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Spooky Games
Tonight on GeekNights we discuss the scariness of video games. In the news, Wii Motion Plus is really coming, and Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch is released.
Comments
Note on the Aladdin game: it has the only cheat code I still remember. ABBAABBA took you directly to the next level.
Note on "Spooky" games: the scariest game I've ever played is the Marine section of Alien vs Predator. I think it helped that it made me think of the appropriate moments from the film, but sneaking through passages knowing there are facehuggers and aliens about freaked me out. Also, if I remember rightly, you could use a torch or the motion tracker... but not at the same time. So could see when an alien was coming, but not see it, and then switch to the torch. Of course, if you didn't immediately see the alien you were pretty much screwed. Add that it didn't have many save points and you were REALLY afraid of dying. No other video game has come close to it in terms of scariness.
http://www.frontrowcrew.com/feeds/totd
Not that I'm knocking that; I really love the ideas you talked about in this podcast. I'm considering taking up Half Life 2 mapping again just so I can mess around with some of those ideas, because they sound like they'd be really fun to come up with.
I find this idea to be interesting, but Square-Enix dropped the ball (again) with the fact that the Wii and DS versions have to be bought separately. I think both the DS and the Wii versions are priced at $30 each, but if I were to get the game I would just get the DS one and not bother with the Wii version as they are the same game entirely.
You guys should try this game Eversion, its a pretty interesting spooky independent game.
Also I've heard good things about the Condemned games, in terms of the kinds of things you were talking about towards the end of the podcast.
Consider a board game mechanic as an example. You're better off breaking it down to its fundamental core for analysis, rather than studying the complex, blown-out, full case. Studying the tinge of fear from Castlevania 2 is more useful than doing the same for, say, Fatal Frame or Resident Evil.
I have a couple of theories about the Fatal Frame series, and why they are scary.
Theory the first:
The protagonists of Fatal Frame 1, 2, and 4 are young high school girls. They have no real combat ability and are armed only with a psychically charged camera and a flashlight. They have to fight things that have no material form and can appear and disappear at will. Conversely, the protagonists of Silent Hill and Resident Evil are fully grown men/women and are often extremely capable, and usually well armed by the end of the game. Their enemies are corporeal, and normal things like blunt objects and firearms dispatch them in fairly short order. Having a character that seems physically vulnerable, is not well armed, and vastly outclassed by the enemy he or she faces adds to the tension and sense of danger (fear) immensely.
Theory the Second:
The setting of the Fatal Frame games are much different than the settings of other survival horror games, which usually take place in western/European locales. The Fatal Frame games take place in Japanese locales, and the ghosts are often of a more Eastern theme and feel (drowned girls, vengeful lovers, violent monks) which is very foreign to a western audience, even ones who are well versed in Japanese cultural references in general. The unknown or unfamiliar being instinctively scary, this again heightens the tension and sense of danger.
And I'm pretty sure that by the time you get the "float" you had enough level to purchase and use the Warp spell several times to exit.
EDIT: Clive Barker's "Undying" had those "change subtle things" but didn't really work.
Example you gave: You look at a table with a few candles lit. You look away and look back to find that one of the candles are missing.
Example from horror game: You look at a bathtub. You look away and look back to find that there is a body in the bathtub.
It seems that you guys don't want horror games to do anything different, just to be more subtle.
The fact is that someone who isn't timid won't be afraid of anything that is overt. A million horribly gory zombies whatever, is not going to scare me. If you want to really scare people proper-like, you need to use audio and video to stimulate the brain's subconscious fear reflexes without doing anything the conscious mind will notice.
I don't know about you, but there are times when I've felt really uneasy, even though there is no particular thing I could point to that I think caused that feeling. It's just some combination of factors that affect the human body, and engage its fear reflexes. One of the easiest ways to do it is to use infrasound. However, there are perhaps other audio/visual stimuli that can achieve the same effect, and can also be used.
Just sayin'.
An audio clue informs you that you are being followed by an enemy. You can not look behind you, or it will kill you. If you take too long to kill it, it will kill you. You don't fully see it when you are killed by it.
Also: Eversion. It will scare your socks straight off and into the wash the first time you play it.