Survival Horror

I decided to do this little piece on Survival horror mainly after reading the Eurogamer article published on 12/05/11 on the same subject manner. Personally i had issues with this article, i in no way think that Resident Evil 4 or Dead Space are survival horror games, they are ACTION games. Yes there is a horror element with both but i would say that they instill a feeling of panic rather than fear.

Don't get me wrong, i think both games are quality titles, RE4 is my favourite console game of all time, i just don't think they qualify for the category which the article had lumped them in. Plus it would help if the person writing the article could actually be bothered to do a bit of research first, Resident Evil 4 was released in January 2005 in US/Japan and later that spring in the Pal countries, not 2004 as stated in the article. I remember as i had the game on pre order from the US. Not a big deal really but for such a big site i think it shows the lack of care and detail which goes into some (not all) of the articles published there.













Games have been scaring people for many years, my first experiences of this were Rescue on Fractalus on the Atari 800XL and then later Aliens on the C64.


Survival horror to me means access to limited weapons and ammunition whilst you creep forward through an enviroment with a constant feeling of fear and dread. Usually some form of obscure puzzle solving is involved along with the odd interaction with other "survivors" - all in good horror movie tradition!

This is my problem with people lumping games like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 into this category as they share none of these traits. You have enough weapons and ammo in these games to lay waste to anything that steps in your path and puzzles are get to an absolute minimum.
The phrase "Survival Horror" was coined by Capcom after the release of the original Resident Evil, yes it had many influences (Alone In The Dark) but it certainly forged it's own path and in a way created a genre.















Of course due to the success of the original Resident Evil many other developers followed suit and throughout the remainder of the generation and the one that followed (PS2 etc) many titles were released.

Survival horror as a genre is pretty much dead in the water now. The success of Resident Evil 4 meant that every developer believed that more action was needed to sell thier games and the final nail in the coffin for me has been the farming out of Silent Hill to various developers to dance on it's twitching corpse. In fact i can only think of one pure Survival Horror title this generation - Fatal Frame IV on the Wii (the abomination that is Silent Hill Homecoming does not exist to me)

Some would say that this is where the genre deserves to be due to some of it's outdated mechanics such as backtracking and archaic item management systems. At one point i maybe even agreed (stupidly) and was relieved when Resident Evil 4 took the direction that it did.

Now however i realise that there is no real way back to the way it was previously and a traditional survival horror title will probably never be made again, which is sad really when you think about it.


The pinnacle of the genre for me would have to be the following:
















Fatal Frame/Project Zero series

Too scary for me, in fact i haven't finished any of the games in the series although i have played them all except the recent Wii title. The J-Horror ghost story style is really what gets to me scare wise, i find the whole pale face/long black haired ghosts much more unsettling than any kind of horror out there and have done ever since watching "Ringu" years ago. Fatal Frame 3 is particulary evil.

















Silent Hill 1, 2 & 3

Absolutely beautiful games. I love the amazing contrast between quite melancoly and rustic horror moments throughout all the games. Probably some of the best game soundtracks ever written as well which can both settle and unsettle you depending on the situation. Best game is probably Silent Hill 2 although i have a personal soft spot for number 3 in the series.

















Resident Evil 1, 2 & 3

Still the daddy after many many years. The first game is still the best for pure horror, RE2 being like "Aliens" to the first games "Alien". The stunning remake of the first game in 2002 for the Gamecube probably represents the best game to play now. Still manages to get under your skin and give you that seem feeling of claustraphobic horror that the original did 15 years ago.



Notable mentions:

Resident Evil Zero
Gorgeous game but light on scares due to having an AI partner

Resident Evil Code Veronica
Less scares than the first 3 but still a cracking game

Silent Hill 4
The "runt" of the Team Silent litter is still terrfying in places

Siren
Fantastically tense if you can handle the difficulty

Siren 2
More action but less frustration than the first game

Dino Crisis
Shinji Mikami created Resident Evil but with dinosaurs