Survival Horror Thread

[RGC]

Had a cursory look and couldn't see a dedicated topic for this, so thought why not? Please delete if it has already been done to death.

For a long time I've tended to have some form of horror game or other ticking over in the background to whatever else happens to be flavour-of-the-month. Consequently, I look back and find myself having finished a fair few of them, the most recent of which was the quite brilliant The Evil Within 2. Everyone and their dog is a critic these days, and when it comes to "write ups" my degree of indolence would make xxx1993 resemble Ebert on amphet ( ). So, I'll fittingly just repeat that it was brilliant and move on. Happy to come back to any specific points later though.

I played the much maligned ports of Silent Hill 2 & 3 on the 360, on release of the collection. Yet despite their purported glitchy shortcomings I still found them so creepy, unsettling and (especially SH2), claustrophobic that I just had to keep going with the series. Still have recollections of that dread associated with finally locating a window to the outside world and wanting to be out there, yet at the same time definitely not wanting to be out there! The Room had a great plot and kept the momentum going well, but I found it was diminishing returns after that. Downpour was okay, and I drifted away from Homecoming somewhere around the midpoint.

And that's before we even get to the Resident Evil franchise!

Obviously, there are tonnes of titles that fit the survival horror category, across a range of platforms. But what are people playing right now and do you find that you have, like me, developed a persistent horror game itch that requires a perpetual low level scritch-scratch (the kind a chainsaw or flagrum couldn't banish)?

Next up are Tormented Souls and in parallel Visage (which I'm already playing round my bro's in a no-rush series of "pass the f*cking pad" sessions). I do like to take my time and savour these games, unless its one of the Outlasts in which case you're too busy running like hell to savour much of anything but your own trouser aroma!

I tried, but really couldn't get on with Alien: Isolation or White Day: A Labyrinth Named School and for similar reasons with both: The stalker's behaviour was too eratic, conveniently aware, or downright buggy (in the case of Alien). Maybe it's just that I prefer predictable patterns so it's easier to give the enemy the runaround. Quite enjoyed the first Remothered, and that might explain why.

[drauch]

I love survival horror, but I really wish the genre could distance and distinguish itself from jumpscare simulators -- primarily first-person walking around, little/no combat/item management, and essentially a vehicle to progress to the next loud crescendo/jumpscare. I hate horror of this type, both in film and games, and while my feelings should be and are irrelevant, I don't think something like the defining Resident Evils and Silent Hills can be synonymous with something like Five Nights at Freddy's and Layers of Fear. I kind of feel like Outlast falls into this category, with its over-abundance of loud, in-your-face jumpscares and poorly crafted moments of darkness and purposely cramped spaces to segue into these, but there is at least a real survive-with-little aspect of the game so I can't be too hard on it. I blame P.T., the biggest crock of shit of all time, for influencing a wide string of imitators and for being a shallow Playable Turd itself. But I digress!

I feel like the gap is widening, though, with the aforementioned Tormented Souls, Resident Evil getting good again with RE2remake --- a lot of interesting indie stuff like Alisa, Nightmare of Decay, Daymare, Them & Us, Signalis, etc -- and not necessarily saying all of these games are great or that I've played through all of them yet, but I appreciate them on a level for being what should be labeled as survival horror, following in the general foundational series/games with an emphasis of either stealth/hiding, limited items/management, and threatening enemies that invoke decisions based on the aforementioned mechanics -- not just BOO, continue onwards.

Enough bellyaching -- I'm done, sorry. Uhhhhh yeah, White Day! I really want to try the original indie game. The remake is trash, as you imply. The stalker's behavior is insane from the get-go to the point of frustration. It also features really piss-poor moments of 'horror', where the music increasingly gets louder until a giant face screams at you and fills your screen. Yawn. The 2D game, The Coma, is similar thematically and in its execution of poor stalking vs hiding, where the antagonistic stalker zeroes in on you from nowhere to a point of unfair design. I plan on giving second game a chance, as it supposedly fixes some of these issues from what I gather, but we'll see. And just to muddle up my earlier bitching of what is survival horror/what isn't, I loved some of these other school-set horror games like Detention and Corpse Party. I wouldn't call either 'survival' horror, but they're both narratively great and both chilling at times.

Speaking of RE, I finally sat down and played Zero last week, and also for the billionth time booted up the SourceNext version of Dino Crisis since I always get carried away with something else and forget about it, never completing it. Maybe more on these next time when I have more time to type/bitch!

[RGC]

Can't disagree with any of that. With movies, I find (over-reliance on) jumpscares to be the pinnacle of lazy crafting, particularly if when you subtract them all you have left is some nonexistent plot or heavily recycled concept. These should be rebranded to startle movies. Most of the time the "jump" is so telegraphed you can see it coming a mile off anyway. So really, what's the point? When it comes to games, e.g. like Outlast, I'll cut the desginers some slack re. the excess of jumpscares if the game serves some other purpose I can make use of -- like in that particular case being freaked out by the feeling of relentless, hot-on-the-heels pursuit. I'm kinky like that. But yeah, it begins to shift toward something other than survival horror in the way games like RE defined it.

I might be misremembering (and no pun intended), but I have a feeling Amnesia diverged away from classic survival horror with its first sequel which ditched the inventory/item management system altogether and thus rendered any exploration pointless. All those environment details, yet you knew it could all be safely ignored and you just needed to solve some trivial puzzle and head to the exit.

Edit: I really should return to RE:Zero. I started it some time ago, right off the back of replaying RE, got stuck, then distracted by other things. Now I'll probably have to start over.

[SuperDeadite]

Back in my 486 days I had the demo for Alone in the Dark on a shareware disc. Probably my first real horror. Still one of my faves. I have a softspot for 2 as well, even though its not reall horror anymore...

Resident Evil 2 was my first real love. Played it so many times I never even think about saving anymore.

Fatal Frame was the first game to actually scare me. Like I had to play with the lights on. Recently played the steam version of 4. Not so scary anymore, but really enjoyed it anyway.

Evil Within 1 is my pick for best game in the genre. It has some flaws, but it is so much fun. Especially on Akumu. I feel Akumu is the true way to play, and the lower difficulties are just training modes. Did a fresh Akumu run just a few months ago, and damn it was such a rush.

Now Evil Within 2 was a major disappointment for me. It is a good game that accomplishes what it is trying to do. But it's a terrible followup to the first game. All the strategy, intensity, badassery, and adrenaline was just gone... Evil Within 1 had some of the best designed boss fights ever. Evil Within 2's boss fights were bland and boring. Just terrible.

[Lander]

Goodness, I was a total wimp for years with survival horror - on reputation alone!

Ended up buying a used copy of Eternal Darkness at one point, and getting so psyched out by the box blurb's bragging about insanity effects that it never made it into the gamecube

I also recall freaking out one of our very posh and proper neighbours with one of the Nintendo mag cover discs of the time - mum popped in for a cuppa on the way home from the shops, I got left to my own devices with their DVD player, and ended up accidentally clicking on the forbidden REmake trailer and showcasing Jill feeding a zombie a grenade. Oh I say!

Took a while to grow out of it. A housemate got me playing the original Last of Us at one point, and there was a distinct "Sammy, am I playing survival horror right now?" moment when encountering the sneaky rush mob. Not really in retrospect - I'd call that action horror - but it was a stepping stone to picking up RE Revelations on 3DS (alongside Mercs 3D - cracking game) and having a great, tense, time with it.

Silly really, considering that the exploration, inventory management and distinct puzzles of classic survival horror are right up my street. Absolutely devoured REmake when it came out in HD, along with the rest of the series shortly thereafter.
Turns out that the RE2 emblem puzzle - right before Mr. X busts through the wall - had vicariously lodged itself in my head years prior as one of those half-remembered white whale games. A gratifying grudge match indeed

Cue the buttrock!

[Austin]

I've never been big on the survival horror genre. I do have a soft spot for the first couple of Resident Evil games, and the OG Alone in the Dark is still one of my favorites from that era (and I even played through it again a few weeks back). Outside RE4, which is much more action-focused, I haven't toyed with a lot of others. I forced myself through Silent Hill 1 and 3 a couple years ago and found them miserable experiences, gameplay-wise. Tedious, repetitive, confusing, cryptic. I determined that series is just not for me, despite the cool themes and spooky locales.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Anyone else play Survival Crisis Z? It's a pretty cool top-down zombie themed horror game, gets more crazy as it goes on. It's faster paced than RE or SH, but it's quite cool exploring a city overrun by zombies with police and rebel factions both trying to maintain order.

Spoiler

The design of the world when it turns Silent Hill "otherworldy" is pretty neat too.

Another early PC game that has a definite survival horror feel is Ecstatica; you're stuck in a medieval village that's been overrun with monsters, there's a werewolf with tons of health (and lots of i-frames during his attacks) that acts a bit like a Resident Evil 3 nemmy style pursuer (with hiding places you can cram into to avoid him and heal), minimal interface (health slowly recovers over time, no lifebar, you see your health based on character's pose, you can hold only two items, one in each hand). Aside from some weird bullshit instadeath traps later on that encourage saving often until you figure out how to pass them, it's quite enjoyable. The art style is also unusual, everything is made up of circles and ovals.

[RGC]

Tormented Souls seems like a pretty solid homage to RE/REmake so far. I'm still reacclimatizing to the lack of right stick cam control, and doing the WTF-whereamI? jiggle with the left stick whenever the perspective shifts (especially when it cuts to some unexpected low angle), but I'll get there! Beginning to learn the layout of the building, which is strangely reminiscent of a certain mansion I've explored before. Already tried desperately combining the lighter with the crowbar; yep, it's just like old times!

Evil Within 1 is my pick for best game in the genre. It has some flaws, but it is so much fun. Especially on Akumu. I feel Akumu is the true way to play, and the lower difficulties are just training modes. Did a fresh Akumu run just a few months ago, and damn it was such a rush.

Now Evil Within 2 was a major disappointment for me. It is a good game that accomplishes what it is trying to do. But it's a terrible followup to the first game. All the strategy, intensity, badassery, and adrenaline was just gone... Evil Within 1 had some of the best designed boss fights ever. Evil Within 2's boss fights were bland and boring. Just terrible.

I really enjoy the stealth-kill aspect of the sequel, but agree the boss fights in particular are fairly unexacting. The first absolutely has greater depth and challenge to it, and things to figure out regarding boss battles beyond just finding the weak points to aim for (the final battle in EW2 really is a cakewalk in that regard). The whole experience of the sequel definitely made an impact on me, and maybe much of that was just down to good storytelling and effective action set pieces. Either way, I'll likely hold off going through NG+ for a while even if it means I won't get to make use of the upgrades I acquired right at the end of the first run. It's just too soon for a game of that length. I'll have to give EW1 Akuma mode a go sometime when I'm feeling brave!

Goodness, I was a total wimp for years with survival horror - on reputation alone!

Like many a gen X-er, I had exposure to dodgy X-rated movies way too early in life. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, An American Werewolf in London, The Hills Have Eyes. These films left an indelible imprint on my pre/proto-hormonal brain, and might explain the fascination the genre still holds today, via whatever medium. Thanks reckless parents! Amazing to think those films would be considered fairly tame or even a bit silly by today's standards. Not that I'd let my kids watch them yet. How did you get on with RE:Zero BTW?

@BareKnuckleRoo, not played either of those titles but they both look a blast. I'm considering getting a super compact mini PC I can tuck permanently behind the living room TV, mainly so I'll have ready access to and therefore actually play some of my steam library games (it just ain't gonna happen on the laptop). This would also let me delve into some other old windows titles like those you mentioned, which was always part of the plan.

[To Far Away Times]

I do love a good Resident Evil game.

This isn't really a genre I play a lot of games in, but I do really enjoy some of the more popular Resident Evil games and Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

[Lander]

Like many a gen X-er, I had exposure to dodgy X-rated movies way too early in life. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, An American Werewolf in London, The Hills Have Eyes. These films left an indelible imprint on my pre/proto-hormonal brain, and might explain the fascination the genre still holds today, via whatever medium. Thanks reckless parents! Amazing to think those films would be considered fairly tame or even a bit silly by today's standards. Not that I'd let my kids watch them yet. How did you get on with RE:Zero BTW?

Heh, the strongest vintage in my formative movie experience was watching occasionally-gory 80s action reruns with my dad - Rambo, Die Hard and the like.
Terminator 1's slasher overtones were probably the closest I got to actual horror until mid-teens, save for a rather tame viewing of The Others at someone's party (which, as I recall, was a substitute for us kids wanting to live dangerously and rent a Resident Evil game )
In retrospect I think dad's comedy french maid outfit, and winning a giant garden gnome in table football, were both substantially more horrifying

As for RE: Zero, I was quite impressed with it during the train section, since it seemed like more REmake with a few twists for flavor - well produced horror, grounded in the same zombies + mutant fauna conceit, interesting layouts and puzzles, and so on.
Though I checked out mentally during the transition to the mansion, with the leech opera stuff - it's all a bit Alfred Ashford, and I've never been a great lover of RE's more fanciful elements.
Enjoyed it well enough beyond that for a while. It seemed harder and more resource constrained than most entries, which made for some tense encounters when the leechmen started showing up.

Character switching and floor items were neat, but I'd have preferred a more traditional setup of switching at safe rooms and having character-gated areas - the Rebecca / Billy split felt kind of unbalanced, since combat tends to favour the rugged ex-con over the genki girl.
Though I hear a skilled player can abuse the co-op grab save mechanic for instant kills with some precise positioning - I was playing traditional and sending Billy out to do everything, so maybe it clicks if you have them act as a unit?

I don't think I finished it in the end - I recall the section with the monkeys (those bastard monkeys!) and tricky animal puzzle, some hunter stuff, and an underground complex, but ended up taking a break at some point and not picking it back up.

[Lemnear]

for me , that i love horrors, i think that all the RE series is not scary at all, and is praised too much. Dead Space is for me "the standard", but not the apex.

I personally LOVE the Project Zero/Fatal Frame/Zero (Saga), for it's japanese horror setting, and probably the only horror games that makes me cry during the ending (PZ3 Ending).
For some extent also Forbidden Siren is pretty cool compared to the classic horror (here the TV Commercial:)

Clock Tower 3, because for the majority of the game you have NO WAY to defend yourself from the chasing assassin's around the city.
The only horror game that make you really a prey.


DarkSeed, a point and click game (with global timer) illustrated by H.R.Giger that i found weirdly unsettling.

Weird Dreams ,barely an horror , but it uses common phobias directly so for some could be unsettling. The ending was....unexpected.

I Have No Mount and i Must Scream, another point and click game full of psycologic violence against the player, all the time. The ending is PURE horror at it's highest height. It talks about EXTREME content:

Spoiler

lust attacks
nazi-experiments
psychological abuse
raping
pedophilia
"cleanse" homosexuality
giant genitalia
child-like mental regression
genocide
blindness
constant starvation
suicide
etc.

And the evil IA in game is the most brutal, devilish and cruel god-like-entity i've ever seen in any media. Totally merciless above any imaginable manner.

I don't like jump scares, are a cheap way to scare you, i prefer when the fear still also after you shutdown the game, better if is something that will mark your mind and soul forever

PS: The intro of Rule of Roses also was pretty brutal (starts with a buried alive child).
PPS: P.T. Demo was the only good example of a first person Horror.

In the end i thing that modern horror games and movies have too much respect for the audience/players, like if is "ye i must scare you but not so much".
I prefer when the horrors are total disrespectful to the viewers, like in the past, a challenger between the audience/players and the movie/games.
Will you resist till the end? Are you sure? We Will Tear Your Soul Apart..

[dan76]

+1 for The Evil Within 1. The sequel started pretty good but really went downhill with map design and god awful cutscenes.

I'm a big RE fan, but non-combat games leave me cold. If you're not scared by them, there is nothing. I'd include Alien Isolation in that. I can see why people like it but it didn't convince me. All I felt I was doing was trying to figure out where the invisible trigger points were. No immersion. Trigger point, run, trigger point, run.

With RE I thought they had finally cracked the formula with RE2 Remake. I can't really see why each following games play slightly differently. Make them all like that, don't tweak it. RE4 remake was good, but it seems like everyone was excited for it, it came out, largely delivered and now it's gone. On a somewhat related note, I'm looking forward to the Shadows of the Damned Remaster. I really loved how that played, the shooting was fantastic and an extention of RE4.

I'm not really scared by horror games but the thing they usually have going for them is that death matters. With so many modern games offering an "experience" that anyone can basically complete, a good horror game is something you can fail at. The consequences of a death is one of the main draws, thinking "oh Christ if I die I have to do all that again" really adds something.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The System Shock games are also great first-person survival horror (long before RE7 rolled around), particularly the second game's atmosphere with fairly limited resources on the higher difficulties. Item management isn't as strict as RE4 but it's still fun and thoughtful, and the RPG elements let you experiment with various character builds to get through the game. The respawning enemies and focus on melee combat to preserve ammo all add to the tension (though it plays faster paced if you build up to packing an assault rifle!). Those droids that wander helpfully over to try and EXPLODE IN YOUR FACE unironically scare me more than the spiders or zombies do. >w>;;

I'm a big RE fan, but non-combat games leave me cold.

What do you think of games that blend the two elements with non-combat/combat as separate elements? I'm thinking some of the Clock Tower games, Haunting Ground, etc. I think I agree that horror where your character doesn't at least try to assert some degree of self-defense feels a bit strange in a way and I can't think of too many "passive" survival horror games I've played. There's a lot of horror games that manage to blend combat and horror (or at least tense exploration) well together, RE, SH, and Fatal Frame perhaps being the frontrunners.

As for RE: Zero, I was quite impressed with it during the train section, since it seemed like more REmake with a few twists for flavor - well produced horror, grounded in the same zombies + mutant fauna conceit, interesting layouts and puzzles, and so on.

I was quite impressed by it. I went into it knowing it as "the spinoff" game but it's pretty well done. The coop elements aren't too overbearing and it is possible to have a fair bit of success running solo most of the game. There's a few rough spots though, such as when Billy or Rebecca's suddenly forced to go it alone during a fair stretch of the game. If had your best weapons and ammo on the wrong person, it's pretty rough, so memorizing when and where the forced splits happens helps.

It's an interesting experimental game, but ultimately I felt the ObScure games, another good survival horror series, did coop better. Namely, you actually can play coop with another person, it works like Sweet Home where the game doesn't necessarily end if one of your members dies, and in the first game aside from puzzle area at the start there's no forced AI partners, you can go it alone from start to finish if you like (which is preferable during the final boss as it has an instant kill attack that AI partners are not adept at dodging).

[Lander]

I never saw the appeal with more passive survival horror games - I need consistent agency to fight back and overcome, otherwise it ends up feeling like chase horror or pure horror. Though at the same time, it shouldn't tip over into a kill-everything power fantasy, at least not on the first run. Tricky line to walk.

Though one thing I'd like to see more of is protagonists still displaying fear despite their agency. Like Isaac's AAAAAGH! reactions to the necromorphs in Dead Space 1, before he found his (nonetheless lovable) cracked mad lad hero voice in 2.

I haven't played the series yet, but Fatal Frame seems to do that quite well. Though perhaps in slightly underhanded fashion, seeing as the protagonists are often helpless teen girls.
In some sense it looks to suffer from the opposite problem, where the player character wields awesome power in gameplay, but doesn't really acknowledge it outside of that.

I Have No Mount and i Must Scream, another point and click game full of psycologic violence against the player, all the time. The ending is PURE horror at it's highest height.

Incredible achievement, that game - one of the rare rare cases where a tie-in manages to nail the themes so well that it outdoes the literary work it's based on.

And they even had Harlan Ellison - author of the short story, and ostensible cranky asshole - voice AM. Who better to understand the precise concentration of malice delivered with every last word? You can totally tell he loved playing the part.

[drauch]

DarkSeed, a point and click game (with global timer) illustrated by H.R.Giger that i found weirdly unsettling.

Weird Dreams ,barely an horror , but it uses common phobias directly so for some could be unsettling. The ending was....unexpected.

I Have No Mount and i Must Scream, another point and click game full of psycologic violence against the player, all the time. The ending is PURE horror at it's highest height. It talks about EXTREME content:

Haha, this is what I'm kind of talking about. While I'm sure you're well aware these are not survival horror, they really shouldn't be in the conversation at all with the likes of your others mentioned: Dead Space, RE, Fatal Frame. Horror thematics, setting, atmosphere, etc. -- these get all lumped together too frequently in one big nonsensical melting pot of survival horror. Not trying to be a stickler -- cool games and all! -- but let's not muddle the playing field . By this regard we'd be talking about Night Slashers, Splatterhouse, Song of Saya, and even Castlevania .

Resident Evil Zero: I primarily held off too long because I was afraid the switching characters mechanic would be a pain in the ass. I distinctly recall a bud of mine many years back mentioning how you have to leave certain items for others here and there. This probably only mattered once or twice that I recall. If you've played enough RE you generally know when there's a boss or something up ahead, so that's when I usually save and adjust if needed.

Buuuuuut yeah, the no inventory box 'mechanic' is a gigantic pain in the ass. It's so messy and limited, and potentially fucks you over depending on the angle. You can tell on the map where you dropped something, but depending on the camera angle some of the pre-rendered stuff can obscure where you dropped things; or, if the room is already full of your crap, you might drop it in one part of the room only for it to not have space from the clutter, resulting in your item being ten feet away from where you thought you placed it, which doubly sucks when a bedframe or desk is obscuring your ammo.

Reading an interview, I do appreciate the desire to make it more difficult -- because yeah, at first it definitely is. Very limited ammo for the first chunk of the game and every bullet was precious. Also, the two-character decision was to harken back to the Sweet Home times of having multiple characters, each having a particular 'skill'. This isn't implemented very well, but I do kind of like it. Billy is strong: does more damage, can move boxes | cannot mix herbs or gather chemicals 'cause he's a big dummy. Rebecca cannot move boxes or heavy things but can mix herbs and collect chemicals. It's a bit weak, but there's a character essentially like Billy in Sweet Home, so I get it.

Atmosphere is top notch and the pre-rendered stuff looks amazing. The whole thing has that early RE moody, isolated feel. Some clever camera blocking to where you think something is going to pop out or jump down, only for it to remain eerily quiet. Camera angles do fuck you -- on purpose -- multiple times. Not talking about hearing a zombie down the hall and waiting for it to come into frame -- there's a few moments where you just turn a corner and get popped without a chance or can't see shit.

Adding to the frustration, there's these fucking monkeys. They are the worst thing in the RE series, bar none. There is no hit delay on your character and they can gangrape you in a corner, whittling away your health and preventing you from shooting, let alone moving. Meanwhile, Hunters have insane invulnerability after a hit, well after their struggling movement has ended. It's annoying. Proto-Tyrant is the same way.

Shit's good, though. I don't think it deserves as much flack as it gets. There is a chunk of frustrating stuff that puts this at the bottom of the 'classic' RE's for me, but if you're a fan in the first place I don't see how you wouldn't enjoy it since it really sells the survival aspect of it all.

But holy shit the story is awful . Not that it was ever great, but it should have remained simple: Umbrella is evil, virus abound, time to survive. But whatever, if they needed a vehicle for leech monsters in the mix then I'm for it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I haven't played the series yet, but Fatal Frame seems to do that quite well. Though perhaps in slightly underhanded fashion, seeing as the protagonists are often helpless teen girls.
In some sense it looks to suffer from the opposite problem, where the player character wields awesome power in gameplay, but doesn't really acknowledge it outside of that.

It succeeds, mainly due to enemy design and camera combat. If you know what you're doing you can tear up ghosts really well, but getting to that point takes some serious practice. Movement when looking through the finder is slow and vision becomes claustrophobic, and getting those fatal frame shots has a fairly narrow margin of success. At least one boss enemy in II (Kusabi) is capable of oneshotting you, and IIRC this ignores if you have a Stone Mirror (autorevive if HP hits 0, can only carry one at a time).

Though one thing I'd like to see more of is protagonists still displaying fear despite their agency. Like Isaac's AAAAAGH! reactions to the necromorphs in Dead Space 1

Heather's initial reaction upon finding the pistol and encountering the first monster in Silent Hill 3 is a great fit. She's fucking terrified, but she's also just found a gun in her hand and does what comes naturally. She reacts similarly in the next few major encounters, clearly not happy about what's going on. It's interesting seeing her develop through the game, where by the time you're in the Hospital and facing down the boss, she's downright blasé about it (helps that you're packing a shotgun or SMG by that point I guess). Harry has similar reactions when facing down Pyramid Head and those dudes in the morgue ceiling vs later boss encounters. Trauma really hardens you!

[Lander]

It succeeds, mainly due to enemy design and camera combat. If you know what you're doing you can tear up ghosts really well, but getting to that point takes some serious practice. Movement when looking through the finder is slow and vision becomes claustrophobic, and getting those fatal frame shots has a fairly narrow margin of success. At least one boss enemy in II (Kusabi) is capable of oneshotting you, and IIRC this ignores if you have a Stone Mirror (autorevive if HP hits 0, can only carry one at a time).

I had an LP of 2 on in the background a little while ago, and thought the enemy design looked really good. The way some of the fatal frame windows require the player to weather a scare - like that lady that drops from the ceiling - is a great touch.
No doubt it feels very different to play than to watch; easy to get the wrong impression seeing the player load up 12-gauge camera shells and pop SWEET COMBO and JUST FRAME bonuses all over the screen

Heather's initial reaction upon finding the pistol and encountering the first monster in Silent Hill 3 is a great fit. She's fucking terrified, but she's also just found a gun in her hand and does what comes naturally. She reacts similarly in the next few major encounters, clearly not happy about what's going on. It's interesting seeing her develop through the game, where by the time you're in the Hospital and facing down the boss, she's downright blasé about it (helps that you're packing a shotgun or SMG by that point I guess). Harry has similar reactions when facing down Pyramid Head and those dudes in the morgue ceiling vs later boss encounters. Trauma really hardens you!

Funnily, Silent Hill is the series i'd soonest give a pass to on that front, since the whole thing is so steeped in uncanny psycho-occultism that it becomes hard to draw a line between the real and the abstract.

I guess 2 is the poster boy for that, having characters wander out of their personal hell and into a subtext-rich casual conversation to the effect of this town is weird and so are you, alright seeya.
1's Satanic evil concept felt more straightforward - at least before falling down the what is Silent Hill hole - though is arguably flexible enough to support similar reality-bending. Was Harry really fighting winged horrors before meeting Sybil, or merely having an episode on account of imperceptible evil?

3 though, whew. Becoming a stone cold badass is almost expected in the face of that terrifying tag-team of horror disciplines haven't laid eyes and ears on it in a while, but I remember the atmosphere being raw scraping discomfort at all times.

[Sima Tuna]

I never saw the appeal with more passive survival horror games - I need consistent agency to fight back and overcome, otherwise it ends up feeling like chase horror or pure horror. Though at the same time, it shouldn't tip over into a kill-everything power fantasy, at least not on the first run. Tricky line to walk.

Yes, the push-and-pull of survival horror is all about that balance of weaponry, low resources and overwhelming opposition. A purely passive horror game isn't even "survival horror" in my opinion. If you can't shoot the monsters and (at least temporarily) kill them or remove them as threats, then you're not surviving the horror. At that point, it's just a walking sim chase game where you sometimes die.

SOMA and RE2 are good points of comparison. SOMA is a good game... Or at least a good story wrapped in a boring walking sim. But it's not survival horror. There are no resources to manage and you cannot kill the enemies chasing you. Original RE2 (or the remake, whichever you prefer) gives you some resources and pits you against waves of horrifying undead creatures. To me, "survival horror" probably traces back in feel to films like Dawn of the Dead. Whereas your walking sim horror games, like Amnesia or SOMA, are probably closer in tone to Ju-On or Ringu. There's no fighting the evil curse in Ju-On. It comes for you and then you die. In those walking sim horror games, all you can do is temporarily run from whatever is chasing you, and whether or not you survive depends upon the storyline. But in survival horror, your character almost always lives if you can make it to the end. The evil you fight can be temporarily put in its place by judicious application of shotgun.

I'll list some games I think exemplify good Survival Horror:

RE 1-3 classic
RE Code Veronica
Silent Hill 1-3
Siren 1-2
RE4 and Dead Space (1-2) are more action-horror than survival-horror, but I'll still mention them here
Dino Crisis
Parasite Eve 2
Evil Within 1
Clock Tower 3
Dead Rising
Fatal Frame (I think the first one is far and away best of the pack)

Evil Within is probably the last good game I know of in the survival horror genre. Modern horror games tend strongly towards the walking sim/rail runner/chase story style of gameplay. I have not played those Puppet Combo tribute games, but what I saw of one of them was a pure chase game with no gunplay.

[Lemnear]

DarkSeed, a point and click game (with global timer) illustrated by H.R.Giger that i found weirdly unsettling.

Weird Dreams ,barely an horror , but it uses common phobias directly so for some could be unsettling. The ending was....unexpected.

I Have No Mount and i Must Scream, another point and click game full of psycologic violence against the player, all the time. The ending is PURE horror at it's highest height. It talks about EXTREME content:

Haha, this is what I'm kind of talking about. While I'm sure you're well aware these are not survival horror, they really shouldn't be in the conversation at all with the likes of your others mentioned: Dead Space, RE, Fatal Frame. Horror thematics, setting, atmosphere, etc. -- these get all lumped together too frequently in one big nonsensical melting pot of survival horror. Not trying to be a stickler -- cool games and all! -- but let's not muddle the playing field . By this regard we'd be talking about Night Slashers, Splatterhouse, Song of Saya, and even Castlevania .

Yeh i know, they miss the survival part but goes wonder in the horror department...while Survival Horror normally hit the Survival part and miss the horror part that is minimalized to:

"Tensed exploration"
"Jump-Scare"

If there's something that the Project Zero//Fatal Frame series does excellently (for example), is playing with your imagination.
There are section where you will never encounter an enemy for 15-30mins (sometimes even an hour), the games simply does nothing in that moment, is all your imagination that gave you tension.
PZ//FF 2 have a jump-scare in the Pause Menu i like that the game does this in a moment when you should feel "Invulnerable".

Oh in PZ // FF 3 i love that there's a Daytime part where you are safe, but the more you progress in the game, less your house is safe, ghosts will starts to show up sometimes in your home, making it a "neverending nightmare", day and night.

[BIL]

I adore REmake and SH1-4, replaying them all every few winters. And I've had Sirens and Fatal Farms on the backlog for ungodly years now; that's about it for my dalliances with the genre. I'm an obsessive sort, I wait forever then I sperg like a man possessed. RE2make looks good, and I would've followed up this year's (also decade-overdue) Vanquish with The Evil Within; just waiting for darker months.

It's not that I don't want to play more, I think I was left traumatised by Konami shitting the bed. Only reason I've not written off the SH2 remake is, it's got Masahiro Ito sounding excited again, bless. I'll give anything he's working on a charitable hearing. And that old shitbird Yamaoka is back, too, but fuck him tbh. 3; Not really, just keep him locked in the BGM shed, and also confiscate his stock SFX CDs, and also bar that Melissa Etheridge knockoff from the premises, Christ she's annoying! SH1+2 Yams makes he STRINGS DO THE TALKIN He used to be 1 TOUGH HARDGAY DUDE

This is taking me back to nerdfighting hard in the late 00s Yamaoka's solo record is killer - now that is a tune I want to hear while roaming through burning, black-lit Future Gas Station! Mulleted splendiferously in trucker hat and mirror shades w/ dual sawed-offs, blasting punks and CAKE fiends, grabbing Health Shakes™ and MEDICINAL HERB as glass crunches underfoot!

I played the much maligned ports of Silent Hill 2 & 3 on the 360, on release of the collection. Yet despite their purported glitchy shortcomings I still found them so creepy, unsettling and (especially SH2), claustrophobic that I just had to keep going with the series. Still have recollections of that dread associated with finally locating a window to the outside world and wanting to be out there, yet at the same time definitely not wanting to be out there! The Room had a great plot and kept the momentum going well, but I found it was diminishing returns after that.

Glad you enjoyed! KCET's work transcends ;-;7

I had the privilege of playing REmake and SH1-4 (and RE4 and MGS3, Mikami's then-latest masterpiece more kin of Kojima's imo) for the first time while caretaking my parents' wrecked house, after a particularly nasty hurricane. So many memories Place had utilities back, but was still creepier than a motherfucker. One that stands out is SH2 sending the player into its most nightmarishly cramped environments immediately after

Spoiler

Brookhaven's climactic ambush establishes Pyramid Head's horrid omnipresence; he's not the trudging behemoth teased at Wood Side, he's a spectre at your back. There's even Misty Day ~ Remains of the Judgment on the wall of the exhibit, looming tauntingly over James's head.

I wasted a lot of time dawdling in the now-dark streets, ostensibly ferreting out stashes and basking in the funereal night air, but mostly not wanting to approach the place the author of the letter I'd just received warned he "tried" to flee from. This right after checking back in on that promising lead at Neely's.

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO SEE MARY YOU SHOULD JUST DIE
BUT YOU MIGHT BE HEADED TO A DIFFERENT PLACE THAN MARY
JAMES

The name positioned almost like the signature on a letter, helll yeah. When I finally passed through The Door That Woke In Darkness, I mashed the living Christ off my [X] button tearing open the door at the bottom of the endless stair, certain if I stopped to look back, the awful cunt would be right there, in the bloodcurdling moaning din. Amazing dread And then of course, in that place's insensible depths, PH only ever is a trudging behemoth, his (or is it their?) booming footsteps heard long before visual contact. MIND GAMES BRO

Heather's initial reaction upon finding the pistol and encountering the first monster in Silent Hill 3 is a great fit. She's fucking terrified, but she's also just found a gun in her hand and does what comes naturally. She reacts similarly in the next few major encounters, clearly not happy about what's going on. It's interesting seeing her develop through the game, where by the time you're in the Hospital and facing down the boss, she's downright blasé about it (helps that you're packing a shotgun or SMG by that point I guess). Harry has similar reactions when facing down Pyramid Head and those dudes in the morgue ceiling vs later boss encounters. Trauma really hardens you!

Funnily, Silent Hill is the series i'd soonest give a pass to on that front, since the whole thing is so steeped in uncanny psycho-occultism that it becomes hard to draw a line between the real and the abstract.

I guess 2 is the poster boy for that, having characters wander out of their personal hell and into a subtext-rich casual conversation to the effect of this town is weird and so are you, alright seeya.
1's Satanic evil concept felt more straightforward - at least before falling down the what is Silent Hill hole - though is arguably flexible enough to support similar reality-bending. Was Harry really fighting winged horrors before meeting Sybil, or merely having an episode on account of imperceptible evil?

I think about this on recent revisits; the duality of SH1+2, which I'd long considered admirably seamless and rich. I still do! Just with a bit more consideration for absent Toyama. (I heard he was working on a new horror project, incidentally... I'm just glad he's still around, all those dudes from the late 90s/early 00s KCET days are talismanic to me)

In fact i sperged so hard last time it came up, BulletMagnet very kindly added a spoiler tag to the SH thread at my request. To avoid contaminating RGC's lovely new thread:

SHORT: AN EDGY BOI DISCOVERS CLARKY CAT (■｀w´■)

+

LONG: NOW HES DOING IT MASSIVE BRUV (｀w´メ) (◎w◎;)

I like to think of SH1 and SH2 as improbably perfect companion pieces; "Worlds of someone's nightmarish delusions come to life" (quoth Harry), experienced from the respective third- and first-person.

"Improbably," as director Keiichiro Toyama left KCET after SH1. But given Hiroyuki Owaku (enemy & event programmer), Takayoshi Sato (CG), Masahiro Ito (art lead), and even lovable shitbird Yamaoka (audio, Rob Halford cosplay) were all intimately involved in developing SH1, before heading up SH2 - and given Toyama's own comments on SH1's willfully nebulous identity - I don't think it's much of a leap.

With SH2 establishing a much older, larger enigma, I think you could compellingly portray SH1's cult cycle as not uniquely supernatural; just another tale of human folly, unnervingly reified. With one stark exception, SH1 tells virtually nothing of the town itself not related to Alessa. The drug trade; the unexplained deaths of local authorities; the immolation by her own mother, head of fanatics lurking in a decayed resort's shadows... taken alone, this could play as Carrie meets Rosemary's Baby, on the scale of The Mist. Abused psychic girl plunges hometown into the abyss, trying to contain its evil deity she's doomed to birth.

That exception is White Claudia, precursor of tourist favourite PTV, which bridges Alessa, Walter, and Heather's cult-inflicted torments with James's self-inflicted one:

Raw material is White Claudia, a plant peculiar to the region.

Seeds contain hallucinogen. Ancient records show it was used for religious ceremonies. The hallucinogenic effect was key.

Those hefty tomes Jimmy finds, and even the dread Darkness Bong, are useless without a strong hit of White Chrism. Jimmy even finds the Crimson Tome in the Lakeview's reading room; a storehouse of white settler knowledge mirroring SH3's chapel library, where Heather (packing her own endgame-critical White Claudia) finds On Syncretic Religions.

What I like about this model is, SH1/3/4's human element - the fanaticism, the megalomania, the atrocities in service of, along with Alessa, Heather, and Walter's plights - is untouched. That stuff is real as all hell. It's merely a neat reconciling of Heather's musing to Douglas: "I guess it wasn't much of a 'God' if it could be killed by a human being." Harry did indeed kill the thing Dahlia revered and Alessa dreaded as "God." He shot it in the face while avoiding its flamey flames that PWNed Dahlia, and it fell over and died. I think it was just another monster - a particularly odious and resilient one, as real-life Gods so often are - catalysed by an unfathomably tormented psyche.

(imo, the olde "Injun burial ground! Bwaaa!" thing is also better taken as a universal "This place makes wonderful but often weird and sometimes fuckin dangerous shit happen, kids! Stay the fuck out, before you bring Meat With Teeth - or even Hooker Who Looks Like Mom, how will I explain that shit - down on us all! Oh Christ, it's whitey with guns and blankets. Hey waitaminute, whitey! Don't build your prison camp there! Ahh fuck")

It also grounds a necessarily videogamey aspect - God getting blown away like Enemy Crime Boss - in the only marginally less farcical domain of human endeavour. Jimmy's Pyramid Heads cannot be blown away like Alessa's God. They will, however, just as obediently go away, if Jimmy's pesky Eros (down but not out!) can surpass the looming Thanatos that summoned them. Shoot, stab, stomp, do whatever it takes to overcome The Reverse Will, whether it resides in another's heart, or one's own.

Taken to an extreme, I think you could portray Alessa and Walter's powers as similarly conditional on the Whatever. I don't subscribe to this extent, myself. I take their paranormal abilities as flatly "real," in-universe. But given how consistent the theme of "tortured children dosed with peyote in the pursuit of Hellraiser Heaven" is, and how seamlessly it jives with SH2's secular - but no less grotesquely realised - travails, it's something I like to entertain. Maybe Alessa could "kill people with her mind" not out of some unique power; just the resonating of Whatever with the longings of an abused and neglected child. Maybe Alessa's SH2 counterpart isn't so much James, as Laura.

Clawing At The Veil.mp3（＾w´ ）

Spoiler

Tangentially, this is what I wish Homecoming had capitalised on; cult not as a shadowy nemesis, but as family turned against itself. A strong writer could conjure moving horror-drama for days out of that concept. They just didn't have the vision, apparently. I'm sure cash wasn't abundant, either. Plus, they were wasting time with a B plot of far less innate oomph, and a C plot that blows back over the whole production, most foully, like a dog farting in front of the television. 3;

Actually, fuck, speaking of White Claudia and other psychotropics, there's the lesser-feted companion piece to Fukuro aka Pyramid Head's Sex Tape: Kinoko ("Mushroom"). Hm. And of course there's "Overdose Delusion," which I'm linking here because it's fukken RAWK. Reminds me of why everyone loves Yamaoka.

This is why I ain't play many new games, too busy with the old ones coinop or otherwise.

[Marc]

Tormented was brilliant, really looking forward to the sequel. It was a straight Resi rip and didn't give two shits.

Looking forward - with caution - to the Silent Hill 2 remake.

I really enjoyed Resi 0 back in the day, couldn't understand the backlash. Map was brilliant, it looked glorious, and I liked most of the changes. A far better game than CV IMO.
At the other end of the scale, I ditched REmake 3 a while back. What a piece of shit that was.

[NYN]

Heather's initial reaction upon finding the pistol and encountering the first monster in Silent Hill 3 is a great fit. She's fucking terrified, but she's also just found a gun in her hand and does what comes naturally. She reacts similarly in the next few major encounters, clearly not happy about what's going on.

Not to dissect the premise of that scene, it's fun, and Heather is, too; though what's fun too is to imagine it without the weird fiction context (with more common sense): Oh, lookit! A handgun on the floor. I wonder if it's a drag to get my prints on it, right? I mean, no corpes in the general area...Huh? Oh noooo, a body. Bummer! Am I a suspect now? What? Aaaaah, a monster! So glad I picked this up. Die ugly! DIE! AAAAH!


Thinking about Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare PSX for some reason. A bud lend it to me at the time. Don't remember much, but wasn't that receptible then. Interested in the HPL flavour now. What of it, fellas? Worth to go back? PS2 recommanded?

[BIL]

Heather's initial reaction upon finding the pistol and encountering the first monster in Silent Hill 3 is a great fit. She's fucking terrified, but she's also just found a gun in her hand and does what comes naturally. She reacts similarly in the next few major encounters, clearly not happy about what's going on.

Not to dissect the premise of that scene, it's fun, and Heather is, too; though what's fun too is to imagine it without the weird fiction context (with more common sense): Oh, lookit! A handgun on the floor. I wonder if it's a drag to get my prints on it, right? I mean, no corpes in the general area...Huh? Oh noooo, a body. Bummer! Am I a suspect now? What? Aaaaah, a monster! So glad I picked this up. Die ugly! DIE! AAAAH!

My favourite thing around then is that heavy STORES CLOSED EVERYBODY <3 shutter nearby, with what sounds like an amiably rabbling crowd on the other side of it. OR IS IT That and the locked toilet stall have a nice sense of the mundane fiendishly just out of reach.

(of course she wouldn't clamberingly lever herself up over the stall to interrogate the poor soul on the other side - OR IS IT - at this point; that'd fracture the script in multiple areas like it'd been put through one of them there Tekken chain-throws!)

A Spoiler

NGL I actually ran Heather out of the room a bit later on, when the stall's bloodcurdling punchline arrived. Faaack! Innocent times.

[cj iwakura]

I consider Fatal Frame the pinnacle, for me, the height of creeping dread, atmosphere, and limited resources.

Though I also have a fondness for 'action' horror like RE4/6(which I think is way better at it than Village), where you have enough resources to blow everything away if you want to, and with style.


The Evil Within and Alien Isolation both left me cold. The former doesn't know if it wants to be RE or Silent Hill, and the latter just goes on waaaay too long, but it had some great moments.

[Sima Tuna]

OG RE2 is probably my favorite survival horror game. It has one of the all-time great starting sections of gaming. The changes across both routes and player flexibility on which route to tackle first give it a lot of replay value as well. The weapon upgrade system has been rarely matched in any other survival horror title. Previously weak weapons become powerful when you find the upgrade kits, and powerful weapons become ridiculous.

The game is pretty easy, but I don't see that as a negative. You can take specific routes to increase or decrease the difficulty, or just to smooth out the curve. Not every game needs to be shmups forum levels of hardcore. A casual player will still get sniped by Lickers and die to a few of the bosses.

[cj iwakura]

It's a great one, and I was surprised at how faithful RE2make was. I wasn't a big fan of RE1's remake, but loved 2. (The only nitpick is that you don't get the same Leon A/Claire A replay value, but ah well.)

I loved the little bits of snark the voice acting added, like Claire going "That asshole is the police chief!?".

[BIL]

Now HUNK is my boy particularly for his impeccable observation of biochemical warfare PPE; I saw a cutscene from one of those portable REs where Jill comes across a pit of godawful purple shite, and promptly plunges both bare arms in to the elbows. What the Christ! It instantly made me think of that Chronicles shooter, where she thought it'd be a good idea to attempt a head-scissors choke on a zombie (why), in her ridiculous RE3 summer dress getup (JFC why), and the zombie is understandably all HUNK would've just broken the dirty fucker's neck, with his vambraced, HIV Moth-proof arms and hands! Neuromotor function permanently disabled! And that would be the only wet beefy *crack* on offer for Mr. Zombie that day He thought no muff was too tough, but he didn't count on CATASTROPHIC C-SPINE TRAUMA

All this to say that, if not for HUNK's grimly purposeful yet charismatic ultraviolence, my mans would DEFINITELY be OG_RE1 Wesker, mans has one beautiful head of hair



It should be under a helmet, frankly, with all the JIGOKU no S.T.D. raging on-site - and ultimately, I'm a functionalist who prefers HUNK's practical-as-always buzzcut! But it's all in the Luciferous job description for an arch-villain to tempt such indiscretions Has there ever been a more handsome devil than TEH MERCENARIES Wesker, avalanching finely-shod judgment onto his foundering prey? A pridefully disaster-dicing mode of dispatch, one leg unguarded, the other looming high overhead; exuding biblical hubris! A singularly haughty statement, as the tensile-steel assemblage from sole to lumbar that distinguishes man from beast reduces its target to so much worm-low, skull-caved shite!

BUNS OF STEEL DO NOT ATTEMPT WITHOUT AZN SUPERVISION (｀w´メ)

Al should've always remained in the background, like HUNK, popping up just long enough to remind mahfuckas what time it is before retiring to the shadows. That RE5 volcano business makes my wiener soft and floppy like cheese. 3; I'd have had him unleash a virus that gives 99% of humanity alopecia totalis, but endows the surviving fraction amazing hair just like him Now, CHRIS must race not only against time, but his own burning envy of Al's much superior style!

[To Far Away Times]

OG RE2 is probably my favorite survival horror game. It has one of the all-time great starting sections of gaming. The changes across both routes and player flexibility on which route to tackle first give it a lot of replay value as well. The weapon upgrade system has been rarely matched in any other survival horror title. Previously weak weapons become powerful when you find the upgrade kits, and powerful weapons become ridiculous.

The game is pretty easy, but I don't see that as a negative. You can take specific routes to increase or decrease the difficulty, or just to smooth out the curve. Not every game needs to be shmups forum levels of hardcore. A casual player will still get sniped by Lickers and die to a few of the bosses.

For a survival horror game, there needs to be a perception of difficulty without it actually being too hard to break the illusion. I think the resident evil games do this pretty well. The games are quite upfront about you having limited resources, but the number of times the average player will die and reload a section is probably fairly small.

[Sima Tuna]

Ink ribbons help with the illusion of difficulty. As long as you aren't saving every 5 minutes, you'll have more than enough ribbons to finish the game. But the tension of using a finite resource to save your game further exacerbates the feelings of danger when you venture far from a safe room. Can you find another one? Will you be able to backtrack? What if you snuck past the zombies instead of killing them? You'll have to go back that way when you need to save! Or maybe... You could find a shortcut? But who knows what will happen next! What if a boss is in the next room?!?

The limited inventory plays its role as well. You can't take everything with you. If you bring 5 slots worth of weapons and ammo, you won't have much space for key items. But if you only take one weapon, what will you do if a boss appears?

In practice, the game is never as hard as you think it will be. But those limitations press on you while exploring and create an oppressive atmosphere.

[RGC]

I'll list some games I think exemplify good Survival Horror:

RE 1-3 classic
RE Code Veronica
Silent Hill 1-3
Siren 1-2
RE4 and Dead Space (1-2) are more action-horror than survival-horror, but I'll still mention them here
Dino Crisis
Parasite Eve 2
Evil Within 1
Clock Tower 3
Dead Rising
Fatal Frame (I think the first one is far and away best of the pack)

At the risk of triggering WWZ: If we omit RE4 and Dead Space from the above list, are the rest of these incontestably Survival Horror games? I'm thinking of creating a master list (of both mainstream and indie titles) in the OP, which can then serve as a backlog/checklist for others like myself with gaps to fill. I somehow still didn't play Dino Crisis, for example. What other titles should those with a penchant for the genre (or closely parallel genres), consider?

I'll be honest, I never gave the distinctions between survival, psychological, and action flavours of horror that much thought. More often than not it's the theme that draws me in. But it's true, once in, the gaming experience can be completely dissimilar from one to the next. In the loosest sense they all have survival at their core, albeit with varying degrees of ability to fight back. But then, you could apply that to almost any game. The nuances people have described here make total sense. Games like Outlast 2 require little to no planning or strategy beyond noting the next available safe spot (of which there tends to be an abundance), and pushing forward when the enemy's back is turned, usually indicated when the creepy music or rumbling noise subsides. I still enjoy these, but often I'll play them at social events, where it's all about bonding through collective pant shitting. Those are special times indeed.