Why Aren't You Scared!?

[squirtle]

So, we have all played shit loads of Survival horror now. From the Resi's to Silent Hill, from Project Zero, through Alone in the Dark to Forbidden Siren.

And one thing remains the same. All hell could be breaking out around them. All manner of monsters are looming to rip, shread and tear them apart. Environments are warping and changing all around them. It's enough to give your dry cleaner the screaming ab-dabs, and yet, on screen, your Avatar is blithely unaffected. Cocking a gun, camera or steel pipe, they walk on without a care in the world. A young girl with a camera in a haunted house? An ordinary man searching for his dead wife? A young woman searching for her brother in a zombie infested town? Regular shmoes. And yet none of them batter an eyelid when confronted by giant bats, centipedes, worms, crucified ghosts etc etc etc.

Is it too much to ask, or is it possible to show some fear in your onscreen persona? I was looking at some screenshots of Silent Hill 4 and the bloke just seems bored throughout. It strikes me as odd. Can it be changed? Is it possible to convey fear in your character and still keep it playable?

Just a thought.

[M.M.S]

Eternal Darkness.

But yes you're still right.

Luigi's Mansion too to some extent

[Ste Pickford]

Eternal Darkness.

But yes you're still right.

Luigi's Mansion too to some extent

I think luigi's mansion is the only survival horror I have played...

[NiceGuyEddie]

I agree with you there, some actual visible 'browning' of the trousers would be good but I'm not sure that I'd want my character uncontrollably flipping out as zombies chased (or shambled) him down.

It's been said before a squillion times but ED's insanities were a stroke of genius. I'm hoping for more of the same from the new Cthulu game too.

[squirtle]

Eternal Darkness.

But yes you're still right.

Luigi's Mansion too to some extent

Forgot about Eternal Darkness. Good call and excellent game. Still, the fear did drop once you got the ability to raise your sanity with a spell. Luigi's mansion.

But I mean things like it becoming harder to shoot due to shaking etc etc.

[roskelld]

Demento aka Haunting Ground

This might be what you're looking for.

From what I gather, one girl, one big arse madman and one white wolf.

Lots of running and screaming.

Watch the video (link within link) and see if it's what you meant.

I certainly got the thought as soon as I watched it: why has no avatar shown fear in situations like this before?!?!??!

[CrispinG]

I mean you wouldn't really want to be in control of a walking jelly pile of nervousness.

I think that's a terrific idea. Your protagonist could even suffer a nervous breakdown if exposed to too much in short bursts.

[df0]

Nobody wants to play as a wuss. If the hero/protagonist is a easily scared individual, how can it be fun to battle hordes of zombies and creatures? I like the 'this is my house and if you don't like it get the fuck out!' mentality from the movie BraindDead and Army of Darkness. So I prefer my heroes/protagonists to be bad mofo's I consider James (Silent hill 2) as a bad mofo

[DirkCrisis]

That's what put me off Silent Hill 3 - The bored apathetic teenage girl who seemed unfazed about the crazy crap that was going on around her. She didn't care and, by association, neither did I.

[CrispinG]

Nobody wants to play as a wuss. If the hero/protagonist is a easily scared individual, how can it be fun to battle hordes of zombies and creatures? I like the 'this is my house and if you don't like it get the fuck out!' mentality from the movie BraindDead and Army of Darkness. So I prefer my heroes/protagonists to be bad mofo's I consider James (Silent hill 2) as a bad mofo

You've managed to completely miss the entire point of the Silent Hill series, man.

[Alex W.]

It'd be more interesting than Sanity Effects, or an interesting expansion of them. None of this "your health starts to drop if you have zero sanity" guff to motivate you to stay sane, your character becomes a rubber-legged gibbering fool who can't aim straight. That would rock the house.

You could even vary it from character to character in an ED-style game.

[df0]

You've managed to completely miss the entire point of the Silent Hill series, man.

Nah, I knów James is 'weak' and a Regular Joe but he has some great charisma. Like R. Kelly sung once, 'I'm a bad man'. James is bad, you dig

[spaceyjase]

I have often wondered the same -- can you imagine if your avatar reacted to some crazy monster coming towards him with "Shit!", or some other expletive, if you kept missing the bugger or something? That'd increase the immersion ten-fold.

[Seerow]

This new call of cthulu game should implememnt fear, sanity, etc.

[Alex W.]

I think I might have to play more ED tonight. Which'd be my fifth or sixth time through the game, but fuck it.

[FargalEX]

I really want to see an Eternal Darkness sequel now. ):

[hughes]

Loosely related, in Everything or Nothing when there's explosions and shit Bond flinches like a little girl.

[Hello Goaty ♥]

Do any beat em ups show pain on the characters' faces?

[Sabreman]

Do any beat em ups show pain on the characters' faces?

Oof! There's some three-pixel pain for ya.

[xibxang]

I think that having your toon showing fear would only work in cutscenes, IMO. It'd be a very tricky mechanic to implement into a game, and I suspect that it would become a bit of a hinderance. For instance, imagine you're trying to run for a door and you're down to two bubs health but you can't move because your avatar's standing knock-kneed and trembling.

I think I'd be launching my controller through the screen at that point..

[partious]

Personally I think that if your character started freaking out when they saw a zombie or ghost it would detract from the experience somewhat and feel less immersive(for me anyway). If I'm playing a survival horror game and I feel scared it'll be because I'm feeling freaked out by whats going on in the game , not because some idiot on screen is having a fit. It reminds me of an discussion I read before(possibly here) about why Ryo in Shenmue has the personality of a plank. Some people reckoned that it was to let the player feel like they were experiencing the things in the game for themselves and not have Ryo tell them how they were supposed to be feeling at that particular moment. I think the idea here is the same, I think the character in the game should just be the players means of exploring the game and shouldn't try to force certain feelings onto the player. I think that if they do this the game becomes less scary and more of a plain action game.

[tomacwhite]

Cool thread, and a damn good point!

Only Luigi got scared (I loved pressing 'A' for a whimpered "Mario" when greenman was low on health), and yeah Eternal Darkness..

Mentioned already, but Demento might be ace, with the colour draining screen as you get more scared..

But Jill in Resi 1? "Yeah theres a big fuck off Tyrant running towards me. Whatever d00d".

[Alex W.]

Personally I think that if your character started freaking out when they saw a zombie or ghost it would detract from the experience somewhat and feel less immersive(for me anyway). If I'm playing a survival horror game and I feel scared it'll be because I'm feeling freaked out by whats going on in the game , not because some idiot on screen is having a fit. It reminds me of an discussion I read before(possibly here) about why Ryo in Shenmue has the personality of a plank. Some people reckoned that it was to let the player feel like they were experiencing the things in the game for themselves and not have Ryo tell them how they were supposed to be feeling at that particular moment. I think the idea here is the same, I think the character in the game should just be the players means of exploring the game and shouldn't try to force certain feelings onto the player. I think that if they do this the game becomes less scary and more of a plain action game.

Using the ED example, though, you can have a quantified measure of the character's "freakedness" which actually works quite well- changing the way the player's world looks, sounds, and so on, without changing the fundimental rules of the game.

Say:

I think that having your toon showing fear would only work in cutscenes, IMO. It'd be a very tricky mechanic to implement into a game, and I suspect that it would become a bit of a hinderance. For instance, imagine you're trying to run for a door and you're down to two bubs health but you can't move because your avatar's standing knock-kneed and trembling.

I think I'd be launching my controller through the screen at that point..

You could move, but your character would move in a ropey, wobbley way, stumbling from side to side, and might fumble a bit (TAPTAPTAPTAPTAP) to get the door open. Rather like the existing thing in games where your character becomes sluggish when wounded and bleeding.

[partious]

Using the ED example, though, you can have a quantified measure of the character's "freakedness" which actually works quite well- changing the way the player's world looks, sounds, and so on, without changing the fundimental rules of the game.

Say:

You could move, but your character would move in a ropey, wobbley way, stumbling from side to side, and might fumble a bit (TAPTAPTAPTAPTAP) to get the door open. Rather like the existing thing in games where your character becomes sluggish when wounded and bleeding.

Aah, ED is a game that I've always wanted to play but somehow never got around to , so I didn't know that, sounds like it could work quite a lot better than what I was imagining it would be like. However saying that, I still think I prefer the character keeping their emotional distance a bit and letting me decide for myself if I want to be freaked out or not. I'll have to get ED now to see how good that actually works, so that last comment is subject to change

[FargalEX]

Do any beat em ups show pain on the characters' faces?

Soul Calibur II has some lovely facial grimaces.

[Bada Bing!]

I'd like a heat pack thing like the vibrating pack for Rez. The heat pack would simulate shitting yourself when big bosses that take up the whole screen, or scary zombies appeared.

Resident Evil 4: Soil Edition - face it man, it'd sell by the bucketload.

[alan cummings]

one moment in silent hill 4 had me thinking this.

you walk into the room in your flat with the washing machine in. it seems to have sprayed blood all over the room. your guy looks at it and says something like, "hmm, blood is spraying out of the washing machine", seeingly totally bored by it. i was freaked out when i first saw it, then a split second later i was pissing myself laughing at his response.

[Tequila]

one moment in silent hill 4 had me thinking this.

you walk into the room in your flat with the washing machine in. it seems to have sprayed blood all over the room. your guy looks at it and says something like, "hmm, blood is spraying out of the washing machine", seeingly totally bored by it. i was freaked out when i first saw it, then a split second later i was pissing myself laughing at his response.

He's had 5 days of strangeness by the time we get to play as him. Perhaps he's just accepted that as his lot in life.

[badgerpie]

Nah, I knów James is 'weak' and a Regular Joe but he has some great charisma. Like R. Kelly sung once, 'I'm a bad man'. James is bad, you dig

If the rumours are true R Kelly did more than 'sing' about being a bad man.

[squirtle]

He's had 5 days of strangeness by the time we get to play as him. Perhaps he's just accepted that as his lot in life.

I'd be crawling the walls, screaming, banging on the door etc etc. But no. He just accepts he's chained in his room and can't get out. WTF!?