Survival Horror Games Are Dead!
July 28, 2010 at 4:26 pm by Mike
Survival horror genre has changed a lot during the years. You might not remember, but games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Alone in the Dark have invented the survival horror genre. Since those games have invented the horror genre you have to ask yourself what has happed to those great games that we’ve seen ten years ago. I’m talking mostly about Resident Evil series. I’m a old Resident Evil fan and I loved all old Resident Evil games, and in my opinion Resident Evil 2 was the best Resident Evil game in entire franchise. Let’s face it, undead flesh eating zombies are scary and they are the fundamental of survival horror. There isn’t a scarier moment in horror games than a narrow hall filled with zombies from original Resident Evil. Narrow halls, zombies, low ammo and bad aiming was the thing that made all gamers jump from their seats. Now you have to ask yourself, why aren’t any of those elements in new Resident Evil games? Are fans bored with survival horror and zombies? I think not, but let’s face it, action games have always been more appealing to the wider audience, so why not ruin a great franchise and turn it into a action horror? Capcom did that and that way we got Resident Evil 4.
Don’t get me wrong, Resident Evil 4 was a great game, but it wasn’t survival horror that we all know and love. Infected peasants that attack you with shovels and chainsaws, that doesn’t sound too scary, don’t you think? In fact, only thing in entire game that made me run for my life and that really freaked me out was the guy with the chainsaw that was really hard to kill. I cannot classify peasants and cultists with maces and crossbows as survival horror enemies. After peasants and cultists we had to fight giant statue and mercenaries. Who would ever thought that in Resident Evil game you’ll have to fight a brute that tries to kill you with a minigun? Honestly, I was disappointed by all enemies in this game and in my opinion only first few chapters of the game are worth playing. Things are even worse with Resident Evil 5 so I won’t even mention it. Where are all the shambling brain-eating zombies that we all loved? They have apparently been wiped out in Raccoon City and now we’re left with Las Plagas and Majini. Overall, both Resident Evil 4 and 5 were okay as action games but please don’t classify them as survival horror. And another thing, if Resident Evil is third person action horror now why can’t you move and shoot? Why do you have to stand in a single spot while aiming? Why do you have to wait for that axe to hit between your eyes while you’re trying to take the enemies out? However there are still some survival elements left, so you still have to run from your enemies from time to time but they can always catch up with you, and you’ll always have just enough ammo to take them out. Fighting humans or infected and mutated humans that can throw axes and use weapons against you isn’t part of survival horror in my opinion and it won’t be, ever. I’m honestly hoping that Resident Evil series will rise from the dead, just like the zombies from original series, and that hopefully we’ll see a Resident Evil game with zobmbies that uses third person camera like the two latest games. There’s nothing better than a third person horror, narrow corridors and flash eating zombies that are shambling from another side of the room towards you while you’re using your last bullets to take them out. That’s survival horror and not brutes with miniguns and chainsaws.
As you can see, survival horror is dead and it will stay dead because we’ve killed it. I’m just hoping that we’ll get PC version of Silent Hill 8. Silent Hill, you’re my last hope.
Amnesia the dark descent
This is just based on my opinion but RE4's storyline gets a D rating. Leon went from being a police officer to a secret agent. He begins by breaking into a farmer's house instead of knocking, pulls his gun on him when hes just fixing the fire, and kills him when for all he knew the guy could have been telling him in Spanish to get out of his house because hes trespassing. So i take it the rest of the villagers heard the gunshots at their neighbor's house and formed a town defense…Leon kills them all which would make him a murderer and that's within a few minutes of gameplay. It would make since that CAPCOM was just trying to make it as appealing to little children as possible since they make up a large portion of the videogame market. Kids would not appreciate the thinking that RE's puzzles involve or take time to appreciate REmake's environment. It's a horrible shame to throw classic RE under the bus. Best thing they could do at this point is remake RE 2 I bet that would sell better than another RE5.
Excellent point about RE4's storyline. I didn't like Leon AT ALL. Capcom had a choice – prerendered rooms and superb detail or 3D and lesser textures. But even so I was disappointed that the lack of detail extended beyond all courtesy to the puzzles as well. The puzzles were few in number and basic in complexity. The plot and voice acting was downright corny – creepy in the wrong way. Monks with machine guns? Awful. Basically it seems that with RE4 they wanted to make Devil May Cry, a flashy showcase. Leon is essentially Dante – he even does some PNO3 style acrobatics. The game failed at the very start by not allowing you to shoot the windscreen glass in the car and artificially stopping you from going back over the bridge. Such walls would be forgivable in a . But, truth is, people are a bit too forgiving with most Resident Evil games anyway. The REmake and RE2 were good but let's not forget the series limitations, some of its B-movie sci-finess. The classy REmake and Bioshock should be used as a basis on which to reboot the series in RE6.
Certainly right about the resemblance between Dante and Leon. I've yet to play a Resident Evil game with good voice acting so I won't call out RE4 on it, that being said survival horror games aren't meant to have an excessively cocky protagonist. They may as well have strapped an enormous sword onto Leon's back instead of a rubber knife and turned the gameplay into another brainless hack and slash. (Not to bash the DMC series) As for those in support of Amnesia I have to agree with you as well. In my opinion the atmosphere was incredible and the game was all around scary. It has given me hope for the future of survival horror.
Like Alex pointed out, Amnesia: The Dark Descent sharply disagrees with you, as it was released this past September and is arguably the scariest and most effective survival horror game, period.
Your article would more appropriately be titled "Resident Evil is dead."
Thank you soo much you told just what i was trying to say , Survival horror is REALLY dead, re 1 ,re 2 ,re 3 , alone in the dark , parasite eve 2 , dino crisis 2 , and onimusha 3 , re code veronica , was in my blood , i have xbox 360 , ps3 , wii , but i always dream that mentioned games , if there was any way to bring these back , i will do it ,WHATEVER it takes,
I have to laugh at the end part of your article Mike because ironically that's what we are getting from the Resident Evil franchise… A game with a third person camera and from what I can see from the gameplay footage has an emphasis on survival and narrow hallways. They have unfortunately put this game on a handheld though which to me is extremely annoying.
P.S. Anyway, nice article.