|
I'm a really big horror game fan, meaning I actually hate the majority of horror games because I'm also picky as hell. I started off with the first four silent hill titles and my introduction into horror games, followed by Eternal Darkness and Fatal Frames 2 and 3. I've been desperately trying to find other horror games that manage to scratch the same itch for a long time. The descent of the silent hill series since # 4 is tragic but for some reason I just can't stop checking to see if the next game is going to save it. I haven't bought any since Shattered Memories though (which bitterly disappointed me since it had given me very high hopes). The only game I've played since then that's come close is Amnesia, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I also really liked Deadly Premonition, but not because it was scary at all I just liked the weird Lynchian vibe and characters. I recently picked up a couple of the pixel-horror games on Steam, only played Lone Survivor so far. I wouldn't really rate it as solidly scary but much like Deadly Premonition it's got a weird/surreal atmosphere that I quite enjoy. My wife swears by the Corpse Party series for PSP, but I haven't gotten around to playing it myself yet. Still trying to recapture that perfect *something* that the first Silent Hill games had. Still elusive.
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2014 12:40
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:32 |
|
|
I did play dark corners of the earth, it was definitely good although the beginning was definitely much creepier overall. Once you were running around machine-gunning deep ones under the ocean the sense of dread kind of faded. SH1 was definitely a terrific experience. Overall I liked silent hill 2 better but I actually consider silent hill 1 to be the superior game just because it took stuff that looked like this:  and was still really, really scary. I think my favorite monsters were those tiny, wobbly little shadow kids that showed up from time to time in the later areas. For some reason I found the fact that they made a sound I can only describe as being like a dog-toy oddly terrifying, probably just because of how wrong that noise felt in a place like the rotting otherworld school or amusement park.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2014 13:53
|
|
|
Vakal posted:Silent Hill: The Room gets a lot of crap at times (most of it warranted) but it still is probably my favorite entry in the series since the original. I do include the Room in the "best" silent hill games, before the decline began. It's certainly not my favorite of the first four, but I respect that it tried something new (well, to be fair it wasn't meant to be a silent hill game at all) and I loved the design of some of the dreamworlds and the encounters in the apartment itself were very cool. It's biggest problems were purely technical. A bad combat system is par for the course with silent hill, but the limited inventory was annoying as hell and the enemy programming was pretty crap. Most monsters were way too passive and basically stood there letting you beat them to death and one monster (the twins) would often charge right towards you, turn around and savagely attack the empty space behind itself. The greatest sin was the sounds. The first 3 games had terrific sound work. The Room had some of the crappiest monster sounds in any video game. The snake-dogs just made the generic "big cat snarl" sound, the monkeys just sounded like you were in the zoo (and it's not like monkeys can't make some disturbing noises if they want to). And of course... ...burping nurses.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2014 07:40
|
|
|
Spacedad posted:I think the biggest problem with a lot of horror games (the ones that are very seriously attempting to be scary) is that too many of them are rational, when the biggest strength horror games have is when they drag you deep into a feeling of being in a totally irrational fever dream. I think a lot of them cling far too much to the structure of a linear game where you are meant to do things that make sense, such as solving puzzles or defeating enemies. Or even where you can just plain 'die' and then respawn from your save. There's a few that try and capture that, which is something I always enjoy because I find surreal horror to be one of my favorite types. Deadly Premonition certainly went the surreal route and it was at it's most fun when no one was making any goddamn sense. However, it didn't really produce much in the "fear" category. The monsters were a bit repetitive and combat became easy too quickly with the ability to acquire infinite ammo weaponry fairly early in the game. Not to mention the painful vehicle sections. However, still found it fun even if not scary. Lone Survivor also tries to do this as well and does a much better job. Many encounters are nonsensical and dreamlike, shifting to new scenes and characters without warning. Of course, inevitably there is structure underneath but when it's going strong it does give you a great feeling of bizzare unlogic.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2014 11:59
|
|
|
Accordion Man posted:
I reeally hated Shattered Memories. After playing through Homecoming and Origins, Shattered Memories is what convinced me to stop buying any more Silent Hill games (at least not until I start hearing some really good reviews or Team Silent gets back together). Enough people seem to like it thought that I must admit that I may lack objectivity here. I had really high hopes going into Shattered Memories and I was hoping that it would be the game that would revive the series for me. I was really interested to hear about the supposed psychological profiling and the lack of any form of combat. These made the game sound super-appealing and it very quickly became clear that it was nothing at all like what I hoped it would be. Perhaps if it was a standalone horror game or if I had gone into it with a better understanding of what sort of game it actually was I might feel more charitably towards it. As it is the entire experience was just a big, rage-inducing disappointment. The game basically stripped away all the elements that I enjoyed most about Silent Hill and the supposed "this game plays you" aspect was basically non-existent.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2014 10:27
|
|
|
Just finished Machine for Pigs. A fairly strong start but it definitely got a little bit too far up it's own butt storytelling-wise and I think they got a bit too focused on showing off their neat steampunk machines and victoriana and didn't focus enough on making the game anywhere near as scary as the original. Also, really short.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2014 06:59
|
|
|
Morpheus posted:Well, they ended up removing most of the monsters, flat out - I think there were like five in the game, or something absurdly low like that. Yeah, it was also rather painfully obvious that most of the time when you hear a monster down a corridor it's going to turn out that it's walked through a locked door or was behind a grate all along. And those lightning pigs were just ridiculous.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2014 00:32
|
|
|
Butt Ghost posted:I couldn't find the Silent Hill Megathread, so I figure this place would be the next relevant place to post this instead, Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro are making the next Silent Hill. Oh god...I don't know how to feel about this. It's like I've gotten out of a really bad relationship just as things were crashing and burning and now they're coming back claiming everything will be different. Every time a new SH game comes out I'm always hoping it'll be that one, special game that brings me back to the franchise and recaptures the feeling of the first four games. There have been a lot of disappointments. I like Del Toro a lot, but honestly I can't say I've ever been truly scared by his movies, but that's not so much because they're not good...fear never actually seems to be the goal. They're more dark faerie tales or fables. Or at least that's how it's always felt to me. The creature designs could be interesting at least. I'm still not sure, I'll probably have to see some really good reviews before I get my hopes up. With them flashing big names around like this it seems like they might be trying to resuscitate the franchise. Which is appropriate considering the last game. If there's a "rock bottom" for a horror genre it's being turned into a top-down, co-op, diablo clone. At the very least with some reputable names attached to the project I hope this means that the game will be given to an actually decent studio. Homecoming was done by a studio with less than 10 games to their name, most of them being movie and tv licenses. Downpour was done by developers who had one previous game to their credit and went out of business after Downpour was created. Maybe there will be creators involved who have actual experience making horror games. Probably too much to hope that anyone from Team Silent will be on board though.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2014 11:30
|
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:That wouldn't be the worst style to do a Silent Hill game in. Fairy tales are all about getting lost in weird and supernatural places, which fits Silent Hill the town to a T. There's only a pretty thin line between dream-like and nightmarish. It's certainly not too far off and it wouldn't be a bad theme to base a game around, I just mean that I haven't actually found Del Toro's stuff to be strong in the horror aspect: weird, surreal, even creepy (all great elements for a silent hill game) but not actually frightening and that's something that the first silent hill games were great for. Actually thinking about it, Silent Hill 4 is sort of what I'd imagine a silent hill game created by Del Toro to be like: bizarre and dreamlike, with some fascinating visuals and neat ideas. But lacking the subtlety and atmosphere to really create fear. Still, if the new Silent Hill game could even manage to be as good as The Room at this point that would be a dramatic improvement.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2014 12:33
|
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:I don't really find most horror scary to begin with and I haven't seen any of Del Toro's horror movies, so I can't really comment on that. I think you're underestimating him a bit, though. When he isn't working on lovely comic book adaptations he can do some really inspired work. Pan's Labyrinth was a piece of genius and really creepy despite the fantasy stuff actually really just being the backdrop to a family drama. Hell, even the Hellboy movies an order of magnitude better than pretty much any other comic adaptation. That's not a bad achievement. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of his, I just see a lot of differences between the way he does things and the things I consider the best part of the silent hill series. But like I say, at this point there's really nowhere for the series to go other than up, and if Konami is actually putting a significant investment into the series again hopefully it'll pay off. I'd be thrilled to have a game that's even worthy of being called the "5th best" Silent Hill game. Part of my skepticism is just the many disappointments the series has inflicted on me.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2014 14:00
|
|
|
SolidSnakesBandana posted:Other than a few missteps, I thought the Silent Hill movie was excellent. I really enjoyed it, though I have an innate fear of evil little girls with hair covering their faces. When I read that Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro were teaming up, my first instinct was pure joy at Hideo Kojima who I love unconditionally. My second response was "which del Toro is this again?" so off to IMDB I went. What horror films has this man been involved in? From what is listed there I have seen the following: The Silent Hill movies are sort of weird, in that there's clearly someone involved with them who is very familiar with the games and extremely dedicated to capturing the look and giving nods to certain elements of the game, but the actual writing is fairly bad and for some reason it fails to take advantage of the actually interesting plot elements from the games (the fact that the plot of silent hill 2 has gone unused is a drat shame). That said, when I first saw the original Silent Hill movie I actually had quite a lot of fun, just seeing all the little touches which made it resemble one of the games, noticing all the "in jokes" (for lack of a better term), etc. It really suffered on repeat viewings though, the second time I watched it I realized the first half is mediocre at best and there's a point where the film takes a very sharp nosedive (just about exactly when the protagonist runs into the hospital room and proceeds to get an extremely unsubtle infodump and then the rest of the movie is pretty much a loss. quote:Which game is better/scarier out of Amnesia, System Shock 2, Fatal Frame 2, and Clock Tower 2? Those are the non RE/SH survival horror games I hear the most about. Survival Horror is one of my favorite genres, but I haven't played much outside of RE and SH and Eternal Darkness. RE 1, RE2, SH1, SH2, and ED are probably all in my top 30. I would say that Amnesia is probably the scariest, but it may not appeal from a gameplay perspective, and it's fairly short. System Shock 2 is probably the best game, but it's not that scary. The first part is a bit tense when you're low on supplies and you've got mutants stalking the halls but once you get past that part you'll be powerful enough that death isn't a constant threat (and when it does happen it's not a crippling loss of credits). Fatal Frame 2 is a decent game if you're looking for something that will go on longer than Amnesia.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2014 08:27
|
|
|
I enjoyed Lone Survivor, especially given the price I paid for it on a steam sale, but it felt like a game you really "stumbled through" rather than played. To some degree it enhances the weird, surreal atmosphere to not know what's going on...but on the other you don't ever really feel like you know what you're doing except in the most immediate sense and other than unlocking a new area it's hard to feel like you're progressing rather than just stumbling from one object to the next. The vague messages the game gives you regarding your hunger, exhaustion and status also add to this feeling. Especially when you stuff your face and complain about being hungry again like five minutes later. This was reinforced after I finished the game (getting the "bad" ending of course because I had little clue what the consequences for your actions were) and after investigating some guides I saw all these things that I could potentially have been doing which influence your score for good or ill. I ended up just watching the other endings online, although I may end up replaying the game somewhere down the line for the "ride" to these other endings I think you're probably going to feel vaguely confused by all of them. It's definitely a game that expects you to interpret it rather than offering any kind of true explanation or wrap up for all it's weirdness. Kind of a Silent Hill meets Mulholland Drive as told via tiny sprites.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2014 13:41
|
|
|
I don't just hate Shattered Memories, it enrages me. But I also freely admit that my perspective on it isn't 100% objective. Basically I went into Shattered Memories hoping it was going to save the Silent Hill franchise for me, which has gone into a pretty sharp decline in quality since [insert silent hill game that ruined the franchise]. The talk about removing combat seemed like they were learning lessons from things like Homecoming which made combat too much of a focus and their talk of the game psychologically "playing" you brought back hints of SH2's themes. And I was a big fan of SH1, so the idea of seeing a new version of it with better graphics and controls appealed a lot to me. I even loved the fact that you could open doors partway to try and see what was inside before you went in. The game was a huge disappointment, because it took everything I enjoyed about the Silent Hill series and threw it away. First and foremost it wasn't scary at all. Half the game involved just wandering through a perfectly normal, not at all weird or twisted, silent hill. There were no dangers, frightening events, not even anything to help build the atmosphere of fear and oppression that silent hill does so well. The only hint of anything abnormal were the occasional staticy shadows which were basically the game's equivalent of audio logs. And then once you finally finish wandering aimlessly through a level there will be a shadow on the wall which will unleash an incredibly cheesy scream and everything ices over. Then you've got to run like poo poo. No chance to take in the new world, the weird architecture, or even the monster designs. I've looked up the monster design for the Raw Shocks and some of it isn't half bad...but I didn't catch any of it in the game because I was too busy running or they all just jumble together when they catch you and hump you to death. Sure, the running was tense, but that was mostly just because I was trying to get through the level without having to start from the beginning. And of course, needless to say the claims of psychologically profiling the player are complete BS and more or less amount to just switching out a few costumes, altering the monsters slightly, and a different ending. The only thing that kept me playing the game were the weird cutscenes which at least gave me some sense of mystery and intrigue...only it turned out that none of them really mattered in light of the ending, let alone made much sense.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 27, 2014 12:17
|
|
|
The Cheshire Cat posted:Seems like a lot of people have strong opinions on Shattered Memories and Homecoming, but I never really see anyone talking about Downpour. I honestly thought it was pretty good. I guess maybe the fact that it wasn't really scary at all is why it seems to have left such a non-impression on people? Admittedly that's a pretty big problem in a horror game, but it had a lot of other elements that worked really well - it was very exploration focused, the combat was difficult and awkward but in a way that actually worked rather than being annoying and clunky, and the story... well the story was okay at best. The fact that what has already happened prior to the game starting changes depending on what ending you get is kind of dumb. Personally, Downpour marked the point for me at which I just said "no more" and didn't buy it. After Shattered Memories I was bitter enough about the series that I resolved not to buy anymore unless I heard amazing things from reviewers whose opinions have previously matched mine on the series and I heard no such amazing things.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 27, 2014 13:30
|
|
|
The Cheshire Cat posted:Yeah the enemy variety was pretty bad. I don't think it's that there weren't enough types so much as all of them were kind of the same thing. They were all basically just people - even the crying bat things were mostly humanoid looking. People might have mixed feelings about SH4 but the first time I saw one of those weird giant two headed baby doll things, it made me jump, which is something none of the enemies in Downpour did. God, the twins enemy. They kind of sum up exactly where Silent Hill 4 succeeds and fails in my opinion. They look great, they're creepy and the way that they just stand around pointing at you until you come close enough is very creepy especially given 4's emphasis on melee combat. From a thematic and visual design perspective they're perfect for the game. Then when you actually deal with them they'll run towards you, spin 180 degrees and savagely attack the empty space behind them. Completely ruining any atmosphere and intimidation with this stupid behavior.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2014 06:52
|
|
|
As far as Silent Hill 1 goes, I think it's actually the best game from a technical perspective. 2 and 3 are more enjoyable because of the superior graphics and enemy design, but SH1 managed to make those lovely graphics and generic enemies still really really scary. It still managed to be creepy and frightening despite the terrible dialogue and the confusing storytelling. And that is an impressive accomplishment.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2014 05:18
|
|
|
I ran across it this week and I'm having a surprising amount of fun with SCP: Containment Breach. It's practically a horror/roguelike hybrid considering the random map generation and how much it enjoys killing you due to mistakes and/or bad luck, but despite the incredibly out of date graphics and the goofiness of some of the contents it's actually fairly enjoyable and tense in places. If it had an actual budget it might be pretty impressive.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 14, 2014 05:53
|
|
|
I give Origins a fair amount of slack considering the system it was created for and the other limitations it suffered from. Overall still found it pretty uninspired but at least it didn't completely piss me off like Shattered Memories (or the mere idea of Book of Memories) and it didn't reek of desperately trying to emulate the earlier games like homecoming did (here's the cult! and sexy nurses! and pyramid head!). It was basically exactly what you expect it to be: a portable prequel that didn't really try to do much differently or "rock the boat" and as a result was fairly dull and forgettable but at least it was relatively inoffensive. The soundtrack was great though.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2014 13:09
|
|
|
So, I'm desperate for semi-decent horror and I just ran across ObsCure. Before I decide whether or not to try it out can anyone tell me...is there anything to recommend it. The trailers make it clear it's going to have some very bad dialogue but if the actual gameplay is decent I can get past that.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2014 12:40
|
|
|
I am a big fan of the fatal frame series, but the control scheme can be pretty painful at times, and 1 is particularly bad in that regard. It doesn't help that it seems to be somewhat harder (in terms of how difficult it is to put down ghosts and how much damage they do) than 2 and 3. But then again its been a while since I've played so my recollection could be hazy.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2014 05:54
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:don't ever get your hopes up about a Call of Cthulhu game before you can get your hands on it, imo. lovecraft made the entire niche out of making really disturbing implications and then leaving the details up to your imagination. words are great at that but a visual medium like a game really struggles to get that balance right. The new game also seems to be combining the "squid" and "space" elements in a way that's a little weird. It's pretty rare to see the more visceral (and racist-y) squid-horror like the deep ones and innsmouth used in combination with doors through time and space and reality warping...at most you get some mention of places like Ryleh with impossible geometries, but it's rarely in your face. It's "Great Old One" stuff, that's ultimately a little more down-to-earth and physical. When that happens it's more related to weirder things like the Yithians or hounds of Tindalos, "outer god" stuff instead of "great old one" stuff, to use distinctions from the tabletop game. So seeing space-portals or temporal entrapment in the innsmouth setting is a bit weird...doesn't mean it's bad...just weird. Could be that they're taking a more creative approach and are trying to mix elements in a way that hasn't been done before...or it could be that they're just mashing stuff together without thinking about it. Looks pretty at least. Even if it just turns out to be bioshock with squids, that could be fun.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2018 01:00
|
|
|
A big flaming stink posted:I don't know why the whole thing got named the Cthulhu mythos, Cthulhu itself is decidedly not that big of a deal within the universe. Yog-sothoth, Shub-nigurrath, and Azathoth are the real heavy hitters, right? The Call of Cthulhu story is the most well known and iconic of Lovecraft's stories and very few of the greater entities actually make an appearance or have an impact on the plot. They're mostly used as a collection of names that get thrown around with only modest consistency. Azathoth might be mentioned as one of the dread names in the dread book of what-have-you, or seen in someone's drug-fueled fever dream. But Cthulhu's the guy who's actually going to end the planet when the Stars Be Right (if there isn't a boat). He's the one on earth, waiting to drive psychics mad and eat everyone else when he wakes up. Azathoth may be the cosmic demon sultan, but he's basically just floating in space listening to his ipod on repeat and not bothering anyone. Even in cases where the outer gods get summoned or get involved with humans, it's rarely very direct.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2018 02:15
|
|
|
al-azad posted:I want to pitch a horror game but the protagonist did something good and they’re being tormented for it because that’s just the cruelty of real life. I've toyed around with a horror story that's basically a reverse silent hill. Set on a colony space-ship called the Amnesty where all the inhabitants were major criminals who were completely mind-wiped and put on the ship to start a new, hopefully better life on arrival at their new planet. The karmic imbalance of escaping past sins makes everything go all Event Horizon. The twist is the protagonist did nothing wrong. They just hated their regular life, wanted to live on a new planet and agreed to be mind-wiped in exchange for that opportunity.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2019 22:19
|
|
|
Anyone got any impressions of Lost In Vivo? It looks interesting and has decent reviews but I'm always cautious with horror purchases these days. Been burned too many times. And just to add to the SH conversation and annoy people who are tired of hearing about how Silent Hill used to be great and has fallen from grace and how badly we all felt after Silent Hills was canceled... My take on the SH franchise is, of course, objectively correct and without question so these are the best and true summaries of the games. *From the perspective of horror craftsmanship, Silent Hill 1 is unmatched. The fact that a game that ugly and that awkward where you fight pterodactyls and giant moths could still be utterly terrifying is insane. While some of the later games may be a better experience due to higher budget and better hardware, what Team Silent did with the first game is astounding. *Silent Hill 2 is the Watchmen of horror games: original, well crafted, terrific storytelling...and directly influencing some of the absolute worst trends in its genre. Attempts to be the next SH2 have tainted dozens of games, cramming tortured protags with a dark past into everything. You can't blame SH2 for the sins of those it emulates, but it's difficult to forget it. *Silent Hill 3 had great design and the symbolism hit better than either 1 or 2's. It also had solid gameplay and was a great follow-up to 1 for those who don't have a knee-jerk aversion to anything involving the words "mystical cult". It's biggest problem is that it was a solid, all-around horror game which couldn't be as fresh as the first and didn't have the captivating story of the second. *Silent Hill 4 was a...good try. It dared to break the mold of its series in a way that deserves applause and when it leaned into its surrealist elements it could really do something cool. It could have been the best in the series if it weren't for some truly mind-boggling mistakes in game design. It simultaneously has some of the best ideas and the absolute worst execution. It gets credit for trying to blaze a new trail, even if it didn't really do a good job at it. *Silent Hill Origins was pointless and dumb, but I like listening to the soundtrack. *Silent Hill Homecoming seemed to be exceptionally good at taking the elements of the other games and completely missing the appeal. Uninspired is certainly the best way to put it. *Silent Hill Shattered Memories may be okay (although like 4 it has some really bad design elements), but it was so completely not what I wanted it to be that I can feel nothing but burning hatred for it. *Silent Hill Downpour may not actually exist. I've never played it, so...are you sure it's real at all? *Silent Hills is... *Silent Hills is... I'm sorry, I have to go cry now.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2019 05:18
|
|
|
al-azad posted:Lost in Vivo is great. I would even go so far as to say it's the best indie horror game available. It starts a little slow and off putting as the first area is essentially a shout out to horror streamers but within 10 minutes the real game begins and drat is spooky. Excellent creature design, legitimate scares, an atmosphere that's like PS1 style low-fi but doesn't look cheap, and a tooooon of easter eggs and secrets to find. I'm a big fan of Cry of Fear, so that sounds very appealing.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2019 06:20
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:32 |
|
|
I loved Spooky's, but I also came into it just expecting a doofy comedy game and so I was very, very pleasantly surprised at the increasingly effective horror set-pieces. Probably a case of the game meeting and then exceeding my expectations rather than coming just for the horror.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2019 13:49
|
|