What is Survival Horror (spoilers are possible)
Jul 16, 2007 17:12:13 GMT -5
Post by Tonbo Jigen on Jul 16, 2007 17:12:13 GMT -5
History:
This topic has roots in the "My (Survival) Horror Collection" thread, but was made in order to keep from going too far off topic. It generally stems from my statement of which games I was not including on my list, due to them not being survival horror. The three games used as example were Indigo Prophecy, American McGee's Alice, and the Shin Megami Tensei series.
ObscureNightmares objected without giving any reason, so I felt the need to give my reasons as to why they were not survival horror. They are as below...
American McGee's Alice is far from horror to say the least. It's more of a platform action FPS game, with good reason given how it's built on the Quake 3 engine. The subject matter of the game is even less horror, as it pertains to various psychological themes with a touch of morbidness. This all happens while Alice is in a mental ward due to childhood trauma. Everything in the game even reflects this with the themes of unsound mind and age progression, because Alice isn't a child anymore. In fewer words, it's just another FPS game with standard themes. If you count this, then you have to include Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, and Serious Sam.
Finally, Shin Megami Tensei and all the games in the series is just dark in terms of how it's themed. They're more or less modern day/technological with heavy demonic influence. The main thing is, the demonic influence is aimed more as a co-existence than a major attack or war. Most of the times, the characters who tend to cause the most damage are none other than human beings who try to rebuild the world in their own image. Pokémon is very much the same, just add the same level of darkness to it's overall theme and you got it.
Don't get me wrong, they're all good games. However, if you include them, you may as well include Primal Rage, Mortal Kombat, Half-Life, Steel Harbinger, Thrill Kill, Area 51, Mansion of Hidden Souls, Mr. Bones, God of War, Prince of Persia, Wolfenstein 3D, Predator, and many many others.
To this, ObscureNightmares replied...
In effort to keep the "My (Survival) Horror Collection" thread from going too far off topic, I have made this topic to debate as to what is and isn't survival horror. As for my reply to ObscureNightmares' statement, there are many games to which can be considered "quite scary" with the chance of death for the player's character. I'll give two action shooters as an example.
The PC side scrolling shooter known as Abuse takes place in a futuristic Aliens-like prison where all inmates are affected by a mutagen, turning them into various violent creatures. When the mutagen is leaked into the prison's water supply, everyone turns into these creatures except for a random prison guard (that's you). All through out the game, you must face massive amounts of man-made monsters on your mission to get communications working in order to send out a distress signal. The darkened graphics as well as the situation can be deemed to be scary, and death is more than possible within this game. However, this game is not considered survival horror.
Then there's Steel Harbinger for the Playstation. In this futuristic top-down 3D shooter, the world is bombarded by various pods, which attack nearby living creatures (plant, animal, and human), turning them into biological alien weaponry. Your character is a half breed of the two, created when a malfunctioning pod attacks, and is interrupted during the conversion. With most of the world having been converted to a biological alien weapon, your character is sent into various areas to raise more defensive shields, destroy human processing plants, and gather more weapons to use against the alien base. Again, all of the situations and graphics can be considered scary, if not something from a cheesy old horror movie itself. Again, death is very much a possibility. Again, this game is not considered survival horror.
With the above out of the way, I have to ask just this simple question instead. What is survival horror? What does it take to earn a title as this? What things prevent the title from being given to other games? And of course, because "'cause I said so" equates "I do not know", why?
This topic has roots in the "My (Survival) Horror Collection" thread, but was made in order to keep from going too far off topic. It generally stems from my statement of which games I was not including on my list, due to them not being survival horror. The three games used as example were Indigo Prophecy, American McGee's Alice, and the Shin Megami Tensei series.
ObscureNightmares objected without giving any reason, so I felt the need to give my reasons as to why they were not survival horror. They are as below...
tonbojigen said:
To start things off, the interactive movie Indigo Prophecy (yes, that's actually how they made it) has non-creative end-of-the-world storyline to which at times is more a rip-off of the Matrix. You generally play as an accountant who is constantly being bombarded with various psychological attacks. You also get to play as a couple of police detectives as well as a preacher at a couple points of the game. While it's well made and all, there really isn't an aspect of horror in it. More like one of a major conspiracy, to which would make it more of a mystery title than horror. If this game frightened you, then there's no way you survived Resident Evil.American McGee's Alice is far from horror to say the least. It's more of a platform action FPS game, with good reason given how it's built on the Quake 3 engine. The subject matter of the game is even less horror, as it pertains to various psychological themes with a touch of morbidness. This all happens while Alice is in a mental ward due to childhood trauma. Everything in the game even reflects this with the themes of unsound mind and age progression, because Alice isn't a child anymore. In fewer words, it's just another FPS game with standard themes. If you count this, then you have to include Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, and Serious Sam.
Finally, Shin Megami Tensei and all the games in the series is just dark in terms of how it's themed. They're more or less modern day/technological with heavy demonic influence. The main thing is, the demonic influence is aimed more as a co-existence than a major attack or war. Most of the times, the characters who tend to cause the most damage are none other than human beings who try to rebuild the world in their own image. Pokémon is very much the same, just add the same level of darkness to it's overall theme and you got it.
Don't get me wrong, they're all good games. However, if you include them, you may as well include Primal Rage, Mortal Kombat, Half-Life, Steel Harbinger, Thrill Kill, Area 51, Mansion of Hidden Souls, Mr. Bones, God of War, Prince of Persia, Wolfenstein 3D, Predator, and many many others.
To this, ObscureNightmares replied...
admin said:
Both Alice and Indigo Prophecy are quite scary and you can die, so that makes them survival-horror.
In effort to keep the "My (Survival) Horror Collection" thread from going too far off topic, I have made this topic to debate as to what is and isn't survival horror. As for my reply to ObscureNightmares' statement, there are many games to which can be considered "quite scary" with the chance of death for the player's character. I'll give two action shooters as an example.
The PC side scrolling shooter known as Abuse takes place in a futuristic Aliens-like prison where all inmates are affected by a mutagen, turning them into various violent creatures. When the mutagen is leaked into the prison's water supply, everyone turns into these creatures except for a random prison guard (that's you). All through out the game, you must face massive amounts of man-made monsters on your mission to get communications working in order to send out a distress signal. The darkened graphics as well as the situation can be deemed to be scary, and death is more than possible within this game. However, this game is not considered survival horror.
Then there's Steel Harbinger for the Playstation. In this futuristic top-down 3D shooter, the world is bombarded by various pods, which attack nearby living creatures (plant, animal, and human), turning them into biological alien weaponry. Your character is a half breed of the two, created when a malfunctioning pod attacks, and is interrupted during the conversion. With most of the world having been converted to a biological alien weapon, your character is sent into various areas to raise more defensive shields, destroy human processing plants, and gather more weapons to use against the alien base. Again, all of the situations and graphics can be considered scary, if not something from a cheesy old horror movie itself. Again, death is very much a possibility. Again, this game is not considered survival horror.
With the above out of the way, I have to ask just this simple question instead. What is survival horror? What does it take to earn a title as this? What things prevent the title from being given to other games? And of course, because "'cause I said so" equates "I do not know", why?
