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Being Scared in Games is Needed
zombieinthebackofyourcar writes "The Escapist has done an entire issue on why we love and need horror games. Jon Schnaars, an expert in psychology and mental health issues, writes about how we need to be scared to generate pleasure from the game. From the article: 'Perhaps the most important change made in the game mechanics of RE4 was fixing the camera behind Leon, providing a tight third-person shot through which the player could experience the action. Through this move, Leon has become every protagonist from every horror film ever made. He is the lone survivor; steadily trudging into the dark when all our instincts tell us it's a bad idea. And as the player, it is actually us proceeding into the dark, receiving (when we're not getting beheaded) our genre pleasure.'"
System Shock 2, a true classic, was extremely scary. The player finds himself (or herself, but let's not kid ourselves) on a derelict spacecraft on which something has gone terribly wrong. The game is not to be missed.
First "scary" game.
3:15 am in front of a 12" television with all the lights off and sound cranked up.
Land spaceship to pick up survivor.
Survivor has a pink helmet on... white = good guy, green = evil alien, pink = ???
well we're not going to let him in until I get a better look.
">knockknockknockknockknockknock"
"gonna have to..."
Big alien head appears on my cockpit and starts trying to bash in the window.
"BRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
AUUUUUUUUGGGHHH!! TURN ON THE SHIELDS TURN ON THE SHIELDS as in my haste, my hand bashes my Pepsi(tm) can knocking it across the room until I can hit 's' and fry the sucker.
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"Boo" horror we pretty much have down. Besides "Rescue..." this has been used in Resident Evil, Doom, Unreal, etc to great effect.
"Creepy" horror we got with Silent Hill to great effect.
But the kind of deep "horror" that makes you lie awake at night? I dunno. I submit that that's only doable in books/movies because it's passive entertainment and so the viewer/reader is dragged along. But in interactive entertainment it's like negative reinforcement. You're going to have to do something to keep the player wanting to go forward while whacking them with things they dislike. (Unless you're into that sort of thing... or Goth... Kinda like that HR Giger game way back when... or... heh... Beyond the Forbidden Forest. Okay game but most of the fun was watching the grotesque ways you would die)
One of the results to your search is the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafe.
The full entry explains how the word "strafe" is used in video gaming, and describes it as a "misnomer." Use of a misnomer in an idiomatic fashion, as seen here, is not a sign of illiteracy. It's not even incorrect. Language is defined by usage, not by its origins.
It seems that perhaps you ought to study the English language a bit more before criticizing others' usage of it.
Dude... System Shock 2.
I guarantee it'll scare the pants off of you if you get the mod that upgrades the models. Play at night, no lights, turn the sound up.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Looking Glass Studios dissolved, but the programmers and the team responsible for SS2 are at work on a sequel, whose working title is "BioShock," I think. You can check Gamespot's coverage.
In manhunt you have to protect a bum and then a reporter in the end to complete missions in the game. And it is done well. The bum keeps wandering off.
On a side note the reporters voice was debbie from Sealab 2021.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
A few litches, a mind flayer, a giant and a disenchanter.
Unpleasant, but not the end of the world as long as you get despatch the mind flayer in a timely manner.
The rest can be dealt with at leasure. Holy water and Magicbane on the Ls followed by beating the disenchanter with naked hands. Does the trick nicely. Just do not forget to put your gloves back on after that. The closest time I have been to win the game I died in the most stupid manner by forgetting to put them back on and smacking a c with my bare hands.
And the giant - that is a delicacy. Best way to improve your Str: - eat a few.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
System Shock 2 is really scary. The random enemy spawns ensure that you are never at ease. There's never a moment when you can relax because you've "cleared" an area. There was a room that I never went to because the sounds coming from the other side scared me away. There were also occasions when I just ran into a corner, equipped my biggest weapon and waited (spiders are scary).
Where'd that extra O come from? The word is lose. Past tense is lost. Current tense is losing. One O. Loosing is not a word.
One of the top games ever. The other two are amazing as well.
The Resident Evil games just don't work for me - to me, they're too "arcadish" in that I find the story flimsy, an excuse for the gameplay. The gameplay should serve the story, not vice versa.
On the other end of things, there's Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem . The Gamecube was an odd choice of platforms for this grown-up title, but this game alone is nearly enough to justify picking up an old used 'cube. The gameplay was solid and fun, but it was always in service to the story: even your most basic actions were affected by a choice that you make in the first few minutes (which God you're aligned with affects how you interact with different monsters).
On top of that, they had a brilliant sanity system - as you lost sanity, they'd introduce subtle audio effects (using the surround sound to do so), and introduce visual distortions and hallucinations (like blood dripping and statues' heads turning to follow you). As you truly lost it, they'd gradually escalate to doing things like playing tricks where you'd hallucinate walking on the ceiling of a room you've just entered - or even alarm you by simulating a system crash, or pretending that you've just reached the end of the game, without resolution (showing you an add for the fictional sequel). There's another one where they simulate someone playing with the volume control on your TV's remote - first you think, "Hey! Where's the remote?" before thinking a split second later, "Hey, that's not what the volume control feedback looks like on my TV!" There are dozens more, they're truly inspired and some of them will get you.
If you have not played this game and you want a truly scary experience, give it a look. It's the best game I've played since Deus Ex (for a different genre game with a brilliant, driving story line). It's one of maybe 5 reasonably modern games that I'd say are truly don't-miss masterworks.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Try some games from the Rainbow Six series like Ravenshield where you'll be dead in one or two shots. Especially in Lone Wolf mode where it's you alone against 30 terrorists, maybe in a big noisy environment like an oil refinery...
:)
believe me, you'll be scared
just don't forget to have good audio setup or headphones to make it more immersive