SW, how do you like your horror games?

Just good honestly.

I don't care if it's slow paced, high tension, action packed, etc.. as long as its good at what it sets out to do.

I know people like to bicker about what defines a horror game, but if it's a good game then I'm set.

Same here. I haven't played a particularly good one. Jump scares don't do for me. Practically every horror film I've ever seen doesn't do it for me. Gore doesn't do it for me. I need something that legit makes me feel scared and just turning off some lights or having something pop out from behind a corner doesn't do but that's all games rely on. I want something where like a good horror film, it can be daylight on screen but I'm still squirming in my chair, feeling uneasy. No game has really captured that and been able to keep it up. Some games get close, but then maybe they throw in some monster with wonky animation that makes me laugh out loud or there is bad voice acting, or there's a bug and it kills it all.

Both, actually.

While I like how Amnesia and Outlast, and many more did the whole "run and hide", instead of fighting thingy. I also prefer stuff like Dead Space and Resident Evil, where you obviously fight your way through these encounters.

INB4theyarenothorror. Nobody cares you self-genre defining monkey.

lol I <3 you for that.

I like my eggs scrambled with cheese. :D

I would say with combat. I cannot remember if I even played a horror game without combat, but thinking about it it would seem odd. My favorite horror series now is Silent Hill, and it handles combat well, in that the main character is not really a fighter so he is clumsy with weapons, I think that's a good approach and adds to the tension. Make your enemies a lot more powerful, but still have the ability to fightback....without that aspect I think the game might get old quick, but again I never really played a good horror game that had no weapons so there is always room for me to change my mind.

A bit of both, Silent Hill often gets its right were you can engage in combat, but normally its not advised and best avoided. It makes you fear the enemies as your screwed if you encounter to many.

Penumbra games are very good horrror games, with a mix of awkward combat and run and hide

I think... there's probably many generations of people who have pretty much seen what all horror has to offer be it film or vidja games. If you're a horror enthusiast there's going to be a certain point where nothing scares you any more(and that's assuming it ever did in the first place). I'm one of those people and I use a method of forcing myself to really believe what ever I'm viewing/playing could happen to just to trick my brain with complete immersion even though it's fake. This is why I fee psychological horror does it best than slasher overly gory horror does, and has always done. The way we expect and define getting 'scared' from anything horror now has evolved as times have moved on so when people talk about being sacred of something what they really mean is being 'unnerved' in my view.

For example: The Silent Hill series is critically acclaimed to be one of the crowns of horror, but to me it's not exactly 'scary', it's weird, wonderful and unhinged and that's what makes it so good. What was really interesting was reading up about all of the games on the silent hill wiki and finding out what all the specific monsters meant etc. That creeped me out.

Exactly...in both regards.

as horrible as this thead

Depends on game . I voted for no combat because I think there is difference between pure horror game (Like Amnesia) and a game that gives you chance to fight back with limited resources (Survival Horror like upcoming The Forest or Evil Within etc) .

I'll tell you what kind of "horror" I like the least: Resident Evil 4.

ah man FEAR is so good, shame the franchise circled the maelstrom. FEAR was pretty damn good dat atmosphere! But I peg that down to the devs basing a lot off of Japanese horror and I think Japanese horror is amazing. Not to mention Little children + Horror = a sure thing. I even liked FEAR 2 even more, albeit being a very polarised received sequel, but the progression of the horror elements as Alma aged from the tiny girl to this haggered thin looking woman was amazing. Not to mention there are times throughout the playthrough where she rushes at you and you have to fight her off(on top of that the reason why she was doing that was even more horrifically surreal).

Agree with a lot of what you said. You should check out Amnesia and the wide variety of clones that it's giving birth to. Gameplay is narrative driving with the simple task of avoiding what stalks you. Personally while I respect the 'run & hide' genre and its place under the horror banner the gameplay is very simplistic, repetitive and generally lacking when you step back from it and realise that's literally all you do. What I'm more worried about is that seeing Amnesia being so popular many devs will be running after the same success and combat based horror will become over looked. I gather you're looking forward to The Evil Within?

Surprisingly I think even 'tank controls' made some horror games a bit more tense and I doubt devs will ever turn back to such a thing lol. Combat within horrors could be made easily if there was always a way that the player is nerffed as in there is no time in the entire game where you get too dudebro. Even with games like resident evil and silent hill you could focus more on melee weapons rather than long ranging one like guns. What's the last thing you want to do in a horror game? Get up close and personal with what ever the monsters or protagonist is. If guns can't be avoided then they can nerf how much ammo is dotted around levels, make it so it takes like 5 bullets to put something down and you find them in packs of 2. That means when you come across a room with 2 nasties in and you have 6 rounds you have the choice to take one down and maybe stun one of them. I still hope for a new next gen Silent Hill, with the new hardware atmosphere and lighting can be improved so much now.

eh?

as long as the protoganist is white male.

Horror can enhance action. Gears 1 and Resi 4 are proof.

For pure scares I like a vulnerable character who must run and hide.

For the sake of the argument I voted "without combat" although in truth it is between the two.

It all comes Down to the basic fact that no horror game can be scary if you have the firepower of a small army at your disposal, afterall why be scared of the monster in the room, when you are the manic mass murdering mofo WHO just ended 200 of its brethren 2 mins ago with a mile on his lips?

You can not get scared when you are in control, and on top of the situation.

On the flipside a game only with running and hiding, does Work, but there is a limit to how long it can persist before becomming "same old same old"

Ideally you would have a mix of the two options, you would have the Means to fight in a limited way, you may be really bad at combat, really weak, or simply not have even close to enough ammo for killing everyone and thier dog.

A good compromise might be that you have the ability to fight back, say a nasty bugger searching the room, with you hiding behind a counter, you look at your revolver, you fired 3 times allready and you have not found any ammo for 20 minutes. Is it worth fighting the fight? or flight?

A best case scenario would be something Akin to System shock 2, where you felt Little to no safety in your weapons, given that you would never have the ammo to rid the ship. Worst case and a good posterboy as to why weapons ruins horror games, would be Call of Cthulhu: dark corners of the earth. Where the first 1/3 is pretty darn creepy and can be outright scary, but the second you get hands on the weapons, then what is ther eto fear? they die jsut like anything else. And you just go on a murdering rampage through the last 2/3's of the game.

But like I stated, if a game needs to be longer then 5-6 hours, you will at some point need to be able to fight back, do something that is not just hiding. Be it Building traps, or firearms, is secondary, but you will need to get more options, or the game grows stale.

@Salt_The_Fries: Hey, why don't you post it a couple more times.

Anyway, I'm fine with both.

Should've given a third choice. I like the ones that scares me to death like dead space 2 or amnesia.

I don't like horror games

what horror do you like the most, then?

I don't think the placement of combat has any effect on a horror game. It's all about the atmosphere, to create a sense of dread of the unknown, or being overwhelmed by forces that defy comprehension which instill a feeling of helplessness.

You can take an experienced soldier into a situation which his training never prepared him/her for. So all the combat expertise still leaves them feeling powerless against supernatural elements that are greater than their conventional tactics can enable them to cope with.

btw, in your sig, is that Gina Carrano of the UFC?

Video game form? Realms of the Haunting (brilliant PC-only hybrid of FPS, pure adventure game and RPG), Condemned: Criminal Origins, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, System Shock 2, Clive Barker's Undying, Amnesia: Dark Descent, Eternal Darkness, Silent Hill 1 & 2, Resident Evil Remake, certain sections of Thief: Deadyl Shadows, FEAR, Dead Space (mostly 1), Alien: Resurrection, I also quite like the Alone in the Dark series (I've beaten them all apart from Alone in the Dark 3 and The New Nightmare was very underrated at the time), if you can count them as such then Metro and STALKER as well...

Notice how I'm not limiting myself to just one formula.

no-one implied you were lol

But Mikami is :(

Aw but why would you want your games to be ultra shitty?

My friends, this is a legendary, forgotten classic from Sega Saturn:

@lostrib:

Too scary?

yes

It's Gina Carano at some stadium. You can google her name with 'gif' and probably find out specifically.

Scary story, lots of exploration, dark atmosphere and a bit of shooting, like the old Resident Evil, Alone in the Dark and Silent Hill games.

I more into zombie themed survival action/horror games.

Undead Nightmare, and Resident Evil 4 are some of my favorite games of all time.

Silent Hill 2 is what I hold up to best the best horror game of all time. The characters aren't Special Forces/Police Officers like in RE, so it ends up being nerve-wracking.

I can't get into the Amnesia series because of the hide n' seek method.

Like Siren: Blood Curse and Silent Hill 1-3.

I don't.

With combat but not a lot of it.

Something in the middle of Outlast/Amnesia and RE4/Dead Space. Those are both opposite ends of what I want

The Silent Hill games always did it really well, they let you fight back but you weren't a powerhouse and sometimes it was better to just run because you didn't have the resources or time to kill the enemy. Part of that was helped by fumbly controls though that you'd never get away with these days.

I hadn't played Siren Blood Curse until last year and mother of God I couldn't play more than a couple of hours. Not because it was scary but because the camera and controls are some of the worst ever.

Depends simply on the game. Old Silent Hill games were fine since you could run from most encounters and fight when you felt like it. but condemned managed to still be really intense and creepy despite the fact that there was a lot of combat. So it just depends on the game.

As a reference, I hold that Silent Hill 3 is the scariest game ever made.

@Senor_Kami: You should check out Silent Hill 2 and 3. Both are great horror games that don't rely on jump scares.

@turtlethetaffer: Something even more unsettling than Condemned Criminal Origins is the fact that it was released in the 360 launch window. It's the best horror game to come out this generation, and that's just sad. I pray for Alien:Isolation.

I really don't know what you're talking about since the controls and camera work perfectly fine. The game is one of the most terrifying I've played.

Generally not at all but of the ones I've played: with combat.

Why? I prefer most all of my games with more action as opposed to less action I guess.

Like Alan Wake or the first Dead Space. Like the first RE games. Your normal scares every now and then with some action.

@danten81: Not sure if I agree. At the very least, silent Hill downpour is a contender. Not the best SH game by any means but it was a lot, lot creepier than most recent horror offerings.

Why does it have to be one or the other? why can't it be both?...I like both combat ones & non combat ones..play too much of one & you will get bored of it. :P

@turtlethetaffer: It's ok, brother. I'm just stuck in an old-school rut. Condemned CO was close to what I wanted after RE4(which treaded on the hokey horror side). Silent Hill Homecoming killed that series for me. I'll have to try more of Downpour, as it didn't gel with me initially.

The ones with "Tension". That is what scares me.

RE4 gave me tension because the gonados were constantly breathing, but I didn't know where they were. Kept looking over my shoulder because of paranoia.

Heavy Rain: Horror or not....This game was soooo "intense" and had a lot of tension for me. Won't spoil why.

The Last of Us: Trying to sneak past the infected was very intense. It scared me. Game was creepy for me.

Fallout 3: Sneaking around every building praying a super mutant isn't right around the corner.

THAT is what I want in horror games. I want to have that constant low creepy music just barely playing and you never know what will happen next.

i don't like them. i play games to relax, not shit my pants.

@danten81: In spite of the weak monster designs, the game is much better than Homecoming. You can run from a majority of the encounters and the atmosphere is great. Plus, they integrated side quests really, really well into the Silent Hill structure.