The general consensus, it seems, is that it is impossible for a game to be horrifying because weapons empower the player to fight the monsters, rather than to fly from them, and that the weapons system can be exploited, and finally that the game will become too fixated on weapons. Furthermore, this 'general consensus' is treated like holy scripture, and threats to lock the thread are launched and anyone who do not agree with this holy scripture is branded one name or another, an example is that one poster is considered to know absolutely nothing about Amnesia and horror games.
The argument against this is that the weapons system so far has been poorly implemented such as in Penumbra. While short and sweet, it is a good argument, but is flawed not in its premise but in its support.
I would like to argue for the possibility of horror games having weapons. I believe it is possible, and arguments against weapons in horror games are based too much on existing examples of horror games that failed to implement weapons. Instead of focusing on what has been done, we should focus on what can be done. While I notice that some posters against weapons have used examples, they focused only on evidence that supports their cause rather than the big picture, which is where I will start.
There are many horror games that have successfully implemented weapons. Classic examples includes the System Shock series and the spiritual successor, the Bioshock series (the successor, of course, being less successful). An unconventional example frequently cited is the recently remade X-COM. The classic is often deemed quite frightening, a turn-based strategy horror game if you will. The Silent Hill series, at the the Japanese part of it, are also frequently cited. Then there's its sister series, the Resident Evil franchise, or, again, at least the classics. What is clear here is that weapons do not automatically determine if a game can be horrifying or not.
This narrows it down alot. So if weapons do not determine if a game is horrifying or not, what does? Implementation, the same reason why many games, with or without weapons, fall flat on their face. For examples, look no further than the many supposed 'survival horrors' out recently. Every franchise has suffered from this, and were consequentially rebranded as 'action horror' as a salvage tactic. The few that survived this are far and few between. Amnesia is one of the few bastions of pure survival horrors. On the side, I believe the failure of these many action horror games have contributed to the bias that horror games cannot have weapons.
Moving on, so how do we implement weapons without turning Amnesia into an action horror, or at least a survival horror that fails in its objective? It's basically what the posters for weapons have been trying to say. Weapons must play a precarious balancing act. They cannot be too good or useful, or there would be no vulnerability, and fight became far more useful than flight, ruining the psychological terror associated with flight and helplessness. At the same time, weapons cannot become too useless, or there would be no point to them.
For successful weapons implementation, I suggest we look at positive examples, such as the System Shock series, Silent Hill, whatnot. They all have weapons ranging from a pipe to a pistol to a rifle. Yet, the players still feel vulnerable, as there are many times when they are ineffective, but required. The pistol in Silent Hill needs to almost empty an entire magazine before a monster is put down. The Rumbler is a similar case in System Shock. Then there are many moments when weapons are essentially useless, such as when SHODAN reveals herself, or when Pyramid Head gives chase to James (was that his name?
). There you have it.
Now, knowing what is expected of Amnesia and its magic formula to being proclaimed one of the most frightening games of all time, we ought to tone down the effectiveness of the weapons even further. The monsters are invulnerable, full stop. So what place does a weapon have? My solution: We should have firearms (and by that I mean period accurate weapons, such as muskets and pistols) that will delay the monsters but not kill them. I do not suggest melee weapons, as they could be comically swung time and time again, and will easily be exploited like in Penumbra.
My solution in detail: So we have muskets and pistols, and there will be ammo for them, namely powder and shots. How do we make these weapons ineffectual but useful? Let's focus on the ineffectual parts first.
Firstly, they will be slow to reload, and the players will only want to do so when they're safe, such as when they're in a brightly lit hall (and even then, what's there to stop it from turning dark all of a sudden?). This means they can't be exploited (and no, it does not count if it's bugged, that would be Frictional game's fault).
Secondly, they cannot, without exception, kill any monsters other than people (and even then, early firearms aren't as reliable as even that, and people may not even appear as malevolent NPCs in Amnesia 2). This way, the power and invulnerability and the fear associated with those cannot be shattered with the monsters.
Thirdly, ammunition should never be plentiful. Sure, maybe powder and shots for maybe 3-5 discharges at any one time, none whatsoever if the player squanders them. This reinforces the fact that the player's walking on thin ice and subsisting on little to no resources.
Forthly, if the player does not aim properly, and aiming can be predictably hard in a frightful situation, the musket and pistol will miss, and the hope associated with it will diminish.
Fifth of all, once ammunition for the musket and pistol runs out, the player would be left with no means whatsoever of even delaying the lovecraftian abomination chasing them down. It's Amnesia: The Dark Descend all over again, and its frightening to go down that road again now is it? Especially when you used to have good powder and shots but squandered them?
Sixth, the musket and pistol can be a platform to based certain scares on, such as the aforementioned reloading in well lit hall only for it to turn dark. The musket and pistol will then hinder the player in that fashion.
So how can our theoretical muskets and pistols be useful? They can be used to delay the creatures. This means knocking them down so they would have to get up again, or simply knocking them back so that they will stumble back in an attempt to regain balance. The delay cannot be lengthy though, or the relief would be too much that it breaks the horror aspect. I'd say 2-4 seconds tops. However, this little time would be Godsend for anyone getting chased down by a lovecraftian abomination.
What do you think? Do point out if I'm wrong in some ways, or if you have more to add to this theory of mine. There may be one or two grammatical errors or spelling errors, but they're not the pinnacle of my argument, so please don't use it as ammunition against my argument. Believe me, I've experienced that and seen that before. Also, I'm not a fat/geeky/lifeless kid who lives in the basement/attic, so don't use that argument either, because I'm just a university student in my summer holidays, just relaxing prior to an incoming internship a few days away, and have chosen this outlet to sharpen my claws for education and learning.
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Weapons (please read and discuss)
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RE: Weapons (please read and discuss)