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Dead Space Wants To Scare You
Kotaku recently ran a story questioning whether the survival-horror genre still exists, and how Dead Space may or may not fit into it. With reviews for the game starting to come in, Ars Technica reports that the game is, indeed, both scary and good. Gamespy wrote up a Dead Space survival guide, and Gamasutra has a lengthy interview with the game's senior producer. In the production of the game, the developers studied things like car wrecks and war scenes to increase the level of realism. They also want the game's sounds to terrify players, including appropriately timed silence. The launch trailer is also available, though it does contain spoilers.
I haven't gotten the chills from a game since Doom2. Thinking back, I wonder if now I would get the same feeling. I guess part of it's realism, but as/more important is the immersion. I've not been able to turn up the volume, shit the door and leave the real world in a while.
Another important thing in scaring someone is that there has to be some negative outcome that they are genuinely concerned about. A game can look as creepy as Hell, and the sound can be spot on. But, if I am not afraid to die, to lose something I've worked for, I'll just think it's cool.
Give me that tension. Make losing my character be a significant loss. Then, those dark rooms, eerie creeks and nervous silences just might make a bit uncomfortable.
The problem in making a good survival horror game is that people just aren't scared anymore. We are used to movies with blood everywhere and body parts flying in every direction. Mix that in with the current technology of load times and lag and a survival horror game just isn't going to work. Granted, you can make a fairly good and creepy game, but the tactics that worked in the past aren't going to work today.
But that isn't scary, just nasty... Some of the scariest movies of my life had little or no gore. Now that have traded dread for surprise and shock. I wild love to have some good old fashioned Dread back. This might be it. I just hope the DRM is not the scary part of the game!
The problem in making a good survival horror game is that people just aren't scared anymore.
The problem is that we're tired of producers confusing "scaring" us with "startling" us. How many times did something jump out of the dark at you in Doom 3? Don't you remember playing 95% of the game switching between your gun and your flashlight and constantly entering rooms backwards because you knew the monster was going to come out of a hidden door behind you? That's not scary, it's just annoying as hell.
You look at recent horror films like The Ring (setting aside that it wasn't a very good movie). That movie was scary as crap, and the director did it by actually scaring you.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Silent Hill 2 ... its weakness was that it sprawled thematically, leaving many loose ends, unanswered questions, unclear conclusions and unrelated elements.
That was not a weakness, it was one of its main strengths! The ambiguity of the story makes the viewer think and wonder about just what was it that was seen. And it does so in a masterful way, provoking interesting thoughts and interpretations on the part of the viewer. Not to mention that uncertainty is a key element of suspense and fear.
On a side note, this kind of attitude of wanting everything spoon-fed and explained is very lazy and too typical of people who just want to sit in front of a box to be entertained for a set amount of time. That's entirely different to wanting a piece of art that lingers in the mind long after experienced.
Exactly. What made "F.E.A.R." great at this wasn't the "startle" moments, or the gore, but scenes that created an air of foreboding. For instance, you walk down a dark hallway and see a vague shape jump around the corner. Go around the corner, and there's nothing there. *That* is what creates the feeling of impending doom, not the fifteenth iteration of "turn lights off, open up closet behind player containing monsters".
I stopped playing Doom 3 when I realized that I had developed an instinctual tick of turning around and firing every time the lights went out.
The cake is a pie
Remember fighting those green spider things in the dark by throwing flares around and lighting up little areas?
Let's not confuse that with "suddenly make a loud noise in a quiet bit".
No sig today...