Horror Games Megathread

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Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Yeah the Nihilanth and headcrab boss fights are pretty bad but I'll jump on the "Xen is actually kind of cool" bandwagon. People like to bitch about the platforming bits but I've never understood why, they aren't difficult in the slightest. Maybe I was just properly conditioned by dozens of bizarrely laid out Sven Coop maps at that point. Anyway, while there are certainly parts of HL1 (particularly towards the beginning) with an atmosphere of horror, there's nothing in it at all like Ravenholme. Or any encounter with poison headcrabs, which turn your empowering shootmans game into a "spaz out and run like a loving sissy" simulator.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 04:44

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 17:23

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

IShallRiseAgain posted:

Black Mesa is pretty good, but I dunno why the gently caress they thought requiring crouch jumps for every jump was a good idea.

Or the stupid rear end tweaks they made to the soldiers, turning them into perfectly accurate rapid firing death machines. It ruins some of the best sequences in the game.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 04:51

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Macaluso posted:

So is Among the Sleep any good or is it one of those games where the concept is way cooler than the actual game ends up being?

It's worth a look if you're jonesing hard for some Amnesia-esque horror and you've already played Outlast, but it's short and not particularly novel.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2014 01:15

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

DeusExMachinima posted:

It's pretty much a guided adventure, like a novel in interactive form. There are some points where you're given the impression you might be making a Witcher-style major choice to potentially go off the rails but you're on the tracks til the end.

Either that or it should've just been 100% exploration. And all the horror would come from your discoveries instead of ABOOGABOOGA YOU'RE BEING HUNTED.

I thought that Soma hit a good balance on the whole between exploration bits (i.e., the vast majority of the game) and ohshitmonster pantshitting episodes. The only part that really felt tacked on was Alpha site. It would have been nice if they were a little less opaque on the Ross storyline as well. Dark Descent remains probably the most viscerally frightening game I've ever played, but Soma's worldbuilding and writing really elevated it imo.

I also just started Lakeview Cabin, managed to brutally kill myself with a rake within five minutes. Seems promising.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 06:37

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Oh good, I just got Evil Within and was gonna poke my head in here to see if people were talking about it. I'm at the third chapter right now and I still don't really *get* the gameplay. Should I be fighting enemies or just ignoring them and running away? I'm hoping that the design will start to cohere a little better once I get the crossbow thing, right now everything feels very clunky, for lack of a better word. The dialogue doesn't really hit the B-movie charm of RE4 either, which is a shame.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 03:25

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Oxxidation posted:

Not so much tone, it maintains the same gritty atmosphere throughout even as its setting changes radically from chapter to chapter. And that's the main thing - the game is crazy unfocused. It goes from RE4-esque mob battles to big boss fights to stealth to chase sequences without making any allowances in its mechanics for all these different events, and the game's basic loadout (RE6's movement, limited ammo, limited stealth options) is really not suited for everything TEW throws at you. You've got one square peg and at first you have a bunch of square holes but then you start getting circles and triangles and there's a loving rhombus in there and it becomes frustrating fast.

It's especially bad in the latter chapters, where you get hosed down with numerous enemies similar to the Island portion of RE4, but you've still got the same piddly amount of ammo as you did when you were stealthing around in the earlier chapters. And these enemies need to be killed - I'm pretty sure stealth attacks straight-up stop working after a certain point, with no warning given (which is another thing, it's really bad at communicating information to the player).

Also, it's not scary. Like, at all. Always a downside for something that's nominally horror.

I kind of admire it just for the range of concepts it trots out and that perfect RE4 head-splatter sound effect, but it was definitely one of those titles that kind of resists your attempts to have any fun with it.

edit: and everyone already said all this multiple times over. Whoops!

I think you hit the nail on the head. I spent a lot of time trying hard to get into it but the game just rebuffs you with its incoherent, poorly explained story and schizo gameplay. Which is a shame, because apart from all that it still somehow verges on being a lot of goofy fun when it slows down enough to let you play it how you want.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2016 19:51

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

NeoSeeker posted:

I'm playing FEAR 2 for the first time and in my opinion it kinda takes a nose dive almost into the realm of cheese. The scene where you're getting operated on and such... It's just going full gonzo whacko from the start when the first game slowly built it up really well. And my last FEAR 1 replay isn't that far off, not to mention I've played that game to death. Never really got around to the expansions though. Should probably look into them.

This is really awful pacing combined with a general lowered fidelity in the writing. I guess to make room for a sequel that wasn't going to happen.

Yeah the atmosphere in FEAR 1 worked because it's these mundane office and city environments set off against the player uncovering the mystery of an increasingly bizarre and hosed up ghosty family drama. It's Die Hard meets The Ring and somehow it works. The rest of the series (or even the first's expansion packs) never quite live up to it, although 3 at least has some pretty decent gunplay and fun co-op.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2016 20:13

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Wamdoodle posted:

CAN CONFIRM!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN0ucCc8TfA

this owns, unironically

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 07:45

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Read After Burning posted:

I'm starting up Doki Doki Literature Club when I get home from work...I am very excited.

same, im pumped

also gently caress bloober. i've only played the medium but it was garbage and it ran like garbage

# ¿ Jun 30, 2021 22:06

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

veni veni veni posted:

Tbh I'm way more interested in that upcoming Dead Space spiritual successor by ex dead space devs (that for some completely insane branding reason "exists in the PUBG universe") , or a hypothetical basic remaster of the trilogy in one collection ,than I am for EA reviving Dead Space now that they have deemed it profitable, even though they torched Visceral to the ground. gently caress EA.

missed this lol. Guess the upside is a horror mode crossover for a br could be neat

# ¿ Jul 5, 2021 04:26

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

al-azad posted:

Callisto's GDC showing did not endear me to it but it just has to be as good as Dead Space 2 that's how low the bar is.

but thats an insanely high bar!!!

# ¿ Sep 6, 2022 19:36

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Bugblatter posted:

Two head is really counter-intuitive because the game primarily pushes melee and dodging, and once you figure out the dodge mechanic it's the best way to get through 99% of the game. But then the bosses are intended to be kited and shot at until they stagger. It's not super well communicated so I wasted a lot of time trying to dodge at close range before realizing how much of a chump two-head is to ranged kiting.

After you get it, he's not bad though. There are also only four of them in the entire game, and the last two encounters are, oddly enough, the easiest. They both give you level geometry that makes it easy to keep him separated from you while plinking at him, whereas in the first two he has more direct walking paths to you. Actually, I think the level geometry is more in your favor with each encounter... really should have been the opposite.

I'm nearly done with a third run on Maximum Security. It kind of feels the same as Medium Security, since once you know the mechanics avoiding damage is trivially easy. Maybe ammo would be harder to come by if I hadn't figured out that, like Dead Space, you get more ammo for your main gun if you just never build the others.

There's something about the melee combat that feels fantastically chunky and like dumb fun. There's probably potential for it with more refinement. The problem is that it's frustratingly unintuitive to learn, then leaves no challenge once you do. Pity they'll probably never get a sequel opportunity to fix those issues. Bigger pity that they didn't prototype it enough to get it working better before finishing this game.

seems to be selling well enough, wouldn't be surprised if we got a sequel at this rate. hopefully they put in a story next time if they do; weirdest feeling part of Callisto for me is the disjunct between the pretty well done mocapping and acting attached to an utterly vestigial plot

# ¿ Dec 8, 2022 02:18