Sulphur on 8/1/2013 at 16:35
Quote Posted by Thirith
If the discussion is about hard-and-fast genre boundaries, and even more so if that discussion mostly boils down to pretending that personal preferences or highly subjective criteria are actually facts, well, IMO it leaves the realm of *sane* discussion.
I agree, of course. But I'd say that we are more or less on track for an objective definition vis-a-vis deth's rubric, though any kind of thematic dissection or attempt at genre specificity is going to inherently feature some amount of intellectual/semantic masturbation.
For what it's worth, all three of those games obviously fit the sur-hor metric in that they fulfill the base requirement of crimping player agency far more than a normal shooter would. It'd be a poor sport who'd want to foam at the mouth at RE4 being included in some sort of horror genre.
I do have a personal threshold for that, though. Anybody who'd categorise RE5 as horror, let alone sur-hor, needs to be shot in the face.*
Quote Posted by "faetal"
Borderline cases are always interesting. So if you have 2 people playing on normal difficulty, one of whom is bad at games in general, is one of them playing a survival horror?
Trick question? If a definition has to allow for player skill, then it's not a definition any more. Tetris could be a horror game to someone who's incapable of recognising basic geometrical configurations, because simply thinking about it would probably give them conniptions.
DS1 was just somewhat poorly calibrated in terms of difficulty for the average player - IMO, of course. I'm well aware that difficulty is a subjective thing, but on average it does seem that DS1's Normal is slightly too easy for the experienced player.
*I kid, I kid. Probably just a sledgehammer would be enough.
june gloom on 8/1/2013 at 21:56
Quote Posted by faetal
Dethtoll, Dead Space technically qualifies under those criteria, but I'm not sure it's SurHor - what's your take?
An interesting edge case. I suppose an argument could be made for it. I'm tempted to push it into SurHor rather than Action Horror like RE4 or Dead Space 2. It does like to throw waves of monsters at you, however, and you're never short on supplies unless you haven't seen a store in a long time. Hm.
froghawk on 12/1/2013 at 15:31
Quote Posted by gunsmoke
I include The Suffering, but I was always on the fence about it. Deth forgot to mention the monster transformations which, while awesome as shit, basically make you a tank from L4D and damn near indestructible.
So this game is freeware now with Air Force ads? O.o
Should I download it if I love the first 3 silent hill games, or is it too actioney?
nicked on 12/1/2013 at 17:06
It's not that similar to Silent Hill, in that it's more actiony, but it does have some of the same questioning-reality, metaphors-come-to-life themes, just more overtly done. It's like Silent Hill painted in bolder strokes and brighter colours. It is a damn good game regardless, whether it's classified as survival horror or not. Definitely horror - there's some really freaky stuff in it. And for the whole price of nothing, well worth checking out.
june gloom on 12/1/2013 at 19:07
I actually agree. It and its sequel are unsung classics now.
faetal on 14/1/2013 at 11:17
There was a sequel? I enjoyed the first one enough, perhaps I should check this out. Is it on PC?
[EDIT] Never mind - found it using something called "google" if you can believe that.
gunsmoke on 14/1/2013 at 16:59
There's a hidden mini-game in The Suffering, figure out what the hell race Torque is... :D
froghawk on 18/1/2013 at 21:35
Decided to give it a try. It's one of the tensest and creepiest games I've played in a while and the dialog is surprisingly good, but the combat isn't particularly visceral... actually, it's quite dull, and I can see it getting quite old over the course of the game. But beyond that it seems pretty cool.
