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Diabetic posted:The main thing that makes me think the Cultists don't see the horrors is Laura from SH2. She literally sees nothing going on in the town except maybe fog because she's pure. Her only interaction with anyone is the dickhead Eddie and James and she rightly thinks they're both idiots. Doesn't Laura bring up a ton of questions by existing? She's only connected to anything through Mary, and she happens to be in the fog world with James? Is she in the fog world? She would have to be to interact with the Hotel, right? It's all very interesting.
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Oct 13, 2017 04:33
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I always figured Laura was a manifestation of the town much like Maria, especially considering she's there to drive the knife in when James finally plays the tape. If he successfully overcomes his inner demons and faces the truth, the town lets him leave with the kid as a sort of reward. Silent Hill in SH2 punishes sinners, but it's not straight-up malevolent like it is in the other games. Conversely, if he keeps deluding himself but doesn't commit suicide, it "rewards" him with Maria so that he can relive the same misery all over again.
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Oct 13, 2017 04:37
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Its funny, even as a kid I went with In Water as my headcanon. It seemed the most poignant. But like you said, in 2 the town has a sort of neutrality to it, if you can face your trauma you get out. We don't see that in any other game really, it's more of a complete darkness kind of thing, but that's usually from a cult plot. E: Wait, Downpour might be the exception I'm looking for, I never got to finish it though.
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Oct 13, 2017 04:44
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A. Beaverhausen posted:Its funny, even as a kid I went with In Water as my headcanon. It seemed the most poignant. But like you said, in 2 the town has a sort of neutrality to it, if you can face your trauma you get out. We don't see that in any other game really, it's more of a complete darkness kind of thing, but that's usually from a cult plot. It's really, really interesting to compare Siren and Silent Hill and their respective dark cults that lead to bloody hells that they think are 'paradise', given they're by the same director.
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Oct 13, 2017 04:51
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I just finished Narcosis. Holy poo poo, that ending. Real short game, though. I'm glad I got it on sale.
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Oct 13, 2017 05:20
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A. Beaverhausen posted:Doesn't Laura bring up a ton of questions by existing? She's only connected to anything through Mary, and she happens to be in the fog world with James? Is she in the fog world? She would have to be to interact with the Hotel, right? It's all very interesting. Laura just sees a normal town, it's likely she doesn't even see the fog. James, Angela and Eddie all see different things even when they're in the same room together, I dunno why that would be different for Laura either.
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Oct 13, 2017 06:21
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Mr. Fortitude posted:Laura just sees a normal town, it's likely she doesn't even see the fog. James, Angela and Eddie all see different things even when they're in the same room together, I dunno why that would be different for Laura either. How does she play the piano in a burnt down hotel? E: I get what your saying, Laura just happening to be there always just felt kind of convienent to me.
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Oct 13, 2017 06:22
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woodenchicken posted:Man I wanted to like Darkwood, but it is just clunky to the max, making old tank-control survival horror games look like a master class in playability. At least that's the case with KB&M: gamepad controls just plain refuse to work for me and many other players. That and some baffling gameplay decisions, like, in a game that's all about light and darkness let's make light also represent your vision cone! Whether it's objectively light or dark around you is for you to decide. I could see messing with survival systems being fun, but drat everything takes so long with that inventory. If you can see things in your cone then there's light. If it's black then it's dark. Things in light but out of the cone are grey.
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Oct 13, 2017 06:44
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A. Beaverhausen posted:How does she play the piano in a burnt down hotel? I'm assuming the piano still works fine, even though she's wandering around a burned husk of the hotel. That or maybe she's starting to see a little of James' perception which wouldn't be too far out of the question given that the hotel is connected to Mary too.
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Oct 13, 2017 06:49
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al-azad posted:edit: I still can't shake how weirdly genre savvy and darkly humorous Heather is. Her internal monologue is dismissive and sarcastic while the "normal" ending she jokes with a guy whose been trapped with a broken leg just waiting for death. I justified it as her living this hell before and she's tired of this poo poo.
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Oct 13, 2017 08:56
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woodenchicken posted:'Looks like God didn't make it' is my favorite line in everything. "You can't be dead. I was going to kill you!"
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Oct 13, 2017 15:16
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Xenomrph posted:I just finished Narcosis. Holy poo poo, that ending. Yeah I don't regret playing it. Not really much to talk about besides the ending and we can't spoil that for others. But it's a great atmospheric game under the ocean and I think it does a good job of screwing with you mentally.
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Oct 13, 2017 15:41
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Bogart posted:Hey, here's a decent little throwback: it's called FAITH. Very much styled in MS-DOS, there's some good freaky design and the soundtrack, while appropriate for the genre and time it's supposed to be, really got under my skin. About an hour long. The Vinesauce guy streamed it and I think he's generally pretty palatable if you don't wanna play for yourself. They wrench a lotta dread out of the Microsoft Sam rear end voice. I saw this on Twitter and grabbed it a few days ago, hopefully I'll have time to try it out this weekend.  SPOOKY G4MES: The Ghost Dimension 1. Stories Untold 2. Rusty Lake Hotel 3. Rusty Lake: Roots 4. Left in the Dark: No One on Board 5. Daily Chthonicle: Editor's Edition 6. Eleusis 7. Dead Effect 8. Dead Effect 2 9. State of Decay 10. Dead End Road 11. Goetia 12. EMPORIUM 13. F.E.A.R.    While it’s possible to make a quality game out of derivative elements, the challenge is improving on them in a way that keeps them from being a pure rehash. Most games that attempt to follow trends can’t manage to do it, while a scant few forge ahead in new and exciting ways. F.E.A.R. did this by combining the hot new bullet-time mechanic from classic noir shooter Max Payne with the hot new horror sensation of small disheveled children from The Ring. That might sound dumb as hell, but you won’t be worrying about that when you’re slide-kicking enemies through plate glass and shotgunning their limbs through skylights. You play… actually they never refer to him by any sort of name or identifier in this game, come to think of it. He’s the strong, silent type who loves long walks in darkened offices and bullets that hit their marks. Mister Protagonist has been employed by the First Encounter Assault Recon team, a paranormal special forces team with a name that’s like if SWAT was named KILL. His first assignment is to chase down corpse-eating psychopath Paxton Fettel, an experimental soldier with psychic control over clone troops who’s decided recently to switch to an all-human diet. Your job is to find him and shoot him, and shoot all of his dudes, and maybe figure out why you need to shoot so many dudes all of a sudden. This is complicated by the spooky little girl flitting about like an ADHD extra from The Ring. F.E.A.R. attempts to be a horror action shooter in an unusual way, by breaking up the intense gun battles with the aforementioned long walks down dark hallways, scootching through tight tunnels, and watching ghost people walk past windows. The overall atmosphere of the game is effective to this end, with your adventure taking you through abandoned offices, shadowy warehouses, and other mundane locales made sinister merely through moody lighting and an acute sense of isolation. However, punctuating the game with conspicuous NOW IS SCARYTIME segments drains a lot of tension from them. I won’t deny a few are quite effective (beware the air vents) but many rely on cheap jumpscares or atmosphere broken by the obvious telegraphing. I’m front-loading my annoyance at the horror structure because I’m going to spend the rest of the review talking about the gunplay, and why it’s still some of the best the genre has ever produced. F.E.A.R. is first and foremost a first-person shooter, as is apparent from the moment you start trading shots with the paramilitary mooks in your path. Whenever the game isn’t trying to spook you, it’s throwing squads of trained soldiers at you to tear apart with akimbo pistols, shotguns, railguns, grenades, or a good old-fashioned slide kick. F.E.A.R. comes to us from a strange in-between place before iron sights but after dynamic accuracy, during the height of bullet-time fever and right before regenerating health really took off. Your shootman is more accurate when standing still and can toggle “aim” that just zooms in a little, but this isn’t terribly important in light of his little slow-mo trick. You can trigger bullet-time using a bar of super-slow regenerating adrenaline to slow the game to a crawl, goofy low voices and Matrix effects and all. This is the key to taking on squads of swift, intelligent replica soldiers because they simply can’t react fast enough to you rounding a corner with a shotgun and disassembling them all in a moment. I can’t overstate how incredible F.E.A.R.’s application of bullet-time is, thanks to a combination of vicious weapons and dynamic movement. Your melee attack turns into a jump kick in midair and a slide kick when crouching, with all impacts being instantly fatal. Pairing that with bullet-time, you can club one soldier to death, spin-kick his buddy next to him through a window, and slide kick the third guy across the room before he can get his safety off. Add to that grenades that gib on contact, a railgun that will ragdoll enemies through level geometry, and the greatest shotgun in video game history, and it is entirely possible to kill a roomful of troops and watch them all hit the floor in unison when your bullet-time wears off. Twelve years out from release, this is still one of the best games around to load up and spar with enemies just for the hell of it. You won’t encounter more than a half-dozen types of military dudes but they come equipped with some of the best artificial intelligence ever gifted to game foes. I’m not making this up, entire articles have been written about the complex algorithms used to make these guys flank, fall back, fake you out, and fortify their positions. They make for significant challenges at higher difficulty levels, and delightful cannon fodder at the lower ones. And they even add to the horror factor on their own, especially when you run afoul of the more stealthy ones. I’m not going to pretend the graphics are still amazing. They were at the time, of course, but they’re the kind of clean shapes and surfaces that lose a lot of impact in light of modern design. The particle effects and bullet impacts and chaos physics still do plenty of work, and the sound design will remind you constantly that your opponents are trained supersoldiers, that your weapons strike with the fury of the apocalypse, and that when combined they fill rooms with juicy viscera. Even the horror bits come into their own by the finale, and despite my earlier protests I think the game would be lessened without their inclusion. F.E.A.R. works best in that duality, in trying to make you fear and in putting the fear of God into your foes.
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Oct 13, 2017 16:24
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That's Point Man to you!
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Oct 13, 2017 16:41
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Playing A Machine For Pigs now and lol I'm glad The Chinese Room learned a modicum of subtlety in between that and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.
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Oct 13, 2017 16:52
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Sakurazuka posted:Playing A Machine For Pigs now and lol I'm glad The Chinese Room learned a modicum of subtlety in between that and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. TCR straight-up admitted that the project wasn't a good match for them in a later interview and that it had probably been a bad idea for them to take it on. Even more than the writing, they were especially disappointed in themselves for bolting all the doors and drawers shut.
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Oct 13, 2017 16:59
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Too Shy Guy posted:The overall atmosphere of the game is effective to this end, with your adventure taking you through abandoned offices, shadowy warehouses, and other mundane locales made sinister merely through moody lighting and an acute sense of isolation. However, punctuating the game with conspicuous NOW IS SCARYTIME segments drains a lot of tension from them. I won’t deny a few are quite effective (beware the air vents) but many rely on cheap jumpscares or atmosphere broken by the obvious telegraphing. I remember when FEAR was first announced, they released a 20 minute or so gameplay demo at E3. The demo took place in the office building section and there was a ton of supernatural and horror poo poo occurring almost constantly. But then when the actual game came out, it seems that they really scaled back on the paranormal stuff and went with more action instead. Edit: found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo7tE2-OLZA Vakal fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Oct 13, 2017 |
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Oct 13, 2017 17:01
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Oxxidation posted:TCR straight-up admitted that the project wasn't a good match for them in a later interview and that it had probably been a bad idea for them to take it on. Even more than the writing, they were especially disappointed in themselves for bolting all the doors and drawers shut. Yeah that was hilarious, they could have just had you not be able to interact with them but nope they had to specifically call attention to it by having giant metal bolts on everything.
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Oct 13, 2017 17:02
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The only memory I have of Machine for Pigs is finding an item I'd definitely need later, realizing the place I need it is gated off so I put the item on a table nearby, then coming back later to find the gate open, but now there's randomly a gate in front of where I put the item, rendering the game unwinnable. Like I get the idea that it's supposed to feel like the area is constantly shifting, but also making it so the player can gently caress themselves over by carrying around an object in the wrong place when it doesn't indicate when or if it'll be accessible is sorta poo poo.
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Oct 13, 2017 17:07
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Too Shy Guy posted:conspicuous NOW IS SCARYTIME segments
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Oct 13, 2017 17:07
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Danaru posted:The only memory I have of Machine for Pigs is finding an item I'd definitely need later, realizing the place I need it is gated off so I put the item on a table nearby, then coming back later to find the gate open, but now there's randomly a gate in front of where I put the item, rendering the game unwinnable. I soft locked the game by jumping behind a perfectly accessible looking box then not being able to get out.
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Oct 13, 2017 17:10
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My cats often do the same thing, which must be pretty horrifying for them if you think about it.
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Oct 13, 2017 17:11
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F. E. A. R. Is one of my favorite horror FPS of all time. It's the first time I maxed out a game on my rig years ago. Looked great back then and everyone remembers the nail gun. This game was an art to play.
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Oct 13, 2017 17:53
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Vakal posted:I remember when FEAR was first announced, they released a 20 minute or so gameplay demo at E3. The demo took place in the office building section and there was a ton of supernatural and horror poo poo occurring almost constantly. They should've had the Dick Justice guy be the protagonist.
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Oct 13, 2017 18:18
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I absolutely adore the FEAR franchise. Of the games, I feel that Perseus Mandate and 2 did the horror best, and I consider those two my favourites in the series. Reborn was pretty poo poo though, and while I liked 3 for the most part, Steve Niles can't end a story to save his life. gently caress, that end is so bad.
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Oct 13, 2017 19:31
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Thanks for the review, Too Shy Guy. I replayed FEAR a few days ago as part of my annual Halloween game binge, and your thoughts pretty much sum up my thoughts on the game. Looking between it and its sequel, I find I appreciate the first game more nowadays. Monolith had trouble balancing the action and the horror, but they at least gave you some down time between major firefights so you could properly experience the spooks. FEAR 2, I found, was too busy for its own good, and I always found myself too amped up to be properly scared. One thing I really would praise the game for it the way it delivers its story. Audio logs were nothing new in 2005, but FEAR had the most naturalistic rendition of them I have ever seen in any video game. Every log is done as a voice mail message which you find on the course of your search for Fettel. The first ones you find, at a water treatment plant occupied by Fettel's goons, are pretty normal, essentially just people calling from other parts of the plant asking what all the noise is. The backstory only starts coming together when you reach the Armacham building, and as you listen to the voicemails of the employees you slowly put together a record of what happened over the last 48 hours. (In retrospect, I think having some sort of journal feature would have helped players keep track of what's going on.) I also like the fact that, despite being a superhuman killing machine, you're always two steps behind everyone else. You never quite know what's going on, everyone seems to know more about you and the situation than you do, and you never really succeed in completing your mission objectives. It's a subtle way to add a little unease into the power fantasy. Finally, I've noticed another little J-horror nod beyond The Ring in the first level. Right above you on the roof where you first meet Fettel, there's a big ol' water tank. Given the later revelations in the game, I'm pretty sure it's a very subtle Dark Water reference. Sakurazuka posted:Playing A Machine For Pigs now and lol I'm glad The Chinese Room learned a modicum of subtlety in between that and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.
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Oct 13, 2017 20:44
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I stopped Silent Hill right after 3 kind of let me down (it felt a little bit too much the retread of 1's territory and I just got bored of it at the time). But Evil Within has me nostalgic for my old horror roots and I've been mulling over some of the cheaper, later games in the series like Homecoming, Downpour, maybe Shattered Memories. I know none of them are "good" per se, but do any of them do anything interesting that might make them worth a pick-up down the line?
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Oct 13, 2017 21:18
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Memnaelar posted:I stopped Silent Hill right after 3 kind of let me down (it felt a little bit too much the retread of 1's territory and I just got bored of it at the time). But Evil Within has me nostalgic for my old horror roots and I've been mulling over some of the cheaper, later games in the series like Homecoming, Downpour, maybe Shattered Memories. I know none of them are "good" per se, but do any of them do anything interesting that might make them worth a pick-up down the line? Downpour is decent, it tries the most to be like the original Silent Hills. Homecoming tries desperately to be Silent Hill 2+2 but with more combat!.... Shattered Memories would not be for you if you didn't like the retread of 1's territory, since it's really just SH1 again.
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Oct 13, 2017 21:24
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Diabetic posted:Downpour is decent, it tries the most to be like the original Silent Hills. Homecoming tries desperately to be Silent Hill 2+2 but with more combat!.... Shattered Memories would not be for you if you didn't like the retread of 1's territory, since it's really just SH1 again. It's an altogether different sort of SH1 though, I really think Shattered Memories is worth a shot. Not to mention the characters were really well written.
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Oct 13, 2017 21:26
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A. Beaverhausen posted:It's an altogether different sort of SH1 though, I really think Shattered Memories is worth a shot. Not to mention the characters were really well written. Not remotely, on either count.
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Oct 13, 2017 21:27
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A. Beaverhausen posted:It's an altogether different sort of SH1 though, I really think Shattered Memories is worth a shot. Not to mention the characters were really well written. It can be decent but when you figure out the queues for certain things the game becomes too obvious. The original poster seemed burned out on SH1 setting so it's why I didn't suggest he get it.
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Oct 13, 2017 21:29
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Shattered Memz was like a prototype for modern, "walking sim" type horror.
woodenchicken fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Oct 13, 2017 |
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Oct 13, 2017 21:34
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It's got ice and mannequins instead of rust and pterodactlys, y'know.Memnaelar posted:I stopped Silent Hill right after 3 kind of let me down (it felt a little bit too much the retread of 1's territory and I just got bored of it at the time). But Evil Within has me nostalgic for my old horror roots and I've been mulling over some of the cheaper, later games in the series like Homecoming, Downpour, maybe Shattered Memories. I know none of them are "good" per se, but do any of them do anything interesting that might make them worth a pick-up down the line? Shattered Memories was an attempt at an entirely different take on the original Silent Hill. It doesn't play like it, it doesn't look like it, and the story wanders off into its own place. If your interest in later SHs is brought on by The Evil Within, then Shattered Memories is probably the last one you'd want to try.
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Oct 13, 2017 21:34
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Shattered Memories was also written by Sam Barlow who has his head shoved so far up his own rear end in a top hat that the game felt like a 16 year old waxing philosophic about complete nonsense that he thinks makes him sound smart, interspersed with monsters chasing you. Like seriously I loved both SH4 and Homecoming so I'm not a purist or anything, but holy moley that game was more cringey than it was scary.
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Oct 13, 2017 21:45
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Danaru posted:Shattered Memories was also written by Sam Barlow who has his head shoved so far up his own rear end in a top hat that the game felt like a 16 year old waxing philosophic about complete nonsense that he thinks makes him sound smart, interspersed with monsters chasing you. The IDEA of it is fantastic. A psychiatrist reads your responses and based on that the game changes, the implementation though, is something to be desired. Silent Hill has always been known for its unique monster designs but Shat Memz has one type of monster with tiny variations. If Team Silent got a hold of this and made it, it would've been fantastic. But sadly, gently caress Konami forever, since we'll only see Pyramid head from now on and as a guest character in other games. At this point, I'd really love to have known just what the gently caress Silent Hills would've been story-wise.
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Oct 13, 2017 21:48
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Diabetic posted:But sadly, gently caress Konami forever, since we'll only see Pyramid head from now on and as a guest character in other games. At this point, I'd really love to have known just what the gently caress Silent Hills would've been story-wise. Don't fret, we might see him in pachinko machines!
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Oct 13, 2017 21:49
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chitoryu12 posted:Don't fret, we might see him in pachinko machines! And I died even more inside.
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Oct 13, 2017 21:52
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Diabetic posted:The IDEA of it is fantastic. A psychiatrist reads your responses and based on that the game changes, the implementation though, is something to be desired. Silent Hill has always been known for its unique monster designs but Shat Memz has one type of monster with tiny variations. If Team Silent got a hold of this and made it, it would've been fantastic. But sadly, gently caress Konami forever, since we'll only see Pyramid head from now on and as a guest character in other games. At this point, I'd really love to have known just what the gently caress Silent Hills would've been story-wise. A Kojima Silent Hill with Junji Ito influence and Guillermo del Toro? It was too perfect for this timeline friend 
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Oct 13, 2017 21:53
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Diabetic posted:The IDEA of it is fantastic. A psychiatrist reads your responses and based on that the game changes, the implementation though, is something to be desired. Silent Hill has always been known for its unique monster designs but Shat Memz has one type of monster with tiny variations. If Team Silent got a hold of this and made it, it would've been fantastic. But sadly, gently caress Konami forever, since we'll only see Pyramid head from now on and as a guest character in other games. At this point, I'd really love to have known just what the gently caress Silent Hills would've been story-wise. Also its portrayal of therapy was a total howler, even if you discount the more egregious moments like the tiger in spaaaaace
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Oct 13, 2017 22:05
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Oxxidation posted:Also its portrayal of therapy was a total howler, even if you discount the more egregious moments like the tiger in spaaaaace I still have not figured out what the hell he was trying to say there and it's been years
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Oct 13, 2017 22:07
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