Dino Crisis, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Capcom and the PS1 (golden age of survival horror)

[Riskbreaker]

It even lets you shoot Dagon in the face with a warship artillery.

Rather than letting you harpoon Cthulhu in the face, as Lovecraft would.

 

[Ash]

Imagine playing every game ever made when some 80% of them are total shit.

Spoiler

But that remaining 20% = thousands of decent to amazing games

Spoiler

You wise-cracking little shit.

 

[Wunderbar]

False. Gameplay constantly switches between stealth, exploration/walking sim, action and puzzle. All the goddamn time. Based on that I'm questioning if you even played it. "Full-blown action game" Just because it has a brief segment where you missile a dude in the face doesn't mean shit. In Resident Evil 1 (the game that birthed the label, of course) you also missile a dude in the face.

I like DCotE, but it has too many action segments to be a proper survival horror.

You have like an hour of walking sim/puzzle solving in the beginning, then half an hour of scripted sequences where you run away and sneak past a violent mob, then you get access to a pistol and a double-barrel shotgun. That's it, the game turns into Call of Duty. Yeah you die rather quick, can't heal mid combat because of locational damage and prolonged animations, and you don't have hundreds of spare ammo rounds, but it's still very heavy on action. There's even a "shoot enemies while sitting in a truck" segment, an FBI raid where you jump from cover to cover while avoiding a turret, and a full blown military assault near the end. Your inventory has unlimited space, you don't need to think what to take and what to leave because you can carry all 8 weapons at the same time. You gun down dozens of the Deep ones with a tommygun during Urania segment, then after a brief weapon-less stealth segment you proceed to gun dozens of cultists and the deep ones using a futuristic plasma cannon with infinite ammo.

Only 20% of the game is survival horror.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Ash
Have you by chance played Total Chaos, a standalone GZDoom game from a couple of years ago?
If not, I think you'd appreciate it.

 

[Ash]

I like DCotE, but it has too many action segments to be a proper survival horror.

You have like an hour of walking sim/puzzle solving in the beginning, then half an hour of scripted sequences where you run away and sneak past a violent mob, then you get access to a pistol and a double-barrel shotgun. That's it, the game turns into Call of Duty. Yeah you die rather quick, can't heal mid combat because of locational damage and prolonged animations, and you don't have hundreds of spare ammo rounds, but it's still very heavy on action. There's even a "shoot enemies while sitting in a truck" segment, an FBI raid where you jump from cover to cover while avoiding a turret, and a full blown military assault near the end. Your inventory has unlimited space, you don't need to think what to take and what to leave because you can carry all 8 weapons at the same time. You gun down dozens of the Deep ones with a tommygun during Urania segment, then after a brief weapon-less stealth segment you proceed to gun dozens of cultists and the deep ones using a futuristic plasma cannon with infinite ammo.

Only 20% of the game is survival horror.

You skipped over all the puzzle sections and walking sim/tension-building bits in between. But yes, there is perhaps a case to be made for DCotE not being true survival horror. It is certainly close if not though. Slow movement, takes ten years to heal yourself, sanity system oppresses your survival further, health isn't exactly in abundance (though ammo is never a concern), enemies reward nothing when killed, there is some heavy action parts but this is not the entire game at all, restrictive saving, other hardcore gameplay impediment such as no crosshair, no auto-weapon reload and shaky aim from localized damage...I consider it one but I find it acceptable that others may not for the fact that resource & inventory management is Silent Hill-tier lame in addition to some action-heavy segments (though again, even Resident Evil 1 could be action-heavy at times with missiles and hunted by hunters and fighting snakes and so on).

Ash
Have you by chance played Total Chaos, a standalone GZDoom game from a couple of years ago?
If not, I think you'd appreciate it.

No. Thanks for the recommendation. I do need my next fix.

 

[Wunderbar]

Ash
Have you by chance played Total Chaos, a standalone GZDoom game from a couple of years ago?
If not, I think you'd appreciate it.

I found Total Chaos to be a badly designed mess, bloated with a ton of badly working mechanics. There are rpg-lite elements, equipment degradation, crafting (with all the item bloat), hunger mechanics, poison/radiation management, diabloesque grid inventory, etc. And thanks to its GZDoom origins the game is janky as fuck. I stopped playing after i've lost a bunch of items upon level transition.

I think it would've been fine in a semi-open game (like Darkwood for example), but Total Chaos puts you in a very cramped dungeon, constantly locks doors behind you, locks you in a room and then spawns a bunch of enemies, etc. Modders gonna mod.

 

[Ash]

But what of all that actually is bad?

Item "bloat" is fine especially in a game like this as it creates a game of finding what item is actually useful at any given time or not. A puzzle in itself. Perhaps you meant something else? Or perhaps too much of it is just useless and navigating inventory cumbersome?

GZDoom origins the game is janky as fuck

Jankiness is of course not great though.

constantly locks doors behind you, locks you in a room and then spawns a bunch of enemies

Wouldn't this feel oppressive though, in a good way? And locking you in a room with enemies is classic design, to play the arena, survive the gauntlet without running away like a bitch, as they often do in a wide array of games including Doom (1993) or Resident Evil 1 (1996 e.g the boss fights).

Perhaps it is simply done way too often, is that what you mean? Can you describe what it bad about the mod because little actually sounds bad based on what you said. Edit: oh, that bug doesn't sound fun.

I guess I'll just watch a gameplay video. Should be easy to see what you mean if true.

 

[Wunderbar]

When it comes to mods, my favorites are Cry of Fear (for Half Life 1, though you can get it as a stand alone game on steam) and Out of Hell (for Unreal tournament 2004).

Cry of Fear has an awful emo story (I guess the devs had delusions of grandeur and thought they were making a new Silent Hill), but other than that it's mechanically solid horror game. Limited inventory (there's no item box so you'll have to drop items on the ground and retrieve them later), puzzles, non-linear level design with backtracking. It's also pretty damn scary. This, and Jasper Byrne's Lone Survivor, are probably the closest things to Silent Hill that were made by westerners.

Out of Hell isn't very "survival", but has a great apocalyptic atmosphere. Almost makes you feel like Batman you're the last breathing person in a world that goes to hell. Great presentation too, especially for a one-man project made in 2009.

Or perhaps too much of it is just useless and navigating inventory cumbersome?

this.
And since your inventory is limited, you don't really know what is useful and what isn't. There are chances to soft-lock yourself in an are you can't leave without means to defend yourself, or to soft-lock yourself with minimal health and radiation ailment, etc.

constantly locks doors behind you, locks you in a room and then spawns a bunch of enemies

Wouldn't this feel oppressive though, in a good way? And locking you in a room with enemies is classic design, to play the arena, survive the gauntlet without running away like a bitch, as they often do in a wide array of games including Doom (1993) or Resident Evil 1 (1996 e.g the boss fights).

the movement is jank and you keep getting stuck in the environments. And more often than not the arenas aren't all that great level-design wise, and are hard to navigate.

 

[Ash]

And since your inventory is limited, you don't really know what is useful and what isn't. There are chances to soft-lock yourself

Wouldn't it be based on intuition/common sense though? e.g rock, coffee cup, empty vial = unlikely to be required to progress. Door Key, chemical solution, locked diary = you should probably hold on to this item. If so then incline, and soft-locking yourself is called being retard filtered.

Edit: Oh I see, combined with the constant door locking. Does sound quite harsh but it also sounds quite hardcore and appealing to me :D Ill have to try it at some point though I am not too hyped. Jank and bugginess is never fun.

 

[Wunderbar]

And since your inventory is limited, you don't really know what is useful and what isn't. There are chances to soft-lock yourself

Wouldn't it be based on intuition though? e.g rock, coffee cup, empty vial = unlikely to be required to progress. Door Key, chemical solution, locked diary = you should probably hold on to this item. If so, then soft-locking yourself is called being retard filtered.

no, distinguishing quest items from trash isn't hard.

The problem is that in a game with punishing mechanics (such as radiation slowly draining your health, or your weapons breaking after a few hits) there must be a way to backtrack and pick up stuff you left on the ground because your bag was full. But sometimes you can't backtrack. And sometimes you can, but it's hard to do because the game has a shitty grey/brown palette and all the corridors look the same (seriously, it's an underground bunker on a remote island, who the fuck painted ALL the walls with the same graffiti?).

 

[Ash]

ohh ok that does sound lame. Thanks for the info. Ill add it to my .txt regardless but will proceed with that in mind.

Riskbreaker any comment?

 

[Morenatsu.]

Imagine playing every game ever made when some 80% of them are total shit.

Spoiler

But that remaining 20% = thousands of decent to amazing games

Spoiler

You wise-cracking little shit.

but you told me to play more games

Spoiler

you try-harding midwit

 

[Morenatsu.]

Cry of Fear has an awful emo story (I guess the devs had delusions of grandeur and thought they were making a new Silent Hill), but other than that it's mechanically solid horror game. Limited inventory (there's no item box so you'll have to drop items on the ground and retrieve them later), puzzles, non-linear level design with backtracking. It's also pretty damn scary. This, and Jasper Byrne's Lone Survivor, are probably the closest things to Silent Hill that were made by westerners.

I liked Afraid of Monsters more.

 

[Wunderbar]

Cry of Fear has an awful emo story (I guess the devs had delusions of grandeur and thought they were making a new Silent Hill), but other than that it's mechanically solid horror game. Limited inventory (there's no item box so you'll have to drop items on the ground and retrieve them later), puzzles, non-linear level design with backtracking. It's also pretty damn scary. This, and Jasper Byrne's Lone Survivor, are probably the closest things to Silent Hill that were made by westerners.

I liked Afraid of Monsters more.

yeah AoM is great, but Cry of Fear has more involved survival mechanics and actual puzzles. AoM's gameplay is too similar to Half-Life.

 

[Morenatsu.]

what do you mean i thought a shitty flashlight with dead batteries was peak survival gameplay

 

[Machocruz]

No, "managing inventory" is peak survival gameplay. I used to manage inventory at Safeway everyday, I must be the ultimate survivor, like Hunk

 

[fork]

[...] but fucking hell, Silent Hill: 2 is maybe the best horror game ever made? It's a fucking masterpiece. [...]

Finished replays of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2. The first was even better than I remembered, while Silent Hill 2 is quite a bit worse, still okay, but honestly dropped quite significantly in my top list. Feels like Silent Hill for normies, if that makes any sense; less frightening atmosphere, less oppressive music, more focus on story, even more linear, worse combat. [...]

Ah, I'm sorry, faggot.

 

[Zlaja]

Finished replays of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2. The first was even better than I remembered, while Silent Hill 2 is quite a bit worse, still okay, but honestly dropped quite significantly in my top list. Feels like Silent Hill for normies, if that makes any sense; less frightening atmosphere, less oppressive music, more focus on story, even more linear, worse combat. [...]

The first game (and part three) are certainly more replayable then the second game. They have more varied enviroments and resource management is better executed. Part 2 really shines in the story department, which makes for a very strong and memorable first playthrough, but almost the entire game is you going around very dark hallways and even most trips through town are at night so the visuals feel a bit boring. And you get so much ammo in the game it's downright retarded. Not that you have to conserve your shit that much in the first game either, but part 2 goes full retard in that regard.

 

[fork]

Silent Hill 2 is utter shit in every way: It's even more linear than the original, the puzzles are completely retarded, and not in a good way, and the majority of the game game, i.e. the apartment building, the hospital and the hotel (and especially everything in between) is just boring as shit.

The only good Silent Hill is the original game.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Finished replays of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2. The first was even better than I remembered, while Silent Hill 2 is quite a bit worse, still okay, but honestly dropped quite significantly in my top list. Feels like Silent Hill for normies, if that makes any sense; less frightening atmosphere, less oppressive music, more focus on story, even more linear, worse combat. [...]

The first game (and part three) are certainly more replayable then the second game. They have more varied enviroments and resource management is better executed. Part 2 really shines in the story department, which makes for a very strong and memorable first playthrough, but almost the entire game is you going around very dark hallways and even most trips through town are at night so the visuals feel a bit boring. And you get so much ammo in the game it's downright retarded. Not that you have to conserve your shit that much in the first game either, but part 2 goes full retard in that regard.

I tried replaying it on hard recently. All it did was turn an easy game into a tedious game. And it was still easy.

 

[Ash]

Silent Hill 2 is utter shit in every way: It's even more linear than the original, the puzzles are completely retarded, and not in a good way, and the majority of the game game, i.e. the apartment building, the hospital and the hotel (and especially everything in between) is just boring as shit.

The only good Silent Hill is the original game.

Geez ease up with your push and pull baby. One minute you're saying stupid shit like Darkwood is crap, next you throw out total monocled statements like this. I rated you prestigious my man.

The series peaked with SH1, which isn't even that great a game (though it's special as a horror experience). Everything after is redundant, derivative and inferior both as a game and horror experience.
SH2 the best horror game of all time? You have to be kidding. It's barely even a game to begin with, and it's hardly even scary either. Not even the best SH game, that being SH1 which I'd rank like #5 best Horror game.
It's amazing what a little bit of emotional story can do to some people. The feels overrides the rational part of your brain you estrogen-fueled cucks.

 

[Mexi]

[...] but fucking hell, Silent Hill: 2 is maybe the best horror game ever made? It's a fucking masterpiece. [...]

Finished replays of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2. The first was even better than I remembered, while Silent Hill 2 is quite a bit worse, still okay, but honestly dropped quite significantly in my top list. Feels like Silent Hill for normies, if that makes any sense; less frightening atmosphere, less oppressive music, more focus on story, even more linear, worse combat. [...]

Ah, I'm sorry, faggot.

Yeah, you are sorry. The first one was garbage.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Dino Crisis were the GOATs of the time. Id give anything to have Dino Crisis back. S and Silent Hill. Those games were special

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

Resident Evil is my favorite but Silent Hill is special obviously. Dino Crisis never got a chance. If there was ever a franchise i wanted to see make a comeback it's Dino Crisis

 

[Ash]

Dino Crisis had two chances. Both times to rather mediocre, though not terrible, results. The real underrated PSX survival horror is Parasite Eve 2. Should be right up your street since it has waifu worship and virgin pandering:



But you're too closeted and mediocre-minded to know the good from the bad.