Amazingly, as the title says. Are there others who wish, that this already frightening game (Possibly the scariest i've ever played) was even scarier?
Call me crazy, But I was hoping to be scared and, quite possibly, scarred, even more.
Amnesia already made it in to my list of Top 5 favorite games of all time. So there's no question I LOVE it. But were there others whom wished it were even scarier as well? (If such a thing is even possible)
(12-13-2010, 03:33 AM)dragonmaster Wrote: [ -> ]Amazingly, as the title says. Are there others who wish, that this already frightening game (Possibly the scariest i've ever played) was even scarier?
Call me crazy, But I was hoping to be scared and, quite possibly, scarred, even more.
Amnesia already made it in to my list of Top 5 favorite games of all time. So there's no question I LOVE it. But were there others whom wished it were even scarier as well? (If such a thing is even possible)
I'm not claiming I'm an Internet Tough Guy and I found Amnesia/Penumbra fairly scary, but I think there is a lot of room for improvement. These games are a great leap forward from garbage like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, but IMO there's still work to be done before Frictional could be considered a master of its craft.
Frankly, I'd like to see scarier-looking monsters of the Exorcist flavor. I thought the bipedal monsters looked good, but they just didn't look evil enough to me. Sure they look all wretched and angry and stuff, but they don't look quite like they hate everything enough like the possessed girl did in the movie. I'd like to see less disfigurement and scarier features.
I'd also like to see more long-term stress-related fear like the giant worm in Penumbra, but I'd like it more fleshed out. You knew for a while you were going to have to deal with the worm eventually with the foreshadowing of the giant tunnels all over the place. Still, I didn't like the concept of the worm because it's a stupid worm, not an intelligent being plotting your demise. I would have rather had it been several long-term stressors from several evil beings culminating in one, single terrifying event (or something like that).
And, finally, I'd like to see more terrifying "discovery" events. By discovery I mean when you get caught. I'd like to see a zombie's eyes light up wide open in pure delight as it plods toward you licking its chops. Stuff like that. As it is Penumbra/Amnesia models mostly stay the same but use different motions when they discover you.
/my .02
I wish.
[.......................] <-for the spam-filter
EEP! NO, i can barely handle this game's scary level as is :O!
I don't think it really can be... or at least pushing too hard for "ultra scary" runs the very real risk of simply ruining the psychological thrill element and replacing it instead with campy gratuitous gore porn.
Scary monsters? No thanks, I prefer what you DON'T see: as you know, the human imagination is much more efficient at producing its own terror than anything that could be rendered graphically.
More enemy encounters? No thanks, that's merely trying my patience rather than my sanity. I prefer that brand of subtle unsettling, like entering the torture chambers only to see idle equipment and having to piece together the visuals yourself. How do you improve on that? The chillingly evil layout of the chambers so that prisoners could watch/hear their prisonmates in sheer agony, or the medieval sketches depicting their plight, with only subtly ghastly innuendos. It's simply perfectly unsettling.
Concentrate the moments of terror? No thanks, I don't want this to be a dungeon run where you merely sprint from one event to the next with no sense of terror between. A constant and pervasive sense of unease is exactly what makes the game profound, and maybe that is the only thing that could use having more of (though I'm sure there is an optimal duration before desensitization and I think they hit it almost precisely).
Perhaps the last I agree with, in making the only or few enemies seem a tad more ghastly and menacing, but I don't expect any such improvements to be noticed for anything longer than a second!
I want it, but seeing as the game has already limited the audience by the horror (no one I know is man enough!) I think that this level of scary is good. I liked in the penumbras how the game was scarier on hard, because you die in like 1 or 2 hits. If you're a pussy you can rest assured with the easy difficulty, knowing you stand a fighting chance. Removing the difficulty filter in Amnesia was, IMHO, the greatest mistake Frictional made. I hope that all makes sense. It's late and I'm sick as all hell so I could be delusional...
(12-14-2010, 03:47 AM)Renegade_ Wrote: [ -> ]I don't think it really can be... or at least pushing too hard for "ultra scary" runs the very real risk of simply ruining the psychological thrill element and replacing it instead with campy gratuitous gore porn.
What I would love even more than more monsters or gore porn is for them to amp up the Pyschological horror aspect tenfold. I dunno how they'd do that, they've already pushed the bar pretty darn high with storyline and sound.
As crazy as this sounds, I would actually quite like to be somewhat psychologically hit by a horror game. Especially a frictional one.
There could have been bits and peices that could have made it more adhorrent.
Silent Hill is not garbage
It's not worth arguing about it - that guy has bizarre notions that a game set in Pennsylvania starring people named Harry, James, Heather, and Henry with average western clothes and hairstyles is anime.