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    femi-what?!Doc Burford
    9/03/16 6:52pm

    I knew I’d heard of Amnesia, but my first experience with it was a few months ago when I was trying to download Sanitarium (don’t judge me) on Steam (I can feel you judging me!) and got the name wrong (okay, fine, judge me). I kept it anyway, and, yes. Impressed.

    Incidentally, my favorite horror series is Fatal Frame, where you fight back (albeit with a camera, but you’d better not blow that Type 96 film on something you end up running from anyway!) until you can’t, and most of the horrible things happening around you have already happened. Ooh, chills!

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      Doc Burfordfemi-what?!
      9/03/16 7:15pm

      One thing I regret about this article was not EXPLICITLY referencing Fatal Frame in that one paragraph near the end talking about other ways to handle inventory and stuff.

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      Valshierfemi-what?!
      9/03/16 9:17pm

      I feel like the Camera Obscura is one of the best horror weapons. It gives you a way to confront the enemies, immerses you by switching the perspective to first person, and optimizes it by making you wait for the ‘fatal frame’ moment to maximize damage (which is usually seconds before the enemies do something bad to you). As a bonus the camera has a ton of unique lenses and customization options.

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    SquidEatinDoughDoc Burford
    9/03/16 7:28pm

    I started off skeptical that this was going to be at all convincing but you won me over. Turns out I felt the same way, just didn’t realize it. Great write-up.

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      Doc BurfordSquidEatinDough
      9/03/16 8:00pm

      I don’t even feel like I need to convince anyone, I just wanna get a conversation going about how to do more inventive stealth games. Like, my ideal here would be people coming up with ideas that are as creative as Fatal Frame.

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      JDDoc Burford
      9/04/16 6:49am

      resident evil remake used a brilliant combat mechanic that was the crimson head when ever you killed a zombie it will fall to the ground but it wont disappear insted it will wait for a while untill at some point it will wake up and will become a faster more dangerous zombie that will even take more shouts to kill and the best part you will only figure this out at the middle of the game after you atlest droped down a few zombies at that point you have a choise nither avoid zombies so you dont have to deal with the crimson head or kill it now and hope you will not go to that area again or hopfully you have enough gas to burn the bodey

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    TheStripelessTigerDoc Burford
    9/03/16 7:04pm

    How can I agree with anything in a purely subjective article? If horror is subjective, then so is your argument.

    Your pedantic way of juxtaposing terror and horror into blatantly subjective terms defeats your whole argument for me. Fear is not subjective.

    Your article should have been titled: “Horror games are more realistic with weapons”, not ‘better’ which is a hugely subjective term.

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      Doc BurfordTheStripelessTiger
      9/03/16 7:08pm

      You don’t have to agree with me. Contrasting terror and horror to explain plot construction is pretty basic narrative discourse 101. If you’re not very knowledgeable about the subject, it’s okay to speak up and say “hey, I don’t know a lot, but that doesn’t seem right to me.” I’m totally willing to have a chat with you about why I came to the conclusions that I did (most authorities on the subject agree on the definitions I used, contrast is an important component of storytelling, etc) but there’s no need to pretend I’m being pedantic.

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      SlayerAt5280Doc Burford
      9/03/16 7:18pm

      Horror vs Terror

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    QutoDoc Burford
    9/03/16 3:31pm

    I think the opposite; Horror is scarier without weapons because when you begin to play a game without them and have to face a creature that will come to kill you, hunting you specifically, it adds the tension immediately and continues to build. It’s also the reason so many FnaF games are highly praised, not because of the jumpscares, but the fear the game instills with it’s own mechanics. The sense of helplessness that your put into a game to deal with a creature you can’t kill. A creature you can’t reason with and instead have to navigate or strategize your way around them.

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      Doc BurfordQuto
      9/03/16 3:42pm

      Thoughtful comments I disagree with deserve a star of approval.

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      WraithfighterQuto
      9/03/16 3:53pm

      I would argue that FnaF isn’t a weapon-less horror series, if you look at it in the right way.

      Expand the definition of “Weapon” to “Some way to fight back”, because that’s really all weapons in horror games are, an active method you can use to combat the things trying to kill you, but a method that is purposefully limited to help drive the tension up.

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    StairmasternemDoc Burford
    9/03/16 3:59pm

    I think horror games lose their bite not because of weapons or no weapons, but rather by way of whatever safety nets are put in place. Amnesia becomes significantly less scary once you realize you have no real consequence to being monster’d, same goes with SOMA. I get sent back a wee bit in the level? Yeah I’ll be a bit more daring.

    I think weapons can become too much of a safety net. Make them too powerful then your horror setting becomes a shooting gallery. Part of why Dead Space 3 got so much backlash, making them weapons too powerful.

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      Doc BurfordStairmasternem
      9/03/16 4:12pm

      It’s so easy to see the man behind the curtain in SOMA that it never felt real to me. Some people are like “well it’s supposed to be more about existential horror,” but I don’t EXPERIENCE existential horror in fiction because of suture, so.

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      BlacktpooltenchStairmasternem
      9/03/16 4:21pm

      I have to say while I agree with your points, the weapons in dead space 3 are just weaker than they are in one and two, and one of the reasons I think 3 suffered so badly was their change from entertaining dismemberment to the standard assault rifle is the best weapon, that and enemies that were borderline bullet sponges removed any semblance of the tactical play that is present in 1/2 in favour of just being a generic dude-bro shooter :/

      It still makes me salty! especially the writing oh man, that terrible terrible writing :(

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    Mortal DictataDoc Burford
    9/03/16 3:10pm

    I hate the trend of games going towards no weapons in the horror genre. Part of the thrill wasn’t that I could fight back but having to guess when you should and when you should run, trying to work out if you enough ammo to make it work or if the round you just fired was one too many.

    One of the reasons I don’t like how Resident Evil 7 is looking so far is that it seems to have removed the way to fight back, meaning all you’re doing is going from jumpscare to jumpscare with no fair way to fight back which bores me if anything.

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      Doc BurfordMortal Dictata
      9/03/16 3:13pm

      Nope, Resident Evil 7, I have been told (so, grain of salt) has shotguns that you can use.

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      Mortal DictataDoc Burford
      9/03/16 3:17pm

      Yeah I heard there was a removed ESRB summary that included details such as weapons ‘Ethan’ can use but I can’t help but still worry whether it’ll pull a trick and have an arbitrary ‘lost your weapons’ segment or screw you over on ammo to a stupid level given that the game is so obviously trying to emulate other first-person horror games like P.T. or Outlast.

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    Ari OlaDoc Burford
    9/04/16 2:06pm

    I definitely agree with this, my only gripe is when horror games implement weapons, they run the risk of turning into an action shooter instead of a horror game (aka Resident Evil 5 and 6). I think horror games could keep this interesting by putting weapons IN hiding places. Say you're running from a monster, you have no weapon and you hide under a bed. Under the bed, you look around and notice a baseball bat, which you take and hold onto while the monster enters the room you're hiding, you brace yourself in case anything happens. If the monster does find you, maybe you'd be prompted to block his attack with the bat and then swing at him to disable him momentarily until you can pick yourself up and run to another hiding place. a game like this would keep the tension and terror high, while still making the player choose fight or flight in a totally new way

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      Doc BurfordAri Ola
      9/04/16 2:11pm

      Yup! I want Alien with Alien’s Flamethrower instead of Aliens with Aliens’ guns.

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      ~ Pastafaria Joe ~Ari Ola
      9/04/16 4:05pm

      Even Resident Evil 4 fell into the “Horror Action” problem.

      Horror should be slow and calculated, not fast and aggressive.

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    AndrosZDoc Burford
    9/03/16 3:17pm

    I think the reason weapons in horror games work is because there’s never enough ammo around. This creates tension in every encounter, because it becomes an inventory management nightmare. How many bullets did I use? How many do I have left? Is that enough for my next encounter?

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      Doc BurfordAndrosZ
      9/03/16 3:21pm

      Yes that is indeed part of the article.

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      AndrosZDoc Burford
      9/03/16 3:25pm

      Well the article is a small novella and this is Kotaku...

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    Your King MobDoc Burford
    9/03/16 5:39pm

    I personally think that while Alien:Isolation was a fine game, the execution of the creature’s invulnerability was both frustrating and cheap. There were portions of the game where the alien was retreating and I’m unloading a ton of shotgun ammo into its five-hole to no effect.
    I’d rather not have any weapons than have a game experience that feels cheap and leaves me feeling cheated.

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      Doc BurfordYour King Mob
      9/03/16 5:46pm

      Yes, I have an article posted here some time back called “Alien: Isolation’s Alien was Smart... Too Smart” or somethin.

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      OjitheunseenYour King Mob
      9/03/16 8:51pm

      There’s no way to prevent invulnerability from feeling cheap and unfair, because on a fundamental level, it is. It’s an artificial mechanic to limit the agency of the player, which is bad. The only exception is when an enemy is temporarily invulnerable, or has limited weaknesses.

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    cadarn07Doc Burford
    9/03/16 3:36pm

    Hmm, I’m definitely firmly in the camp that for a game to be truly scary (for me, at least) there needs to be zero weapons (or at least very very few). Amnesia is one of my favorite games ever and one of the few that truly scares me. Outlast too. Looking forward to Soma but the reviews have been pretty mixed so I haven’t pulled the trigger yet (read: not a good enough sale yet).

    I still remember my confusion when I heard Half Life 2 described as a horror game. “But...you have guns...how can it possibly be horror when you can kill it?” The Doom franchise is generally referred to as horror as well but I’m a good enough shooter that if you give me a shotgun to blow away the scary things with I’m just not going to be scared. I’m also extremely thorough when I play a game so if there’s ammo to be found, I generally find it. I mean, you can still throw out the cheap jump scares and sometimes I do, indeed, jump. But that’s not horror.

    The alien games were used as the main example in this article, and I agree that they bring a bit of a grey area to my argument. Although, I still think that they have guns and are only still classified as horror BECAUSE they force you to not use your gun. So I might as well not have it...now it’s Amnesia, not a “horror” game with guns. Also, I couldn’t stand more than a couple hours of Alien: Isolation, and not because it was scary.

    I think movies support this as well. True horror films are only scary because you can’t conquer that which is scary. You can only attempt to flee (well, until the end of the movie at least, but then it’s over). True fear is only found in complete helplessness. If it can be killed and I’m holding the weapon to kill it, then I’m unlikely to be scared.

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      Doc Burfordcadarn07
      9/03/16 3:39pm

      I disagree with you, obviously, because of the article I wrote, but this is a good post so I’m going to recommend it anyway.

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      RemukoDoc Burford
      9/03/16 4:12pm

      props to that. its always a good thing when someone is willing to say “this is the other side of my argument and i respect it even if i disagree with it”

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