Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
I disagree with the idea that people aren't scared anymore. Horror is like humor, it has to be surprising to be effective. The first part of Doom 3 was scary for me because I was caught off guard when stuff jumped out at me. But eventually I learned to constantly watch all sides and I got pretty fast at switching between gun and flashlight. The problem was there were monsters in EVERY ROOM. I could even accurately estimate how far I would get into a room before I was attacked. There was one good level, and it went like this: for the first third or so there were no monsters, just creepy ambient sounds and dark rooms. When a gasket blew it scared the hell out of me because I felt uneasy the whole time. I saw shadows crawling across the ceiling, but nothing was alive. I was hoping Doom 3 did that more, but it went back to pure monster closets afterward.
I'm not a horror connoisseur, but the scariest game I've played thus far is the Afraid of Monsters mod for Half Life. I gave up on the game before I even fought a single monster. Why? Because as soon as the 2nd level loaded I felt incredibly unsafe. There were tons of doors around me, in front of me, and behind me. Any one of them could spew out a bunch of monsters. But none did, yet. The worst part was the ambient sound that kept me completely uneasy. It wasn't obvious stuff like monsters or whatever, it was just a carefully crafted sound that made me uncomfortable the entire time I played. To compound the issue, I wasn't a superpowerful space marine. In the game I was an unarmed drug addict who was hallucinating. Even in broad daylight, with other people in the house, I just couldn't bring myself to play it. I tried several 2 minute plays before I gave up. It was too scary for me. I never saw a single monster. That is good horror.
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.
All the time, or only in Doom? Remind me not to follow you at night...
Remember fighting those green spider things in the dark by throwing flares around and lighting up little areas?
yah. i do it once a year. it's called "house cleaning".
Do not trust this signature.
Hey, as long as you're taking requests, please don't follow me at night, either. It kind of creeps me out.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
Nice. One improvement if the original isn't hardcore scary enough:
This way, you get to sit there in suspense for a while as your hard drive goes berserk, hoping desperately that it comes back with "You live". (Replace /dev/md0 with your root.)