Horror Games Megathread

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exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

It's well-known that in 2017 the dumber the name of the game, the better it is.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2017 01:54

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 07:03

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Tired Moritz posted:

spoil me: does the name actually has anything to do with the game

About halfway through the game the main character Senua is indeed given the titular Hellblade, Gramr. The sword itself has very little to do with the story though.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2017 02:01

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Lifeglug posted:

Without spoilers (I'm currently near the end of the trials, so not finished yet) is there any easy way to go back and get ones you missed? I've missed 1 rune and I'm nearing the end of having all of them (Maybe 8-10 remaining runes in total). It's literally killing me when I see a new rune and having that one red rune back from somewhere in the early game.

Some can be gotten but others are permanently missable past certain points unless you replay the entire game. You just get the achievement and one additional 30-second hidden cutscene before the very end of the game (that you can youtube) so it's not a huge deal.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2017 00:05

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Lifeglug posted:

I'm not sure if this will work but you can backup your current save, move it to another folder, and then quickly play through to get the last lorestone since your progress carries over from game to game. It looks like you're missing a rune from Surt's area.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2017 12:10

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

There are a lot of people who would like to play the type of game David Cage makes without them necessarily coming from the man himself, an observation that few developers have made so far.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2017 08:07

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I would 100% play a video game made by David Lynch.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2017 13:51

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

If SWERY could somehow find enough backers to fund his cat people game then I'm confident that David Lynch could do the same, no matter how crazy it sounded.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2017 14:08

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

You know I wonder if Lynch knows just how influential he's been to video game developers. Silent Hill 2, Alan Wake, Heavy Rain, Deadly Premonition, even Life is Strange all crib heavily from his vision.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2017 14:13

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Chev posted:

And, famously, Link's Awakening.

I hope to one day play the Inland Empire of video games, whatever that would look like.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2017 14:28

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Tired Moritz posted:

are cage games even considered horror? other than the horror of bad writing LOL!!!

No but Until Dawn, which basically took the David Cage formula and made it good, is definitely horror. They even stole the trope of identifying the hottest girl in the cast and making her determined, against all odds, to take a shower.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2017 18:12

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Shnag posted:

I found both Deadly Premonition and Until Dawn great games to play with a friend and games fun too not take seriously. Deadly Premonition has the most enjoyable protagonist who seems very odd not only to the player, but to the other characters in the game. Until Dawn is great game to play with a friend taking turns making choices, and deciding how much drama you want added to the experience.

I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been a game designed to integrate with streaming so that your viewers could help decide or even vote on a choice.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2017 22:23

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Alien Isolation was really good until the Alien started killing me a whole bunch of times in a row, then it just became frustrating and broke the otherwise very well-done feeling of immersion. I honestly would have preferred it if the game just lied to me by making certain sections unable to be failed, but still gave the illusion of tension.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2017 22:29

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

el oso posted:

The SH2 soundtrack is truly incredible. It's a huge part of what makes SH2 a transcendental game.

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

Room of Angel might be the best SH song and that first SH4 trailer with it is amazing.

DigitalFoundry did a tech retrospective on Silent Hill 2 among all the different versions, and it's interesting how they harnessed the unique capabilities of the PS2 to create the moody lightning and effects that remain so iconic today. You still see SH2's influence everywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nna2yt1c9gI

# ¿ Sep 16, 2017 10:00

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Walking simulator was originally a derisive term to decry a perceived lack of gameplay but has since come to describe any game that involves exploring environments with little to no emphasis on combat or other skill-based mechanics.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2017 21:14

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

1stGear posted:

Gone Home was the first big "mainstream" walking simulator, so its where the term first really took root. It started as a slur, but people outside of 4chan found they liked the style of gameplay so it ended up being a genre descriptor.

For whatever reason people are hesitant to consider any type of "thinking about stuff" to equal gameplay, but that's what Gone Home is all about. You inspect objects and text in the environment and try to piece together a story that's scattered out of order. The gameplay comes from the reactions and inferences the player makes in a way that would not be as impactful in any other visual medium. In a sense there's even a hidden skillcheck in place because some people are actually really, really bad at interpreting stuff. For as much as people complained about GH being "not really a game" it uses the interactability of the medium to far greater effect than say pressing F to pay respects.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2017 09:47

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Blockhouse posted:

Gone Home was never presented as a horror game by the devs so sorry someone lied to you I guess?

The previews with Riot Grrl music and Christmas Duck were truly the stuff of nightmares.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2017 13:45

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I remember the old Monty Python game from 7th level let you win on the menu screen if you selected Get the Grail.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2017 13:53

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Drunken Baker posted:

Doesn't it end with you finding a satanic altar in a hidden room in the attic or something? Or am i getting my wires crossed?

Lonnie and Sam believe the house is haunted and make a seance altar behind the staircase to commune with the spirit of their dead uncle. It's not presented in a scary way however.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2017 15:15

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The family in Gone Home wasn't even rich, they inherited that house from the dad's uncle and he hadn't written a new book in years. The dad was doing work on the side reviewing electronics appliances, the same ones Sam and Lonnie stole for money to... wherever. They didn't really think things through.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2017 23:10

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

brand name canned soup posted:

I haven't been surprised by a game in a long time now that info is proliferated online almost immediately, so im all for the misleading atmosphere. The important thing is that it was well-done and consistent. All the hints that something spooky might be afoot are consistent with a plain ol creaky house, as far as I can remember. And you pretty quickly can figure out what type of game it is as you go along.

More recently I thought it was awesome how Hellblade made everybody think the intro message was about permadeath, which critics soon corrected by saying the game lied to them about permadeath, when in fact the text is 100% truthful and does not even mention permadeath whatsoever.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2017 23:42

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

They should make a scary version of Gone Home where the horror comes from gradually uncovering the extensive funkopop collections of people you used to respect.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2017 17:25

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Iron Crowned posted:

Why was everyone not there when they were expecting you to be home?

Did you uh, not read or listen to anything in the game.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2017 19:09

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Her parents are trying to put Sam into a pray away the gay camp.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2017 20:15

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

A lot of games try to do Lovecraftian horror but Eternal Darkness is kind of the only one that doesn't totally suck, and I'm sad that a sequel will probably never happen now.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2017 12:26

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Aretak! Pargon! Pargon! Pargon! Pargon! Pargon! Mantorok!

# ¿ Sep 20, 2017 12:35

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I didn't think Bloodborne was as Lovecraft inspired as it was from say, Gothic fiction like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and Dracula.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2017 14:29

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I never finished BB, I think I stopped somewhere around the tree boss.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2017 16:41

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Sakurazuka posted:

Tree boss? Uh, are you sure you're not getting confused with DS3...?

The dude made of corpses that looks like a tree.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2017 16:44

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I live in Hell, aka Donald Trump's America.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2017 16:48

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Life is Strange if you love adolescent drama with a tinge of the supernatural and great soundtracks.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 13:42

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

mysterious frankie posted:

Also dialogue that�s so hella cringe.com that it loops right back around to amazeballs, beeotch.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 15:52

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

In the first couple hours of TR2013 there's an attempted sexual assault which instantly turns Lara Croft from a posh archaeologist grad into a bow-wielding murder machine.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 19:47

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Glagha posted:

To be fair that's treated as an awful, cringey thing to say in game too as I recall.

Also a cringey thing to do I just realized is to have your friend dress up in your dead girlfriend's clothes but whatever.

Everything about that scene, the dialogue, and indeed Life is Strange altogether is awesome.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 22:22

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Len posted:

I thought Rachel was dating Frank but Chloe had the hots for her? Either way you aren't about it being creepy. I haven't played the new game though just saw bits and pieces while the GF played it.

Rachel got mixed up with Frank shortly before she disappeared, their relationship appears to have been more than friendly but it's unclear as to if Rachel was just using him for drugs, Chloe didn't know about it until they search Frank's van in Episode 3 and becomes incredibly jealous when she finds out. Chloe and Rachel knew each other for three years prior to Max's return to Arcadia Bay and it was strongly suggested although never outright stated that they were involved romantically, the extent of which I suppose will be determined by this prequel.

I've wasted all my brainpower remembering insignificant minutae about this stupid game.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2017 00:05

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

DreamShipWrecked posted:

That's incredibly dumb. You already want to protect her because she is the player avatar, playing up the but she is just a little giiiiirl angle is totally redundant.

You kind of lose the "she is so helpless and vulnerable" when she guns down her sixtieth mercenary

It's oddly dissonant with the tone of the next 9 hours of Tomb Raider as it becomes much lighter when the rest of the cast is reunited and Lara instantly transforms into a stone cold killer.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2017 15:51

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Gromit posted:

What is the issue people are having with this? That this sort of thing shouldn't be in a game, or is it just that they want to know ahead of time that a game may feature content of this nature?

This is a complex issue and people are going to break in various ways. For me personally, I don't think attempting to portray dark or taboo subjects such as sexual assault in a video game is bad on principle altogether. Other games have managed to discuss issues of rape and violence against women in a productive, appropriate and empathetic light. But I do think that the first torture porntastic hour or so of TR2013 culminating in this scene is weirdly dissonant with the tone of the rest of the game, which from that point on follows a much more boilerplate action adventure plot. Additionally, I would argue that framing Lara's survival against what is strongly coded as a sexual assault in the form of a QTE is... well, it feels inappropriately reductive given the complex subject matter and creepily voyeuristic. That while we as the player might indeed feel for Lara and want her to survive, we would also equally get off a little on seeing her head get split open by a rock before having to replay the sequence. My thoughts around this aren't really that organized, but I think there is a certain sadistic side to the failure states of TR2013's QTE sequences and this one in particular that are a little uncomfortable to me, even if I do think it is a very good game overall.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2017 23:26

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The uncomfortable truth about Lovecraft is that his racism informed his writing in very visible and well-studied ways, so it's not something you can easily disassociate from the ethos of the man himself. You have to accept that the same elements that made Lovecraft a terrible bigot also contributed in some part to making his mythology interesting.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2017 13:10

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I finally got around to finishing Oxenfree and... I thought it was just okay. I could see what they were going for with the chance to interrupt dialogue, but it was inconsistent as to if Alex would actually interject or just wait for the other characters to finish their lines, so the flow of conversation often felt kludgy. More crucially, I felt as if the various themes of the game never really came together into a cohesive whole. I was waiting for a scene that would thematically unify the paranormal elements with the current storyline, but it felt like the game was eternally one sequence short of actually saying something. I thought the option of going back in time to save Michael's life totally undercut what I identified as the major theme of the story, which was learning to let go of old hatreds, deal with loss, and move on with one's life. That's a very common message in coming-of-age stories that you can totally betray here, and in fact doing so is seen as a positive. Also, the game is talky. VERY talky, and at times the voice direction just feels like actors reading from a script. Allowing more quiet time to soak up the environment and very good music score would have been a positive. I probably sound overly negative but I thought Oxenfree was still cool for the $5 I spent on it, I'd just rank it behind all my other favorite games about disparate millennials from rusted out towns who encounter supernatural happenings.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2017 13:30

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Groovelord Neato posted:

if you mean the one reborn that's well after the lovecraft stuff takes over the story.

i can't imagine just not finishing the best game ever made.

I don't finish most of the games I play tbqh unless they're under 10 hours. The biggest game I've played this year to completion was Horizon Zero Dawn, and if I'm not 100% into a title that size it's unlikely I'll ever complete it.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2017 13:36

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 07:03

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The fog layer in Silent Hill 2 was built off of a particular quirk of the PS2's architecture, which is why all subsequent ports and remasters have failed to quite match the same oppressive feeling as the original.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2017 09:14

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