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Who's Afraid of Shinra Tower?
Amid a lot of talk about how games can affect us emotionally, Lara Crigger at Gamers With Jobs reminds us how a simple trail of blood can affect us if it's couched in the right surroundings. From the article: "Hojo's Lab shows signs of struggle. Shards of glass are everywhere, and lying a few feet from the dais is a mutilated guard. The door to the holding tank is gone, ripped aside and crushed like so much paper; in its place glows a strange Mako light that is simultaneously pink and green. But Jenova - Jenova has evaporated, disappeared but not without a trace: she has crawled out of the laboratory, onto the elevator, and up, and up, and up, leaving behind a wide and thick river of dried blood. I know I have to follow. I do not want to."
Why is this on the front page of Slashdot...? I mean, I love FF7 like the rest of you, but this doesn't deserve the front page, I'm sorry.
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
Well, a good movie can do this, a game should do it as well. However I'd imagine all the sockermums (yes, I'm a stubbborn Brit) will be up in arms.
Any grammatical or spelling errors above are for comic effect, and do not signify imperfection in the writer.
You want to talk scary games? Play Thief: The Dark Project. That is the scariest game I have ever played, bar none.
Go ahead. Start playing level two. You'll beg to stop playing, but won't be able to take your hand off the mouse.
Not everyone likes that over-produced experience with a lack of gameplay.
And yes, I wonder why it's on slashdot at all myself...
This article is rediculous. The atmosphere in this game was not done as well as the article makes it out to sound, yet this obviously amateur fan-writer compares it to the pinnacle of most horror movies.
The writers attempts to define what works in games that attempt to be frightening, however House of the Dead? That's an action title, why are you even comparing?
"... Goddamn game. Messed me up for life."
I agree. It's obviously destroyed your ability to write a convincing article on the topic of... whatever you were trying to convey. Killed a damn fine series too.
Slashdot is getting to be like Fark: there's always someone (usually multiple someones) around to crap on someone elses' parade for the sheer malicious joy of doing it. STFU. If you didn't think it was front page material, why did you bother to read the article in the first place? Why did you waste eighteen seconds of your life to tell everyone else how stupid it is? Why can't you just move on without making a snide comment? The same intellectual runoff in every thread is getting kind of dull.
I think it's a great article. I had the exact same reaction the first time I played FFVII, and I think a lot of other people did too. It's also topical - FFVII might itself be old material, but the video game industry is cranking out one unsatisfying suvivial horror after another. So what if it's dated - FFVII did right what a hundred other games have done spectacularly wrong. I think that if a few creative minds in the industry were tipped off to this article, they might reconsider the plot devices used to scare gamers. FFVII was scarier in its places than any Resident Evil I've ever played.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
The long fight to find Captain Keys (again and again), following with tracking him down one more time and fighting off the fairly tough Covenant to come to a place where the Covenant were getting their collective asses kicked, and then a "sped-up view of the death of the guys before you" movie before a horde of squid-popcorns came out was scarey. Then, a mad dash to get the hell out before some leap-frogging monster whacked the hell out of me. That was a scary game.
The interactive story of a well written game is an awesome thing.
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I remember playing that part of the game quite clearly, and to this day I can't help but giggle. The reason for this is the soundtrack; throughout the scene, the game maintains that dark and creepy atmosphere described in the article. The setting is empty and lifeless, leaving only blood on the walls and and an impression of violence. It's fairly silent, but music is there. It keeps the tone quiet and dark, and it plods along for quite a few minutes, keeping the tone until suddenly, after a final movement and a moment of silent, there is a high-pitched, triple beat on an absurd sounding wooden rhythm instrument: "tap-tap-tap!" It is totally out of character, and it shatters the mood with its flippant sound. After having built up so much tension, you can't help but burst out laughing. I do it every time, and I think it was rather clever of the composer to throw that in (I'd like to believe it was deliberately humorous).
If it's any consolation, it was posted in the Games category where the /. gods have decided that 95% of stories are not worthy of beeing seen -- except by the dozen or so of us who bothered to look at what categories were available and checked the Games box. We should totally start a "/. Games category readers' club" or something.
Anyways, back on topic: I don't think that writer has played enough video games. My roommate has a morbid fascination with scary games and she could probably list off several that are way scarier than FF7 -- a game that I've tried seriously to play at least three or four times over the years but keep putting down because of all the silliness that kills the dark mood (mini-game carnivals, beach resorts, whorehouse humor, etc.).
On the topic of Japanese RPGs: It'd be great if some western-world company were to do remakes of JRPGs in a way that appeals better to non-asians. This is how we got Robotech; I guess it's also how we got Lunar, which I still didn't care much for (mostly because the plot was still too cliche). The development of Japanese RPGs was derailed at some point, and now they've all got the same recycled plots but with some new battle system gimmick. The sad part is that gamers eat it up and talk about how great each new JRPG is instead of calling the game companies out on the carpet for it. Chrono Trigger came frustratingly close to being a good game, but they screwed it up by not tying up loose ends in the plot (like what the hell is Lavos other than some spikey thing that wants to eat the world?). Final Fantsy 7 was close, but had too much cheesiness and more mini-games than regular combat encounters (it's almost like the designers had ADD and couldn't stand the idea of a consistently dark, deep plot).
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
I think that a computer game that could be just as, uh, involving as a sad film... uh, you know... so sad that it can actually... *sniff* make you, uh physically cry ... *sob* I'd like to see that! That would be fantastic. *uncontrolled sobbing*
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Combine a good story with chilling environment and you're set to go.
This guy should play F.E.A.R. She may be a total ripoff of the Ring but that little girl scares the shit out of me. I get creeped out every time I turn a corner or look through a window because Im afraid she will be there.
One of the best scares I ever got from a game was the F.E.A.R. demo. I was walking down the catwalk admiring the graphics. I turned around to climb down the ladder and BOOM that creepy little girl is standing right behind me (with a jump in the music). I must have jumped 3 feet out of my chair.
Anyway if this guy looks around a bit he can find some much scarier games because, personally, that part (or any part) of FF7 wasn't scary in the least.
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be. -PF
I don't know about you guys, but games do a better job scaring me than movies. It's probaly the fact that in a movie all the stuff is hapening to the people in the movie, but in a game it feels like it happens to you. Also one of the scariest moments to me was in Undying when the ghost jumps out in front of you the first time. Something about trying to shoot it and your bullets going right though him.
I think alot of people are missing the point...
Everyone is saying "ZOMG suxx0r, FFVII is not teh scary, check out!!!"
This is more of a commentary on the elements that help game developers/artists get undera player's skin then her saying that FFVII is a really scary game.
By now you should have guessed...I'm your magic negro.
You want to get really scared , try playing Alien vs Predator. Note: play it as a marine. When the blips start, the terror begins...
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
I tried the single player demo, and it was the first game in a long time that got to me. The scare mechanism was a bit different from what TFA describes, however:
In F.E.A.R., the enemies are not overly innovative, but you never know when you will run into the next batch of bad guys. Combined with a generally bleak and poorly lit environment, it creates the same kind of tension as Alien (the film).
C - the footgun of programming languages