Kitty-cat-angel on 27/3/2005 at 19:28
This was a cool level, I must admit. I didn't think it felt out of place in a Thief game because the series has always had creepy levels in it.
I loved the paint peeling off the walls and the wierd rooms and the reception area was done so beautifully!
When I started the level, I was very spooked and a little disturbed. The door slamming somewhere really got me...
When I went into the second section with the puppets, I was a little freaked out at first, but after flash bombing them all, I was fine. I got used to them very quickly but I got REALLY lost in this level -_- Back and forth etc. It got a little tedious after a while, but it was still a cool level.
Having said this, there is still NOTHING scarier than a Silent Hill game. Ever.
Eco on 28/3/2005 at 00:13
Quote Posted by Kitty-cat-angel
When I went into the second section with the puppets, I was a little freaked out at first, but after flash bombing them all, I was fine.
Having said this, there is still NOTHING scarier than a Silent Hill game. Ever.
This makes me wince. I wish the devs HAD nade the puppets indestructable. Theres only 9 of them, after all, and whippinh thru and wasting them all is fairly easy if you want to.
'after flash bombing them all, I was fine.' This is such a sad sentence to aply to The Cradle. It proves that people out there still see Thief games as FPSs.
And this - 'there is still NOTHING scarier than a Silent Hill game. Ever.' - this, this makes me weep. A console game, with all its inherent restrictions, being held as more scary then the Cradle on the PC? Wrong.
And unfortunately, the fault IMO lies with the Devs. Making this level Ghost-only would have nailed it as the Scariest Game Level Ever. If, and I add this as a nod to all the blastajohns out there, if the devs had signposted that the puppets were unkillable beforehanded somehow beforehand. Then no-one would have tried shooting/exploding. everyone would have been slowly slowly shrieking at monkeys, and that title would be undebatable.
Eco
PS if anyone doesnt believe me, try ghosting it in the dark, alone in the room with headphones on (Youre allowed to kill the one in the morgue and let the ones in the last room see you but dont kill them). Or better still if youve already done the level, get a virgin friend to do so and then ask him how he felt.
Fish-face on 28/3/2005 at 10:52
I think it proves how important the imagination is in horror. While I was clearing out the puppets, I was still as scared as hell - the fear that one might be behind more, or that I might miss one or something. The one in [spoiler]Cell 7[/spoiler] was kind of a case in point: [spoiler]I picked open the door, thinking 'OK, I can see the light flashing in there, I'll sneak to the side open the door, flashbomb in.' As I finish picking the lock, the light in the corridor starts flashing, too. 'HOLY CRAP IT'S COMING FOR ME!'[/spoiler]
On the point of FPS gaming... That's simply untrue. If this were any old FPS I would not be crouched in the shadows fearing for my life, waiting for ages until the I've timed the guards' movements perfectly enough to blackjack one, hide the body and get the other as he returns. If this were ordinary I would be in the light with some kind of heavy weapon, popping away at people.
I play stealthily. That doesn't necessarily mean ghosting.
As for making the puppets/staff unkillable... I think that would add a lot to the scariness - i.e. making the level scary from start to finish. However, the zombies are impossible to outrun - if you're caught, it's reload or exit. Perhaps making them more difficult to destroy, but it already takes two or three flashbombs or a couple of fire arrows. If they were flashbomb-immune, that would make more sense (flickering lights?) And limit you to fire arrows and holy water. Still perhaps too easy and un-scary for some, but then, I expect they'll be ghosting anyway so they're already making it scary for themselves.
Kitty-cat-angel on 28/3/2005 at 14:08
Quote Posted by Eco
This makes me wince. I wish the devs HAD nade the puppets indestructable. Theres only 9 of them, after all, and whippinh thru and wasting them all is fairly easy if you want to.
'after flash bombing them all, I was fine.' This is such a sad sentence to aply to The Cradle. It proves that people out there still see Thief games as FPSs.
And this - 'there is still NOTHING scarier than a Silent Hill game. Ever.' - this, this makes me weep. A console game, with all its inherent restrictions, being held as more scary then the Cradle on the PC? Wrong.
And unfortunately, the fault IMO lies with the Devs. Making this level Ghost-only would have nailed it as the Scariest Game Level Ever. If, and I add this as a nod to all the blastajohns out there, if the devs had signposted that the puppets were unkillable beforehanded somehow beforehand. Then no-one would have tried shooting/exploding. everyone would have been slowly slowly shrieking at monkeys, and that title would be undebatable.
Eco
PS if anyone doesnt believe me, try ghosting it in the dark, alone in the room with headphones on (Youre allowed to kill the one in the morgue and let the ones in the last room see you but dont kill them). Or better still if youve already done the level, get a virgin friend to do so and then ask him how he felt.
Hey man, don't get me wrong, I didn't say they weren't scary. I did actually ghost that area for about 30 mins before I decided to try attacking them. It's just my opinion that Silent Hill is the scariest thing I've ever seen, it's just the way I feel. Silent Hill gets me to the point where I can't play anymore because I am so disturbed, I didn't get that from the cradle. Tis all.
I thought the scariest part of the cradle was the immense feeling of lonliness you get when you first enter. It was kinda depressing.
Eco on 28/3/2005 at 14:46
Fair enough. didnt mean to offend. :)
Ive played the Silent Hill games too, on the Playstation, and I was also a tad disturbed by those freaks in the Amusement park for example. Silent Hill 3 I think it was, the last part was indeed just plain wrong. In a good way, of course.
I just think that the Cradle was a better...more whole experience. I think it stands head and shoulders above anything else Ive played in terms of immersive dread. Maybe it was the headphones, maybe it was being sat closer to the screen. With the Silent Hill games I was playing a very creepy game. With TDS, I was there, IN the Cradle. Its a masterpiece.
Each to their own, of course.
Eco.
Kitty-cat-angel on 28/3/2005 at 18:50
Quote Posted by Eco
Fair enough. didnt mean to offend. :)
Ive played the Silent Hill games too, on the Playstation, and I was also a tad disturbed by those freaks in the Amusement park for example. Silent Hill 3 I think it was, the last part was indeed just plain wrong. In a good way, of course.
I just think that the Cradle was a better...more whole experience. I think it stands head and shoulders above anything else Ive played in terms of immersive dread. Maybe it was the headphones, maybe it was being sat closer to the screen. With the Silent Hill games I was playing a very creepy game. With TDS, I was there, IN the Cradle. Its a masterpiece.
Each to their own, of course.
Eco.
Nah, you didn't offend me, I think we are scared of different things. It wasn't really the monsters in Silent Hill that scared me, it was more the things that would happen in the seperate rooms.... I guess because I could comprehend the puppets in thief, it just scared me less.
I forgot to mention that I shat myself when taking the elevator up to that one patient's cell that had the dummy hanging from the cieling ( the guy with the wax mask) cos all I saw going up the lift was the shadow of something hanging on the wall 0.0
Spooky on 28/3/2005 at 20:14
:eek:
I love this lvl. It's awesome and probably my favourite, along with the musemum (still life with a blackjack). Together they're every thing Thief is all about. Sneaking, robbing and extremely scary environment. The musemum isn't scary, but i love it because it's got lots of loot to steal. The Cradle provides the downright creepy element and sneaking.
Man, i'm halfway through playing the cradle for a 3rd time and it still creeps me out. It's definately intense, and the sound effects are dead on. As Garrett says, if there's a way to cram more misery into a place, I don't know how it could be done.
For some reason the 1st time I played this level I thought the puppets were invincible. So I was there creeping around in the shadows, jumping every time I saw a flickering light. This time the slaming doors I heard when I was in the outer Cradle made me jump amd this was the 3rd time round I was playing. :laff: :joke:
I wouldn't want any more puppets in the lvl, it's so good because there are so few of them and for me, the psychological fear makes it a great level.
:thumb: thanks null
Nupraptor on 29/3/2005 at 07:37
Unfortunately, I've noticed that the Cradle just doesn't continue to scare me on repeat playthroughs. This is not meant as a slight against it; As I stated before, I've found precious few games/movies that scare me even the first time. ;) But I was curious as to why this was.
** I don't know why you'd still be reading this thread if you haven't played the mission yet, but the rest of this post contains spoilers. **
I finally realized that the Cradle scared the crap out of me because I didn't know what to expect. I was not expecting a horror mission in the game. When I got to it, I had no idea what kinds of things would be trying to kill me.
The first half of the mission was set up brilliantly. I creeped along, looking carefully around every corner, certain that there were nasty surprises in store for me. I spent at least 30 minutes nervously investigating the deserted rooms and getting a feel for the place. The knocking, and the subsequent ghostly encounter, did not 'scare' me. In fact, it probably lulled me into a false sense of security. Some part of me apparently went "Oh, a friendly ghost who wants me to do some stuff for her. I can handle this."
Then I walked into the second half of the mission. Again, I crept along slowly. Across the hall, I could see the reception desk... and I could have sworn that I saw something moving behind it. But I was pretty far away, and I honestly could not tell if I actually saw something moving or if it was just the flickering lights. I crouched behind a wall, just in case.
My back was to the reception desk and I was facing the way I entered the area when I saw something coming towards me. Not just "something", but something completely unlike anything I'd ever encountered in Thief before. It was nondescript in the shadows and twitching inhumanly. Whatever it was, it had apparently managed to get behind me when I wasn't looking and was now walking right up to me. This was my first genuine scare in the Cradle. I panicked and pressed myself up against a far wall, hoping that whatever this thing was, it would pass me by.
Again, what I found scary about the 'puppets' was that I had never encountered anything like them before. I had absolutely no idea what they were capable of or how I could kill one of them. Could they see me in the darkness? Would they crumple if I attempted to blackjack one of them, or just turn towards me in annoyance? I decided it was best not to find out.
So I wandered around the Cradle, carefully avoiding its terrifyingly foreign inhabitants. Until I got to the wet room. There, I saw a crouched patient and, in front of it, a passageway that I wanted to explore. Not willing to take any chances, I took out my dagger for what was perhaps the first time in the game. I snuck up behind it and buried my dagger into its back, relieved as the thing collapsed into a mangled heap. With no reason to believe otherwise, I assumed that I had killed it.
Hence my near heart attack when I heard a piercing shriek and turned around to see the fucking thing chasing after me.
I still didn't know that these things were essentially undead, so I had no idea how to react. In fact, I was half under the impression that it might be impossible to kill them. I ran around like a maniac while this extra from Jacob's Ladder swung at me with its caged fists. I finally got the idea to try and toss holy water at it (I don't know what gave me that idea, other than the possibility that it was some kind of evil spirit). I missed, and wound up having to lure it into the puddle I had created on the floor. After it fell down, I decided not to get anywhere near it again.
I know this seems kind of long and pointless, but I wanted to offer my insight as to what made the Cradle scarier than anything else I've ever played. In every other game I've played, I've known that, no matter what they toss at me, I have the means to kill it (or, at the very least, escape it). Shalebridge Cradle scared me because it toyed with my expectations and left me feeling vulnerable.
Null, if you're still lurking around here, I hope you empahsize this in the "sequel" mission I heard you're working on.
On a side note, the art and architecture of the Cradle was absolutely perfect. It's exactly the kind of place that I'd love to go exploring around in real life.
xarax on 30/3/2005 at 16:41
The first time through it, I found myself saying repeatedly, "It's only a game....it's only a game...". :erm:
Tocky on 2/4/2005 at 08:33
Just finished it. Took two nights as I haven't the time for a lot of straight gaming hours. What was amazing to me was that as a grown man I felt trepidation at returning the second night. I don't remember that from Silent Hill or Resident Evil, that sort of breath holding dread is a thing I thought only existed in my nightmares. Backpats to null for making me feel like a silly bastard afterward.
So much has been said I just want to mention the creeps I got seeing King No One scrabbling in the corner the first time and the way the sounds disguised the approach of the puppets such that you were still able to be surprised by them now and then. That and the breathing sound in white hall had me darting my field of view like a madman. Often there was nothing and you got enured to it... so much so you nearly didn't notice when there actually was. Kudos. Well done.
It does make me wonder what more could be done... just how far it could be taken. Heh. My daughter has a penchant for sneaking up behind and grabbing my sides and screaming while I play thief, perhaps you could throw that in. Lovely child. I can hardly wait to show her the "jumping spider surprise" candy box I found.
