Survival Horror Thread! (Also for any other type of horror games)

Risewild

Antediluvian as Feck
Modder
Orderite
This thread is for you to post about Survival Horror games. It will also be for any horror related games (but I think those are much less in number than survival horror games).

You can talk about anything, best games, worst games, unknown gems, the game that gave you the biggest scare, etc. As long as it is related to any horror game it belongs here.

I will start by naming some survival horror games I used to play when I still played consoles (I haven't touch a console since my old PS2):
Everyone knows about Silent Hill games and Resident Evil games, but not many people talk about the Dino Crisis and Nightmare Creatures games. I also just remembered about a PS2 game series I played years ago called Project Zero (Fatal Frame in Japan).
Project Zero is a bit different because we don't have weapons, we only have an old camera that can take pictures of ghosts, we can't usually see the ghosts unless we take pictures of them or look through the camera (I can't really remember anymore to be honest). I also think we can change film type if we find them (or maybe it is an upgrade, we can get upgrades by exchanging points we get from pacifying ghosts when we take pics of them) while exploring and each film type has special effects. We use the camera to damage, capture and pacify the ghosts, some ghosts appear and disappear so it is harder to damage them. And I think they have a weak spot that if we "hit" it, it will kill the ghost in one blow.
I can't remember much more of that game, but it was scary.

true survival horror is usually in first person or has fixed camera angles. most "survival horror" games with the shoulder cam are usually third person shooters. sometimes they're good (RE4 or dead space) sometimes they're not (every RE after 4) still RE 0-3 and code veronica and REmake are survival horror. Silent hill 1-4 are all god-tier. and The Evil Within is the only game with a shoulder cam that I would consider a survival horror game. and a great one at that.

I remember playing Dino Crisis games on the Playstation many years ago and those games scared me a few times, I put them up there with the old Resident Evil and Silent Hill games as survival horror games. They are also third person perspective games.
Another survival horror game I remember from the playstation era was Nightmare Creatures. Also third person perspective.
I always hear people talk about the famous Silent Hill and Resident Evil games but pretty much no one talks about Dino Crisis and Nightmare Creatures :puppy-dog:.


Now it's your turn to talk about horror games
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Man, I loved Dino Crisis. Played it on my friends' PS1. I wonder if I can get it to work with emulators on Win 10.
 
Man, I loved Dino Crisis. Played it on my friends' PS1. I wonder if I can get it to work with emulators on Win 10.
Wow right on time, I finished setting up my old emulators on this Win 10 machine yesterday but didn't see if they work yet besides the NDS one. I will see if I can get the PSX one to work now and try and get the Dino Crisis game going and tell you how it went.
EDIT: Downloading the ISO is taking ages... I hate my sucky Aussie internet!
 
Last edited:
Dino Crisis got a bum deal. So did Eternal Darkness. Survival Horror Thread! ;)
 
I truly hate how a whole generation of gamers have grown up without old school survival horror. Now the camera has to be behind your back the whole time or the controls suck.

true survival horror is usually in first person or has fixed camera angles. most "survival horror" games with the shoulder cam are usually third person shooters. sometimes they're good (RE4 or dead space) sometimes they're not (every RE after 4) still RE 0-3 and code veronica and REmake are survival horror. Silent hill 1-4 are all god-tier. and The Evil Within is the only game with a shoulder cam that I would consider a survival horror game. and a great one at that.

Dino Crisis got a bum deal. So did Eternal Darkness. Survival Horror Thread! ;)
shit I forgot about eternal darkness. for the gamecube right? also yeah I asked my dad about dino crisis he said its like resident evil with dinosaurs. imma have to hunt down a copy now.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
shit I forgot about eternal darkness. for the gamecube right? also yeah I asked my dad about dino crisis he said its like resident evil with dinosaurs. imma have to hunt down a copy now.

It is just like that. It plays a bit like Resident Evil Nemesis since it has a dodge or 180 function I think. I got that game when it first came out. That was when survival horror games were on fire.

The camera angles really do make the games scarier. It is why directors use certain angles in the movies. It allows you to frame the scene exactly the way you want it to maximize the scare potential.

Survival Horror was better when you had less control/power. You never see people say that Resident Evil 4 was the scariest in the series, or Silent Hill 2 needed more guns and bullets.
 
It is just like that. It plays a bit like Resident Evil Nemesis since it has a dodge or 180 function I think. I got that game when it first came out. That was when survival horror games were on fire.

The camera angles really do make the games scarier. It is why directors use certain angles in the movies. It allows you to frame the scene exactly the way you want it to maximize the scare potential.

Survival Horror was better when you had less control/power. You never see people say that Resident Evil 4 was the scariest in the series, or Silent Hill 2 needed more guns and bullets.
of course survival horror is scarier when the PC is underpowered. its why harry mason was a novelist. and its a tough call for me where I want the camera to be. alien isolation, outlast, amnesia, and soma all pretty well prove that first person survival horror works extremely well. but I do have a certain nostalgia for fixed camera angles.
 
of course survival horror is scarier when the PC is underpowered. its why harry mason was a novelist. and its a tough call for me where I want the camera to be. alien isolation, outlast, amnesia, and soma all pretty well prove that first person survival horror works extremely well. but I do have a certain nostalgia for fixed camera angles.


It depends on the series. For starts I don't think Resident Evil 7 should be a main entry in the series when it plays like Outlast, but at this point they have changed the series so much so often it will get a pass if it is good. I'm not a huge fan of first person survival horror though.
 
It depends on the series. For starts I don't think Resident Evil 7 should be a main entry in the series when it plays like Outlast, but at this point they have changed the series so much so often it will get a pass if it is good.
I agree about RE7. its not returning to being RE but at least its returning to survival horror y'know?
I'm not a huge fan of first person survival horror though.
really? why not? i think its a great way to have an underpowered protagonist in a game because its much easier to introduce stealth mechanics in a first person game than in a third person game.

sidenote: can we agree upon an abbreviation for the following terms?
  • survival horror
  • first person
  • third person
because holy fuck im tired of typing them
 
Other than fixed camera and first personal view 3D survival horror games, there also 2D survival horror games out there.
Like Clock Tower(at least first one):

Or Chzo Mythos series made by Yahtzee:

Or his newest game, the Consuming Shadow:

Those may not be scary enough for people who prefer their survival horror game be 3D over 2D, but this kind of survival horror have its own irreplaceable charm.
 
I just don't like FPS games as much these days, whether they be horror or otherwise. Stuff like Corpse Party and another game I can't think of right now are good too in their own way, but when you say Survival Horror typically I think of Resident Evil/Alone in the Dark. Inventory management and FMV's and puzzles and camera angles and blood with mediocre voice work = what was popular in the late 90's survival horror genre. Times change though.

As gamers became a little more coddled they complained more and more about inventory management and save points which is what added tension to the games. How many times in Resident Evil, whether it be the REmake or otherwise, did you have to worry about ink ribbons and having the right items or ammo? You would often have to think about what stuff to carry around because you would end up running into a puzzle that needed solved. This made you actually think more.

When they removed a lot of those backtracking mechanics the game boiled down to shoot shit and pick stuff up. So they added in some co-op mechanics to all of these survival horror games basically pulling an Alien/Aliens thing. Then it is all about the rule of cool, and less about the scares. The puzzles used to be some of the appeal to these games. Now they are an afterthought.
 
The only real survival horror games I have played would be Silent Hill 2 and most of 3 (PS2 died before I could finish it). While I do have issues with tank controls and fixed cameras, I can overlook them if the story and writing is great (like with 2 and 3).

As for modern survival horror, I played Dead Space (all three), Shattered Memories and Resident Evil 4 though I'm not sure if they count as legit survival horror due to how action-packed those games are. 4 is still a good game to me (helps that the Regenerators are damn creepy).
the Consuming Shadow
Isn't it more of a rogue-like (or is it lite?) like FTL than survival horror? It is horror though I'm not sure if it is pure survival horror.
 
@Atomkilla Dino Crisis works on my Win 10 machine on a PSX emulator. I didn't play more than the beginning but had no problems.


Fucking awesome news, man. I will try it one of these days. Dem memories.

Edit: I saw some people online asking for the original Dino Crisis remaster, like Capcom did with Resident Evil. Now that. That is something I would play till I shit my pants.
 
Last edited:
Isn't it more of a rogue-like (or is it lite?) like FTL than survival horror? It is horror though I'm not sure if it is pure survival horror.
It's more of rogue-like and not very pure to survival horror, yes.
But it still have some necessary elements to make a survival horror work.
What you are against is one of old gods who is invading this world, your resources are scare and don't have much time before this world end, yet you are the only one can do it and you will always be alone, and not alone.
And you don't know which one of old gods are actually the one invading this world, you need to find clues from one town to another, try to piece enough clues to identify who is the invading god.
You will see horrible things happened on people you met and yourself while you searching for the clues, it will either increase or cost your sanity.
You will become more and more suicidal, options will turn into kill yourself more and more often and you are more and more unable to control yourself.
The only way to restore your sanity is through use drug, but every time you take one, another shot will weaker than last time.
And if you even found enough clues and arrived the ritual location to put a stop of this horror, it's not really that simple as just case the banish spell.
You can either banished the wrong god because not actually have enough clues, or killed by the god you was intended to banish.
And even you actually banished the invading god, there still no happy ending for you, and it can be worse than you can ever hope for depend on your sanity.

In short, you are a helpless person happened to be the only one can stop a invasion by one of old gods, you are very unlikely to survive this horror yet you have no choice but either keep going forward or kill yourself.

It may not match everyone's preference when it's about survival horror games, but personally I think it deserve to be call as one.
 
Last edited:
I used to be a hardcore RE fan back in the days so i guess the first 3 "ish" were great and the remake was awesome. But my favorite horror game that fits into the survival part i guess is Fatal frame? Loved the first game but i never finished the second one or had a console for the rest.

Silent hill 1 was awesome aswell but i don't remeber the second one. The room sucked but homecomming looks good even if i only played a bit.

Can't think of much more that fits the genre in my eyes.
 
You total fucking noobs haven't mentioned system shock 2? I had to just up and quit playing it was so nerve wracking. I played it 10 years after it came out and even with the shit graphics it scared the shit out of me.
 
I used to be a hardcore RE fan back in the days so i guess the first 3 "ish" were great and the remake was awesome. But my favorite horror game that fits into the survival part i guess is Fatal frame? Loved the first game but i never finished the second one or had a console for the rest.

Silent hill 1 was awesome aswell but i don't remeber the second one. The room sucked but homecomming looks good even if i only played a bit.

Can't think of much more that fits the genre in my eyes.
really? I though the room was great. homecoming was ultimately mediocre and thus not worthy of the silent hill name. downpour was just straight trash for the most part.
The only real survival horror games I have played would be Silent Hill 2 and most of 3 (PS2 died before I could finish it). While I do have issues with tank controls and fixed cameras, I can overlook them if the story and writing is great (like with 2 and 3).

As for modern survival horror, I played Dead Space (all three), Shattered Memories and Resident Evil 4 though I'm not sure if they count as legit survival horror due to how action-packed those games are. 4 is still a good game to me (helps that the Regenerators are damn creepy).
the player character is too powerful in RE4 and Dead space for me to consider it true survival horror. especially dead space 3. that's a franchise killer right there. it failed both as a horror game and as an action game. RE4 and dead space 1 & 2 are still intense enough to be genuinely frightening at times though. they're great third-person shooters.
 
really? I though the room was great. homecoming was ultimately mediocre and thus not worthy of the silent hill name. downpour was just straight trash for the most part.

the player character is too powerful in RE4 and Dead space for me to consider it true survival horror. especially dead space 3. that's a franchise killer right there. it failed both as a horror game and as an action game. RE4 and dead space 1 & 2 are still intense enough to be genuinely frightening at times though. they're great third-person shooters.

RE4 is not a horror game IMO. The evil within is RE4 but actually a good game for me. I should really finish of it some day on that 1hit killl difficulty i started 1-2 years ago.
 
RE4 is not a horror game IMO. The evil within is RE4 but actually a good game for me. I should really finish of it some day on that 1hit killl difficulty i started 1-2 years ago.
are you implying RE4 wasn't good? it wasn't a good RE game or a good survival horror game but for what it was intended to be its one of, if not, the best. and I agree on the evil within. in terms of gameplay its like this perfect mix of classic resident evil and RE4 and its spooky as all hell.
 
Back
Top