Why Did Horror Get So Loud?

The Evil Within
Any Resident Evil after 4
Silent Hill Downpour
Alone in the Dark (new one)
Dying Light (maybe)
Outlast

What do these games and many others have in common?  Well of course, they are all horror games but they are also all very loud, frenetic and not very scary.  The game that inspired this post in particular was The Evil Within and my experience with Dying Light is a little limited but the point still stands.

So think way back to the days of Resident Evil and Silent Hill.  These were the big motherfuckers that made survival horror popular.  There were similar games such as Clock Tower and Alone in the Dark that did the whole horror thing too but I didn't know too many people who were even aware of those games back in the day.

What all these games had in common was that in order to put their horror forward they would try to build atmosphere.  A lot of this was achieved in the audio design, especially for Silent Hill and it was effective.  There are a lot of moments in a game like Resident Evil where the soundtrack is completely cut and all you have is a quiet room, some distant shuffling and an occasional moan.  That shit was effective for building tension as to what was round the next corner.  When shit got real the music would pick up and help generate that sense of panicked fear rather than the more subtle tense fear to be found in other parts of the game.

But it seems that the genre has lost that sense of subtlety and it suffers as a result.  I'm not saying that something like Resident Evil 4 is bad but it's not scary anymore.  When I play games like Silent Hill, old Resident Evil and Project Zero, there is still a little bit of uneasiness that creeps in and that adds to the enjoyment.

Silent Hill Downpour is probably one of the best examples of this.  Old Silent Hill builds up a shit ton of creepy atmosphere then hits you with the panicky stuff in the world shift.  However even when in the nightmare you'll find a room or a section where the panic lets up for a while but the horror still lasts because you know what's behind that door that you need to go through for your next key item.  Silent Hill 2 was an exception to this because the whole game is just drenched in that heavy, oppressive atmosphere that actually makes it quite uncomfortable to play.  It speaks volumes about the developers talent that they can make a game like that but still have it be enjoyable to the point where people want to keep on going.

Silent Hill Downpour on the other hand is all in your face all the time.  It tries to build the atmosphere with it's big empty streets but for the most part, that is just what they are and are therefore uninteresting or scary.  When the world shifts into the nightmare, the whole thing is over designed, too well lit and in certain sections looks more like something out of Alice: Madness Returns than a Silent Hill game.  It's the same for The Evil Within.  The game never lets up and after a while it becomes tiresome.

Imagine if you came home one day and one of your friends jumps out from around the corner in a dark room in a big scary mask and screams at you.  Of course you're going to jump and be a little frightened right?  But then imagine that instead of stopping he just keeps screaming and rolling around on the floor after you have turned on the lights, it would just be ridiculous.

That about sums up new horror games for me.  A cheap prank that goes on way too long and gets very old very fast

Survival Horror making a comeback!?

Survival Horror has been a bit dead for a long long time.

Konami, with the help of Tomm Hulett, has been ruining Silent Hill
Resident Evil turned into a series of bland action games with grotesque monsters
Project Zero (Or Fatal Frame if you're American) hasn't had a main series game outside of Japan since 2005, and nothing since 2008 in Japan
Alone in the Dark was murdered and no one gave a fuck

the list goes on and on...

But then some good things have been happening.  ZombieU came out on the WiiU, which I have yet to play, and while it doesn't look particularly scary, it looks plenty survivaly and with permadeath hanging over you I imagine it would keep you at least somewhat on edge.

On top of that, we have Tomm Hulett leaving Konami, so he's not going to be making any more fucking awful Silent Hill games, so maybe the next person to step up will breathe some life back into things.

Then I came across this article on IGN!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/31/resident-evil-will-return-to-its-roots

Which is basically a big article of Masachika Kawata saying that Resident Evil needs to go back and stop sucking ass, read it.

Well, nothing concrete has happened yet, but these are good signs if you ask me.  In the meantime we have the Amnesia sequel to look forward too, so maybe after that we can get decent horror games once again

Now That's Some Bullshit #5: Survival Horror

Well this blog has been filled with way too much happiness and sunshine recently, so it's time to talk about some bullshit.  Today I'm going to discuss the whole survival horror genre.

So a long long time ago, on systems long since forgotten, there was a game called Alone in the Dark.  This game is basically the great granddaddy of the genre.  At the time it wasn't called a "survival horror" game, but it's the title that basically set the standard for everything to come after.  So from the impact made by this game, we were given similar games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Fatal Frame just to name some of the most well known ones.

So, just what is a survival horror game exactly? I think this is something that needs to be cleared up

As far as setting is concerned, you're usually playing as some kind of normal man or woman, thrust into a life threatening situation that involves horrible looking beasties coming to get you.  But it isn't the beasties that make these games scary, it's the implications behind your characters situation.  A good survival horror game will make you feel as helpless and alone as the characters and that is part of the reason why Silent Hill 2 in particular is so famous.  In terms of mechanics, you are usually given a very finite supply of items in order to get to by and every situation and encounter has to be carefully planned so that you don't waste them.  You'll usually find that running away is the best option, not only because the enemies are scary, but because you as a player are terrified of being in a situation with very little to actually survive on.

But then something went wrong.

Now before anyone starts foaming at the mouth, I fucking love Resident Evil 4, it's an absolute blast, but it is NOT a survival horror game by any stretch.  What I hate is what this game caused, all the best horror franchises started to become over the shoulder third person action games.  All the atmosphere and horror of previous great titles had been thrown out the window for more cinematic action games with grotesque creatures.

It was with Dead Space that the bullshit really started to flow.  The game wasn't bad, but it wasn't scary AT ALL and it was really trying it's hardest to provide a scary game.  Sure, it had jump scares but gone was all the dread, all the mystery and all the decent characterisation.  But the genre wasn't dead here, it just took a shot to the leg.  The game that really executed this genre with a horrible bloody thump was Silent Hill: Homecoming

THIS game was the gigantic piece of shit to kill the genre good and proper, and it's not been able to recover since.  There was a standard that was expected of the Silent Hill series, and the group of knobs that worked on this game really dropped the ball.  They failed to understand anything about the horror genre in general, let alone survival horror games or even Silent Hill.

But you know what's the worst thing? Since then I have played 1 game that I can say was actually unsettling in some way, and that's just fucking sad and on top of that it's an indie game developed by 1 guy as far as I know.

The games industry really needs to go back and study these old great horror games if they ever want to make something that can be properly called a Survival Horror game again.  Until then, this entire genre is just a load of bullshit.