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I've restarted playing Undying, which was on my HDD for ages, and despite the incredibly ludicrous amount of loading that goes on (which completely detracts the game), it is still a (IMHO) fantastic horror PC game - very atmospheric, large mansion, open spaces with haunting winds, and monsters that appear and disappear out of nowhere or from the corner of your vision.
And that got me thinking, whatever happened to the horror genre PC games? I have to differentiate between SCARY games (of which there are quite a few - AvP, Thief 2, HL even) and HORROR games. I'd consider horror games to be a subset of scary games but not necessarily the other way round. Horror games would be:
- Alone in the Dark (the early incarnations - they set the standard for the horror genre PC games)
- Shadow of the Comet - heavy use of Lovecraftian ideas in an adventure setting.
- I thought even Max Payne's nightmare/dream sequences were reminiscent of the horror genre.
I can't think of any others off the top of my head, but what seemed to be the case is that there are less coming out nowadays. Sure you have the scary ones like AvP and Silent Hill 2 on PS/PS2 consoles. Any others that you can think of for the PC (not consoles)? Well, there's always Doom 3 but why is there a dearth of horror genre games for the PC? Or do people no longer distinguish between horror and scary genres? Think of movies that are horror favourites - Hellraiser, Alien, The Shining, Amityville, Evil Dead, John Carpenter/David Lynch/Cronenberg movies etc, and what makes them horror classics. Why aren't developers making use of these ideas? We certainly have the graphical and audio technology nowadays.
What would make a horror game?
- Atmospheric, claustrophobic or its opposite (vast spaces), great use of lighting, shading, and sounds.
- Monsters/ghosts/demons that appear and disappear, and not necessarily killable. Things that keeps you on your toes.
- A lot of stealth required - you are almost always low on weapons or ammo and need to slink around avoiding monsters which may or may not detect you and come after you (a la Max Payne - the Baseball Bat). Your brain's more important in killing/avoiding the monsters than your rocket launcher.
- Randomised spawning of monsters, and the area you went by, which you managed to kill all those monsters? Guess what, they just respawned. You may need another route out etc. Sure, it defeats realism, but isn't that what the premise of horror is?
- Manipulable objects, doors and spaces - you shut the door just as the monster crashes right at it, pile up the chairs, tables etc and then silence. Suddenly you hear movement above you. Cliche, I know but have we seen this on PC games?
- Trust no one.
- There's always a distinct possibility that you will die. That may make the game hard, but that's what horror's all about - death is always over your head.
- Above all else, it should make you want to play with the lights on, and give you nightmares afterwards (it'll probably have to be rated 18 of course, but look at Pikmin, it had me soiling myself, so perhaps not...)
Before I get replies about my classification of horror and scary games, I think I would use a particular definition of the horror genre to explain how I see horror games. Essentially, the horror genre is supposed to frighten us, in both a primal and metaphysical sense. Of course, while universal fears will always be the same (death, disease etc) the things that frighten the player/audience has evolved over the decades.
Noel Carroll wrote an academic treatise called "The Philosophy of Horror: Paradoxes of the Heart" which offers a rather precise definition of horror. He firstly distinguishes between real-life horror and art-horror which is all fictional accounts of horror. Then he goes on to state that a necessary condition of art-horror is that there is a supernatural element in the story. The events cannot be explained by the natural laws of our world (sciences, psychology etc). Effectively, mediums (films, games) with monsters in them, ghosts, unexplainable apparitions, living dead etc are defined as part of the horror genre; those that do not are not. In addition to this condition, there is the notion of the "fear factor" associated with such supernatural elements.
So in effect, if you are shatting in your pants scared silly from playing House of the Dead, then it would be considered a horror game (such is the nature of definitions - as always it is open to interpretation). But I'd suspect that most people would find that it isn't frightening playing HotD.
Resident Evil is a port from a console game and that's part of the point I'm trying to make - that console games have more horror genre games than the PC in the way I've defined it. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Blue Stinger, Carrier, Evil Dead all came out on consoles before PC (if ever). I did try Thief 2 and that was more tense/suspenseful than frightening and it didn't really include supernatural elements (I seemed to recall). In hindsight, I'd think a game like AvP, especially the part where (as the Marine) the Predator is hunting you down would be a good candidate for the horror genre. I was always panicking whenever the lights ran out and I was left in the pitch dark.
I'd have thought that elements from Lovecraft, Shelley, Brian Lumley and the other horror writers would be very fertile grounds for PC game development at least if it's done on the PC, there's a good chance that the plot and character in-game conversations will be a tad better than those on the console (ack!). There are a few horror games out, but not quite the number you or I might like. Few games concentrate on horror specifically because it's not as profitable as making a generic action packed Nazi blasting FPS with no soul.
Horror - Definition - 'Great fear and dislike or dismay'.
True horror is only achieved in 'Real Life' successfully, so obviously, PC horror is still in its infancy.
That's why there is a lack of them.
There will be a flood of them once the PC gets 'VR' sets, giving more atmosphere and a greater sense of 'Real Life'.
Boo!
See what I mean - just not scary without the VR.
There's been a few horror adventures in the past, some good, some bad but none sold very well because of the obligatory 18 rating they got. Phantasmagoria was terrible. Grainy FMV throughout the game, it became notorious for a rape scene near the end. The best horror acventure I've played was Sanatarium - great (although short) story and genuinely chilling in parts. Rotten ending though.
The closest I've come to being scared on the PC is AvP2; basically the whole marine game was truly 'jump-outta-your-skin' frightening. The funny thing is you're not in any actual danger for the first couple of maps, it's the thought of being pounced upon from the shadows, the hissing pipes, the distant sound of a Predator looking for lunch and your over-sensetive motion tracker that give you the sense of genuinely fearing something. As this points out, psychology is a big part of scary buisness and hopefully the aformentioned 'The Thing' game will pull this off to new highs. I really hope the 'trust no-one' thing works well (i.e. it isn't scripted the same every time you play).
Console 'horror' games on the other hand are quite more scary than on the PC. The fact that you can't save your game every five seconds keeps you on your toes making you really want to stay alive and not have to cover all that ground again. Silent Hill on the PSOne was a very scary game, the fact that you couldnt see two feet infront of you was bad enough (dark/fog effects) but then when you could actually see things ('Noooo! Its a giant moth!') it did bring a true sense of horror to you. As for the Resident Evil series, the best horror games around (IMO).
It really is about time that PC developers capitalised on this genre. The only true 'horror' games on the PC in recent memory were Undying, Nocturne (rubbish), and Shock 2. Even then, only Undying could be classified as a true horror game. I remember a proliferation of them ages ago, before I'd got a PC myself (AITD series, Phantasmagoria and Harvester, along with countless other bollards 7-disc grainy FMV wankathons). It's about time they came back. There's a Lovecraft-based horror game in production (can't remember the name) that was previewed a while back - includes sanity effects so that when you see too much gory stuff you can start to hallucinate and no HUD, so if you want to know what your health is you have to look at your own body and count the wounds.
Is our game world so saturated with FPSs and RPGs that any horror game that comes out will have to be one or the other (gun toting or xp gaining)? I'm curious to see how The Thing turns out when it comes out.
Thanks for reading,
LF.
And that got me thinking, whatever happened to the horror genre PC games? I have to differentiate between SCARY games (of which there are quite a few - AvP, Thief 2, HL even) and HORROR games. I'd consider horror games to be a subset of scary games but not necessarily the other way round. Horror games would be:
- Alone in the Dark (the early incarnations - they set the standard for the horror genre PC games)
- Shadow of the Comet - heavy use of Lovecraftian ideas in an adventure setting.
- I thought even Max Payne's nightmare/dream sequences were reminiscent of the horror genre.
I can't think of any others off the top of my head, but what seemed to be the case is that there are less coming out nowadays. Sure you have the scary ones like AvP and Silent Hill 2 on PS/PS2 consoles. Any others that you can think of for the PC (not consoles)? Well, there's always Doom 3 but why is there a dearth of horror genre games for the PC? Or do people no longer distinguish between horror and scary genres? Think of movies that are horror favourites - Hellraiser, Alien, The Shining, Amityville, Evil Dead, John Carpenter/David Lynch/Cronenberg movies etc, and what makes them horror classics. Why aren't developers making use of these ideas? We certainly have the graphical and audio technology nowadays.
What would make a horror game?
- Atmospheric, claustrophobic or its opposite (vast spaces), great use of lighting, shading, and sounds.
- Monsters/ghosts/demons that appear and disappear, and not necessarily killable. Things that keeps you on your toes.
- A lot of stealth required - you are almost always low on weapons or ammo and need to slink around avoiding monsters which may or may not detect you and come after you (a la Max Payne - the Baseball Bat). Your brain's more important in killing/avoiding the monsters than your rocket launcher.
- Randomised spawning of monsters, and the area you went by, which you managed to kill all those monsters? Guess what, they just respawned. You may need another route out etc. Sure, it defeats realism, but isn't that what the premise of horror is?
- Manipulable objects, doors and spaces - you shut the door just as the monster crashes right at it, pile up the chairs, tables etc and then silence. Suddenly you hear movement above you. Cliche, I know but have we seen this on PC games?
- Trust no one.
- There's always a distinct possibility that you will die. That may make the game hard, but that's what horror's all about - death is always over your head.
- Above all else, it should make you want to play with the lights on, and give you nightmares afterwards (it'll probably have to be rated 18 of course, but look at Pikmin, it had me soiling myself, so perhaps not...)
Before I get replies about my classification of horror and scary games, I think I would use a particular definition of the horror genre to explain how I see horror games. Essentially, the horror genre is supposed to frighten us, in both a primal and metaphysical sense. Of course, while universal fears will always be the same (death, disease etc) the things that frighten the player/audience has evolved over the decades.
Noel Carroll wrote an academic treatise called "The Philosophy of Horror: Paradoxes of the Heart" which offers a rather precise definition of horror. He firstly distinguishes between real-life horror and art-horror which is all fictional accounts of horror. Then he goes on to state that a necessary condition of art-horror is that there is a supernatural element in the story. The events cannot be explained by the natural laws of our world (sciences, psychology etc). Effectively, mediums (films, games) with monsters in them, ghosts, unexplainable apparitions, living dead etc are defined as part of the horror genre; those that do not are not. In addition to this condition, there is the notion of the "fear factor" associated with such supernatural elements.
So in effect, if you are shatting in your pants scared silly from playing House of the Dead, then it would be considered a horror game (such is the nature of definitions - as always it is open to interpretation). But I'd suspect that most people would find that it isn't frightening playing HotD.
Resident Evil is a port from a console game and that's part of the point I'm trying to make - that console games have more horror genre games than the PC in the way I've defined it. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Blue Stinger, Carrier, Evil Dead all came out on consoles before PC (if ever). I did try Thief 2 and that was more tense/suspenseful than frightening and it didn't really include supernatural elements (I seemed to recall). In hindsight, I'd think a game like AvP, especially the part where (as the Marine) the Predator is hunting you down would be a good candidate for the horror genre. I was always panicking whenever the lights ran out and I was left in the pitch dark.
I'd have thought that elements from Lovecraft, Shelley, Brian Lumley and the other horror writers would be very fertile grounds for PC game development at least if it's done on the PC, there's a good chance that the plot and character in-game conversations will be a tad better than those on the console (ack!). There are a few horror games out, but not quite the number you or I might like. Few games concentrate on horror specifically because it's not as profitable as making a generic action packed Nazi blasting FPS with no soul.
Horror - Definition - 'Great fear and dislike or dismay'.
True horror is only achieved in 'Real Life' successfully, so obviously, PC horror is still in its infancy.
That's why there is a lack of them.
There will be a flood of them once the PC gets 'VR' sets, giving more atmosphere and a greater sense of 'Real Life'.
Boo!
See what I mean - just not scary without the VR.
There's been a few horror adventures in the past, some good, some bad but none sold very well because of the obligatory 18 rating they got. Phantasmagoria was terrible. Grainy FMV throughout the game, it became notorious for a rape scene near the end. The best horror acventure I've played was Sanatarium - great (although short) story and genuinely chilling in parts. Rotten ending though.
The closest I've come to being scared on the PC is AvP2; basically the whole marine game was truly 'jump-outta-your-skin' frightening. The funny thing is you're not in any actual danger for the first couple of maps, it's the thought of being pounced upon from the shadows, the hissing pipes, the distant sound of a Predator looking for lunch and your over-sensetive motion tracker that give you the sense of genuinely fearing something. As this points out, psychology is a big part of scary buisness and hopefully the aformentioned 'The Thing' game will pull this off to new highs. I really hope the 'trust no-one' thing works well (i.e. it isn't scripted the same every time you play).
Console 'horror' games on the other hand are quite more scary than on the PC. The fact that you can't save your game every five seconds keeps you on your toes making you really want to stay alive and not have to cover all that ground again. Silent Hill on the PSOne was a very scary game, the fact that you couldnt see two feet infront of you was bad enough (dark/fog effects) but then when you could actually see things ('Noooo! Its a giant moth!') it did bring a true sense of horror to you. As for the Resident Evil series, the best horror games around (IMO).
It really is about time that PC developers capitalised on this genre. The only true 'horror' games on the PC in recent memory were Undying, Nocturne (rubbish), and Shock 2. Even then, only Undying could be classified as a true horror game. I remember a proliferation of them ages ago, before I'd got a PC myself (AITD series, Phantasmagoria and Harvester, along with countless other bollards 7-disc grainy FMV wankathons). It's about time they came back. There's a Lovecraft-based horror game in production (can't remember the name) that was previewed a while back - includes sanity effects so that when you see too much gory stuff you can start to hallucinate and no HUD, so if you want to know what your health is you have to look at your own body and count the wounds.
Is our game world so saturated with FPSs and RPGs that any horror game that comes out will have to be one or the other (gun toting or xp gaining)? I'm curious to see how The Thing turns out when it comes out.
Thanks for reading,
LF.
It's....It's...IT'S BEHIND YOU! etc etc.
Seriously though, the gaming world is still merely an infant. We have so much more to go before we can start saying "these games should be made" because chances are, it's going to happen anyway, especially in terms of the horror genre which has so much promise (you pointed out future advancments yourself), you've seen how well Resident Evil did/is doing, we love soiling ourselfs...apparantly.
Seriously though, the gaming world is still merely an infant. We have so much more to go before we can start saying "these games should be made" because chances are, it's going to happen anyway, especially in terms of the horror genre which has so much promise (you pointed out future advancments yourself), you've seen how well Resident Evil did/is doing, we love soiling ourselfs...apparantly.
The latest Alone in the Dark is very disappointing as a horror game too. It's not that strange though, as it was designed for consoles rather than the PC platform. I do remember the original and it unsettled me at the time.
Another game that I found unsettling, but somewhat funny too, was Ecstatica. I still have the second one, but it's not the same as the first. It was just weird and warped, but strangly enticing too. Resident Evil never got as good as these two games and the only one I can think of that tried to do this on a console was the PS1 Lovecraft game, but I can't remember the title.
Another game that I found unsettling, but somewhat funny too, was Ecstatica. I still have the second one, but it's not the same as the first. It was just weird and warped, but strangly enticing too. Resident Evil never got as good as these two games and the only one I can think of that tried to do this on a console was the PS1 Lovecraft game, but I can't remember the title.
I've restarted playing Undying, which was on my HDD for ages, and despite the incredibly ludicrous amount of loading that goes on (which completely detracts the game), it is still a (IMHO) fantastic horror PC game - very atmospheric, large mansion, open spaces with haunting winds, and monsters that appear and disappear out of nowhere or from the corner of your vision.
And that got me thinking, whatever happened to the horror genre PC games? I have to differentiate between SCARY games (of which there are quite a few - AvP, Thief 2, HL even) and HORROR games. I'd consider horror games to be a subset of scary games but not necessarily the other way round. Horror games would be:
- Alone in the Dark (the early incarnations - they set the standard for the horror genre PC games)
- Shadow of the Comet - heavy use of Lovecraftian ideas in an adventure setting.
- I thought even Max Payne's nightmare/dream sequences were reminiscent of the horror genre.
I can't think of any others off the top of my head, but what seemed to be the case is that there are less coming out nowadays. Sure you have the scary ones like AvP and Silent Hill 2 on PS/PS2 consoles. Any others that you can think of for the PC (not consoles)? Well, there's always Doom 3 but why is there a dearth of horror genre games for the PC? Or do people no longer distinguish between horror and scary genres? Think of movies that are horror favourites - Hellraiser, Alien, The Shining, Amityville, Evil Dead, John Carpenter/David Lynch/Cronenberg movies etc, and what makes them horror classics. Why aren't developers making use of these ideas? We certainly have the graphical and audio technology nowadays.
What would make a horror game?
- Atmospheric, claustrophobic or its opposite (vast spaces), great use of lighting, shading, and sounds.
- Monsters/ghosts/demons that appear and disappear, and not necessarily killable. Things that keeps you on your toes.
- A lot of stealth required - you are almost always low on weapons or ammo and need to slink around avoiding monsters which may or may not detect you and come after you (a la Max Payne - the Baseball Bat). Your brain's more important in killing/avoiding the monsters than your rocket launcher.
- Randomised spawning of monsters, and the area you went by, which you managed to kill all those monsters? Guess what, they just respawned. You may need another route out etc. Sure, it defeats realism, but isn't that what the premise of horror is?
- Manipulable objects, doors and spaces - you shut the door just as the monster crashes right at it, pile up the chairs, tables etc and then silence. Suddenly you hear movement above you. Cliche, I know but have we seen this on PC games?
- Trust no one.
- There's always a distinct possibility that you will die. That may make the game hard, but that's what horror's all about - death is always over your head.
- Above all else, it should make you want to play with the lights on, and give you nightmares afterwards (it'll probably have to be rated 18 of course, but look at Pikmin, it had me soiling myself, so perhaps not...)
Before I get replies about my classification of horror and scary games, I think I would use a particular definition of the horror genre to explain how I see horror games. Essentially, the horror genre is supposed to frighten us, in both a primal and metaphysical sense. Of course, while universal fears will always be the same (death, disease etc) the things that frighten the player/audience has evolved over the decades.
Noel Carroll wrote an academic treatise called "The Philosophy of Horror: Paradoxes of the Heart" which offers a rather precise definition of horror. He firstly distinguishes between real-life horror and art-horror which is all fictional accounts of horror. Then he goes on to state that a necessary condition of art-horror is that there is a supernatural element in the story. The events cannot be explained by the natural laws of our world (sciences, psychology etc). Effectively, mediums (films, games) with monsters in them, ghosts, unexplainable apparitions, living dead etc are defined as part of the horror genre; those that do not are not. In addition to this condition, there is the notion of the "fear factor" associated with such supernatural elements.
So in effect, if you are shatting in your pants scared silly from playing House of the Dead, then it would be considered a horror game (such is the nature of definitions - as always it is open to interpretation). But I'd suspect that most people would find that it isn't frightening playing HotD.
Resident Evil is a port from a console game and that's part of the point I'm trying to make - that console games have more horror genre games than the PC in the way I've defined it. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Blue Stinger, Carrier, Evil Dead all came out on consoles before PC (if ever). I did try Thief 2 and that was more tense/suspenseful than frightening and it didn't really include supernatural elements (I seemed to recall). In hindsight, I'd think a game like AvP, especially the part where (as the Marine) the Predator is hunting you down would be a good candidate for the horror genre. I was always panicking whenever the lights ran out and I was left in the pitch dark.
I'd have thought that elements from Lovecraft, Shelley, Brian Lumley and the other horror writers would be very fertile grounds for PC game development at least if it's done on the PC, there's a good chance that the plot and character in-game conversations will be a tad better than those on the console (ack!). There are a few horror games out, but not quite the number you or I might like. Few games concentrate on horror specifically because it's not as profitable as making a generic action packed Nazi blasting FPS with no soul.
Horror - Definition - 'Great fear and dislike or dismay'.
True horror is only achieved in 'Real Life' successfully, so obviously, PC horror is still in its infancy.
That's why there is a lack of them.
There will be a flood of them once the PC gets 'VR' sets, giving more atmosphere and a greater sense of 'Real Life'.
Boo!
See what I mean - just not scary without the VR.
There's been a few horror adventures in the past, some good, some bad but none sold very well because of the obligatory 18 rating they got. Phantasmagoria was terrible. Grainy FMV throughout the game, it became notorious for a rape scene near the end. The best horror acventure I've played was Sanatarium - great (although short) story and genuinely chilling in parts. Rotten ending though.
The closest I've come to being scared on the PC is AvP2; basically the whole marine game was truly 'jump-outta-your-skin' frightening. The funny thing is you're not in any actual danger for the first couple of maps, it's the thought of being pounced upon from the shadows, the hissing pipes, the distant sound of a Predator looking for lunch and your over-sensetive motion tracker that give you the sense of genuinely fearing something. As this points out, psychology is a big part of scary buisness and hopefully the aformentioned 'The Thing' game will pull this off to new highs. I really hope the 'trust no-one' thing works well (i.e. it isn't scripted the same every time you play).
Console 'horror' games on the other hand are quite more scary than on the PC. The fact that you can't save your game every five seconds keeps you on your toes making you really want to stay alive and not have to cover all that ground again. Silent Hill on the PSOne was a very scary game, the fact that you couldnt see two feet infront of you was bad enough (dark/fog effects) but then when you could actually see things ('Noooo! Its a giant moth!') it did bring a true sense of horror to you. As for the Resident Evil series, the best horror games around (IMO).
It really is about time that PC developers capitalised on this genre. The only true 'horror' games on the PC in recent memory were Undying, Nocturne (rubbish), and Shock 2. Even then, only Undying could be classified as a true horror game. I remember a proliferation of them ages ago, before I'd got a PC myself (AITD series, Phantasmagoria and Harvester, along with countless other bollards 7-disc grainy FMV wankathons). It's about time they came back. There's a Lovecraft-based horror game in production (can't remember the name) that was previewed a while back - includes sanity effects so that when you see too much gory stuff you can start to hallucinate and no HUD, so if you want to know what your health is you have to look at your own body and count the wounds.
Is our game world so saturated with FPSs and RPGs that any horror game that comes out will have to be one or the other (gun toting or xp gaining)? I'm curious to see how The Thing turns out when it comes out.
Thanks for reading,
LF.
And that got me thinking, whatever happened to the horror genre PC games? I have to differentiate between SCARY games (of which there are quite a few - AvP, Thief 2, HL even) and HORROR games. I'd consider horror games to be a subset of scary games but not necessarily the other way round. Horror games would be:
- Alone in the Dark (the early incarnations - they set the standard for the horror genre PC games)
- Shadow of the Comet - heavy use of Lovecraftian ideas in an adventure setting.
- I thought even Max Payne's nightmare/dream sequences were reminiscent of the horror genre.
I can't think of any others off the top of my head, but what seemed to be the case is that there are less coming out nowadays. Sure you have the scary ones like AvP and Silent Hill 2 on PS/PS2 consoles. Any others that you can think of for the PC (not consoles)? Well, there's always Doom 3 but why is there a dearth of horror genre games for the PC? Or do people no longer distinguish between horror and scary genres? Think of movies that are horror favourites - Hellraiser, Alien, The Shining, Amityville, Evil Dead, John Carpenter/David Lynch/Cronenberg movies etc, and what makes them horror classics. Why aren't developers making use of these ideas? We certainly have the graphical and audio technology nowadays.
What would make a horror game?
- Atmospheric, claustrophobic or its opposite (vast spaces), great use of lighting, shading, and sounds.
- Monsters/ghosts/demons that appear and disappear, and not necessarily killable. Things that keeps you on your toes.
- A lot of stealth required - you are almost always low on weapons or ammo and need to slink around avoiding monsters which may or may not detect you and come after you (a la Max Payne - the Baseball Bat). Your brain's more important in killing/avoiding the monsters than your rocket launcher.
- Randomised spawning of monsters, and the area you went by, which you managed to kill all those monsters? Guess what, they just respawned. You may need another route out etc. Sure, it defeats realism, but isn't that what the premise of horror is?
- Manipulable objects, doors and spaces - you shut the door just as the monster crashes right at it, pile up the chairs, tables etc and then silence. Suddenly you hear movement above you. Cliche, I know but have we seen this on PC games?
- Trust no one.
- There's always a distinct possibility that you will die. That may make the game hard, but that's what horror's all about - death is always over your head.
- Above all else, it should make you want to play with the lights on, and give you nightmares afterwards (it'll probably have to be rated 18 of course, but look at Pikmin, it had me soiling myself, so perhaps not...)
Before I get replies about my classification of horror and scary games, I think I would use a particular definition of the horror genre to explain how I see horror games. Essentially, the horror genre is supposed to frighten us, in both a primal and metaphysical sense. Of course, while universal fears will always be the same (death, disease etc) the things that frighten the player/audience has evolved over the decades.
Noel Carroll wrote an academic treatise called "The Philosophy of Horror: Paradoxes of the Heart" which offers a rather precise definition of horror. He firstly distinguishes between real-life horror and art-horror which is all fictional accounts of horror. Then he goes on to state that a necessary condition of art-horror is that there is a supernatural element in the story. The events cannot be explained by the natural laws of our world (sciences, psychology etc). Effectively, mediums (films, games) with monsters in them, ghosts, unexplainable apparitions, living dead etc are defined as part of the horror genre; those that do not are not. In addition to this condition, there is the notion of the "fear factor" associated with such supernatural elements.
So in effect, if you are shatting in your pants scared silly from playing House of the Dead, then it would be considered a horror game (such is the nature of definitions - as always it is open to interpretation). But I'd suspect that most people would find that it isn't frightening playing HotD.
Resident Evil is a port from a console game and that's part of the point I'm trying to make - that console games have more horror genre games than the PC in the way I've defined it. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Blue Stinger, Carrier, Evil Dead all came out on consoles before PC (if ever). I did try Thief 2 and that was more tense/suspenseful than frightening and it didn't really include supernatural elements (I seemed to recall). In hindsight, I'd think a game like AvP, especially the part where (as the Marine) the Predator is hunting you down would be a good candidate for the horror genre. I was always panicking whenever the lights ran out and I was left in the pitch dark.
I'd have thought that elements from Lovecraft, Shelley, Brian Lumley and the other horror writers would be very fertile grounds for PC game development at least if it's done on the PC, there's a good chance that the plot and character in-game conversations will be a tad better than those on the console (ack!). There are a few horror games out, but not quite the number you or I might like. Few games concentrate on horror specifically because it's not as profitable as making a generic action packed Nazi blasting FPS with no soul.
Horror - Definition - 'Great fear and dislike or dismay'.
True horror is only achieved in 'Real Life' successfully, so obviously, PC horror is still in its infancy.
That's why there is a lack of them.
There will be a flood of them once the PC gets 'VR' sets, giving more atmosphere and a greater sense of 'Real Life'.
Boo!
See what I mean - just not scary without the VR.
There's been a few horror adventures in the past, some good, some bad but none sold very well because of the obligatory 18 rating they got. Phantasmagoria was terrible. Grainy FMV throughout the game, it became notorious for a rape scene near the end. The best horror acventure I've played was Sanatarium - great (although short) story and genuinely chilling in parts. Rotten ending though.
The closest I've come to being scared on the PC is AvP2; basically the whole marine game was truly 'jump-outta-your-skin' frightening. The funny thing is you're not in any actual danger for the first couple of maps, it's the thought of being pounced upon from the shadows, the hissing pipes, the distant sound of a Predator looking for lunch and your over-sensetive motion tracker that give you the sense of genuinely fearing something. As this points out, psychology is a big part of scary buisness and hopefully the aformentioned 'The Thing' game will pull this off to new highs. I really hope the 'trust no-one' thing works well (i.e. it isn't scripted the same every time you play).
Console 'horror' games on the other hand are quite more scary than on the PC. The fact that you can't save your game every five seconds keeps you on your toes making you really want to stay alive and not have to cover all that ground again. Silent Hill on the PSOne was a very scary game, the fact that you couldnt see two feet infront of you was bad enough (dark/fog effects) but then when you could actually see things ('Noooo! Its a giant moth!') it did bring a true sense of horror to you. As for the Resident Evil series, the best horror games around (IMO).
It really is about time that PC developers capitalised on this genre. The only true 'horror' games on the PC in recent memory were Undying, Nocturne (rubbish), and Shock 2. Even then, only Undying could be classified as a true horror game. I remember a proliferation of them ages ago, before I'd got a PC myself (AITD series, Phantasmagoria and Harvester, along with countless other bollards 7-disc grainy FMV wankathons). It's about time they came back. There's a Lovecraft-based horror game in production (can't remember the name) that was previewed a while back - includes sanity effects so that when you see too much gory stuff you can start to hallucinate and no HUD, so if you want to know what your health is you have to look at your own body and count the wounds.
Is our game world so saturated with FPSs and RPGs that any horror game that comes out will have to be one or the other (gun toting or xp gaining)? I'm curious to see how The Thing turns out when it comes out.
Thanks for reading,
LF.