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Lets! Get! Weird! posted:No, the idea of the game is to get out (you keep trying to get to the surface, after all) - there's no reason to think a nuclear physicist is going to clear out an alien invasion. That's why it's a bit of a twist when the Marines come in because you think you're saved but they're there to make sure nobody escapes. I don't know, my first impression of Half-Life was that Gordon was an alien janitor. The game is really vague about your goals and all the scientists order you to into dangerous areas to do nebulous tasks because of your suit. Starting out you're just wandering around the complex trying to figure out what the hell is going on before some scientists tell you this is somehow Lambda's fault and they know how to fix it. But along the way you hit a bunch of weird roadblocks like destroying the tentacles (which for some reason takes you deeper into the complex), launching the satellite, and navigating waterways and nuclear waste facilities. Pretty much every chapter of Half-Life stands on its own (as evidenced by the Uplink demo which could logically fit at any point after the marines are introduced) which is good from a design standpoint but Half-Life 2 just does a better job of connecting everything together. Multiple times in Half-Life you actually reach the surface with vehicles and poo poo but it's pretty obvious Gordon is on a mission to clear out the aliens or else he would have hopped in a car and drove off.
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Aug 4, 2014 00:21
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I also think Sanitarium starts off pretty strong, but it kind of loses me midway through the game. This is probably because the first couple of scenarios are in at least somewhat familiar places like a small town and a carnival. And they feel very unsettling in a large part because of that sense of familiarity. Later the game just gets kind of wacky and loses that sense of familiarity and becomes more of a straight adventure game. The scenarios are still bleak, but it doesn't really feel as unsettling as the first parts of the game. I don't mind surreal elements in horror games, but Sanitarium just makes them a little too silly for me.
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Aug 4, 2014 01:04
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I didn't mind Xen but it probably wasn't a good idea to introduce a bunch of new mechanics and gameplay styles right at the end of the game. I think if you switched in and out of Xen during the actual game like the expansions to Half-Life did it, it wouldn't have been hated so much.
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Aug 4, 2014 01:38
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al-azad posted:What really nailed Half-Life 2's atmosphere for me is the idea that an alien race would use parasites as biological warfare. The concept is seen in classic horror like War of the Worlds where the Martians spray their goo to change the landscape but I've never really seen sci-fi that had the enemy bombard entire cities to turn them into alien zombies. And there's nothing you can really do to combat it because headcrabs are like cats, they can fit anywhere.
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Aug 4, 2014 01:59
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Yeah it's an awesome slow burn sense of dread and decay. The Combine are strip mining the Earth, and slowly herding the human race into various ghettos, and fundamentally changing the eco system of earth (actually this might be an unintentional side effect of the resonance cascade).
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Aug 4, 2014 02:54
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Not to mention... just look at the stalker model up close... Also by the end of all this if the combine had their way, the entire human race would either be genetically engineered cyborgs (white combine) or stalkers. They're not even ruthless. It's psychopathic, the grubshits don't seem to have emotion at all.
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Aug 4, 2014 03:21
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Lets! Get! Weird! posted:Not too surprising coming from a Riot dev to be fair. Nathilus posted:The people who hated it used to bitch and bitch. Meanwhile the people that thought it was OK don't have much of anything to say by comparison. I happen to be in the latter group. Anyone have an opinion on Pineview Drive? I watched the first 20 minutes and it looked somewhat promising, but the steam reviews make me worry a bit that it's a one-note game.
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Aug 4, 2014 21:13
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Man, Xen was fantastic. It made good on the tantalizing flickers of an alien world you saw throughout the game, and made it very clear that poo poo has reached its limits and drastic measures need to be taken. It's one of the few alien worlds in video games that feels genuinely alien, in large part because it is such a left turn from the rest of the game. Making progress there is all about experimenting and observation to figure out how the different devices and organisms work. In an era of corridor shooters and canned cutscenes, that deserves to be celebrated. I wasn't real keen on the bosses, though. The big crab was pretty bullet-spongy for what it was. The final boss required the same trial-and-error experimentation that the rest of Xen did, but the penalties were way too aggravating. It's easy if you know how it works, but getting to that point is such a pain.
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Aug 4, 2014 21:42
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Pineview Drive is a game with a really cool premise that has pretty bad execution. The idea of uncovering some sort of mystery in a house whilst spooky poo poo happens is pretty neat, but rather than any sort of real exploration you are mostly just running around the house finding millions of keys to new rooms with keys in them to new rooms. Also you are given so little plot at the start it is really hard to care, you are just sort of ambiguously want to find out what happened to some lady you knew many years ago or something. You will eventually find a "clue" or something that means you can move onto the next day, but unfortunately your character sleeps through almost the entirety of daylight and you get maybe 3 minutes of visibility before is gets super dark again and spooky things start happening. The spooky scary stuff is where the game really fucks up i think, you will be wandering through this mansion and rather than there being any sort of real tension building at all (being able to explore more during daylight would have really helped with that) you are constantly bombarded with scary noises like musical stings, crashing noises, the house settling, stuff like that and your character will act spooked and start breathing heavy and you lose sanity. I've mostly given up on it before getting to even a real scare but i'll probably go back to it if someone comes in here and says it gets better later.
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Aug 4, 2014 21:45
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Just finished Bad Mojo, the game where you play as a dude that gets turned into a cockroach, and it was a cool game. It had its fair share of 90's FMV cheese but man the atmosphere in that game is great. It's just really scummy and dank and having you be a defenseless little roach really makes you start to fear even the most basic of things. The only real flaw is that is some really bad backtracking towards the end of the game if you didn't do something early on. Overall its a really unique game and its nice that Night Dive brought it back.
Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Aug 4, 2014 |
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Aug 4, 2014 21:58
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NeoSeeker posted:Outlast alan wake dino crisis (old) alone in the dark (the old ones are good but very old, 4 is p. bad)
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Aug 4, 2014 22:10
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The bummer about horror games is that while atmosphere and setting is great, the games that are going to sell the best are the ones that have the most potential for some rear end in a top hat on Youtube to scream and pretend to poo poo himself over. That usually requires jump scares. I don't think we've seen a game that has found the right balance yet though Outlast came really close. e: First I've heard of Pineview Drive but I'm getting an Alone in the Dark meets Myst vibe from it and I dig that. Let us know if it gets better.
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Aug 4, 2014 22:24
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Das Butterbrot posted:alone in the dark (the old ones are good but very old, 4 is p. bad) 4 may be bad (though most people seem to think it's ok), but 5 is loving dreadful. I hear the PS3 version is much better, but they never updated the other versions to that quality (and I hear even the PS3 version isn't that good).
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Aug 4, 2014 22:35
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weekly font posted:The bummer about horror games is that while atmosphere and setting is great, the games that are going to sell the best are the ones that have the most potential for some rear end in a top hat on Youtube to scream and pretend to poo poo himself over. That usually requires jump scares.
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Aug 4, 2014 22:52
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Nothing is a bigger turn off from a horror game than videos of people forcing a freak out.
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Aug 4, 2014 23:03
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Brackhar posted:While I agree with the assessment that you may need youtubers making GBS threads themselves these days, I don't think that inherently means you need jump scares. A strong atmosphere can get you a ton of the way. Check out this video from Amnesia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI3HICrmPkU. That's the type of reaction you want, but he was set off by really small things because the atmosphere was done so well. Yeah this is great and the first "I'm scared video" ever iirc. It was probably genuine and TDD can actually be that scary. Unfortunately it started a trend and people feel the need to turn every scary game into four hours of this now.
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Aug 4, 2014 23:05
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Dreadwroth posted:Darkwood, it's in Early Access but I haven't been this unsettled in a game since I played the first Silent Hill. Can you, or anyone else who has given this a go, expand a little more on the gameplay and why it is unsettling? I thought about picking this one up, but from the description kind of wrote it off as like a top-down State of Decay. If it's actually good I might grab it, early access or not (I've been enjoying The Forest, even in it's half-finished state).
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Aug 4, 2014 23:08
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weekly font posted:Yeah this is great and the first "I'm scared video" ever iirc. It was probably genuine and TDD can actually be that scary. Unfortunately it started a trend and people feel the need to turn every scary game into four hours of this now. Here's my favorite one called "Brad finds an iron maiden" that also seems really genuine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=env3EtA7KXQ
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Aug 5, 2014 01:02
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RightClickSaveAs posted:I wouldn't be surprised, I don't remember even starting to hear about reaction videos until Amnesia: Dark Descent came out. I'm still kinda amazed that it turned into A Thing at all. Some of the Amnesia ones were fantastic but they're also the only ones I've had any desire to watch, it was such a great game for this. That's like, the fakest-sounding screaming I've ever heard, and the situation isn't even the slightest bit scary.
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Aug 5, 2014 02:30
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I think anyone reacting to something in a video game with anything more than a gasp is phony as hell. It's cool how every indie horror game is a first person "exploration" game where you collect keys or pages and poo poo jumps out of nowhere at you so pewdiepie can scream at it. That didn't get old after the first game.
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Aug 5, 2014 02:44
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Alabaster White posted:That's like, the fakest-sounding screaming I've ever heard, and the situation isn't even the slightest bit scary. If you watch this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVmxR4P4Uzw it doesn't sound like he's trying to be a fake scream guy, I think the game just genuinely wound him up to that point, he seems pretty sincere in all the videos. If not then I'm dumb and completely bought into it. RightClickSaveAs fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 02:45
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Accordion Man posted:Just finished Bad Mojo, the game where you play as a dude that gets turned into a cockroach, and it was a cool game. It had its fair share of 90's FMV cheese but man the atmosphere in that game is great. It's just really scummy and dank and having you be a defenseless little roach really makes you start to fear even the most basic of things. The only real flaw is that is some really bad backtracking towards the end of the game if you didn't do something early on. Overall its a really unique game and its nice that Night Dive brought it back. I remember many years ago there was a low budget video game review show that came on one of our local channels. I think the thing only had like three episodes that it would cycle through - one mainly about Duke 3D played with a really weird track ball mouse, one live at some lovely game conference that looked like it was held in a school auditorium, and one on Bad Mojo where over most of the screens were censored out due to "disgusting content". I wish I remember what the show was called to see if any footage survived to today.
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Aug 5, 2014 02:50
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Can any of you name a horror game I remember seeing a trailer for? All I remember is it featured a guy (in first person view) running away from some sort of humanoid monster thing (kinda reminded me of the monsters from The Descent i think?) through a wooden structure of some sort, and it had him turn around and look at the creating chasing you in the distance which looked kinda silly (the turning around animation, since it was in first person and the guy continued running while doing it).
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Aug 5, 2014 03:00
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I've screamed at games before. Most notably, in my opinion, situations involving Mr. X in Resident Evil 2 and then Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 who was essentially the same thing as Mr. X only even more relentless. Something about those fuckers really freaked me out. Silent Hill 1 really got to me as well. I knew from the very first scary sequence despite dinky pass PSX graphics that I was in for something special. SolidSnakesBandana fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 03:02
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Genocyber posted:Can any of you name a horror game I remember seeing a trailer for? All I remember is it featured a guy (in first person view) running away from some sort of humanoid monster thing (kinda reminded me of the monsters from The Descent i think?) through a wooden structure of some sort, and it had him turn around and look at the creating chasing you in the distance which looked kinda silly (the turning around animation, since it was in first person and the guy continued running while doing it). Sounds like Outlast, since that's the only horror game I know that lets you look behind you while running.
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Aug 5, 2014 03:05
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Is it an upcoming game? Dying light popped into my mind just from your description.
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Aug 5, 2014 03:05
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I've never screamed from anything shocking/scary in a movie or video game so it's bizarre to me that anyone would (and why I just think all those scarecam videos are put on as hell). I mean if something pops out of nowhere I'll probably jump but that's about it.
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Aug 5, 2014 03:05
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BlueDestiny posted:Sounds like Outlast, since that's the only horror game I know that lets you look behind you while running. I remember thinking how scripted that all looked when I first saw the trailer, and it was, but I still really liked the game.
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Aug 5, 2014 03:13
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BlueDestiny posted:Sounds like Outlast, since that's the only horror game I know that lets you look behind you while running. Yup, that was it. Thanks 
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Aug 5, 2014 03:21
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StarkRavingMad posted:Can you, or anyone else who has given this a go, expand a little more on the gameplay and why it is unsettling? I thought about picking this one up, but from the description kind of wrote it off as like a top-down State of Decay. If it's actually good I might grab it, early access or not (I've been enjoying The Forest, even in it's half-finished state). I've been thinking about how to describe Darkwood in a way that makes sense, without totally spoiling it. It seems like it occupies a land somewhere between Silent Hill and STALKER, with really cool hand-drawn art and great sound design. Add a heaping scoop of Carpenter's version of The Thing, a whole bunch of Unreliable Narrator, and some really creepy "friendly" npcs and you have some idea what this game is. I thought it was some sort of "Slender-like" but it's actually way more interesting. It is definitely a survival horror game though, running away from things and not going out at night should go without saying. I like it a lot.
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Aug 5, 2014 07:57
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Does it seem like top-down indie horror games are suddenly starting to pop up on Steam, or am I just now starting to notice them? Darkwood looks like the one that's getting the most attention, but I've seen a few new ones in the past couple months or so, Motte Island and Blackbay Asylum being two examples. I don't know how good they actually are though.
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Aug 5, 2014 14:22
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RightClickSaveAs posted:Does it seem like top-down indie horror games are suddenly starting to pop up on Steam, or am I just now starting to notice them? Darkwood looks like the one that's getting the most attention, but I've seen a few new ones in the past couple months or so, Motte Island and Blackbay Asylum being two examples. I don't know how good they actually are though. Blackbay Asylum looks transparently terrible from the trailer. I was planning to stay far, far away. EDIT: No, seriously, look at this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_b9zOw3wq8 Brackhar fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 17:26
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Dreadwroth posted:I've been thinking about how to describe Darkwood in a way that makes sense, without totally spoiling it. It seems like it occupies a land somewhere between Silent Hill and STALKER, with really cool hand-drawn art and great sound design. Add a heaping scoop of Carpenter's version of The Thing, a whole bunch of Unreliable Narrator, and some really creepy "friendly" npcs and you have some idea what this game is. I thought it was some sort of "Slender-like" but it's actually way more interesting. It is definitely a survival horror game though, running away from things and not going out at night should go without saying. Thanks for the recommendation on this, it's really interesting. It reminds me more of Pathologic than anything else, just tonally and in terms of me just barely knowing what is going on.
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Aug 6, 2014 02:05
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You are welcome, enjoy the creepy adventure! If you told me Ice Pick Lodge made Darkwood I would not have been surprised. Dreadwroth fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Aug 6, 2014 |
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Aug 6, 2014 06:28
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NeoSeeker posted:What am I missing? Not necessarily horror, but even those more suspenseful games that keep you at the edge of your seat and have good atmosphere. And are single player. Dead Space series or maybe Limbo.
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Aug 6, 2014 07:35
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BogMod posted:Dead Space series or maybe Limbo. Limbo is really good for the first third or so...then after the forest it just becomes a fairly generic puzzle-platformer.
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Aug 6, 2014 15:06
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Capcom announced another remake of Resident Evil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CpX9vkXsk0&t=112s Apparently it's going to be an update of the Gamecube version with better models and hi-res backgrounds. They also announced a different control scheme which is going to be interesting because Resident Evil was designed around the tank controls. I don't really know how they can modernize them without breaking the game's balance.
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Aug 6, 2014 18:16
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al-azad posted:Capcom announced another remake of Resident Evil Maybe they should work on making a new Resident Evil that isn't completely terrible. No grinding, no multitudes of character switching, just someone locked somewhere dark with zombies. Not that difficult a concept!
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Aug 6, 2014 21:27
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Morpheus posted:Maybe they should work on making a new Resident Evil that isn't completely terrible. No grinding, no multitudes of character switching, just someone locked somewhere dark with zombies. Not that difficult a concept! Check this out tho, what if we put minimal effort into re-releasing one of our old games instead?
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Aug 6, 2014 21:29
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Hakkesshu posted:Check this out tho, what if we put minimal effort into re-releasing one of our old games instead? Welcome to a successful Capcom marketing strategy.  (I tried finding a similar image for all the Monster Hunter or Street Fighter 4 versions, but I was too lazy to really search)
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Aug 6, 2014 23:29
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