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.

Call of Cthulhu

[nawcom]

I'd say this is the last game that scared the shit out of me. The fact that you don't have any health bar, and that your vision, hearing, and even your heartbeat and breathing pace are affected by the situation can really frighten you. I don't think this game got enough credit. I still haven't finished the game yet.

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:Maybe it's me

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You sound like somebody who is in need of a dose of System Shock 2.

Re:Maybe it's me

[cmdotter]

What was really scary for me was when I was losing at Space Invaders and those little suckers were about to land AND I was on my last coin!

Re:Problems....

[Rennt]

I never know if people are talking about "Ring" the original Japanese version (freaking scary) or the American remake "The Ring" (redundant and stupid). Check out the Japanese version for insane chill factor.

Re:Maybe it's me

[PMBjornerud]

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 breaks immersion just as bad as anything else.

Re:Maybe it's me

[d0cu]

First version of AvP was also scary as hell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_versus_Predator_(computer_game) [wikipedia.org]

Re:Maybe it's me

[meringuoid]

The DRM really isn't that horrible, and it absolutely does stop casual pirates.

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.

Re:Maybe it's me

[gknoy]

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.

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 ... and actually managed to do it well. Usually it was your standard shooter, with not-bad enemy AI, but every now and then you'd get a non-sequitur, "holyshitwhatwasthat" moment. Playing that game at night was very stressful -- just because I knew that the game WOULD occasionally "cheat" in a non-harmful way (so it was fun rather than threatening, but still startling as hell).

Another important thing in scaring someone is that there has to be some negative outcome that they are genuinely concerned about... If I am not afraid to die, to lose something I've worked for, I'll just think it's cool.

To me, zombie-horror style games seem to fit this mold well. So go games with relatively distant checkpoints, where I will need to replay stuff. The thing is, it has to also reward cautious/fearful gameplay. If the game will periodically drop a roomful of enemies on me, with no chance to avoid them, it's annoying. If, however, I CAN avoid the grisly deaths they have planned for me -- if I don't fuck up or get careless -- then I actually get more careful in my gameplay. Otherwise, it's quickload, run, gun, die, repeat until I get lucky... and that's not really promoting fear.

The best examples are games where I almost never need to save or load, but have numerous close calls. I can't think of many like that, though. Splinter Cell and early Rainbow Six games come close, since you CAN'T save... and thus I'm always on pins and needles of "dont screw up".. but they aren't really meant to scare you. I'm hoping I can get my hands on a Cthulu game this winter, as that ought to do a good job, I hope. :)