falling off Resident Evil 7 pretty hard I'm confident that combat ruins horror games. As soon as I have to fight something I've checked out of your atmosphere completely and now enter win-as-optimally-as-possible gamer mode. I think RE7's problem was that there was only one actually invincible enemy in the game.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:20
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s.i.r.e. posted:Do you honestly think SH2 would have been held to such a high regard if it dropped it's hellscapes/creatures, wasn't a survival horror title but kept the same story? Yes, because it isn't just a scary game you loving baby. The enemies are really easy to fight and 100% of the games impact comes from its story, not the by-the-numbers combat. If you want to see why combat doesn't matter in good Silent Hill games take a look at Book of Memories or Downpour or the other really lovely ones that focused on combat and had a terrible story. Improbable Lobster fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 17:23
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Silent Hill is a horror game in the "Oh god what is the human condition" sense, not "ooga booga shoot the zombie" sense. Yknow, like a good game.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:26
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The first time I played SH2 I beat drat near everything to death with a pipe because I was terrified there was something worse around every corner that I would need my ammo for. I think I only used my guns against Pyramid Head, the final boss, and nurses. Everything else? Piped.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:33
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al-azad posted:Maybe I'm in the minority but after falling off Resident Evil 7 pretty hard I'm confident that combat ruins horror games. As soon as I have to fight something I've checked out of your atmosphere completely and now enter win-as-optimally-as-possible gamer mode. Yeah you're in the minority lol. The combat makes those games more interesting than games where you can only run away from enemies, because at least now you have more options. Games are a series of interesting decisions so I like being able to make more of them, and RE7 still managed to be a pretty good spook even with combat. al-azad posted:Silent Hill 2 has a character like that and it's one so iconic that people think of it first when you mention the series. You might want to replay SH2. Pyramid Head only appears in fixed scripted encounters and a lot of the time he's just kinda in the background. It doesn't at all work like Clock Tower where he'll just pop out every so often, and then later on in SH2 you start fighting multiple pyramid head lookalikes who can all definitely be killed. al-azad posted:I'm not advocating dropping the tone or setting, I'm advocating dropping the combat. You are not really left with much of a game if you take the combat out of a Silent Hill. It's kind of a huge part of how that series paces it's locations with encounters and a huge part of the inherent tension in it is that yes, things can and will kill your rear end and you have the choice to fight or flight. Improbable Lobster posted:If you want to see why combat doesn't matter in good Silent Hill games take a look at Book of Memories or Downpour or the other really lovely ones that focused on combat and had a terrible story. Is this implying those two have combat systems on par with the original 3? Because that's mindbogglingly wrong. They focused on combat, yes, but the combat was terrible garbage, so the games suck. The original Silent Hill games had actually pretty decent combat (i'm sure people will contest me on this but if you seriously think the original 3 and Downpour have combat of the same caliber, I really don't know what to tell you) that played to the kind of game that it was. "these games with completely terrible other combat systems are good examples of why combat isn't important in other different kinds of game" ? honestly just don't mention the western games at all, they're just thoroughly terrible and offer no useful point of comparison book of memories isn't even the same genre SuccinctAndPunchy fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 17:33
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al-azad posted:Maybe I'm in the minority but after falling off Resident Evil 7 pretty hard I'm confident that combat ruins horror games. As soon as I have to fight something I've checked out of your atmosphere completely and now enter win-as-optimally-as-possible gamer mode. I agree with this in the sense that once you start thinking about a horror game as a *game* then you lose out on a lot of things. Once you start needing to do the mental math of optimization you are pretty much done. It's difficulty to make hard horror games for that reason. Once you have to start thinking about it in a meta sense you lose. It's also why you need to make sure your game is polished as poo poo, because having a rough section that is hard to get through due to bad environment design also drags out the "this is a game" thoughts. I remember one game where I had to get over some boards but you have to do it JUST right to trigger the game to move forward, and it just ruined everything.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:45
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Just don't have no combat and not a good story or you'll end up like Shattered Memories.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:55
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When I realize I've got 9 handgun bullets and 1 shotgun shell, I think "oh poo poo oh poo poo oh poo poo!!!" and get more scared. You guys are saying you go Beep Boop Must Maintain 100% Crits to Succeed? Side note - did you guys play RE7 on easy or normal for your first run? Easy would be stupid because you're armed heavier than the merchant from RE4. I could see that ruining the suspense when you've got enough flame grenades to use that weapon for every encounter.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:59
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SuccinctAndPunchy posted:Is this implying those two have combat systems on par with the original 3? Because that's mindbogglingly wrong. They focused on combat, yes, but the combat was terrible garbage, so the games suck. The original Silent Hill games had actually pretty decent combat (i'm sure people will contest me on this but if you seriously think the original 3 and Downpour have combat of the same caliber, I really don't know what to tell you) that played to the kind of game that it was. Those games in the same series were bad because they were specifically designed to be combat focused from the ground up. Some of the good SH games have good combat but they also all focus on story first and would be just as good with their combat significantly reduced.
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Mar 22, 2017 18:01
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Are Horror Games eSports?
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Mar 22, 2017 18:04
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Improbable Lobster posted:Some of the good SH games have good combat but they also all focus on story first and would be just as good with their combat significantly reduced. Ah, I see. I still don't think I agree, I think they focused on atmosphere first, and the combat is a huge part of that. The actual base outline of the stories in Silent Hill games aren't amazing, it's presentation that elevates it. I'm sure a lot of the impact of SH3's atmosphere would be gone if that game didn't have combat at all, and that game's got some really good spooks.
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Mar 22, 2017 18:06
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Bogart posted:Are Horror Games eSports? Team Dignitas vs EG in speed running Siren: Blood Curse I'd watch it
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Mar 22, 2017 18:11
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Combat worked in Fatal Frame. Mostly because it meant you had to get real up, close, and personal with the spooky ghosts, and often you never knew where they were coming from (since, you know, ghosts can go through walls and all) which meant being surprised even in the midst of combat. Shame the later FF games really dropped the ball in a lot of ways.
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Mar 22, 2017 18:20
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SuccinctAndPunchy posted:Ah, I see. I still don't think I agree, I think they focused on atmosphere first, and the combat is a huge part of that. The actual base outline of the stories in Silent Hill games aren't amazing, it's presentation that elevates it. I'm sure a lot of the impact of SH3's atmosphere would be gone if that game didn't have combat at all, and that game's got some really good spooks. I'm sure that having to shoot a billion mannequins inbetween encounters that are actually spooky is atmospheric to someone but it sure as hell isn't me
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Mar 22, 2017 18:20
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SuccinctAndPunchy posted:Ah, I see. I still don't think I agree, I think they focused on atmosphere first, and the combat is a huge part of that. The actual base outline of the stories in Silent Hill games aren't amazing, it's presentation that elevates it. I'm sure a lot of the impact of SH3's atmosphere would be gone if that game didn't have combat at all, and that game's got some really good spooks. It's not combat, story, OR atmosphere and presentation (though I think it prioritizes those in the reverse order of my listing there) It's theme. Silent Hill 2 worked so well because it committed to and dove into it's central premise, it's idea of externalizing our own worst urges and regrets, so deeply. I'd argue Silent Hill: The Room and Silent Hill 3 beats out Silent Hill 2 on every front but theme, but it's a big one. SH2 still wins (for me) because I can remember what the point of it all was, the slow build until the moment all these disparate pieces started coming together to shrink down and reveal the truly personal horror driving the own game. And it does this more than once! Silent Hill 2 actually tells a couple different stories, completely disparate stories with completely disparate atmospheres for each character, stories you are only minimally exposed to but still resonate because they still strike to the central theme. I don't actually have any idea what The Room was about overall even though it had a lot of really good parts in it. It's why Pyramid Head in the Silent Hill movie fell so flat. There's a reason SH2 stands as a classic while the others in the series are only good, and that's because of the thematic depth.
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Mar 22, 2017 18:30
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:When I realize I've got 9 handgun bullets and 1 shotgun shell, I think "oh poo poo oh poo poo oh poo poo!!!" and get more scared. You guys are saying you go Beep Boop Must Maintain 100% Crits to Succeed? Unlike the zombies in the original games, RE7's enemies are a real and serious threat. But the game maintains that you must explore to get the dozen items scattered about. In the original games this wasn't an issue but here I feel the need to kill everything so I can look around in quiet. And I'm playing on normal, as I do every video game that gives me the option. It's easy enough that I'm rarely at threat of dying but enemies are so annoying that I'm not comfortable moving around them in first person. I really want to beat the game while it's still fresh in my head but the motivation simply isn't there. I stopped at the old house which feels like 8 hours of solid gameplay but in hindsight it's probably 3, that's how out of it I am. SuccinctAndPunchy posted:You might want to replay SH2. Pyramid Head only appears in fixed scripted encounters and a lot of the time he's just kinda in the background. It doesn't at all work like Clock Tower where he'll just pop out every so often, and then later on in SH2 you start fighting multiple pyramid head lookalikes who can all definitely be killed. I'm saying that Pyramid Head could be that encounter. He could be the only encounter. If you ask me, someone who last played this game in 2005, what the highlights were it would be: Pyramid Head in the apartment hallway red and menacing, Pyramid Head chasing you in the basement, and Pyramid Head raping a mannequin.
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Mar 22, 2017 18:33
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I think the best way for the first RE7 run is small chunks. It's sort of a slog to be figuring out EVERYTHING at once in the first run, while also getting hosed up by the jump scares, so I really enjoyed putting in 45 minutes here, an hour there without feeling too drained. I've cleared it like 7 times now though and enjoyed something different about it each time, whether it was the new unlockable items or the added challenge of a certain achievement (3 box, 3 heal, etc.) Play mo Also, in case it isn't obvious, headshots do something like 10x damage. They're not easy by any means (molded are 90% spaghetti, I think), but you really need to make sure you're popping noggins more often than not.
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Mar 22, 2017 18:37
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GlyphGryph posted:There's a reason SH2 stands as a classic while the others in the series are only good, and that's because of the thematic depth. the reason is generally because people haven't played those games in a while and the collective consciousness has a funny way of warping people's memories of this stuff. SH2's got a ridiculously strong ending, but opinion splits pretty heavily among fans on whether it or 3 is the best. I'm particularly partial to 1 because I'm weird. in the actual community for those games, 3 tends to be the most well-liked for it's actual gameplay. 2 for every other reason that you said, thematic depth, compelling narrative, really strong ending. 2's doesn't derive a lot of its atmosphere from its combat, but that doesn't at all mean it's unimportant to the series because it's definitely important to 1 and 3 and those are not worse games. SuccinctAndPunchy fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 19:12
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Silent Hill 3 always felt sort of lovely to me, but it might suffer from the fact that Dino Crisis 2 exists and does the things SC3 gets right even better. Dino Crisis 2 is really good btw. (Dino Crisis 3, where you fight dinosaur zombies you can't see on a space station, not so much)
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Mar 22, 2017 19:26
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Actually I hate, every day, the fact that the Resident Evil series is somehow more fondly remembered than the Dino Crisis games since that's probably a more direct comparison and now I just really want to replay DC1 and 2
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Mar 22, 2017 19:28
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SH3 and DC 2 aren't even remotely comparable and are barely the same genre, in fact not at all.
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Mar 22, 2017 19:31
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I'm gonna be honest I thought SH3 was pretty mediocre when I played it and remember almost nothing from it beyond the plot being really bad and the new game plus stuff like allowing me to shoot sexy beams in the mall which was fun for a little while.
GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 19:47
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dino crisis 2 does own though, I'll cop to that any day. But yeah, Silent Hill 3 is a lot more well-liked than I feel like is being made out here. Granted, Silent Hill is just kinda, all good, really? Play both 2 and 3! Play 1 as well! Maybe play 4? Some people like 4, I'm not really one of them but it's got neat ideas!
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Mar 22, 2017 19:50
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GlyphGryph posted:I'm gonna be honest I thought SC3 was pretty mediocre when I played it and remember almost nothing from it beyond the new game plus stuff like allowing me to shoot sexy beams. I read this as Silent City 3, which for some reason my brain took as a series sequel to Silent Hill. Anyway, Silent Hill 3 was a little less good in the story department (anything involving the cult is), but it really was able to instill a fear or encounters that few horror games do in me. Knowing that you simply don't have the firepower to take on an entire room full of baddies, and needing to run by them is something you don't see very often.
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Mar 22, 2017 19:50
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Morpheus posted:I read this as Silent City 3, which for some reason my brain took as a series sequel to Silent Hill. I feel like this is an important point. In a game where the combat "works", I think it reduces the scaryness. When you can try to fight but it often does not work, it can serve to amplify the omnipresent sense of threat. If I can kill everything with a board with a nail in it, that sucks the tension out because if I just thoroughly cleanse every area of baddies then there's nothing to jump out at me. If I have no choice but to run away from at least some of them, then I have the added tension of never being quite sure if they may re-appear on me later.
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Mar 22, 2017 19:56
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I think however you feel about these issues we can all agree that SH2 would have been improved with more circumcision imagery.
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Mar 22, 2017 19:59
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hanales posted:I think however you feel about these issues we can all agree that SH2 would have been improved with more circumcision imagery. lol
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Mar 22, 2017 20:09
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hanales posted:I think however you feel about these issues we can all agree that SH2 would have been improved with more circumcision imagery. Please read my 200 page treatise on what Pyramid Head's dick looks like.
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Mar 22, 2017 20:10
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I imagine that SH wiki guy who is obsessed with circumcisions looks like Steve Jobs but once you get above the turtleneck collar its just the faceless wattled neck of a shar pei.
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Mar 22, 2017 20:35
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IMO SH3 was one of the least "horror" of the series just because it had such a heavy emphasis on all that cult stuff. People are real, cults aren't really scary. That being said, it's because a lot of the imagery doesn't really affect me. I have had a lot of people say that 3 was the creepiest of all of them because they are women and the forced pregnancy aspect of the game hits them way harder. Which is a sign of a good horror game, one that is targeted to really freak some people out rather than trying to just creep out everyone. hanales posted:I think however you feel about these issues we can all agree that SH2 would have been improved with more circumcision imagery. The images for that storify are all broken and it makes me so sad.
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Mar 22, 2017 20:34
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GlyphGryph posted:I'm gonna be honest I thought SH3 was pretty mediocre when I played it and remember almost nothing from it beyond the plot being really bad and the new game plus stuff like allowing me to shoot sexy beams in the mall which was fun for a little while. I agree, honestly. SH3 going right back to the cult stuff was such a disappointment after 2. Also, I don't remember any situations in 3 where I ever felt I didn't have sufficient ammo or melee weapons. There was a fair bit of combat, sure, but I remember killing just about everything I came across.
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Mar 22, 2017 20:48
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hanales posted:I think however you feel about these issues we can all agree that SH2 would have been improved with more circumcision imagery. agreed, they should have made 100% of the plot about circumcision instead of 99% like ANYONE COULD SEE IF THEY WOULD JUST LOOK WAKE UP SHEEPLE
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