Survival Horror "& similars" thread

[Yuna]

I'm a big fan of Survival Horrors, since Resident Evil 1 or even Alone in the Dark days and And this week I started playing Alan Wake. Since survival horror is turning out to be a niche genre I thought it was better to talk about all of them together in a simple thread, especially when we want to make comparisons.

Anyway, back to

Alan Wake

Newest game from Remedy, the makers of Max Payne.If I were to compare this game to a movie, I'd say it is more like a thriller than horror. But it still has its spooky moments. But from a Fatal Frame or Silent Hill player, so far, there's still a mile to catch up in terms of scare factor. But not that this game isn't good, because what it lacks in story it is delivering in good plot.

I'm at the beginning of chapter 3 of the game, and by what I've heard there's only 6. So yeah, it's kind of short, and so far pretty easy. But not in a bad way. It's easy for you to die, but the same is true for your enemies, so if you think back to Resident Evil where you have to unload loads of ammo, every foe falls pretty fast.

What I'm really liking in this game is the mood. when you're supposed to feel safe, you do; when you're supposed to feel tense, you do; questioning yourself, and everything else, just like the main character.
This makes me feel this should be a new direction of the Silent Hill franchise, since it seems they've lost some track after the original team did SH3. I'm not a die hard SH fan, I don't even consider myself a SH fan but fans complain so much. Konami has such a big franchise, they should just call it Silent Hill but do a complete change, but of course, maintaining the survivor horror aspect.

So far, my impressions are that if you're the kind of person that likes a good story, like Heavy Rain, Indigo Prophecy this game will deliver! If you're in for some scares, it may still grab you. I'll leave my final impressions when I finish the game!

[coachie]

I consider myself a Survival Horror Fan, though I haven't played many of them.
My first experience with the genre was SH1 back after it's release and I think since then I've never encountered a game that gave me the same night terror's as this one 

I played:

- SH 1-4, Origin and still in the middle of Homecoming
- Fatal Frame 1+2 and still in the middle of 3
- Rule of Rose
- Alone in the Dark - A new Nightmare
- Fear Effect 1+2

I've never played Resident Evil, though I started with Resi 1 for the PS1 but got stuck and never felt the need to try again (to difficult for me I guess ^^)


I was very interested in Alan Wake, after it's announcement and I was thrilled, when I saw the first trailers! My hopes were for a old school SH for the XBox. But the more they revealed about the gameplay the more I lost interest. It seems too heavy on the action side for my tastes. Maybe I'll get it, if I see it somewhere cheap, but for now I've lost all interest. Sadly.

[Tuffty]

It's a shame the number of survival horrors have dwindled. Even those that do get released tend to focus more on the combat than anything. SH:Homecoming seemed more focused on the combat than anything else. How can you be scared of something when the enemies are easy to kill and you are equipped like a one many army? Even some of the best survival horror games I had played could have that accusation thrown at them. That's why I thougt Silent Hill : Shattered Memories sounds so interesting, it's all about the experience and there seems to be no combat at all, and you have to run from the enemies.

Some of my favourites are Dead Space, Fatal Frame II, Resident Evil 2, Silent Hill 2 and Eternal Darkness. Silent Hill 2 is probably my favourite of the bunch. Here's a game where the atmosphere was oppressing from start to finish and you didn't really feel safe anywhere. It undoubtedly has the best story too.

But when I think of a time I was the most scared during a game, it actually has to be the Ravenholm sequence in Half Life 2. This was a night level with a heavy atmosphere and as you start progressing you hear this animalistic cry in the night and 'something' leaping from one roof to another, only merely catching a glimpse of it. Grotesque views of human flesh ripped apart and blood seemingly everywhere you look. Then this creepy preacher man tells you to get ready and you see it off in the distance, pounding like a dog towards you. You keep shooting it but it doesn't halt it's advance until it gets within range and then it leaps and screams at you, wanting to kill you. And then as I thought it was over, it only reveals another type of head crab, one in which it looks like a goddamn spider and boy it can really jump in front of your face. That was a section where I really just wanted to get through as quick as possible. Still got the shivers when watching it now:

[Yuna]

I remember that level, gave me the creeps and it was awesome because of its slow build up. When you suddenly realized you were in a survivor horror setting.

Funny when you mentioned Silent Hill 2. I don't mean to rain on your parade but I think this game was over rated for me, at least; and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's bad, but I think I may be the reason I "ruined" my own experience with the game.
Back when I played I played it on easy, because I though SH1 to be harder than it needed to be, but SH2 on easy was not just easy, but a cakewalk. You could stand still in front of a monster for about 10 seconds before he'd try to harm you. So this kinda ruined the scare factor for me (but that's my choice, not blaming the game). But what I really don't like in Silent Hill games, with the exception of Shattered Memories, is how easy it is for you to get lost.

It seems that every SH at some point I can only advance with a FAQ. Not that it doesn't happen in Fatal Frame or Resident Evil, but I feel it's way less frequent. In SH everytime an item has to be found somewhere in town (not inside a building), it's a pain to find.

Even though I haven't played it all the way through, my favorite SH is Silent Hill 3 (I at least watched the rest of it on Youtube). I loved the mood, the monsters, the story picks up from SH1. Everything is much darker, bloodier, and it seems like all the characters are sickos heheh.

coachie, you should try Resident Evil 4. I mean, if you haven't played any, this one is by far the best. IMO a lot less scary than any Silent Hill or Fatal Frame, but everything is else better, it's one of my all time favorite games, not just survivor horror.

[maruda]

These are the survival horror games that I have:

PS
Biohazard: Director's Cut
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Silent Hill
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare
Dino Crisis
Dino Crisis 2
Galerians
Parasite Eve
Parasite Eve II
Evil Dead: Hail to the King
Clock Tower
Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within

PS2
Resident Evil 4
Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 3
Silent Hill 4: The Room
Silent Hill: Origins
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Fatal Frame
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly
Fatal Frame III: The Tormented
Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick
Evil Dead: Regeneration
Clock Tower 3
Cold Fear
The Thing
Haunting Ground
ObsCure
ObsCure II
Kuon

DC
Blue Stinger

PC
Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr
Blair Witch Volume 2: The Legend of Coffin Rock
Blair Witch Volume 3: The Elly Kedward Tale


I consider the Fatal Frame series to be the creepiest of all the survival horror games I played.

[coachie]

coachie, you should try Resident Evil 4. I mean, if you haven't played any, this one is by far the best. IMO a lot less scary than any Silent Hill or Fatal Frame, but everything is else better, it's one of my all time favorite games, not just survivor horror.

I nearly bought it, when it came out (for Ps2) but since there's not much "horror" and it's basically just a shooter I lost interest.

What I miss in nowadays games, that call themselves "surivival horror" is
a.) the survival part, since it's guns, guns, guns everywhere, where are the days when part of the horror was, that you felt helpless because you were only equipped with a pipe or a wooden stick and had to carefully sneak around monsters?
b.) the horror! Big ugly monster = horror! sorry, but not for me!

I would love to play Dead Space, my friend told me how creepy it was besides the monsters and that it was the scariest game he had played for ages!!!

[shirenuファクトリー]

Omg I could never play survival horror games because I'm a wuss, but I've watched some walkthroughs on Youtube. Haha. Well, I watched Silent Hill 1 & 2, the other games probably weren't survival horrors... I like creepy stories

What games do you think would be the most fun to watch?? There's a walkthrough for almost everything on da 'Tube and I might like to continue this habit

[THUNDERDUCK]

These are the survival horror games that I have:

PS
Resident Evil: Director's Cut
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Silent Hill
Parasite Eve

Xbox
Hunter the Reckoning (more like a shooter)
Hunter the Reckoning- Redeemer (more like a shooter)
The Thing

DC
Resident Evil- Code Veronica
Blue Stinger

XBox 360
Dead Space
Resident Evil 5

[winner]

I've been interested in the genre, but don't play it much. I guess it's the same with movies, I don't have the stomache for it.
Which may reflect the situation. Horror movies that freak you out just doesn't seem so popular anymore, but make it a bloody action-zombie film and it'll at least be safe.

I mainly just played Resident Evil series since 2, Parasite Eve (that's an SRPG to me though ), Dino Crisis and touching Fatal Frame. Weird bunch!
Still finishing off Marvel UA2 (cos of Iron Man 2, of course ). But Dead Space is next on my list of games I want to finish, stopped halfway because so many great games came out during that time slot. Looking forward to playing it again.

[Yuna]

Funny you mentioned, because even though I love the genre, I happen to have this feeling you just mentioned. I have a lot of survivor games, but there's also a lot I haven't finished.
A really good example for me is Fatal Frame 2 as it took me a little over two years to beat the game. There were moments I was so scared I just couldn't keep playing.
It's coincidence but every time I thought of playing it ended up it was night and I was alone in my house.
Only when my friend's little sister beat the game I decided I had to finish it. ( She was 12 or 13 years old, and I was more than 20, I mean come'on)

So I gathered the strength needed and finally beat the game. As I was going to Japan and decided I would buy FF4, but only if I finished at least one of those games first.
In the end I can say, I was never so scared while playing or watching probably anything. My hands were sweaty during most of the game, especially in the chapter you lose your camera...

[Amplifier]

http://vsrecommendedgames.wikia.com/wiki/Scary_Horror_%26_Mindfuck Seemingly decent list of related games

[Yuna]

Loved this list, it mentions great games and some I'd like to try.

On Alan Wake, I'm on chapter 5 of 6, so I'm pretty much near the end.
The story takes a turn where it gets so good. If I was having complains about a little of the gameplay, the story alone would make up for it, and believe or not the gameplay gets a lot better in the fourth chapter. Much more variety on the places you fight, the option to run or fight, obstacles during fights.

So far, the replay value for it is pretty low, and it is kinda short too, but for a person that likes this genre, it asks to be played!

[shirenuファクトリー]

I watched Clock tower 3 walkthrough on Youtube Pretty fun, fucked up story

It seemed genuinely scary to be followed around by the subordinates(?) tho after the 1st one the player made it look so easy to avoid them that it didn't seem scary anymore lol

[substance]

Clock tower series is scary, the protagonist is almost weapon-less, running all the time, hiding all the time.

I think when a game meant to be survival horror game, its like this game.

[shirenuファクトリー]

YAHOO I watched Call of Cthulhu gameplay (all of it) and it was really good Loved the bit quite early in the game when these guys come to get you from your hotel room, you have no weapons (tho they are introduced later in the game) so all u can do is try to figure out how to escape, and everyone is after you wherever you go. FRICKING CREEPY/SCARY


I just started watching Cryostasis, which seems good too. There's no health bar, but temperature bar o-o And you can save some of the people who got frozen by playing their mini bit.

[twissie]

^

Oh yeah, that opening in Call of Cthulhu... o_o That whole hotel sequence is what I remember most about the game. So frickin' stressful!

[Yuna]

I watched Clock tower 3 walkthrough on Youtube Pretty fun, fucked up story

It seemed genuinely scary to be followed around by the subordinates(?) tho after the 1st one the player made it look so easy to avoid them that it didn't seem scary anymore lol

I started doing the same, and loved the opening of CT3 but somehow never finished. And my cousin had the game, I gave it to him on his birthday some time ago, but the controls were a little weird...

I just started watching Cryostasis, which seems good too. There's no health bar, but temperature bar o-o And you can save some of the people who got frozen by playing their mini bit.

I was thinking about getting Cryostasis, it looks good, but I'm really saturated of FPS right now, it's like everyone of them feels the same. With the only exception of Bioshock which depending on the person can give you some scares.

[shirenuファクトリー]

Finished watching Cryostasis playthrough!! Great story, great ending
The player said it hasn't got much replay value tho, so if anyone's curious, try to rent it? :3

It was creepy at times but then the story became much more important than being spooked, lol.
Loved that you could change the fates of people

[shirenuファクトリー]

I finished watching another game, Rule of Rose!! What a disturbing game!! CREEPY KIDS AHOY
You only need to watch the opening to get an idea of how disturbing it is. It seemed like a difficult game to play though, I would've got lost/have no idea what to do all the time if I was playing it instead of just watching, lol

[Yuna]

I have this game, but man, the controls are baaaad 
However I do plan on finishing it one day, I'll probably use some cheat so I don't get frustrated with the unresponsive controls.

I have two on my list, one to finally begin and the other to finish, Siren for PS3 and Fatal Frame 4 for the Wii.
Fatal Frame 4, if anyone's interested, even though it was only released in Japan a fan group translated the game and made it possible to run on the Wii, even without modding it, using a patch on an SD card. I've had the game for a while but since they were close to translating it when I finally bought the game (and the Wii) I though it wouldn't hurt to wait a little more, instead of having to playing with a dictionary to understand some nuances I wouldn't get otherwise.