Survival Horror: Then and Now.

[Mormolyce]

RE is the classic flagship of Survival Horror, but yes from RE4 onwards they aren't survival horror at all. RE4 is a straight up action game (personally I thought it was a fun action game with some great bits that was a bit too long and ultimately not worthy of the "RE" name, due to both the shift in genre and tone).

Games go through periods where certain genres are massively popular and widely imitated and then go out of fashion while it starts up again with a different genre. King's Quest started a rash of adventure games, which died out when Doom started a rash of FPS ("Doom clones" they used to be called), which died out when Dune 2000/C&C/Warcraft (depending who you ask) started a rash of RTS games and so on. (Actually FPS is such a simple genre which has instant gratification and easily incorporates advanced graphics that it never really goes out of style for long, and it always makes a big comeback). Some recent groundbreaking games and their associated parade of imitators that spring to mind are God of War and that particular kind of graphics-porn rail beat-em-up with minigame-style boss battles, and Fallout 3 with all those post-apocalyptic and/or FPS/RPGs fusion games.

Resident Evil was one of those kinds of trend-setters (along with Silent Hill) and popularised Survival Horror, but now games have moved on to a new popular genre. Doesn't mean it's dead, just not as common. The only genre that ever really died was adventure games - and they do still make those, they're just very rare. Oh and FMV games, actually those are definitely dead :P

[Clockwork Pinkie]

Just the horror genre being horror. Horror really doesn't stay scary, after awhile, you've seen everything, and it just becomes more funny than scary. There's a few games out there that can be scary like the Fear, Fatal Frame, Penumbra, Dead Space (at times), few others I can't name of, not that new, but still something different. Zombies are just really old and boring now for me and I do not find them interesting at all, only in Left 4 Dead, and The Walking Dead. It seems that's what scary is now, zombies, and everyone's going in that direction, instead of trying something different in fear of losing money.

[Solmyr13]

My pleasure.



You can do that by yourself. You're not forced to use RE5 save system. You're not forced to pick every single bullet that drops. You're not forced to upgrade your weapons. If you do abuse the system to make it easier for you, then it's your fault that the game is too easy.



I have more fear of crazy africans with chainsaws chasing me than I have fear of slow and stupid zombies that I can dodge all day. I guess that's just me.



Again, you're the one choosing to use the save system. Be a man and start from the beginning when you die, I'm sure you won't be laxed anymore. (The first time I played RE4, I didn't had a PS2 memory card... that's was way harder than RE2, where any retarded can get S ranking in 2 hours of gameplay...)



I died more often in RE4 and RE5 in pro difficulty than I ever died in a RE1/2/3 hard mode run. And I was younger than 10 years old at that time!



The games where you can't shoot a simple wood door with a grenade launcher deny the laws of physics too. What's your point?



If you abuse something to make the game easier for you, it's because you want it to be easier for you. RE5 has a better challenging curve, as it is easier than RE1 - for new players - but it allows you to play it way harder by discarding those conveniences - for experienced player.

That is a good thing, for both new and hardcore players.
If you choose the new players road, deal with that. I didn't, and I think that RE5 is one the best games I ever played.

(I'm not trolling, I swear.)

So according to you anything with any semblance of "fear" or "zombies" involved could be a horror game? Would L4D be something you consider horror? Games like RE5 have all those resources available because you need them; at certain points you're literally swarmed by zombies, hell the first "boss" of the game where you have to survive in that shack is just swarms and waves of zombies coming at you. If I didn't pick up all the ammo and "ruin the fear" by doing so, I would lose.

And I already said that random running zombies can be scary, it's like something that jumps out in you like in Dead Space is, but after it happens three or four times and I learn to counter it it's not even remotely scary. Games where you had to fight tough enemies (RE1 where sometimes it took 5 bullets to kill a monster) and had limited ammunition was more difficult than RE5. I shouldn't have to dumb the game down to make it difficult, it should just be difficult if they want to call it Survival horror.

[Deleted]

-epic post-

this guy knows his shit!
OT: im already too in love with the RE and SH universe to simply quit. i just need those sexy new games to complete my collection!

[Hraklea]

So according to you anything with any semblance of "fear" or "zombies" involved could be a horror game? Would L4D be something you consider horror?

Any game where I have to survive the horror is a survival horror, yes. I would put L4D in that label, but I don't get scared that often with L4D.

Games like RE5 have all those resources available because you need them...

Now I'm lost. You have to decide, you either want the feeling of limited resources or you do not, you can't complain that the game offers too much bullets and then say "but I can't play without them!".

...at certain points you're literally swarmed by zombies...

And that's scary, at least, in my concept of fear.

...hell the first "boss" of the game where you have to survive in that shack is just swarms and waves of zombies coming at you. If I didn't pick up all the ammo and "ruin the fear" by doing so, I would lose.

If you can't play RE5 without picking every single bullet that drops, how can you complain that the game doesn't have "limited resources"? Seriously, I'm completely lost here.

...but after it happens three or four times and I learn to counter it it's not even remotely scary.

Just like RE1. Did you really get scary by the 82739847982473th crow breaking a window? I'm sure you didn't.

Games where you had to fight tough enemies (RE1 where sometimes it took 5 bullets to kill a monster)...

The same happens in RE5. Have you tried to kill the first chainsaw guy without using the explosive barrels?

...and had limited ammunition was more difficult than RE5.

I'll just quote you and let you take your own conclusions: "If I didn't pick up all the ammo [...] I would lose."

I shouldn't have to dumb the game down to make it difficult, it should just be difficult if they want to call it Survival horror.

First, you're not dumbing the game down by choosing the hardest option. Picking Chris over Jill in RE1 or Leon over Claire in RE2 is "dumb the game down" too, if that's the case.
Second, if you're suggestioning that the game should remove the easy option because you can't avoid taking the easy road... I can't end that sentence without offending your player skills.

[Restos3]

Quote from Baldur's Gate (a really hard game. Yes, really.)

If you find the game too easy or too hard, try adjusting the game difficulty the best suits your ability.

In BG, besides the "easy, normal, hard" modes, there are like 2 other beyond hard mode settings to test if you really are good for the job.

[Solmyr13]

Any game where I have to survive the horror is a survival horror, yes. I would put L4D in that label, but I don't get scared that often with L4D.



Now I'm lost. You have to decide, you either want the feeling of limited resources or you do not, you can't complain that the game offers too much bullets and then say "but I can't play without them!".



And that's scary, at least, in my concept of fear.



If you can't play RE5 without picking every single bullet that drops, how can you complain that the game doesn't have "limited resources"? Seriously, I'm completely lost here.



Just like RE1. Did you really get scary by the 82739847982473th crow breaking a window? I'm sure you didn't.



The same happens in RE5. Have you tried to kill the first chainsaw guy without using the explosive barrels?



I'll just quote you and let you take your own conclusions: "If I didn't pick up all the ammo [...] I would lose."



First, you're not dumbing the game down by choosing the hardest option. Picking Chris over Jill in RE1 or Leon over Claire in RE2 is "dumb the game down" too, if that's the case.
Second, if you're suggestioning that the game should remove the easy option because you can't avoid taking the easy road... I can't end that sentence without offending your player skills.

Agree to disagree. Honestly the crows were terrifying the first couple of times it happened and it didn't happen as much as say a corpse leaping up at you in Dead Space, not even 10% as often. The issue here is you take the game and make it more difficult by trying to complete the game in a way that makes it harder. If the game puts the resources there to USE, then you should USE them. A swarm of zombies isn't scary when you have a shotgun that can 1 shot them or grenades to blow them all up.

The game has the easy option, it's called "Easy" on the menu. When I select "Hard" I expect it to be difficult, not more enemies with more life and slightly less resources. RE5 was not scary in a horror sense, RE5 was scary in a "HOLY CRAP" sense when the zombie swarm came but after that it was just another zombie swarm that you had a pistol, grenades and a machine gun to deal with. RE5 even gave you a rocket launcher that one shot anything you want, once.

It's fine to have a more "difficult" approach (as your example in RE1 and RE2) to a game; how hard it is doesn't affect how scary it is. If there's a boss that I have to beat a particular way then it doesn't offer me any more fear then the other. However when I enter a room for the umpteenth time and random zombie/corpse leaps at me... again, it's boring. I though SH2 was terrifying because you were truly ALONE in that game, you had NOBODY. The random NPC's were highly unreliable and overall made you question them more then comforted you with their presence. James Sunderland shouldn't be able to swing his plank or shoot his gun like a champion because he's an average joe kind of guy. Chris Redfield in RE5 just plows people down with his military expertise. Even RE1, they were special OPS but in a brand new environment so it was scary. Games like MGS1 were good in this respect because Solid Snake is supposed to be a military badass who can take on a base alone, James Sunderland is not this.

[Hraklea]

The issue here is you take the game and make it more difficult by trying to complete the game in a way that makes it harder.

Exactly, and that's completely normal. Arrange mode in Resident Evil 1 Director's Cut is not a flaw, side B in Resident Evil 2 is not a flaw, hard mode in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is not a flaw. Most games have an option menu where you can opt the game to be easier or harder, that's not a bad thing, and trying to imply that games should not have the easy option is makes no sense, specially if your reason for that is "I can't play on hard mode if the game offers me an easy one".

If the game puts the resources there to USE, then you should USE them. A swarm of zombies isn't scary when you have a shotgun that can 1 shot them or grenades to blow them all up.

So Gameshark is a flaw and Playstation 1 was a fail console? I don't see it that way. Why do you think you should use them? You do because you want to do it, it is not the game producer's responsability to control your behavior. I'm telling you how to make RE5 a better experience for survival horror fans, if you don't want to take it, it's not RE5's fault.

RE2 has an infinite ammo rocket launcher, so is it not a survival horror because I should USE it as the game offers it to me? That's not how it works, and you know that.

When I select "Hard" I expect it to be difficult, not more enemies with more life and slightly less resources.

If you mean that you want hard games to have well designed AIs, RE1 is not harder than RE5 with those completely dumb zombies and riddles that any kid can solve.

RE5 was not scary in a horror sense, RE5 was scary in a "HOLY CRAP" sense when the zombie swarm came but after that it was just another zombie swarm that you had a pistol, grenades and a machine gun to deal with. RE5 even gave you a rocket launcher that one shot anything you want, once.

That's how the entire RE franchise always worked. RE never had that horror atmosphere, Silent Hill had, Alone in the Dark had, Enemy Zero had, but Resident Evil was never something that makes you afraid the entire time. Of course, that's me, I suppose "fear" is a personal feeling.

It's fine to have a more "difficult" approach (as your example in RE1 and RE2) to a game; how hard it is doesn't affect how scary it is. If there's a boss that I have to beat a particular way then it doesn't offer me any more fear then the other. However when I enter a room for the umpteenth time and random zombie/corpse leaps at me... again, it's boring

Agreed, but that's not the case with RE5, I don't see RE5 as a "Holy crap!" kind of game. RE4 is a little like this, but not RE5.

I though SH2 was terrifying because you were truly ALONE in that game, you had NOBODY. [...] James Sunderland shouldn't be able to swing his plank or shoot his gun like a champion because he's an average joe kind of guy.

Just like SH: the Room.

I think it is really unfair to compare Resident Evil with Silent Hill, because RE series was always more action oriented than SH (specially RE3). I know that the guy from Silent Hill: Homecoming was some sort of military fighter, but it's not like he was some sort of Marcus Phoenix (is that the name of the Gears of War guy?). New Silent Hills are not action games at all.

...Even RE1, they were special OPS but in a brand new environment so it was scary.

All I can say is that I played RE1 when I was 9 years old and RE5 when I was 23 years old, and RE5 scared me more.

[Verdugo]

I know that the guy from Silent Hill: Homecoming was some sort of military fighter,

Actually,

SPOILER:

He wasnt in millitary at all, he just believed it.

[Restos3]

Agree to disagree.

God I hate when people use that therm. It's like saying nothing.