Horror Games Creep-All

which is weird because a lot of the stuff they've been saying about maybe not adding in a "safe mode" is that they call this game less of a SOMA style walking sim and more like the original Amnesia, but ...i keep expecting to hit that "dodge around the monster before he finds you" scenes and there has been...two? of those so far. And those were extremely short. (at least as far as i've played).

Everything else seems very heavily scripted - which is GREAT, for me because that's what i signed up for, but it makes me wonder why not just include a safe mode right away because it really doesn't seem like it'd make a whole lot of difference.

To be fair, I haven't played SOMA. I'll put it on the list!

their best game, so highly recommend doing that!

When you play SOMA, stay through the credits. There's a short, final scene afterwards.

SOMA is a masterpiece. Also a total existential gutpunch.

Rebirth is fine. It is more mechanically dense tha SOMA, but only by a little, and does feel like it's in an awkward middle compare to the other games, and there's no setpiece as good as the water elemental one.

Taharka wrote:

And then... the endings. Oh, the endings. Spoilers for the endings here

Spoiler:

There are four endings: A bad one, another bad one, a dubiously good one, and an altruistic-but-bad one.
At the end, your newborn daughter gets taken away by the queen, and you have the chance to say goodbye to her. Bad endings 1 and 2 involve you leaving your newborn daughter with the queen because she has a fatal disease that only the same life support system the queen has will stave off, and you get forcibly turned into a harvester by said queen. You leave your sketchpad behind, and the ending drawing that is displayed under the credits is you mindlessly watching over your daughter as a monster.
Dubiously good ending is you taking your daughter and escaping to Paris. Ok, that sounds good... except the game makes a big point out of how the disease your other daughter died of, and your newborn daughter also has, is fatal with no treatment. So... you're just going to lose your daughter again? Not to mention you ARE infected with whatever the harvester disease is, and I doubt there's a cure for that either. So you're just destined to turn while in Paris and go on a rampage? The ending drawing is you walking with your toddler daughter in Paris, but there's this weird black smoke coming out of her head, and you're still wearing your torn up expedition clothing... so... what is that? A picture of the future? If so, why are you wearing your torn up clothes?
The final, and in my mind, cannon, ending is the Altruistic one. Earlier in the game you find some rebel bodies that had a way of killing off the queen and ending the whole farming for vitae thing, which was an industry built on kidnapping and pain, but died before they could carry it out. It's made very clear that doing this would bring down the tower and probably be fatal. So you grab your daughter, then run around sabotaging the Vitae factories by injecting The Shadow into their pipes... and The Shadow takes over, killing the queen and then you and your daughter. In some ways, as sad as it is, this is probably the best ending. After all, you're infected and will probably turn, your daughter is sick and will probably die, your husband is dead and his body is irretrievably buried in a cave, all the crew who went on the expedition with you are dead or turned, and the queen who initially promised you salvation instead infected you and lives only through a system of kidnap, torture, pain, and fear. It makes sense on some level to just end it all and take the queen and the corrupt system down too.
What kinda puzzles me about all the endings, and the game's plot in general, is that it all hinges around the queen desperately wanting a child, and your child is the one she's latched onto. But... it's implied that the whole kidnapping thing has been going on for centuries AND that people who are kidnapped are scanned before being processed. You're telling me that, in all that time, not one other pregnant woman came through? You see hundreds of bodies as you go through the game's otherworld, and who knows how many more there were total. Hell, why not just kidnap a young child? The queen can control the harvesters, it shouldn't have been hard.
As a sequence of endings, though... I was just more tired of it all than anything. None of the endings are really "good", but at least you don't have to play through the whole game again to see them all.

My overall take is that Frictional tried to straddle the line between a horror game and a walking sim, and didn't really pull it off. I feel it's closer to a walking sim (which I like as a genre!), but I went in expecting horror, which I just didn't get. It's not bad, by any means, but it's not great either.

Spoiler:

As I see it, it's because the Amari is going to die that she latches on to her. Being a vitae vampire in a crumbling, dead world isn't much of a future to offer a kid, but it's a future she *can* give that Amari wouldn't otherwise have.

Taharka wrote:

My overall take is that Frictional tried to straddle the line between a horror game and a walking sim, and didn't really pull it off. I feel it's closer to a walking sim (which I like as a genre!), but I went in expecting horror, which I just didn't get. It's not bad, by any means, but it's not great either.

Sounds like it has a lot in common with A Machine for Pigs, then. That game also straddled stealth horror and walking sim, and people who expected stealth horror were similarly disappointed.

I'm really digging the first few hours of Amnesia Rebirth. I just made it out of the cistern, which was a pretty stressful experience. I did enjoy the more "walking sim" parts early on, but I also like the (mechanical spoiler):

Spoiler:

ability to reduce your Fear by checking in on your baby.

It would be hard to have that spoiler in the game without a more active threat at times causing you to need it, and it's such a novelty that I can forgive the monster segments so far.

It's also a beautiful game. I usually dislike desert settings, but this one managed to win me over. I'm also impressed with any game that makes interior caves and caverns look attractive and interesting.

Don't really know how far I am yet, but I'm looking forward to playing more.

d4m0 wrote:

Dead Space is one of my favorite game series of all time. I've definitely gone in the deep end with that whole universe - I've got the animated movies, I played the iPad game, and I even have some concept art up on the wall. I'd recommend anyone play the original game at least. It is fantastic. The 2nd and especially the 3rd game go off the rails (less horror, more action), but they're at least entertaining I'd say.

Happy to see somebody else all-in. I even read the books (I recall Dead Space: Martyr, a prequel, being pretty good and dropping some nice lore).

I'm not mad at the shift in tone in the games, as it reflects the growth of the protagonist from a geek in over his head to somebody who has seen some sh*t, learned to fight back, and made it to the other side. But that's for another thread...

The original is a wonderfully effective horror game, to the point that I had an anxiety attack from playing it for too long in one sitting, too late at night. Which was a horrible experience, but my own fault for not knowing my own boundaries, and the rest of my experiences were good.

Almost done with Rebirth i reckon...

Spoiler:

Chasing after the doctor. I only stopped now because it looks like there are more of those bullsh*t lantern ghosts and they are SUPER FRUSTRATING. Not quite as frustrating as the pitch black cage maze with Luis, but pretty high up on the list of reasons i'll probably not replay this game without a monster "safe mode". I just can't seem to avoid get a handle on how to avoid getting detected by them.

THAT aside, i DO love the setting and environments. And some of the monster set pieces are pretty good (well, specifically, the bit where you have to 'Descent' your way past dozens of sleeping ghouls in the roman ruins).

Finished Amnesia. Hmm. Thoughs.

Spoiler:

Wow. that was....bleak. And kinda upsetting. But in a way that i feel is consistent with the tone of the series so...ok? I'm reasonably satisfied with the general story (plot holes previously mentioned aside, but then , wouldn't be much of a game if not, really) . And the "canon" ending, while SUPER DARK felt like the only real solution, ending the dead world's parasitical grip on ours permanently. It nicely expands on the snippets of lore in Amnesia as well, from the stuff about vitae, the exile Alexander and what i assume now are proto-harvesters.

I didn't mind the pregnancy/breastfeeding stuff. Though this adds some much needed context as to why the bottom of the internet barrel are all howling about "SJWs in their stories" again. I would absolutely warn anyone who has dealt with the loss of a child or has fears about violence towards kids to stay the HELL away though because holy sh*t this is not something they would want to put themselves through!

Also i wish i had your luck, Taharka, with the spooky lantern bois because i found them a royal pain in the backside to avoid.

Yeah. it was alright. For me who leans more towards walking sim than horror game, i don't regret playing it at all. I probably wont play it again, but to be fair i never do that with these sorts of games anyway.

Pyxi:

Spoiler:

I guess it was less luck as much as I realized that, with no death penalty, I could just do the QTE to get out of getting caught and run away. That lead me to realize I could frequently run faster than they ever moved or even turned, so I just started running everywhere. With no stamina meter, you can run forever. The last part, chasing the doctor, was a run in the park for that reason.

were you playing with a controller or M&K out of interest. I find the QTE's totally impossible to pull off with M&K . Its like..."mash all the keys at random and wiggle the mouse a bit with no real feedback and MAYBE you're doing it hard enough to win!"

Ahh. I used a controller

Picked up GTFO to play with my brother. Even when you’re playing with other people it’s still pretty creepy and tense.

beeporama wrote:
d4m0 wrote:

Dead Space ...

Happy to see somebody else all-in. I even read the books (I recall Dead Space: Martyr, a prequel, being pretty good and dropping some nice lore).

I'm not mad at the shift in tone in the games, as it reflects the growth of the protagonist from a geek in over his head to somebody who has seen some sh*t, learned to fight back, and made it to the other side. But that's for another thread...

The original is a wonderfully effective horror game, to the point that I had an anxiety attack from playing it for too long in one sitting, too late at night. Which was a horrible experience, but my own fault for not knowing my own boundaries, and the rest of my experiences were good.

Hell yes! I read that book too. I have to agree on Isaac's sort of arc as he goes from game to game, going through more and more trauma, getting more messed up, and dealing with it. I want so much more from that universe, but I'm afraid it's basically defunct now. Maybe someday there will be some die-hard fans picking it up and going with it, like what happened with Half-Life or System Shock 2.

I'm still playing through Amnesia Rebirth so I'm not looking at any spoilers and can't comment yet! I'm still enjoying it but I'm kind of afraid now seeing these passing comments about the ending. I'll certainly be finishing the game though sometime probably soon. I feel like I'm fairly close to the end.

I've had Dead Space 2 and 3 in my pile for years. Maybe this is the time to break them out.

I absolutely adored the first game. The Wii game (Extraction) was also pretty great.

DS2 is pretty good. I was disappointed with 3 but a lot of that had to do with the grindy combat. story was ok though and it has an ...interesting ending.

Never played the story DLC for DS3 though (it wasn't on PC at the time - not sure if it is now or not)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I've had Dead Space 2 and 3 in my pile for years. Maybe this is the time to break them out.

I absolutely adored the first game. The Wii game (Extraction) was also pretty great.

Never played 2, but loved 1 and 3. Let us know what you think if you do play them!

Finished Amnesia: Rebirth. Took about 9 1/2 hours to play and get three endings. None of them are particularly uplifting, as the spoiler sections above point out. So I feel a little ambivalent about that, but overall it's a great game, and probably the best Amnesia game so far. Certainly the most polished and nice looking in the series. I enjoyed the deep dive into the series lore (even though I wished I remembered the previous games better).

I found myself wishing for SOMA's safe mode, but I also never got stuck for more than a couple minutes.

Spoiler:

The lantern creatures were extremely annoying and unpleasant, though. They caught me a few times, and I could never tell if I'd just lost track of them, or if their paths and look directions had a random element to them.

The maze with Luis was confusing, but I got through it the first time. I saw a review mention it as a particular low point. I wondered if it was just scripted to let you get through without getting stuck in dead ends, but it sounds like I was just oddly lucky there.

The "QTEs" for the birth segment were just holding down the B button on the Xbox controller, so didn't really feel out of place at that point, since I'd been doing that to listen to the baby throughout the game. Waggling the sticks when getting caught was a little more dicey.

Anyway, I continue to be a fan of Frictional's games, so I can't wait to see what they put out next.

I finished it last night myself. Took about 12.5 hours according to Steam. I think I agree with everyone else in that overall I did enjoy it. The environments were incredible and I took a huge number of screenshots, which is probably useless and just taking up my hard drive, but hey, it's a beautiful game, especially the deserts and everything at the end. I think I agree with a random review I happened to flip past in Steam, where they said the game is both better and worse than SOMA and Dark Descent. I haven't played A Machine for Pigs, mostly because everyone says it's pretty bad. It wasn't made by Frictional anyway.

Spoiler:

I thought the pregnancy and birth parts were amazing and certainly like nothing I've ever experienced in a game before. In my opinion it really makes the game stand out on its own. The story was told incredibly well, the voice acting was amazing, and some of the puzzle stuff was pretty good.

I didn't have the frustration with the lantern creatures that others had. I ended up figuring out the same thing as what taharka did and just ran around them. If I saw the light I would hide behind something. I did however have a few annoying encounters with the regular zombie-like guys. I would be running away from one and somehow end up in a dead end, or just have no idea where to go to get away. There were a few spots where I got stuck in the geometry or something and couldn't really move. I'd eventually get out but it was annoying when it happened.

Overall the story to me was more sad than scary. Tasi loses one child and then has to go through all this sh*t only to essentially lose everything again. It was just so sad, beginning to end. Some parts just felt like a chore. SOMA I thought had a more coherent story that I enjoyed more in general than Rebirth. I'll never forget the first time in SOMA that you go down into the abyss and walk out into the darkness at the bottom of the ocean.

I'm definitely glad I played it, and like beanman I'm still a massive Frictional fan and will play anything they put out. Maybe someday I'll go through Rebirth again, but I'm not sure. All I really want to do now actually is do another playthrough of SOMA and maybe Dead Space 3 now that people have mentioned it here. And I've already gone through SOMA twice, so maybe that says something.

I enjoyed A Machine for Pigs quite a bit, for what it's worth. If nothing else it's one of the most oppressive audio experiences I've ever had in a game.

A Machine for Pigs is decent - great soundtrack, and I like where the story goes, but it's absolutely leaning waaaay into the walking simulator side of things, with the most perfunctory gameplay elements.

I do really like a good walking simulator, so maybe I'll give A Machine for Pigs a shot. It was developed by The Chinese Room, who did Dear Esther, which I thought was great. I actually own it already anyway since I picked it up months ago in some sale!

MfP feels like a REALLY great horror novella/short story wrapped up in a moderately interactive format. I wasn't a fan of the Chinese Room in general ( I found their overall florid style of narration to be a little too far on the 'artsy' side of things) but I did enjoy running through this. They should have gone the whole hog (hah!) and just stripped out the few 'action' sequences they had though because that was certainly the weakest aspect.

FWIW there *are* also one or two ties back into the general 'amnesia' storyline as well so its not *entirely* stand alone.

Spoiler:

Mainly there are a couple of connections to Brennenberg and the Orbs

I finished Layers of Fear and Observer: System Redux and I’m now a huge Bloober Team fan. I’ve got Layers of Fear 2 queued up next, and I’m debating if I want to pick up Blair Witch in the current Steam sale.

Turns out I already got Blair Witch for free from Epic at some point. Glad I noticed that before dropping money on Steam.

I played a couple hours of Layers of Fear 2. So far I'm mixed on it. It's beautiful, and the cruise ship environment is great, but the story is frustrating me. So far there's a mystery involving the character I'm playing, with overwrought narration and confusing mechanics. Then there's another mystery involving some stowaway children. So far neither seem connected, so I don't know how important the stowaway thread is.

I'll certainly finish it, it's just not as immediately interesting or coherent as Layers of Fear 1.

So earlier this month I dove into The Witch's House MV. It only took a couple hours to play through and, other than one puzzle, offered just the right amount of solving for me.

It also was very creepy. Another one to prove a game doesn't have to have cutting edge graphics to be disturbing.

I finished Layers of Fear 2 and have no idea what happened in the story. Kind of disappointed, and don't want to play New Game+ to try filling in what I missed. It was beautiful, though.

I absolutely adore "A Machine for Pigs" and find it to be better than "The Dark Descent." The final monologue from the villain is one of the most powerful scenes in any game I've played.

Mario_Alba wrote:

Never played 2, but loved 1 and 3. Let us know what you think if you do play them!

You owe it to yourself to play 2. It's a terrific game. It is to Dead Space what Aliens was to Alien. A very sleek experience that, while not as horror-focused as the original, is honed to a fine edge.