|
 On 10/03/2014 at 03:22 PM by NintendoFanJon See More From This User » |
Hey, hey, hey it's almost Halloween! You know what that means? It means nothing actually. I'm far too old to be going around the neighborhood in costume to get candy. Though it is a frightening possibility that I easily could. And also I will most likely end up working that day. So even giving away candy to kids is out of the realm of possibility for me. Anyways horror games are some of the most unique experiences in our interactive medium today.
My first experience with the horror genre in video games came with Resident Evil 2. My brother had it and I would watch him play. However, I never quite got it. A young and naive version of myself didn't appreciate it. And then I grew up. My first horror gaming experience came strangely with the Nintendo Gamecube...you know that cute little purple box that kids carried around like lunchboxes to their friends house to play Melee.
Resident Evil or REmake as some call it now was released for the Gamecube in a year where I thought I was ready to take on what my brother played. Between this, Resident Evil 0, and Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem....well let's just say I had nightmares for a while.
Around this time my brother got a Playstation 2 and little game calle Fatal Frame. And if those games before scared the crap out of my poor childhood and my poor little Gamecube, then Fatal Frame made me wet my pants. That's how scared I was. This continued with Silent Hill 2 & 3, Haunting Ground...and other games that my older brother took delight in showing me because he was kind of an asshole.
Now I'm older and horror games are few and far between. At least in giving you that same feeling of dread and panic. Resident Evil has become a gun toting action game, Silent Hill was bounced from developer to developer after Team Silent left that the series lost any appeal. Fatal Frame hasn't left it's Japanese homeland and if it did it was a remake of the 2nd game (available in Europe and still the best game in the series) or spirt camera which was a neat idea, but poorly implemented spin off.
It's rare for a game to nowadays to give gamers that similar experience. A game like Dead Rising embraces the campiness and over the top antics with combinable chainsaws and zombie hordes. You still have some sleepers every now and again. Games like Amnesia or unfortunately Slender Man come to mind if you happen across any camera reaction let's plays on Youtube.
I myself came across a few obscure horror titles for Wii and even some pleasant surprises popped up...such as well Obscure II, Cursed Mountain, and Fatal Frame IV (again had to unfortunately import it) A nice surprise I heard about was Resident Evil: Revelations which I feel and many others feel is as close to RE getting back to the seeds it once sowed. And even though it wasn't a terrific effort ZombiU was a lot more survival horror than most recent games. It accounted for actual SURVIVAL and required you to think about routes, ammo management, sleeping, eating, etc.
So what are some of your horror memories? What horror games scared you when you were younger? How do you think survival horror has evolved? Is it better or worse? Comments and feedback are always greatly appreciated!
RE2 was big for me too, but I played the first one as well, though I mostly watched my brother play because it was his birthday present. I loved RE2 though, and then played Code Veronica when it came out, etc.
Never played Fatal Frame, but I bought it on PSN a few months back and I think I'm gonna check it out this month to get into the spirit of HAlloween.
Oh definately you should check out Fatal Frame. It's my favorite horror series!
I think Eternal Darkness was the only game to ever scare me effectively. Love that one.
I don't play horror games enough to say how they've evolved or devolved. I played the first part of RE4 recently and that's really all I've played aside from ED: SR, Erectile Dysfunction: Santa's Reindeer.
You can always dress as a slutty male nurse and go to a party.
I remember the sanity effect in which it would show the gamecube erasing your memory card. I was like so pissed! It was like what's coming next? Give me a break lol
I'm playing through REmake on Gamecube right now. The problem with current survival/horror games is that the survival and horror have been seperated. Horror type games are more action oriented and survival games have become primarily atmospheric and limited inventory--DayZ comes to mind. REvelations is cool but it's in the action type style like RE4,5,6. You should try Code Veronica some time. It is pretty tough, but if you haven't tried it, it's worth a visit.
I think that Revelations is closer in some parts to the original games. While there are some action sequences it's not all like that.
I heard about DayZ. Is it any good? I tried Code Veronica back in the day for the Dreamcast, but I don't think I ever fully appreciated it. I probably should go back and play it again. I liked REvelations and I felt it was a nice little step in the series...though it still had the action aspects. So maybe it's a mix.
Code Veronica is still made in the same style as the original RE games on PSOne. It is probably the longest of the first four games before making the jump to over the shoulder action shooter of 4,5,6.
Eternal Darkness has to rank as my number 1 favourite. with Silent Hill 1,2 and 3 following closely. I have all the Fatal Frames and while I've enjoyed playing I quickly wind up over my head as I'm really lousy with aiming the thing and shooting while getting attacked.
Yeah the cameraobscura can get quite maddening especially in the wii versions. Though it still is pretty nifty. It's my favorite series so I tend to see it's faults through a rose colored lens.
If I wasn't already booked up with games I'm playing, I'd like to finish Silent Hill: Book of Memories and then play Luigi's Mansion again (both GC and 3DS ones) and then tackle Eternal Darkness, which I have in my collection, and RE4 for Gamecube, which I've been meaning to play for years. Fatal Frame sounds cool too.
I've never really been scared by games although I used to get scared by the dragon in Atari 2600 Adventure. The way it would appear out of nowhere and come at you really fast just freaked me out. It looked like a duck but it had a square-shaped hole in it's stomach just the right size to fit the square-shaped you. . . I'm scaring myself just talking about it right now. Yikes!
LOL. That's pretty cool. I think if I ever had a nightmare involving a non horror related gaming experience I'd have to say it was probably Ganon from Legend of Zelda. Because the lights would go out and he would disappear and then reappear and as a kid that pig form scared the crap out of me.
Yea , sometimes it's something from a game that's not supposed to be a horror game. I remember Max Payne and that crying baby during the dream sequence where you had to walk along lines of blood. My hands started shaking after a while it unnerved me so much.
I'm not very good when it comes to Horror, since I easily scare my pants and be a pansy. I do own Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, but that wasn't scary except for an atmospheric part. I also played some internet horror games that I can't remember.
I am trying to get into Horror though, and I have Amnesia and another indie horror called Lone Survivor and I want to play them during this month.
Well best of luck in getting over your fear of horror games!
Comments