Surviving the Horror Trend
So rewind to about a year ago and try to think of the horror genre of video games. Now tell me what were some of the popular "horror" games.
You could say things like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dead Space, Dead Island, F.E.A.R., etc.
These were the most popular mainstream horror games of the past few years.
Then comes along a daring indie title you may know as Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Amnesia was known to be one of the scariest video games ever made, so scary that it became popular just to watch people shit their pants playing it.
I too LOVED Amnesia! It showed the REAL way to inflict horror on a player. Games like Resident Evil, or Dead Space never truly scared me. The most they could ever get out of me was maybe a cheap jump scare. Any particular moment where I was supposed to feel terrified of whatever creature was lurking in the dark was instantly ruined when I could just grab my gun and blast through all the terrors like scissors through paper. (Paper isn't scary, despite the cuts)
What a game like Amnesia does differently is that they opt for less oversized monsters and put in more of a creepy helpless feeling. The monsters themselves aren't really the scary parts of Amnesia. Its always the monster I didn't see that scared me, and I feared seeing them because I didn't have a shotgun security blanket to help me.
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Now let's look at today. Amnesia has really left its mark on the Horror genre of video games. It brought to life new indie darlings that will scare you pantless that would have never seen the light of day before hand. Now people are swarming for a good scare, and I have to say, initially I really liked that.
But alas the old moral proves itself all too true, "Be careful what you wish for." Seeing this new love for indie survivor horror sounds like a dream for me, but I can't help but feel like I regret what I wished for. It seems that everyone now is swarming to do what I call "the Pewdiepie thing" where they play a scary game and just react to it on YouTube. I guess that in itself isn't a bad thing, but it gets real annoying watching the 500th person upload a Let's Play of Slender just to get scared and scream their lungs out. Its just a trend that I feel has overstayed its welcome.
And then that brings up another topic of this trend is these "true horror" games seem to be losing exactly what made me wish for them, subtlety. A new horror craze in video games is a new indie hit named "Slender". Slender is quickly gaining a rather huge fanbase that's even comparable to that of Amnesia's. I mean people LOVE this spookfest. I don't think I've gone a study hall this year without someone bringing up something about it.
I'll admit I liked it too, but I didn't find it very scary. In a game like Amnesia they use subtle elements to get you freaked out at the upcoming monster. But in a game like Slender, there's little subtlety This is mostly because we fear what we don't understand, but I understand the monster Slenderman so why should I fear his appearance. I've seen him plastered all over the internet where he has reached a Meme like level. And memes aren't scary. Slenderman is followed so much on the internet that he ceases to be a frightening image. It might as well be a troll face chasing you in a forest.
Its that whole "fearing the monster you don't see" mentality that made games like Amnesia good. I can see where they tried to implement such an element in the game Slender, but its not as effective.
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I guess this is mostly just me whining again about something that I've been disappointed in. I was very happy to see real survivor horror trump the action gore games and take horror back, but if we turn it all into Pewdiepie Play Slender-athon then I guess you can count me out of this new horror trend.
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