A History of violence. Part 2

In this part of "A History of Violence" I will briefly investigate some of the kinds of combat discovered in horror games, evaluate them to films and discuss how they influence on the scare-aspect.

Action-hero Protagonist
Instance game: Doom 3
Example film: Deep Rising

These kind of motion pictures and games are very equivalent. The lead character(s) go around with big guns and wastes tons of ammo even though fighting the bad guys. The protagonist is far from vulnerable and this variety of horror is normally much more "enjoyable" than the other individuals.

1st of all I got to say that I like each games and films in this category, but the concern here is if they are scary. Games and motion pictures of this variety relies fairly much on possessing "BOO!"-type of spooks, exactly where a monster abruptly emerge from a corner or one thing similar. I truly believe that these type of games and motion pictures are on the border of being to referred to as horror.

That getting stated, I know that a lot of men and women contemplate Doom 3 the scariest game they have ever played, even though one plays as a bad-ass marine carrying around a minigun and rockerlauncher at the very same time, singlehandedly creating a monster genocide. This indicates that possessing loads of guns does not totally take away the scare-aspect, but I would nonetheless say that it considerably lowers it.

Untrained protagonist
Example game: Silent Hill
Instance film: The Descent

In this variety of horror combat, the protagonist carries weapons and kills off monsters, but is by no signifies an action-hero. He/she has no or little combat education and monster do not go down easily.

I believe that there is a very huge enhance in fear aspect (in both games and film) compare to the action-hero sort of combat, but I would argue that it is quite fragile and unstable. The greatest example comes from Silent Hill. When I started the game I found the enemies terrifying and was genuinely scared of them. Then as I killed much more I came up with a tactic using melee weapons exactly where I lost pretty a lot no wellness when in combat and right after this combat stopped being scary for me.

A way to remedy this is to have fewer encounters or a far more balanced combat program, but when the gameplay awards for killing enemies most players will figure out a excellent tactic right after a even though, loosing the scare-issue.

Defense only protagonist
Instance game: Siren
Example film: Friday the 13th (pretty much any film)

This type is really rare in games (maybe the rarest of the types), but much far more widespread in films. Here the lead character has weapons but does never manage to kill the monster(s) and only makes use of combat as a imply for a fast escape.

The most probable purpose for this type being uncommon, is that it requires out a lot of the entertaining in combat. Considering that enemies often wake up again, there is no genuine award for defeating them and hence lessening the entertaining-element (which does not have to be the aim although). Films do not rely on these kind of mechanics and hence do not have this issue.

In Siren, the player has a quite restricted set of weapons (and some occasions none, but a lot more on that kind later) and can in no way kill any enemies, only stun them for a whilst. This means that there is no substantial reward in combat, creating the player avoid it.

It is tough to judge how the scare-aspect differs (as if it was effortless on any type...) from the untrained combat kind, but I believe the main benefit in terms of scariness is that it is much a lot more steady. Due to the fact of the low award for "killing" an enemy the player is less probably to use weapons, particularly if they demand ammunition, and will for that reason have a lesser chance of studying a pattern. In the case of weapons with ammunition, this puts more pressure on the player as this sparse resource requirements to be conserved, leading to far more fear.

No weapons protagonist
Example game Clocktower
Instance film: Blair Witch Project

Despite the fact that not as rare as "defense only", there are couple of games made with concentrate on this sort of combat. One particular large problem when generating games for this genre is that there is little direct gameplay gained from it. This implies that the game requirements to be filled with puzzles and other kinds of challenges instead, which is a lot challenging to implement. It is also very effortless for these games to grow to be tedious, usually possessing to run and/or sneak, which can take the edge out of the horror. Films do not have this problem though, as there are tons of diverse items to have in in between encounters with the antagonist(s).

Games like Clocktower and Siren (which use this type along with defense only) can get extremely frustrating and thereby becoming quite un-scary for some players. At the exact same time, this sort of gameplay can provide a very frightening knowledge, and excel in scare element compared to the other sorts.

This kind clearly shows that there is a thin line between horror and aggravation which is also really evident in how men and women either hate or love the Clocktower / Siren games.

Non-violence
Instance game: 7th Guest
Example film: The Sixth Sense

It is really tough to find a similar type of film for this category because the way it is implemented in the mediums is extremely distinct. I am not really certain "The Sixth Sense" is a great instance either, but was the greatest I could come up with.

The principal aspect of this variety is that the protagonist (player) is never in any true danger even although scary circumstances are encountered. In games this "invulnerability" is told by way of the gameplay mechanics, although very different strategies are used in motion pictures , for example that the protagonist is a recurring character in a series of films or that the circumstance is in no way threatening. For films you primarily have to take away the scariness in order to get this variety, while games can nevertheless be perceived quite scary, even even though the player is by no means in any danger of dying.

An interesting question is if games of this sort turn into scary since players fool themselves to believe that it is a really threatening predicament (even though the gameplay mechanics says it is not), or if merely experiencing anything seemingly threatening is adequate to generate feelings of fear.



That concludes this rather short, but at the identical time lengthy, overview of distinct combat styles. In the next portion I will go into a certain "combat" mechanic that is really underused in games.

Until that: Do you feel I covered all the diverse types of combat in games? Did I miss anything critical with regards to a certain kind? What kinds of horror games do you prefer? And finally, what sort of "combat" do you prefer in horror movies?