Whatever happened to good survival horror games?

[Jason]

Something came up in another thread that made me wonder about this - with the Resident Evil franchise now leaning towards 'Action Horror' and the Silent Hill franchise in what seems to be a kamikaze spiral of death, there seems to be a distinct lack of survival horror games.

I always remember the early Resident Evil games as being some of my favourite games - the constant tension, relentless shortage of ammo, and not to mention the occasional 'jump three feet out of your chair and let out an ever-so-slightly embarrassing yelp' moments.
Whilst I never really got into the Silent Hill games, I recognise that a lot of people loved the first few games in the series, and it's a shame the series has had such a downturn.

Anyone know of any good survival horror games or got any particular tales they'd like to reminisce about?

[Knighto]

Has anyone played played one of Fatal Frame games on PS2? I still think those were not only the scariest games ever, they were the scariest form of man-created entertainment ever. They really hilighted the "horror" in the survival horror while keeping the edgy element of Resident Evil-like "survival" very real with scarce photo films instead scarce ammo.

For those unfamiliar with the series: inspired by Japanese ghosts folk tales, your character has no way to defend themselves but an old camera that can take pictures of ghosts, rendering them harmless for a while, as you can never get rid of the ghosts for if you hang around for a long time in the area the ghost that you just got rid of might come back. There was no safe area in the game, ghosts can get you anywhere as they can move through walls and doors (well, most of them at least.) The cool thing about it was the random scares; once I was playing and a kid's ball fell abrupltly from the attic and heard a kid's faint laugh and it was pretty scary the way it happened, after few hours my brother was playing in the same room and I warned him about the ball when he approached the attic but nothing happened. However, when he went into the next room a tea cup fell off the table, which never happened with me through the entire game! Also, most ghosts were random an if you died they might not be in the same place as last time. The ghost themselves were unbelieveably creepy. Remember those creepy/crappy ghosts from movies like The Ring or Grudge? Well, Fatal Frame did it first and did it much better.

Enough about Fatal Frame, I haven't played the game in 3 years and yet I'm literally glancing behind my shoulders in my dark room and imaginig things.

One of my favorite things about survival horror was the camera. I miss the angles of the fixed camera, they were very atmospheric and for me they defined the genre eve more than the "survival" element did. One cool thing about Fatal Frame was that despite the camera being fixed you take shots by the camera in 1st person view which was very neat becasue it enabled you to see angles and objects obsocured by the game fixed camera.

A Resident Evil or Fatal Frame title with today's graphics and old fashioned survival horror style would be most welcome now.

By the way, I never finished any of the 3 Fatal Frame games, it was too scary for me, and still is.

[Jason]

Ah, that sounds like a really interesting game. I'm going to have a look and see if I can't dig up a copy of it - the girlfriend is a massive fan of horror films and the like, and she'd probably like that. Mind you, Resident Evil 4 was too intense for her, so this might kill her.

The scariest game I remember playing was Clive Barker's Undying for the PC - it was a supernatural FPS game - I never got the full thing, but I played the demo back in 2001- give it a try (http://download.cnet.com/Clive-Barker-s-Undying-demo/3000-7563_4-10057652.html) if you like - obviously the graphics aren't as impressive as they were back then, but there are a couple of moments that had (an admittedly much younger version of) me very nearly leaving a nasty surprise for the next person to use my chair!

[CemeteryGates]

Yes, the first Fatal Frame was insane!
A friend and I played it in broad daylight, at 3PM, with relatively low volume, and we did get up and turned off the PS2 a couple of times out of pure fear. :D

I agree that the new Resident Evil games aren't scary at all anymore. The first was scary as hell, though. :)


I've always been very interested in Siren despite never playing it or seeing it played (besides YouTube, anyway), and the PS3 remake looks incredible!

Check it out.



Also, anyone else ever played Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of The Earth?
That game made me pretty nervous at times. I gotta go back and finish it one of these days...

[Jason]

Wow, that looks pretty intense. Might have to see if I can find that. Good to see that the standard of voice acting in Survival Horror games is as strong as ever though. :p

[Knighto]

Ah, that sounds like a really interesting game. I'm going to have a look and see if I can't dig up a copy of it - the girlfriend is a massive fan of horror films and the like, and she'd probably like that. Mind you, Resident Evil 4 was too intense for her, so this might kill her.

The scariest game I remember playing was Clive Barker's Undying for the PC - it was a supernatural FPS game - I never got the full thing, but I played the demo back in 2001- give it a try (http://download.cnet.com/Clive-Barker-s-Undying-demo/3000-7563_4-10057652.html) if you like - obviously the graphics aren't as impressive as they were back then, but there are a couple of moments that had (an admittedly much younger version of) me very nearly leaving a nasty surprise for the next person to use my chair!



Be careful, it's not even on the same scale of games like RE4, it's much, much, much more scarier , mate. (that was probably grammatically wrong. You see, it's that scary)

I'm downloading Undying demo now. Thanks, I wanted to check it out for a long time. Few weeks ago I read that the guy who said that games aren't art and will never be and he recieved tons of hate mail also said that Undying is probably the exception of that! I can't remember who was that guy or where did I get the link for it (maybe Kotaku.) I'm too tired write now to look it up :upset:

[Jason]

Heh, that's just made me look forward to it even more- I really struggle to get into horror films, mainly because it's so difficult for me to suspend my disbelief - most of the time I've seen it all before, and I have a hard time empathising with the characters. Games are a different story though... so something like this is well worth looking at. :D

[Knighto]

Also, anyone else ever played Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of The Earth?
That game made me pretty nervous at times. I gotta go back and finish it one of these days...

Yeah, I remember that one. It was intense, creepy, scary, hard, violent and awesome. I never finished it, too:(. We need more games like that.