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Scary Games, Where Art Thou?

The one genre of gaming that will always have a solid place in my collection is “Survival Horror”. I’ve always been a fan of games that pull you onto the edge of your seat and make you terrified to open a damn door. So it’s depressing when you look at all the titles on the horizon and the only REAL scary games are Dead Space 2 (Which wasn’t really scary so much as startling and disturbing) and the Grinder, which used to be a Wii exclusive that involves werewolves and vampires…Sounds sooo exciting…right? So what the heck happened?

The term survival horror has been used to label several games, a bit too liberally if you ask me. Sure, some games have you “survive” situations that have “horror” elements. But are these games truly scary? Resident Evil for example has lost most of its scare factor, and replaced it (along with the zombies) with an action shooter. People even consider Left 4 Dead survival horror, but by no means is it scary. (Thankfully, this game has zombies…. I mean Infected… Damn it!) I’m not even going to go into how much people have screwed up the Silent Hill series since it went “American”.

Have audiences become wusses? Able to slay thousands of killer aliens, but not able to deal with a true spine-chilling moment? Or have developers dropped the ball somewhere? Or maybe it’s just that when a game becomes more mainstream, the designers tone down the scares so it has wider appeal? There are a lot of factors to consider when thinking about why scary games have been on the decline.

I will recognize some valiant efforts. Some people are still cracking away at truly scary games. The Wii exclusive “Calling” looks to freak you out a bit, though the presumably bad localization and the Wii’s limited graphics will probably hinder the experience. I’ve already mentioned Dead Space’s good try at the genre. And the only other one I can think of is the F.E.A.R series. Even though I bashed Silent Hill, the new Wii exclusive “Shattered Memories” seemed to be back on track. Overall, the future looks bleak for this style of games.

One other thing I’d like to address; the Wii seems to be getting any new scary game. Developers want to immerse people in their world’s so much, they think that if something has motion control it will fair better. Unfortunately, most games just use it as a gimmick. I believe that once Microsoft’s Project Natal or Playstation’s Arc hits shelves, we might see a shift from Wii’s domination of the horror genre. Also a rise in quality, compared to recent years.

My hope is that someone premieres something groundbreaking. Something that can give us the creeps all over again.For now, I’ll just go back and replay Fatal Frame until somebody realizes that some games are best with scares set to high and the lights off.