The ultimate scare. . . - by Lady Taffer
Lady Taffer on 30/7/2006 at 07:09
Yes, another Shalebridge Cradle thread, but hopefully slightly different than all the other ones out there: Most everyone was terrified by the Cradle, but what I thought it'd be interesting to talk about is what scared you the most.
Lots of people have said the banging on the attic door freaked them out, but personally the scariest part of the cradle for me was [SPOILER]the sound you hear when going in and out of the past.[/SPOILER] That horrible human-but-still-unearthly breathing noise. . god, it just sends shivers up my spine and makes me want to curl up in a quivering whimpering ball in the corner. UGH. .I just can't stand that sound and I HATE it when I have to go through that transition. .:eek:
The second scariest thing for me was the sound you hear when you go into the lobby of the Inner Cradle: those clock ticking noises are just maddening, and sometimes it sounds like the clocks will speed up and then slow down or it sounds like two different clock noises competing with each other and it messes with my head and freaks me out. . the sound of a clock ticking in a scary environment speeds up my adrenaline, raises my fear level and keeps me constantly on edge. . .
So, anyone else? :p
Xenith on 30/7/2006 at 07:34
The Cradle, the most scariest thing was some of the ambient sound. I dodn't know how to describe it. it sounds as if something is torn but a lot of ripping low frequency sound. the first time I heard that I was walking next to a puppet corpse, the light was flickering and the sound slowly started to amplify. I swear, I stoped and threw 2 flash-bombs on that dead puppet, just in case it gets up.
Palantir on 30/7/2006 at 12:25
The way everthing look was a bit creepy, I mean the atmosphere...
Dark and gloomy, scary and sorrowful...
And it seems that the old ruined building possesses a will of its own...
Jarkko Ranta on 30/7/2006 at 13:29
The past is by far the scariest part of the Cradle. When I did "The Time Warp" (sorry, too much Rocky Horror Picture Show...) the staff were even more scary than the patients (well, you could see their number in the records. I can't even imagine how many 'memories' there were and I don't care), all faceless and mumbling (only apparitions in the game, BTW). When rendered armless I sneaked most of them without much trouble (no need to reload even on expert) but when the second time jump came I kept the same tactic, never even realizing that [SPOILER]with weapons Garrett can hurt and 'kill' them.[/SPOILER] Only used one flashbomb to one that had chased me near the portal to Outer Cradle and I needed to return to the Inner to complete the mission objectives. That feeling of helplessness was the worst.
jimjack on 31/7/2006 at 02:48
Quote Posted by Lady Taffer
was terrified by the Cradle
That horrible human-but-still-unearthly breathing noise. . god, it just sends shivers up my spine and makes me want to curl up in a quivering whimpering ball in the corner. UGH. .I just can't stand that sound and I HATE it when I have to go through that transition. .:eek:
Good, I can freely admit here that Shalebridge Cradle mission is pretty much the scariest thing I've been through in terms of entertainment.Brilliant atmosphere what with flickering lights ..always a good ambience..a good setting being an abandoned orphanage and insane asylum with attitude ..thinking of silent hill 1 and 3 ..and good backstory, but the bloody sounds of distorted voices did my nerves in and made me all jumpy during my gameplay morelike spastic. Nothing ccould have illustrated the point more that puppet/zombies dont die just from being shot when I alert one them and its starts after me screaming and swining its fists as im recuced to hurling mines at it after the holy water fails me of course. I had to press esc and just leave. My heart was beating pretty hard and the thing is it is my second time playing it. Brutal. Play that at 3 am with no lights on. its a great level
Poison Ivy on 31/7/2006 at 15:11
Great thread...
For me it was probably the ambience... the sounds... I basically crouched through almost the entire mission, and I totally freaked out if I could find no shadows to hide in... :eek: I kept expecting something to jump out at me, and the fact that I spent long minutes without meeting anyone was only making it worse...
One of the scariest moments was when I was picking a lock to one of the patient rooms and after I finished picking the lock, the door swung open of its own accord, because a patient had opened it from the other side and was heading right at me....:eek: And of course I just backed away, but since I was crouched I didn't go as fast as I wanted to (aka I couldn't run like hell), and then I was just madly fingering for a flashbomb, and then it didn't work because Garrett's left arm was blocked or something.... :eek:
The pounding was pretty scary too, mostly because it seemed to respond to what I was doing.... O_O It felt violent, persistent, impatient, as if there was someone watching me whom I couldn't see and they were mad because I wasn't doing what they wanted me to do...:weird:
One other really scary thing was that in the memories, the sounds the staff made sounded like part of the ambience... You know, the echoing whispering sounds... It was really scary because I kept thinking a staff member had seen me when I heard something similar in the ambience... And then a staff member HAD seen me, but I hadn't noticed it until it was almost too late because I dismissed it as part of the ambience...:weird: :wot:
Oh yeah, and the patients... I remember trying to conserve my flashbombs, so I threw a flashbomb at a patient from the distance, then as it twitched around drew a fire arrow and fired... Immediately it recovered and charged at me... O_O As it approached, I managed to fire two more arrows or something.... I think eventually I threw another flashbomb... But yeah, shooting useless fire arrows at the patient while it charged ever closer was definitely creepy.
One thing that was not scary but very creepy was that before I restored the power, I went past a fireplace, with the fire out, of course. And then I still heard the fire crackling!:weird: I remember the comment I made to my friend back then:
'Hear that? A fire burning! But the fire isn't burning!'
:laff:
Seriously, that makes me sound like I should be in the insane asylum with those patients...
GlasWolf on 31/7/2006 at 17:58
Quote Posted by Lady Taffer
The second scariest thing for me was the sound you hear when you go into the lobby of the Inner Cradle: those clock ticking noises are just maddening, and sometimes it sounds like the clocks will speed up and then slow down or it sounds like two different clock noises competing with each other and it messes with my head and freaks me out.
There are a whole bunch of clock ambients all over the inner lobby... and no clocks. Similar to the phantom fire crackling. Scariest points for me were picking the complicated locks on all the cell doors. I hadn't worked out that the patients affect the nearby lights, so at one point my nerve just broke and I ran away from the half-picked lock I was working on and into the nearest dark corner. I looked around and... absolutely nothing. Now
that's tension.
Incidentally, a lot of people miss the fact that you can still look left and right while in lockpicking mode. Doesn't mean there's nothing behind you though...
Brother Reginald on 31/7/2006 at 22:18
Quote Posted by GlasWolf
There are a whole bunch of clock ambients all over the inner lobby... and no clocks. Similar to the phantom fire crackling. Scariest points for me were picking the complicated locks on all the cell doors. I hadn't worked out that the patients affect the nearby lights, so at one point my nerve just broke and I ran away from the half-picked lock I was working on and into the nearest dark corner. I looked around and... absolutely nothing.
Man if I had a Pound for everytime that happened to me...
The Morgue was the worst for me. That patient just lying there in the corridor to the body containers. Terrible.
Poison Ivy on 1/8/2006 at 00:13
I just started the Cradle mission again and I just realised....
The pounding sound comming from the attic, the phantom fire, the clocks, the distorted voices, it's clear they're all echoes of the past...
Well, when I approached the attic, I realised the pounding was probably back from the time when Lauryl found herself trapped in the attic, with the door locked and the hag closing in...:wot: Gods, I can basically see her tiny form clinging to that door, pounding at it frantically and pulling at the handle (which, by the way, you can also hear among all the pounding), all in a futile effort to escape...:eek:
Just proves there are things that are still scary even if it's not your first time in the Cradle. Back during my first time I couldn't have related the pounding sound to Lauryl's story... because I didn't know it yet. But now that I do, it's definitely disturbing... Like a brief journey back in time, as if you are actually standing outside that door hearing it happen.
Jarkko Ranta on 1/8/2006 at 12:54
Those sounds may be the choes from the past, but I almost laughted (quite a strange reaction when playing the Cradle at first time) when I noticed that the frontdoors were blocked with planks in every timeline. Jesus, the staff does ANYTHING to keep the residents from escaping. Way to go, boys!
