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Dead Space Wants To Scare You
Posted by
Soulskill
on Thu Oct 16, 2008 08:08 PM
from the BOO dept.
from the BOO dept.
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.
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Maybe it's me (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:5, Funny)
Wow. "Shit the door". Well, I stand by that. It sure has been a while.
Parent
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:5, Funny)
Glad you caught that first. I personally only shit bricks, and that's already painful enough. That door must be brutal, what with the slivers and all.
Parent
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:5, Funny)
That door must be brutal, what with the slivers and all.
Especially if it comes out sideways. Ouch!
Parent
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want a good scary PC game,just in time for Halloween,you should try Nosferatu [wikipedia.org] which was the last game to scare the hell out of me. I just finished reinstalling it for Halloween as a matter of fact. The great thing about Nosferatu is not only does it change every time you play(so you can memorize the monster layout) but it uses old time weapons like muskets. Standing at the top of the stairs and hearing a hellbeast running up them from below and knowing that if I don't hit him in the face,dead solid perfect he is going to rip my face off,now THAT is scary. And the music is perfect,like one of the old Universal monster pictures. In fact the whole game has a Universal Classic monster movie feel to it IMHO.
Sadly I won't be trying Dead Space,since IIRC it is an EA game,and I refuse to pay $60 for a rental. Until EA straightens their ass up and treats gamers as actual paying customers they won't be seeing another dime from me. It is a shame that developers put so much work into a game only to see it boned by pathetic DRM by EA that does NOTHING but piss off the paying customers like me. Because News Flash EA,the pirates don't get boned by your DRM crap,because they get the game(often before the release date) with it ripped out. So the only ones you are screwing is your paying customers and yourself,when you run customers like me off who have bought a ton of your games in the past. Oh well,I'm sure there are plenty of other companies who will gladly take my money.
Parent
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Want to be really scared? Try this: (Score:5, Funny)
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.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How's that, then? A casual pirate who, what, burns off a copy on CD for his mates? What do you think this is, 1999? A casual pirate downloads a cracked copy from TPB, mounts the image in Daemon Tools or similar, and plays it that way. He never even encounters the DRM.
Unreal.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
Parent
Re:Unreal.... (Score:5, Funny)
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".
Parent
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Ya, whenever my router's internet light goes out while playing a game, all I can do is hide beneath the sheets and pray to God it's not the end of the world.
Parent
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:5, Interesting)
Right on. System Shock 2 is in my top 5 games of all time.
Sorry to hijack your point, but I picked up Dead Space yesterday mainly due to the decent reviews it was getting and the fact that it shared a lot with SS2 (RPG elements, sci-fi setting, horror) and about 3-4 hours in I'm sorely disappointed. I replayed SS2 a few months ago, and was absolutely engrossed over the few days it took me to finish it. The screeches of those fucking monkeys still creep me out. Dead Space just kind of feels lacking.
I want to be scared by Dead Space, but so far I've only gotten startled once by a loud noise while turning a corner. Keep in mind, I've been playing in a dark room with the sound turned up and the difficulty on hard. People claiming it's the scariest game of all time clearly haven't played SS2, Call of Cthulu, Silent Hill 2, etc. It feels a lot like Doom 3 in 3rd person and awkward controls, while I was expecting a cross between SS2 and RE4. That said, I'm enjoying it quite a bit even if it is a bit disappointing.
There are definitely some cool things about the game - the fact that there's no HUD (your health is displayed as a meter on your back) definitely helps immersion, but Call of Cthulu pulled it off better (and is FAR scarier than Dead Space). The Zero G bits have potential, but I've only been in one so I haven't had a chance to see what they do with it. The stasis effects are nifty too. I like the gore, even though it can get a bit silly sometimes. I've yet to see anything as visceral as getting decapitated by one of the chainsaw sisters in RE4 - though a few death animations come close.
SO yeah, to sum it up DS is pretty fun, not scary (so far), but probably not a must buy at this point. GOTY contender it is not in my eyes.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
With these newer games that are horror survival, there's usually a secondary character watching over you, so there is that chance they might save you even th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing about Doom is we felt alone. There were no computers to read dialog, no diary's, no nothing. It was you, a weapon, and a shit load of monsters. The feeling of being a world by yourself gives you a sense of helplessness, even though you knew you could beat blast the monsters away, if you got caught with no ammo, no one was there to save you.
I agree with the second part, but disagree with the first part. Some games get scarier when you know more about the story.
Watch this little game [youtube.com]. Project Firestart is over 20 years old and it still scares the crap out of me.
And what to say about the Silent Hill games? Having to kill your best buddy to survive, the possibility of you actually being insane, etc. How about this: You're trapped trying to get a door open, and there's a key on the other side. You crawl to try to get it, and guess what? A spoiled
Re:Maybe it's me (Score:4, Insightful)
That was the one thing I didn't like about Bioshock. There wasn't any penalty for getting your character killed. Otherwise it was a very creepy/scary game. That removed a lot of the potential tension.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Back in the day...
Whenever I GM'd, it was all about survival, in fact it wasn't a successful game unless someone died.
I was not exactly sadistic, but there were logical and very simple ways of avoiding death. It just so happened that everyone was a complete moron.
Once, I even let them build a fortress (with traps), free of charge. Sure enough, someone fell into the pit of spikes.
Good times!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
If I stretch that a bit, you're basically stating that horror movies or literature cannot exist. It does, so I claim you're wrong.
Losing playtime is about the hardcore / casual divide. You are correct that it can add a bit of extra tension to the game, but for many people (me included) it is just mindbogglingly annoying and ruins a game more than anything else.
You mention immersion, and you're right. And for me, worrying about save spots, backtracking safe areas to save, and reloading for the nth time break
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My biggest problem is that many developers mistake fear with being startled. The game engines often "cheat" (especially the Doom series), spawning enemies, etc. It's easy to go too far -- witness Doom3. Ironically, F.E.A.R. did this
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As for you wanting to be tense and afraid to loose something you worked for, all I can say is this; A lot of people are like that, but it makes absolutely no since what-so-ever. Life is stressful, life is tense, life is challenging, so why in the hell would I want to "Play" a game that has those same factors?
Because in real life, if the axe murderer in the corner jumps out of the shadows and takes a swipe at you, no amount of health packets is gonna save you.
Incidentally, the whole "why would you want to do this escapist activity when it also exists in some fashion in real life" is a very played out argument that completely misses the point of escapism and why people enjoy it. Just thought you'd like to know.
Problems.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Problems.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to say that the Silent Hill games are WONDERFUL for this. Look at the first game (i believe, *may* be 2). As you're entering town, you see just a streak of blood on the road. That's *it*. I remember seeing that, thinking "shit."
Silent Hill games are, honestly, some of the best in the genre. Also, Fatal Frame games are good. Freaky as fuck.
Re:Problems.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Problems.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Problems.... (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Parent
Re:Problems.... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
I never played F.E.A.R, but I got this same feeling playing Quake 4. There was still some of the Doom3-like 'stuff coming up behind me' moments, but there were a few parts of Q4 that just scared the crap out of me.
Like the one level where you're crawling around in some sub-level [not quite a sewer and not quite a dungeon]. It's mostly dark, with some light shining in from the grates above you. As you're walking along trying to find your way out, you hear something skittering about going down different hallw
Lovecraft (Score:4, Insightful)
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
You are spot on. Horror is foreboding, knowing that something bad is going to happen, just not knowing exactly how or when.
I'll make a reference to H.P.Lovecraft. Arguably the most famous horror author, and basically all his stories starts with telling you how awful everything went in the end. Then he starts describing exactly how it happened and why it couldn't be avoided.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
.
H.P. Lovecraft at his best could chill you to the bone with nothing more explicit than an overwhelming sense of age and power:
That the closer you came to the heart of things, the more likely you were to go utterly and irretrievably mad.
Hitchcock, working in another genre, always knew that the fuse hits the audience harder than the bang - which, in th
Re: (Score:2)
That's not scary, it's just annoying as hell.
I beg to differ. Doom 3 scared the shit out of me. I could only play it for 15 minutes at a time, tops (I never did finish it because of that). I remember my roommate earning my eternal wrath by startling me while I was playing Doom 3. Far from being "not scary" and "annoying as hell", Doom 3 was an intensely scary game.
Re:Problems.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Oh, it's an FPS (Score:2)
Some idiot called this a "space shooter". If this is a space shooter then so was Doom 2.
Freelancer [microsoft.com] is a space shooter.
Gore doesn't scare me but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Neither really scares me, though things jumping and strobing may have a momentary effect.
No, I've found that the only types of things that scare me are things that could be real, and in a realistic way, or at least close to it. That's why I still consider Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers one of the scariest games ever, and One Hour Photo is one of the scarriest movies I've ever seen, even though nothing actually happens in it.
Re:Gore doesn't scare me but... (Score:5, Funny)
Man-Bear-Pig is as scary as it gets!
Parent
Re:Gore doesn't scare me but... (Score:4, Funny)
loud noises and mixed with strobe lights can get me every time.
Hmm, you should probably stay away from nightclubs then. :)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
DRM Space scares me more.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Dead Space I can handle.
GrpA
fff (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Call of Cthulhu (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a nice 10 minute video that gives you the general feeling of the whole game. (minus the 320x240 resolution and lossy quality of course). If you get bored skip to the middle.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vs-7_JlzJg [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You don't kill your enemies in CoC - they kill you!
So it's kind of like a Russian FPS then ?
Meh. (Score:2, Insightful)
I liked this game better when it was called Doom 3.
At least then the graphics were cutting edge, instead of 3-4 years out of date.
Not that graphics are the end all, be all of a game. But this game has the same plot as every doom (and doom clone) ever made.
Not enjoying the desensitivity... (Score:2)
It is pitch black... (Score:2)
The Game That Terrified Me (Score:3, Funny)