Silent Hill or Resident Evil 2

[Ash]

Yeah I checked out a vid it seems there's at least some form of respawning at the police station. I think it tries to maintain the notion that the whole city is hunting you and you're supposed to continue sneaking up until the getaway sequence. After that you can wipe out goons. I'm not entirely sure if there is any continual respawning at the police station at all though, rather than a set limited amount of respawns. Been about five years since I played it.

SOMA is way better than both, because it recognizes that gameplay in this formula is shit anyway. Also, it has more mature and well thought out themes.

Top 5 survival horror games:

System Shock 2
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Parasite Eve 2
[Insert Favorite Resident Evil of your Choosing]
Silent Hill

The gameplay in each is decent enough and very valuable. The outlier is System Shock 2 which has prestigious gameplay.

Even if the survival horror formula were "shit", which it is not, you make up a new take on it or fix the shit parts, instead of throwing out gameplay almost entirely as with SOMA.

Walking sim fag.

 

[Multidirectional]

Ash did you like Alien Isolation? My favorite out of modern survival horrors.

 

[Ash]

Never tried it. Kind of want to and it does look good, though it is commonly considered to have lots of filler. Hack this, fetch this, fix this; play maintenance worker for a significant chunk of the game.

 

[Multidirectional]

Never tried it. Kind of want to and it does look good, though it is commonly considered to have lots of filler. Hack this, fetch this, fix this; play maintenance worker for a significant chunk of the game.

If you do get around to it, here's a modlist.

 

[Silva]

Alien Isolation has the best gameplay of the genre, no doubt, but its coupled with crap story and overall playthrough. If you're into it for the gameplay alone, it's 10/10. If you're into it for the whole package (including a lasting impact on your psyche), Silent Hill 2 and SOMA blow it out the water.

About your list, Ash , everything is shit except SS2, and only because it's an hybrid and not a pure survival. And if you'll include hybrids might as well count STALKERS which will wipe the floor with everything anyway.

The sad truth is this genre thrives on atmosphere and story, for good or bad, and it's gems are the ones that acknowledge that.

 

[Average Manatee]

Also, respawning? What respawning? I recall one instance of that happening right at the end where you have to take control of the beasts to deactivate Hydra's shields.

From what I remember all human enemies respawn in a matter of seconds after you shoot them. I was noticing it as soon as the first time you get a firearm, near the police station, I think. I don't remember now if it happens throughout entire game as, like I said, I tend to stop soon after I'm able to kill things. It seemed to work much better as adventure game. I will really have to replay this thing again sometime.

I don't remember any real respawning. Once you cleared out areas they stayed clear aside from new spawns at certain plot points. Can't recall if I stealthed past the police station, or maybe the unofficial patch I used to unfuck the game changed something since respawning after a few seconds would be awful. Whole game felt pretty smooth actually.

Parasite Eve 2

This game has truly awful respawning on top of slow, boring, repetitive combat.