Survival Horror-To-Action Ratio

[Forsaken Lover]

For Example:

Resident Evil -

100% Survival Horror
0% Action.
It is the pioneer of this genre. And don't give me that crap about Alone in the Dark. That game sucked. RE1 is true daddy of this type of game and it inspired several clones and changed gaming forever.

Resident Evil 3 -

75% Action
25% Survival Horror
The Dodge mechanic, the ability to create your own Ammo, the pseudo-QTEs, the game was clearly oriented more towards combat.


Now I made this topic elsewhere to argue with RE nerds so you can continue that trend and only do RE games but if you would like you can also put in other games like...I dunno, some of the Onimushas or those Dead Space games which I never played but a lot of people used to praise back in the day for being "real horror".

[Wolf Kanno]

It largely depends on the game. I kind of like combat being utter shit in Silent Hill because you often play as ordinary citizens who probably never fired a gun in their life. In the early years of RE, I hated the controls because I felt it was weird for special forces members to be so damn flimsy and ill equipped for combat that didn't involve big guns. I sometimes I wonder if I might actually enjoy RE4 if I bothered to play it.

If the point of the game is horror, then I am of the attitude that combat and action should be minimal, it's hard to be scary when your main character is someone like Dante who disembowels demons with his pinky. If you want an action game with horror elements, go all out but don't expect anyone to be scared, there is a good reason why Alien is a better thriller and horror film than Aliens.

[Mo-Nercy]

I really like the Fatal Frame series for 'pure' survival horror. In more recent times, Amnesia: The Dark Descent was very good too.

For some games though, the blend with action elements is done pretty well, like F.E.A.R.

[Shauna]

The triple-A industry doesn't believe that there is a market for pure survival horror, which is why there are a million action games with "horror" elements.

Hopefully this trend is changing what with the rise of indie horror games, and if that new Silent Hill game thing is anything to be hopeful for... maybe we'll start to see more.

[Ayen]

If the point of the game is horror, then I am of the attitude that combat and action should be minimal

Have you played Amnesia by any chance? You play as a guy just equipped with a lamp and all you can do when the monster find you is run and hide and trout your pants and hope the darkness doesn't make you go insane.

[edczxcvbnm]

Let me recount my life with Survival Horror.

Resident Evil the Series: I never found these games scary(except for REmake) and I am a bit of a horror wuss (we will get to silent hill in a minute). I loved the franchise though. I use that with a very past tense. RE1 - RE4 was awesome. REmake and the gamecube and Code Veronica being my favorites. With RE3 they clearly went action. With Veronica they went adventure and found a nice balance. With 4 it was straight up action again but the REmake was pretty damn awesome and everything one should want out of these games. The atmosphere was creepy, the lighting was perfect. The fixed camera helps to keep you unsure of what is around the corner. The new sections where the creepiest and showed that they could bring it if they wanted to. Too bad they never did.

I love these games so much that I could get S rank on a few of them on the hardest difficultly.

Silent Hill: I rented this game when I was in high school. I played it in the basement, in the dark, on a stormy night (super cliche but 100% true). I made through the school and then could take no more. Years later I bought the game thinking "This time" but alas. The trauma of my first encounter was so much that no I couldn't even make it through the school (it also doesn't help that the game has aged quite poorly).

I saw Sephex play some of silent hill 2 and I didn't find it as scary and I also saw him play a lot of Silent Hill 3 and same thing. I wonder if those game would be super scary if I played them alone like I had.

Dead Space: Here is a franchise that started off quite promising for me. The first game was practically perfect for me. The lighting and mood where beautiful. I was on edge the entire game even though I had more than enough life and ammo to take down anything because I played on easy like the horror wuss I am. That didn't stop me from being on edge and not wanting to go through doors and shit. It was a lot but just below my quitting point. Quite possibly the perfect scary game for me personally.

Dead Space 2 was a bucket of shit and I have now started to play the third game. The third game and while I do find it scarier, it is also worse in practically every other way. Having a crafting system because of minecraft doesn't really go hand in hand with survival horror unless you are crafting chainsaw hands so you can pretend to be Ash!

Other games: I have not played too many other scary games because as you can tell, I don't mix well with scary. I tried playing a bit of Amnesia but meh. Now that I have a controller hooked up to the ol' PC I should give it another chance. I hate Mouse & Keyboard with a passion for anything not 4x or RTS. It just isn't my thing.

Dino Crisis was the game The Asylum would make if they made games.

[Wolf Kanno]

If the point of the game is horror, then I am of the attitude that combat and action should be minimal

Have you played Amnesia by any chance? You play as a guy just equipped with a lamp and all you can do when the monster find you is run and hide and trout your pants and hope the darkness doesn't make you go insane.

No, but I do plan on playing through Fatal Frame in October, I did SH2 a few Halloweens back and I like having a theme for the month. I might check Amnesia out. I like Horror games.

[chionos]

I'm with ed. Dead Space could have been the perfect survival horror series, based solely on the first game. The combat is quality, fits the feel, is intuitive, is satisfying (stomping already dead aliens is boss), and still leaves the player on the edge of their seat, twitching at every new sound, turning around to look behind every few steps, blowing out the grates so nothing can sneak up, etc.

While part 2 wasn't (to me) a bucket of shit like it was to ed, it didn't live up to my expectations, and what I've played of 3 shows me that the developers have lost it. Some things can be changed. Some things should be. And some things should be left well enough alone.

The point, though, what I've learned from Dead Space, at the very least, is it is possible to have mechanically sound combat in a game and still have thrills and legitimate horror/terror.

[edczxcvbnm]

I think one of the best aspects of all the Dead Space games is the sound design. I really like how in Dead Space 3 the music stops once all of the enemies in your sight range have been killed. There could still be an enemy in the room to your left but you think it is all done. Too bad the game is a terrible action game just like RE6. Slow moving controls and quick enemies do not mix.

One thing that had me shake my head about Dead Space 2 before I even played it was interviews with the developers. They talked about how they were going to add more "epic moments". No one has ever talked about how they got scared shitless by an epic moment. They also said stuff like how people where so freaked by DS1 that they were going to tone it down. To me, the worst thing they did though was give Issac a voice. I was not intune with him at all. I was feeling something and then he opened his dumb voice box and spewed vomit in my ears and completely took me out of the moment.

Dead Space 2 felt like everything they should not have done but did. After listening to them talk about how they studied sci-fi horror and lots of things to craft DS1, it seems like they forgot it all right away.

After I marathoned that last few sections of DS1, I was all like YES! Now I will play new game + and will not be so scared because I just did this! Then I managed to scrap my way through the opening scene. Then I turned off the game and turned on all of the lights in my apartment >.>

[chionos]

I think one of the best aspects of all the Dead Space games is the sound design. I really like how in Dead Space 3 the music stops once all of the enemies in your sight range have been killed. There could still be an enemy in the room to your left but you think it is all done. Too bad the game is a terrible action game just like RE6. Slow moving controls and quick enemies do not mix.

One thing that had me shake my head about Dead Space 2 before I even played it was interviews with the developers. They talked about how they were going to add more "epic moments". No one has ever talked about how they got scared troutless by an epic moment. They also said stuff like how people where so freaked by DS1 that they were going to tone it down. To me, the worst thing they did though was give Issac a voice. I was not intune with him at all. I was feeling something and then he opened his dumb voice box and spewed vomit in my ears and completely took me out of the moment.

Dead Space 2 felt like everything they should not have done but did. After listening to them talk about how they studied sci-fi horror and lots of things to craft DS1, it seems like they forgot it all right away.

After I marathoned that last few sections of DS1, I was all like YES! Now I will play new game + and will not be so scared because I just did this! Then I managed to scrap my way through the opening scene. Then I turned off the game and turned on all of the lights in my apartment >.>

Agreed, on all counts. What a horrible lame idea giving him a voice. That would be like giving motherfucking Gordon Freeman a voice. Pretty much no matter who it is, it's going to ruin everything.

[Ayen]

If the point of the game is horror, then I am of the attitude that combat and action should be minimal

Have you played Amnesia by any chance? You play as a guy just equipped with a lamp and all you can do when the monster find you is run and hide and trout your pants and hope the darkness doesn't make you go insane.

No, but I do plan on playing through Fatal Frame in October, I did SH2 a few Halloweens back and I like having a theme for the month. I might check Amnesia out. I like Horror games.

You and me both. I'll be playing Silent Hill for the first time in my life this Halloween.
*gets stabbed for using the words first, time, in, my, life, in the same sentence as Silent Hill*

[Dat Matt]

I've never played a Silent Hill game Tori J. Not really keen to change that either.