Horror Games Megathread

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blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

drat it, I wish Kings Field Ancient City was a PS2 classic. I own it on PS2 and lost the ability to play it once my BC PS3 broke.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 04:56

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 20:02

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Neo Rasa posted:

Agreed, one of the many reasons RE4 is so amazing* is because of how perfectly balanced the combat is. There's save points you have to reach before you stop playing, though they're not to rare and the game will give you checkpoints within a session. They also make Leon kind of a glass canon, especially on a first play through since killing the enemies is not the difficult part of combat. The combat's challenge is more about positioning and situational awareness as there are several enemy types that can kill you with one hit,** if you don't hear the chainsaw revving up you'll probably get decapitated from behind, etc. Last of Us made good on this and while I know "technically" it's more of a third person shooter I still think of it as a great evolution of RE4's basic structure.

Dead Space 1 and 2 are about as much horror as System Shock 2, like I do consider them horror games even if the primary form of interaction with the environment is destroying hordes of monsters. The relative fragility of the main character, I feel, plays more of a part in the tension than the actual number of enemies defeated. I feel like both DS1 and 2 toed that line successfully, 3 is just crap though, even as an action game.

*It's notable that the best horror games recently, Dead Space and Last of Us, both cribbed heavily from RE4.

**The best one of these will always be the boomerang scythe decapitation because it's so rare and ridiculously out of nowhere compared to any of the others, I can't even find it on Youtube to show it.

Re4 straight up makes the game easier whenever you die.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 16:06

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

After playing Clock Tower 3 up until the part you find out about Chopper, this is all I really remember of it other than a little girl getting her head smashed in with a hammer and a old lady and her son getting murdered with acid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co8QXS2frQI

Alisa, where are you?

# ¿ May 29, 2015 01:43

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

The Evil Within kind of fucks up because it introduces a bunch of mystery and then never really does poo poo with it. Like the stuff with your family or the nurse.

# ¿ May 29, 2015 03:12

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

al-azad posted:

See, this is the thing. I know from playing too many games that you're going to throw a surprise at me so while playing I'm constantly in a state of preparing for it. I will use the flamethrower on the alien because I don't want to deal with its bullshit, I have a game to play! Developers need to take a hard stance on the direction and tone of their game. It's like The Last of Us was advertised as this survival horror experience when really it has just as much action as Uncharted although with far less ammo. I'm still murdering everyone but now you're forcing me to count shots while doing it so it's even more annoying.

If there are expendable, limited items then I'm going to go out of my way to seek them out. But all of these enemies are getting in my way of seeing the game world. If given the option to permanently defeat enemies I will absolutely go out of my way to do that unless they're not really a threat (like the zombies in early Resident Evil).

I probably would like the idea of using whatever is at hand to combat an enemy. You watch a slasher movie and whenever the characters fight back it's with improvised, breakable weapons like chairs and fire extinguishers. If anything and everything present is a possible weapon and you can only hold one at a time (who is walking around with 4 lead pipes, an axe, a shotgun, pistol, and chainsaw anyway?) then I can imagine some tense moments where I'm like "I can stun the monster long enough to open the door if I hit him just right in the back of the head...". But if I'm capable of collecting things then I will hoard them. If an enemy can be killed I will try until it frustrates me. These things are hardwired into my brain.

Alien Isolation is ok. But I thought it was loving cheap how the Alien would just ignore the androids, and imagine that most of the enemies in the game were androids despite the humans being a lot more interesting to fight.

There were also times where the Alien just pissed me off to no end because he would escape into the vents and then pop right back down 5 seconds later.

Solid game, but it was full of nitpicks that ate away at me after a while to the point where I was glad for it to be over with when I finished it.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2015 05:28

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Alabaster White posted:

The alien doesn't give a poo poo about androids because they're not alive. Also, depending on your difficulty, the alien is actually specifically trying to fake you out with the vents. If it knows you're nearby but can't find you, it'll try to fool you into thinking it's gone. Alternatively, if you tossed a bomb or torched it, it's just coming back for revenge; you're supposed to use weapons for breathing room, not as an actual 'go away for a while' button.

It does this on normal, easy, and novice. It is just the AI bugging out. As for the androids, I get that, but that doesn't make it anymore interesting.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2015 05:57

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Grapplejack posted:

Specimen 12, the Scissorman knockoff.

e: Just managed to finish 800-900, and I don't know what it is about him that is so terrifying, but i'm glad it's done. Am I just a baby for bein' spooked by him?

No, I've been spooked out by the original Clock Tower, and that game simply had a pudgy kid with scissors.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 08:14

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

The Evil Within is a game about a misplaced protagonist. Sebastian barely has anything to do with the narrative. The woman's story seems much more interesting.

Plus the game was just full of cheap rear end instant deaths.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2015 07:42

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

The Vosgian Beast posted:

God forbid Lovecraftian fiction be written by a weird neurotic wreck with dumb opinions.

I see what you did there...

# ¿ Aug 11, 2015 03:41

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

More horror games need to be set underwater. Considering that fewer people have been to the deepest parts of the ocean than have been to space, this is a travesty.

It's like when you watch those documentaries about the wreck of the titanic or the deep ocean and you see nothing but blackness further than 5-10 feet out, it is terrifying.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2015 03:44

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

The Vosgian Beast posted:

There's Deep Fear, but it sucks.

I didn't have a Saturn

But maybe Soma will scratch that itch.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2015 04:04

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Mr. Fortitude posted:

I think the problem is that underwater levels are usually reviled by the gaming public as a whole, so doing a horror game set entirely in the ocean would be difficult to do right. Games like Bioshock don't count because you're never really in the ocean and outside of Medical, the game is never scary.

Underwater levels suck because they are usually slow and plodding and you have to monitor your air. But we really don't need the physics of being underwater but the ambiance of it. Also the effects of the water pressure on the human body can make for some nice body horror if you wanted to go that route.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2015 20:40

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Bioshock 2 had underwater sections.

Very brief and very short. But Bioshock 2 I thought had some good sections that leaned more towards horror. Like the part where you have to deal with that guy in the tube.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2015 20:49

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

al-azad posted:

Sony is pretty dumb selling it as a $60 boxed retail package. It's probably the only way to recoup costs after this thing has been delayed and through several revisions over 3-4 years but side-by-side with all the heavy hitters this year I'm just going to wait for the inevitable $20 Black Friday sale. This is definitely the kind of game they built the "share" button for but how many people are going to pull that trigger?

Heavy Rain sold about 2 million copies. I think it is the type of game that people who don't even play games much kind of get into. Plus it plays into "how will the outcome of YOUR story play out?"

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 05:13

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

al-azad posted:

I did buy Heavy Rain at launch and while I enjoyed my experience I'm not doing that again. Until Dawn isn't even an eye catching game like Heavy Rain was but it's being received well so I'll give it the benefit of doubt. I expected Sony to grab those Youtube/Twitch views hard, maybe even integrate streaming meta features like viewers voting on choices. I can think of two console games that did this and one was a bad randomized note collector horror game and the other a panty stealing simulator.

I honestly think Until Dawn is more eye catching than Heavy Rain due to its horror film vibes. Also the whole "your choices matter down the line" and "different people can die" thing makes it seem a bit more interesting

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 05:53

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

al-azad posted:

After seeing Gametrailers' review I'm feeling more positive. Heavy Rain had an interesting setup but lost all tension in how fragmented it felt. This looks more like a Choose Your Own Adventure that cuts the options down to only the most important game changing bits and I can get behind that. Also love the idea that not reacting to QTEs is a viable option.

I really didn't like Heavy Rain, but one of my close friends did. But I get the feeling that if she liked that, then she is going to LOVE this. I can't even think of why I disliked Heavy Rain so much. I guess it was just boring?

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 06:26

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Yeah the stealth in alien isolation is ok. It's more about keeping a desk in between you to break LOS than finding a hiding spot. Sadly, I think the flamethrower removes alot of the tension from the game. Even after the alien starts adapting to it, it still gives a lot of leeway.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 16:20

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

DreamShipWrecked posted:

It does at first but I like how after so much frantic sneaking around they give you a way to fight, but then start slowly taking it away again. You go from coward to action hero, but you slowly lose your grasp on that as the effect of the flames get weaker and weaker until they don't work anymore, and it is all your fault

Unless you are seriously taking your sweet time to do everything, it really won't matter until the very end. Fun game, but it definitely has some rough spots. But it is definitely worth the $20-30 you will pay for it at this point.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 21:02

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

I think the point is that some people have a very narrow paradigm about what constitutes a game. I mean I can play games where a lot of the gameplay was an afterthought and people don't give those games poo poo. Deadly Premonition is a perfect example of this. The combat in that game was poo poo.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2015 15:08

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Then read a book? To say that gone home doesn't have gameplay is silly. I could read about the plot to a movie on Wikipedia but that doesn't mean I have gotten the full experience.

Not all games need to have challenge. There is room for every type of game.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2015 17:55

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Yardbomb posted:

The ending and super obviously chopped up plot threads later on are pretty much all on Konami though.

Also the true ending itself was cool though, I still don't get the hate.

Actually, I think this is a case of what you see is what you get. I think the game is finished, dangling plot threads and all. A similar thing happened with MGS2 where people thought that the game wasn't finished and that there must have been stuff cut for time when it wasn't the case at all.

MGS5 does have some pretty good horror aspects, although I am hesitant to think that Kojima would be good enough to expand it into a full game.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 15:15

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Volt Catfish posted:

what is SOMA

Soma is a type of muscle relaxer that goes by the generic name of Carisoprodol. It is kind of an old school drug due to the complications that can occur with it and there being a variety of more flexible muscle relaxers out there. Hope this helps.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2015 22:11

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

al-azad posted:

It's also a fictional drug in Brave New World. All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol with none of the defects. A gram is better than a drat!

It is also the name of the protagonist and the reincarnation of Dracula in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2015 22:51

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Ibram Gaunt posted:

It could have just been bullshit made up by people but I thought the Routine devs whined that the reason why its taking so long to come out was because Alien: Isolation "stole" their idea and now they have to change things.

I ultimately really wouldn't care, because Alien had quite a few flaws that their game might do better.

Speaking of which, while I got annoyed playing Alien Isolation, it is a blast to watch other people stream it and die over and over again. So many people never learn from their mistakes and wait for obscene amounts of time for the Alien to eventually find them.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2015 01:15

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Glagha posted:

I've been playing Alien: Isolation for the first time recently and I've had some genuine pulse pounding moments that I enjoy. I did end up playing on Hard though which I didn't find out until later that people don't recommend that. It hasn't seemed unfairly hard so far though. Am I in for trouble in the future though?

If you can get past medical, then you are past the worse of it. It isn't too bad.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2015 21:12

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

EmmyOk posted:

I have Alien: isolation on PS3 but only got to play an hour or so once a few months ago. I am saving it to play over Christmas break but I was wondering if I should get the PS4 version in the meantime? For a variety of reasons I have Ground Zeroes on Ps3 and Ps4 and played through it on PS4. Then I went to play it on PS3 a few days ago and it looked and ran terribly in comparison.

The load times were the biggest difference to me. On the ps3, the doors don't open til the room is loaded which could take a couple of seconds.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 03:06

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Some interesting stuff about the Alien AI from Alien Isolation in this video. There is also another video that explains stuff as well. I really enjoyed watching it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7d5lF6U0eQ

# ¿ May 26, 2020 02:27

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Dreadwroth2 posted:

I thought Sega had greenlit a sequel?

They sort of did.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/29/alien-blackout-review-this-is-how-you-do-a-mobile-spinoff/

blackguy32 fucked around with this message at 07:27 on May 26, 2020

# ¿ May 26, 2020 07:17

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

That is probably all we are going to get since the people who made Alien Isolation are no longer with Creative Assembly and it does pick up where A:I left off.

# ¿ May 26, 2020 07:36

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

How is the survivor mode on Alien Isolation? Is it any good?

# ¿ May 26, 2020 15:28

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 20:02

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Len posted:

I recently got a Retropie up and running, any good psx horror games worth checking out?

Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and Silent Hill I've played

Clock Tower on PlayStation

# ¿ May 28, 2020 20:16

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