O the horror!

[Zipp]

Silent Hill discussions and talks about whether the new game in the series is scary have annoyed me. Why? To be honest, I could care less about Silent Hill. But I have heard that it's headed in a more action oriented RE4 kind of thing.

This is frustrating, because we're quickly running out of horror games. It's a great genre! It shouldn't be shunted into the already brimming action genre! Plus, despite some good action games (such as RE4 and Devil May Cry III) most of them end up being highly underwhelming.

So... what makes a good horror game, and how can it survive in the modern era?

It's a difficult question. Certainly, one can't deny that poor controls and difficult camera angles were a huge part of the old survival horror scare. And I don't care what ANYONE says, the new Resident Evil games ARE NOT SURVIVAL HORROR. THEY ARE ACTION.

Also note that, contrary to popular opinion, I ALSO LIKE THEM. I'm tired of hearing people tell me otherwise. No, I LIKE RE4, I just don't think it's survival horror.

Let's get back on topic. What makes a Survival Horror? I think we can identify some clear things, and that we can show how they could function in a more enlightened gaming era (ie. an era where controls don't blow chum):

1) atmosphere

Gotta be the number one thing. I mean, if your game is set in the wacky land of make believe ruled over by king Ryan the bunny, you're gonna have trouble scaring your audience. But more to the point is the fact that many games that are ostensibly set somewhere terrifying (a haunted house, a village of the damned, a ghost ship) lack actual atmosphere. Atmosphere goes way beyond a foundational setting. It applies music and sound (sometimes the lack thereof), lighting, architecture is twisted and yet disturbingly famililar, and there is a distinct use of cramped spaces.

On this last point, I do feel a horror game should feel more cramped than open and I'm going to defend that claim now. It's pretty simple, actually. Cramped spaces make us feel tense. Wide open spaces don't. It has to do with visibility. As a general rule, horror (whether it be video game or movie) should always follow this basic rule: The less we can see, the more we're afraid.

I'm sure some of you are racking your brains for counter examples. Some popular ones:

Silent Hill has plenty of open spaces! For god's sake, SH2's main environment was one huge open street! Ah, but do you not recall that that street was encased in perpetual fog? You couldn't see one hand's breadth in front of your face, let alone the things creeping towards you out of it. You could hear them (there's the use of sound) but you couldn't see them.

Well, what about Resident Evil 4? A lot of that takes place in big rooms and the open fields of the village. Yes, but again, it's not really OPEN space. You might be outside, or in a large room, but those areas were crammed full of stuff to block your vision and impair your movement. Also, stop bringing up RE4, I already said it's an action game, not a survival horror. RE4 isn't scary.

Ooookay, but how do you explain Dead Space, with its proposed open air environments? I explain it by saying that Dead Space is brilliant. The developers realize that Space, in its infinity, becomes more cramped than any small room could ever be. When you stare into space, you aren't staring from one edge of a large field to another. You're staring into nothing. Pure nothing. The nearest point isn't a mile away, it's light years away. Faced with that, you'll grab onto the hull of your suddenly insignificant ship like it was your mamma's teat.

The problem developers face graphically in the upcoming years is that as technology improves, so do the expectations of gamers. No longer will gamers be okay with clipping issues or textureless hallways. I don't know about you, but I was pretty dissapointed when I peeked behind one of those creepy curtains in RE4's castle and noticed that they hadn't drawn in any background outside of the window. Go on. Check it out. It's small, but it's the details where games are going to start having to tighten up. Of course, RE4 wasn't a survival horror game.

2) lack of ammo and healing items, usually combined with the need to manage an inventory

From personal experience I can say that nothing upsets me more in a survival horror game than when I run into a room, see a monster fall from the ceiling, whip out my gun, fire at it five times and then hear a resounding *click* And upset me it should. That is the point of a survival horror game. You should feel upset most of the time.

Nonetheless, the ammo issue is a difficult one. Obviously, if you punish players for not doing the exact right thing every time they encounter a battle, the game is going to go from scary to frustrating. But give them too much leeway and they'll laugh in the face of your most horrifying creation... right before blasting it with a near endless supply of shotgun shells.

Nothing creates calm in a gamer like a fully loaded shotgun. Adversely, nothing creates fear and tension in a gamer like a shotgun with only one bullet left.

So the trick was, for ages, to create the illusion of little ammo by giving players a little under or a little over what they needed to complete each section before rearming them.

Miraculously, this system of careful preplanning has worked for years. Miraculous I say because it is a system that is inherently broken. Unless the player follows exactly the path you think he will (and we all know how good players are at doing that *extreme sarcasm*) you will inevitably end up with one of two scenarios: your player will be better than you expected, and end up with the afore mentioned "fully loaded" scenario... or your player won't meet your expectations and will end up frustrated and stuck at some late point in the game with no hope except the reset button.

I'm not quite sure what the modern fix is for this. I think games like Dead Space are taking it in the right direction by changing the entire weapons system to be more strategical and tactical than simply blasting away till you're out of ammo.

Now, managing an inventory is another tough spot. In RE it eventually became a pain, since the game required so many key items. In Fatal Frame, they remove it entirely, and it doesn't hurt gameplay at all. I think a balance between the two is neccesary. Key items should never take up space (and in practice, there really shouldn't be a lot of key items). Weapons and ammo should take up space and constantly require you to make tactical decisions. And not decisions like "should I put the shotgun in a box for now and come back and pick it up later, so that I can use this rifle instead?" No, it should be more like "should I grab this shotgun, a more powerful weapon but with less ammo? To do so I'd have to drop my automatic handgun to fit it into my inventory. But if I drop the handgun, I LOSE IT FOREVER." The game designers know you can beat the game with either, but the player doesn't, and it will cause him extreme anxiety.

3) abilities that don't compare with the enemy's

Now we're getting into the big ones. This is where the whole "crappy control" syndrome comes from. I don't think anyone can deny that games were more frightening when a simple task such as turning the fuck around became an exercise requiring the use of at least three thumbs more than any human has. Granted, some characters had excuses for this. Jill Valentine had spent so much time becoming a green beret AND the master of unlocking (THE MASTER!) by the age of 20 that she understandably had little time to devote to basic motor skills.

But I digress.

The point is, though those days of shoddy controls were scarier, we don't have to copy the bad controls to keep the same tension. The point is, a game will be scary as long as the player doesn't have abilities that live up to those of the enemy. This doesn't mean that your character should be a Quadriplegic. Granted, a horror franchise featuring a quadriplegic could offer some interesting moments of pure terror (imagine having your urinary bottle spill in the heat of combat!) but again I digress. All it means is that no matter how highly trained a human you are, the monsters should always be able to outdo you in at least one of the following: stamina, speed, numbers, maneuverability, weapons, and maybe even intelligence. The enemy should always have the edge, not you.

That's not to say you shouldn't be able to survive, that's sort've the point of the genre ain't it?, but survive never means thrive. You should always be struggling. Again a distinction has to be drawn here between struggle and "Contra." You shouldn't be dying every time you encounter an enemy. But every time you encounter an enemy, there should be a distinct possibility of death.

A big part of this is not giving your player a lot of weapons. It's easy knowledge that someone facing a big monster armed with an assault rifle or plasma gun will feel a lot more confident than a player armed with a swiss army knife.

Fatal Frame is a good example of these things working well. Ghosts can turn invisible, go through walls and doors, kill you in a surprisingly short number of attacks, and can fly. You, on the other hand, can take pictures. Granted, the pictures are very deadly to the ghosts...

In the future, I don't suggest a return to the poor controls of yesteryear. I suggest better AI programming. Let's look at a few possibilities with one of the most basic monsters ever, the classic Zombie. Following are a few potential ways to take this creature and make him more scary.

- nearly impervious to bullets. If you can empty an entire clip into a zombie and still have it staggering towards you, that's scary. If graphics show huge gaping holes in its torso and head where you've shot it, that makes it scarier.

- faster. Yes, the classic answer. Crimson heads did this. This is more effective however if it either happens unexpectedly (a slow moving zombie suddenly lurches forward in a sprint upon seeing you, or getting too close) or if it is done in addition to increased mobility (so the zombie starts crawling up the wall).

- increase the damage of the attack. When a zombie gets you, its attack should be suddenly fast and very gruesome. Ripping a chunk out of your shoulder that leaves a player staggering is a good way to encourage players to be afraid of your monsters.

- increase the number of monsters. So you never come across a lone zombie... no, no... they only travel in packs of ten or more.

Basically, battle should always be tense. Whether this is because your enemies outnumber you or outmaneuver you is a developer's choice, but it's gotta be there. This doesn't neccesarily translate to "damning levels of difficulty." Players who keep their heads should be rewarded, but the way to win a battle should always be something uncomfortable. In Fatal Frame it's having to stand still and wait for the ghost to pop out and get as close as possible for maximum fright. In Dead Space it's a similar closing game combined with a sort've guessing game of "which body part do you choose?" And if you're wrong... oops. Followed by ouch.

And one thing I suggest developers STOP doing is giving the player all sorts of ways to affect their enemy. Sure, it's cool when you can pop a zombie in the knee cap and see them stagger, or blow off its head in one shot if you aim at the bridge of the nose. But players inevitably get good (make that AWESOME) at these abilities rather fast. Enemies should have one weakness that's difficult to exploit, not six (no matter how hard).

For those of you now complaining about limiting the player's options, remember that this ISN'T the action genre. This is the survival horror genre. By it's very nature, the player should be limited.

4) Camera angles

This is a really tough one to come to terms with in the modern age. Fixed camera angles were truly a double edged sword. I would say that to a large degree they WERE the survival horror genre, adding a cinematic view, increasing the cramped feel, and really making you unsure of what was around that corner. They were also the source of huge frustration and most of the shoddy control issues that I've mentioned should be done away with in the modern age.

So what's the answer? How do you retain the tension that you can only get from arbitrary camera views without forcing the player to operate like a semi truck with three wheels? The over the shoulder view isn't a bad fix, as it is still fairly limited in its range and you have to physically turn to move the camera. But we have yet to see any survival horror games take this approach. There's been a lot of ACTION games that have gone this route...

Dead Space, at risk of sounding cliche by this point, may show us some hope in this regards.

6) timing and pacing

This is really the biggest issue of em all. I think that if this is taken care of, a lot of other issues fall into place. Horror and Comedy are two of the hardest genres to pull off well in any medium, because they require absolutely expert timing and a very distinct notion of pace.

Scares have to be paced out. If you have an enemy jump out from behind every corner, the player will simply always be running or have a hand on the trigger figure. But having enemies never pop out (Silent Hill 2) makes them cathartic, sure in the fact that you'll never follow through.

Similarly, battles have to be paced out as well. Players should be worked in each battle so that they are left with post traumatic stress syndrome... then left alone just enough to recover and forget how to fight.

Of course, all of these things are in addition to the other basic requirements of any game, such as story, character design, and immersion. A survival horror game has a huge bill to fill. That's why I think most of them are defaulting to the easier, more forgiving, action genre. And yet, a good survival horror is a game for the ages.

Here's hoping Dead Space ushers in a new age for the genre.

[Schwaltzvald]

Have you tried to play Siren for the PS2..? A very good survival horror game. Heck to my understanding the PS3 Siren remake/retranslation is supposedly easier for players than the original...

[Zombie]

I didn't read all of it... but perhaps you should check out eternal darkness. Fantastic survival horror game.

[EdgeCrusher]

Holy mother of god. I just attempted to read both of your threads. Serious tl;dr though.

[Zipp]

I didn't read all of it... but perhaps you should check out eternal darkness. Fantastic survival horror game.

Eternal Darkness didn't age well. i enjoyed it when it first came out, but it suffered massively from poor level design. And once you got over the thrill of the gimmick (insanity effects) it sort've lost it's value.

[ifirit]

Yeah, Silent Hill died for me, too. My tears still water the flowers on its grave.

Anyway, horror games are niche games extended from any variety of genre. So, it's perfectly valid to have action-oriented horror games (Splatterhouse), puzzle-oriented horror games (Alone In The Dark, D) or even, RPG-oriented horror games (Parasite Eve, Koudelka). Horror is just a theme, like Halloween or costume would be the theme of a party that one might hold this month.

Series tend to evolve in the direction that their market leans toward. Unfortunately, right now, our market is leaning towards a more action-oriented direction.

Most games that were at one point called "survival-horror" games (now a defunct term) developed in an era of adventure gaming, due to the success of games like Tomb Raider, Spyro the Dragon and even, the King's Quest series, which spawned the original "survival-horror" game Alone In The Dark, which is considered the predecessor to most modern horror games.

Now, most publishing companies shy away from anything presenting itself as an adventure game, which adventure-horror games had managed to get away with until recently.

Any good horror game is able to reflect its theme really well within its gaming structure and environment, which mainly comes down to one thing: PRESENTATION. Everything you've mentioned above is a subset of presentation, because they are all relative/comparative qualities and thus, subjective qualities. Therefore, the presentation is subjective to the target audience.

So, how can a good, horror game survive in the modern era? Adapting. Good games adapt to their markets and continue to sell their products by adjusting toward their consumers' preferences, as was the case of Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 4: The Room. RE4 changed its gaming formula and adapted its presentation accordingly, while SH4 did not change its gaming formula while focusing solely on presentation. RE4 sold over 2 million copies in the US with an average rating of 96%, while SH4 failed to sell over 400,000 copies worldwide and received an average rating of 75%. Consequently, RE is continuing its formula change with RE5, while the Silent Hill series has adapted more action-oriented formula changes in its latest title, SH: Homecoming.

Still, the greater question here is "how can horror games be made to exceed and then maintain a high threshold of quality?" That's a difficult quesiton to answer since it depends on a number of subjective things, such as player anticipations, the scope of fear intended, the quality of the execution, etc.

One part of a really, great horror game involves how well a developer executes and maintains the mystery of its story and/or atmosphere. Unknowingness is an intrinsic part of fear and the best horror games use this in a variety of different ways, some even masterfully.

I guess it all depends on how you look at it.

[Zipp]

Interesting take on the question, Ifrit. I think we're on the same (or at least a similar) page. I guess my main complaint with action oriented horror games is that I don't find them scary. RE4 in particular was more "kick ass" than frightening, which wouldn't particularly bother me except that the director had promised we'd, i quote, "shit ourselves."

But you're right about cross genres. Parasite Eve was a good example, now that you mention it. It was very unsettling, and the second one even managed to have quite a few jumps (though it didn't really live up to the first one in terms of story).

I think that's why I'm so excited for Dead Space. Not since Half Life have I seen such a compelling approach to shooter-horror.

[Wintermute]

No, it should be more like "should I grab this shotgun, a more powerful weapon but with less ammo? To do so I'd have to drop my automatic handgun to fit it into my inventory. But if I drop the handgun, I LOSE IT FOREVER."

You, sir, are silly. This is a silly idea. Think about it for approximately 10 seconds. I hope you see how silly it is, by that point. If not, there is nothing I can do.

[ifirit]

You, sir, are silly. This is a silly idea. Think about it for approximately 10 seconds. I hope you see how silly it is, by that point. If not, there is nothing I can do.

Just like weapon degradation and "overtly prompted" quick-time events.

1) atmosphere

2) lack of ammo and healing items, usually combined with the need to manage an inventory

Silent Hill 2 did not follow rule 2). On the contrary, it loaded the player up with ammo and health items, which are proportionally greater in quantity than enemies in the game. In fact, part of the mastery of the game was that by having so much of a desirable object lain around the game space, it rewarded players for exploring and observing the environments which were both bizarre and mundane in presentation, thus adding to the overall atmosphere.

Therefore, 1) + not 2) !< 1) + 2)

[i.e., rule 1 without rule 2 is not necessarily lesser than rule 1 and rule 2 together.]

Btw, where's 5)?

[SLyGeN]

I don't get it, Zipp. You were on about the quality of Parasite Eve's story, but at the same time Eternal Darkness wasn't an absolute thrill to you?

One really has to play through the game on the three different alignments to really appreciate the story. But the puzzles were brilliant as well. One really only needed to use common sense to figure them out-- I thought the solutions were quite clever.

Also, what poor level design? They seemed fine to me. It sounds like you're looking for an adventure game, and not really a horror game. Also, you need to play the game at night.

And one last thing, RE4 was not scary.

[Zipp]

@ Wintermute: perhaps I am silly. Indeed, I am often silly.

@ Ifrit: I didn't like SH2. And I definitely didn't think it was scary.

As for rule #5, maybe it's around the corner, waiting to jump out at you?

I do agree that atmosphere is much more important than item management. In fact, on that list, item management is the least important.

@ Slygen: oh I played it three times through all right. Having to do the same dungeons over and over didn't help me consider the levels to be well designed. One level I did like was the church. Also, the house can't be faulted, it was well put together.

But seriously, have you played that game recently? Like I said, at the time I liked it quite a lot and would have agreed with you, but having played it in the last couple of months (my fourth time through) it didn't hold up.

Whereas Parasite Eve is still awesome.

Not sure why you think I'm after an adventure game. I consider Longest Journey to be a far cry from Fatal Frame.

And for the record, I DONT THINK RE4 IS SCARY IN THE LEAST. IT MIGHT BE THE LEAST SCARY GAME I EVER PLAYED. Well, that's not true... the Regenerators DID give me a jump.

[SLyGeN]

@ Slygen: oh I played it three times through all right. Having to do the same dungeons over and over didn't help me consider the levels to be well designed. One level I did like was the church. Also, the house can't be faulted, it was well put together.

But seriously, have you played that game recently? Like I said, at the time I liked it quite a lot and would have agreed with you, but having played it in the last couple of months (my fourth time through) it didn't hold up.

Whereas Parasite Eve is still awesome.

It doesn't matter how recently one has played the game-- it's the same game. Of course your fourth time isn't going to be nearly as great as your first.

As far as Parasite Eve, you just like RPG's. If the level-up repetition grindage appeals to you, then you'll be able to do that forever. Parasite Eve didn't have stellar environments either. Fun game though. The cut-scenes and storyline are what really make it worthwhile.

[Schwaltzvald]

I DONT THINK RE4 IS SCARY IN THE LEAST. IT MIGHT BE THE LEAST SCARY GAME I EVER PLAYED. Well, that's not true... the Regenerators DID give me a jump.

The funny thing is I felt that the entire Resident Evil weren't truly meant to be "scary" in the traditional sense. It was just one huge series of b-monster movies with a storyline that's more or less cohesive that most series that have gone on for a good while. All they really are is action movies with some horrific elements. The "scare" factor just mainly comes from the player becoming so entrenched into the game that the player places him/herself in the place of whomever the player is controlling. THAT is what brings about the scare factor, where personal thoughts of survival bring up survival instincts that are more or less often left out of games. When the player realizes his/her limitations with in a game (why the fuck cant you use a chair to beat the shit out of zombies in RE1 ) the player soon panics...

[Zipp]

I totally disagree, Slygen. That's ridiculous. Things age, and we live in a constantly changing society. Some movies which were considered incredible and ground breaking in their day are now considered utter shit, or cheesy, or still good, but not as good when they came out. Games are the same way.

I still like playing God of War, for instance. But I don't like Eternal Darkness anymore. And it's not a genre thing. I'm not a blanket fan of RPGs. I think many of them use antiquated systems and terrible writing to tell overly dramatic stories. I certainly don't like level grinding. Parasite Eve wasn't really level grinding. Disgaia... THATS level grinding. And I didn't like it.

What I do like about RPGs is that, by their very nature, they try to be highly immersive. If they succeed I'm a happy camper. If they fail, it can be a terribly boring experience.

[FlagshipAmadeus]

I never thought Eternal Darkness was scary or even any good at all... I was totally pumped to stay up all night alone in the dark and play through it but all I found were atrociously clumsy controls and a boring excuse of a story

[rem]

I like STALKER because of the atmosphere. Really you had to be there when Chernobyl went down.

[SLyGeN]

I never thought Eternal Darkness was scary or even any good at all... I was totally pumped to stay up all night alone in the dark and play through it but all I found were atrociously clumsy controls and a boring excuse of a story

From what I remember, most of the reviews about Eternal Darkness praised the aspects that you disparaged.

*spoilers*

I thought the concept of Mantorok manipulating time (he is a God after all), and the irony that this dying, pathetic entity took every other sentient for a fool, was brilliant.

*end spoilers*

To be honest, it sounds like you picked up Silent Hill by mistake.

I love Silent Hill, too, but I find that game to be extremely clumsy.

[Cerrax]

Two words.

Dead Space

[yangfeili]

The original Thief did a great job of freaking me out for one specific reason: nowhere on the box or in the manual or during the early part of the game did it give me any indication there were horror elements to the game. So I dismissively walked past that conspicuously placed rotting corpse in the second mission... and then freaked the hell out when it stood up, and I ran to hide in the dark tunnels, freaked out again when another shadowy shape rose up off the ground right in front of me, jumped around like a madman as I tried to get away, stumbled down into a pit full of giant spiders, and died.

I think the fact that the gameplay is based on hiding from enemies also helps things a bit. It's pretty tense in the non-horror missions when you're hiding behind a pile of boxes and you hear a guard open the door; it's downright terrifying in the undead missions when you're hiding behind the boxes and you hear insane blasphemous whispering all around you as footsteps draw closer and closer, and some kind of enemy you've never seen before -- a hooded figure with a skull-like visage and glowing red eyes -- pokes its head through the door and scans the room.

Of course, you eventually learn the tricks to the game, you learn when to most effectively use your holy water to take out the maximum number of enemies possible, you learn that most undead can be killed by two flash bombs (mentioned nowhere in game -- I only found out on accident), you learn the unstoppable sword-fighting pattern which can even take down the super fast and powerful undead haunts without fear of reprisal... but even then there's still the atmosphere to enjoy, which the series piles on thick.

[Cerrax]

I think people are missing the idea that even games that aren't labeled survival horror can be scary.

Super Metroid is downright terrifying and it lacks many of the things Zipp mentions in his first post.

Shadow of the Colossus is frightening when you face the first colossus with almost no instruction whatsoever.

The first Oblivion gate in Elder Scrolls 4 was quite scary and menacing.

The dwarf mines and various underground fortresses in both Elder Scrolls 3 and 4 can set people on edge.

Even Halo had its moments with the flood that were a bit frightening.

Condemned and Condemned: Bloodshot were both pretty creepy in the early stages.

They're not shining examples (with the exception of Super Metroid) but they all have parts that are pretty scary and they are not by any means considered survival horror games.

I also think that survival horror is becoming more like stealth gameplay, there's a few games that do it well and a lot of games that use it as part of a larger gameplay idea.

[Avatar of Justice]

The reason things are going in the RE4 direction is because RE4 sold well. Most of the market isn't going to go for survival horror due to ammo expectations and survival horror games often having funky controls. A shame, but true.

[PrototypeRaptor]

no love for the penumbra series?

seriously, it's pretty much exactly the game you're describing -

you're in an underground, abandoned military base in the middle of greenland with WHATEVER is down there...you spend half the time with a glowstick wandering around a WWII era military base with dead people all over the place, piecing your father's past together while listening to a crazy dude named Red over the phone tell you exactly how to not get out of there.

the first time you see the zombie/monster/whatever (you only really get to see the eyes) STILL freaks the hell out of me.

go check it out right now, it's awesome.

ALSO:

dead space.

[Hector]

RE4's breakthrough was to better understand the balance between too much and too little control. One should not be afraid because of camera angles or imprecise controls--one should be frightened because enemies are naturally concealed or are ridiculously fast. When controls are clumsy, there should be a legitimate reason--the best example of this in RE4 was the fight on the lake--the boat had clumsy controls, but with good reason.

What it needs though, is more ability to be stealthy, more encouragement to do so, and the ability to end fights early by resuming stealth. RE4 had a few occurrences where you ran away from fights (or were supposed to), but those were mostly scripted elements (not to mention the lack of stealth sections).

And finally, there is no cure for a skilled player except for moments of arbitrary chance. There are people who have beaten RE1 with only the knife--I'm willing to bet that their are people capable of beating "Fatal Frames" without ever turning left. To a person so skilled, the game loses much of its terror.

[I-n-j-i-n]

I have to disagree with the idea that horrible and restrictive and outright stupid control schemes = horror. Now if they restrict you in ways that doesn't equal horrible battle/camera/control mechanic, then great. But play Silent Hill 4 the Room. It's a scary game and all, but the dumb control scheme basically took any immersion you could have with it. Silent Hill 3 was pretty creepy too, except the enemies hanging on rooftops with the player having almost no way to properly counter that just made the scary situation into me taking notice how badly the game is made in a design point of view for the actual gameplay.

I honestly could not care less if a game has a decent shake of action as long as it keeps things tense. RE4 was pretty action oriented, I agree though. But Home Coming being action, I think that's more because of the easy difficulty because the horrible gameplay mechanics have always complemented monsters that were pushovers once you had the means to fight them.

From what I remember, most of the reviews about Eternal Darkness praised the aspects that you disparaged.

*spoilers*

I thought the concept of Mantorok manipulating time (he is a God after all), and the irony that this dying, pathetic entity took every other sentient for a fool, was brilliant.

*end spoilers*

To be honest, it sounds like you picked up Silent Hill by mistake.

I love Silent Hill, too, but I find that game to be extremely clumsy.

I know Eternal Darkness is not made for everyone, but it had a very intrinsic creepiness to it with the idea of demonic gods in that old Lovecraftian horror style. As for the whole 'wacky control scheme', I have to disagree with that one. The battle system in Eternal Darkness to me is still one of the more intuitive schemes that tried to fashion itself after the oldschool Resident Evil games. And the battle/limb-severing system actually WORKED, unlike most older survival horror games.

[Zipp]

Not to do necromancy here, but this post eventually got redrafted many times and was featured as an article under my other pen name in Resolution magazine:

http://www.resolution-magazine.co.uk/issue4/feature_gameoverforsurvivalhorror.htm

The one amendment to this I would make is that RE5 wasn't my last hope for a modern horror game insomuch as it was my last hope for a revival of horror that did use to exist in the series. Discuss article?