Do you think survival horror has went downhill?

[Member_of_STARS]

One of the greatest examples that Survival Horror is long from dead and can be made into one hell of an experience, is DayZ. A modification for ArmA2. In the end, it was plagued by too much inventory being available, zombies not becoming that much of an issue rather than being an obstacle and cheaters, but for the first 2 months, those who were playing it pure experienced something which in games books or movies has not yet been delivered.

Funny thing, the greatest horror came from facing down a guy and not knowing if he was friendly or not. And until the game became FFA with zombies in a 200 sq km map, it was phenomenal.

[News Bot]

Ignoring the irony of you using the most backwards current gen 'console' out there to list a example game, Revelations isn't really survival horror. You admit it is half action...except the other half isn't survival horror, it is just more action only you get less enemies at once, a slower pace and a different visual environment. Ammo and health is never really limited, you'll never find yourself fighting so much you run out of ammo, puzzles barely qualify as puzzles and mostly the same simple junk over again, you don't really get to explore until nearer the end of the game, by which point is mainly just opening doors with new keys you got for more weapons, ammo and upgrades to blast stuff with.

The Jill sections have a good atmosphere that is well suited to a survival horror game but there are plenty of action games that use the same style of atmosphere. The actual gameplay fails as survival horror.

You never really run out of ammo in any games in the series unless you're particularly wasteful. Likewise with health. If you have even sub-par management skills, you can relatively breeze through the series with a steady supply, if not comically large amounts that end up never being used because you save it for encounters that don't actually happen or end up being a cake-walk. The series has never really been "Survival Horror" in most people's definitions since the very first game. Atmosphere matters a lot more, as it's necessary to achieve the horror aspect. In regards to the survival aspect, you can achieve this on virtually any gameplay style so long as you add an element (or illusion) of limitation. There's no set way to create a Survival Horror game.

Revelations is Survival Horror. As are BH4 and BH5. They're just different in style to the older games.

[Carnivol]

A huge part of the problem isn't with the designers at all.
It's the usergroup, today's gamers, be it newcomers or seasoned players, they really suck and aren't receptive to a lot of things - heck, they rarely even tollerate what they claim to like when it's given to them. It's all about clinging onto some label of what they associate with "Survival Horror" and moaning about how nothing compares to it, and if something ever does; it's all a shameful rip-off and not ever anywhere near as good as the original.

[Wrathborne]

I actually wouldn't say that RE5 really qualifies as Survival horror really, its far too into action than the previous games were as well as the games atmosphere being kind of...generic in terms of RE atmosphere. This doesn't include Spencers mansion which did stick to some of the series older atmospheric formula.

It had bits and pieces of Survival Horror in it and all, but being that the games story is mostly one big rush to save the world, it doesn't spend much time in a lot of areas because you're always on the move.

RE4 did let you get to enjoy the atmosphere of the village, Salazars castle, The mines, Saddlers Island and while most of it wasn't particularly scary...the sense of dread was still present even though the game was starting to lean towards action.

A big part of Survival horror has always been the creepy atmosphere and sense of dread and really, since the series has gone more mainstream since thats where the new audience is...those elements have been sacrificed in favor of more action and story that keeps you moving forward in a hurry.

Which is kind of ironic as in the old games most of us were kinda of scared to turn a corner, or even leave a room.

[News Bot]

CODE:Veronica and BH4 were also "save the world" affairs. They are still Survival Horror. The plot has no real bearing on what the game's genre is, it's the game's design that determines it. BH5 definitely has the least common characteristics of Survival Horror, but it's still Survival Horror. There's no real way around it. It's a game with survival elements and horror elements, but the game had a "blockbuster" focus much like a Hollywood movie which rubbed off on the gameplay.

"Survival Horror" is pretty bullshit anyway, just like "Tactical Espionage Action." But MGS4 is still part of the latter genre even though it changed almost everything about the series from the ground-up in terms of gameplay and had a much bigger action (really "blockbuster") focus.

[Member_of_STARS]

A huge part of the problem isn't with the designers at all.
It's the usergroup, today's gamers, be it newcomers or seasoned players, they really suck and aren't receptive to a lot of things - heck, they rarely even tollerate what they claim to like when it's given to them. It's all about clinging onto some label of what they associate with "Survival Horror" and moaning about how nothing compares to it, and if something ever does; it's all a shameful rip-off and not ever anywhere near as good as the original.

There is another aspect to this. Gamers have become really aware of what does and doesn't make up a great game. It appears that a lot of AAA class devs themselves arent aware of this fact. When a dev says "we care about what you think" and fans answer "this isn't what we ordered", the devs aren't always right and the fans aren't always overly picky.

[Branden_Lucero]

fans are pretty worthless anymore. its that very reason why they tear devs apart and devs can't do anything on their own without some backlash with their choices. if it were me, i would start giving a shit less about what fans want, because it doesnt matter - they're never gonna be satisfied no what you give them. i say just let devs do their own thing, and they can either accept what their given, or dont bother with it ever again. no one forces the consumer to buy their product, that is 100% their choice.

[Dracarys]

I see RE5 more like a survival-action game. Playing on harder difficulties without infinite ammo and tooled up guns and such the gameplay is more often about surviving the enemies thrown at you and ammo and health will become very limited if you try and fight everything. The atmosphere and style of gameplay is mainly action though.

RE4 I see as completely action, even on Pro Leon is a walking arsenal in that game with no health or ammo issues. The balance of supply vs need was just wrong in RE4 unlike in RE5 which did it really well. The action far outweighs the very few horror moments in RE4 also.

[News Bot]

There's no real balance to health/ammo in any of the games to be honest, with few exceptions.

[Member_of_STARS]

There's no real balance to health/ammo in any of the games to be honest, with few exceptions.

First playthrough with appropriate difficulty setting. And if you pick your choices in a fair manner, most games do become quite balanced in that regard. Yet even today, with thousands of hours under the belt, the first playthrough is done on Normal mode, in any game. By the time people reach the highest difficulty on god knows which playthrough, they've already memorized enough of it to not "play" the game, but rather "trick" or "solve" it. It's especially evident with FPS titles, they all play out fairly similarily, it only takes an hour if not less to adjust to the difference of pace, shooting mechanics, et cetera, yet all the experience from past games is not being taken into account and thus the game is played on the sub-optimal difficulty. Balance is broken.

Then there's the problem of too many saves and way too liberal use of quicksaves/loads, which adds to the whole "solving" mentality when playing the games.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the remake. For most gamers, the right choice would be enabling Iron Man mode. Every choice you make is set in stone and there is no way back, and depending on the difficulty setting, the bad choices cost or can cost the game an hour or three hours into the future of that playthrough. But most never enable it on their first gameplay, opting for the comfortable quicksave/load mechanic to get them out of trouble. The games aren't necessarily inbalanced, players need to adjust the first playthrough (which is the most important one) to their ability, and make it a bit more difficult to raise the stakes.

Branden, there are enough worthless developers and publishers around. By the end of the day, the devs should have enough experience, knowledge and common sense to separate bullshit from constructive criticism. Somehow, though, you see almost religious loyalty when it comes to Valve games, in comparison to ridiculously devhating community which the one of DICE-s has become. Has become, over the course of 5-6 years. You make the right decisions, and the fans will smother bullshit for you. You make the wrong ones, and by this the reasonable voices are too few to overcome the vocal minority.

[Canas Renvall]

First playthrough with appropriate difficulty setting. And if you pick your choices in a fair manner, most games do become quite balanced in that regard. Yet even today, with thousands of hours under the belt, the first playthrough is done on Normal mode, in any game. By the time people reach the highest difficulty on god knows which playthrough, they've already memorized enough of it to not "play" the game, but rather "trick" or "solve" it. It's especially evident with FPS titles, they all play out fairly similarily, it only takes an hour if not less to adjust to the difference of pace, shooting mechanics, et cetera, yet all the experience from past games is not being taken into account and thus the game is played on the sub-optimal difficulty. Balance is broken.

Then there's the problem of too many saves and way too liberal use of quicksaves/loads, which adds to the whole "solving" mentality when playing the games.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the remake. For most gamers, the right choice would be enabling Iron Man mode. Every choice you make is set in stone and there is no way back, and depending on the difficulty setting, the bad choices cost or can cost the game an hour or three hours into the future of that playthrough. But most never enable it on their first gameplay, opting for the comfortable quicksave/load mechanic to get them out of trouble. The games aren't necessarily inbalanced, players need to adjust the first playthrough (which is the most important one) to their ability, and make it a bit more difficult to raise the stakes.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, and another series does something like this that I love: Fire Emblem. It's all strategy and, especially on a hard difficulty, can really cost you because of the permadeath aspect of the game. If you lose a character and want to keep them, you have to completely restart the entire chapter. Not the entire game, but still can be annoying and it makes you far more cautious. Sadly, the newest entry coming out in February allows for the option to turn off permadeath, but the game stays true to its roots and makes the harder mode challenging. That's the difference there in many games. Newer/younger gamers nowadays can't handle challenge.

Hard mode in this day and age has devolved into "enemies take more damage and dole more damage." Rarely do you find a game where hard mode means "enemies play smarter, fight smarter, and are tougher to kill." That's hard, not challenging.

Challenging is something like the aforementioned Fire Emblem's hard mode: Enemies use more advanced tactics, do and take more damage, have higher stats, and sometimes better weaponry. Notice the difference there. "Enemies use more advanced tactics." And this was back on the GBA for Christ's sake. Gamers need to learn how to adapt to challenge instead of having their hand held through everything.

[Member_of_STARS]

Hah, the whole "enemies take more damage and dole more damage." method in difficulty settings has really been getting on my nerves for years. Luckily for PC games, when the community resonates with the game, a few AI enhancement mods are likely to be made. In strategy and tactics type of games, one other method is giving the enemy unfair handycaps (more resources, better starting terms, things like these), but rarely is AI progressively smarter depending on the difficulty choice. This is again an example of terrible approach to making a game tougher to beat (instead of being challenging).

STALKER games have a ton of AI enhancement mods, and some of them make you see a clear choice between engaging an enemy and ignoring it. It's true that devs can't account for everything, but in terms of AI behaviour nowadays we get games with just ridiculously scripted sequences where enemies are nothing but stupid target drones. Supressing fire which effectively kills you if you step into it while the enemies either flank or flush you, is something usually again scripted, or just never happens. And this is 2012, people are smarter than devs appear to believe.

[Dracarys]

Do we really want a majini throwing a fire nade at you then while you're in burn stun pulling an RPG out of nowhere and quickfiring it at our feet through?

[Wrathborne]

Do we really want a majini throwing a fire nade at you then while you're in burn stun pulling an RPG out of nowhere and quickfiring it at our feet through?

Thats exactly what we want Maggot, and we want it now!

[Pikminister]

I
Hard mode in this day and age has devolved into "enemies take more damage and dole more damage." Rarely do you find a game where hard mode means "enemies play smarter, fight smarter, and are tougher to kill." That's hard, not challenging.

Enemy AI has always sucked, though. Especially in the early days of gaming (obviously).

From my experience with that, they usually threw more baddies at you... and also limit your health items (power ups) & ammo. So it wasn't just about turning them into bullet/sword sponges.

BTW, the Fire Emblem: Awakening demo is coming out next week.

W00T