(09-14-2012, 02:36 AM)Damascus Rose Wrote: (09-14-2012, 02:35 AM)Gaviao Wrote: no i was not talking to you lolololololol someone in this topic said that guns and weapons ruins the horror games, that is a lie xD
Or a matter of opinion.
Exactly. Problem is, some people don't consider it a matter of opinion. Almost everybody on these forums has adopted this really extremist outlook on horror which I don't understand. Yeah, Thomas is right on the mark by saying minimal or no combat almost always increases the terror and that a lot of developers cop out by replacing potential horror with action. But having weapons doesn't
always relieve tension. One good example off the top of my head (because I'm replaying it right now; minor spoilers but not really):
Early on in the first Chronicles of Riddick game (Escape From Butcher Bay) you fall into a pit (imaginatively called "The Pit") which unruly prisoners are routinely thrown into. Due to the pit also being a toxic waste sewer all of the prisoners down there are mutated. You only have a shotgun and pistol with limited ammo and because of the huge fall into the pit the flashlight battery begins to fail and you only have six minutes of light (apart from the radioactive waste that is somewhat luminous). This section still freaks me out because it's easy to get lost and it's almost completely dark apart from a weak flashlight. The monsters themselves pose no real physical threat because one shotgun blast kills them but they respawn indefinitely (because the sewers are massive and a huge amount of prisoners have been thrown down there).
So there is an example of horror with combat that is actually scary. If the entire game were like that it would get boring real fast but it's just a short 10 minute section that takes you completely by surprise and it really works (in my opinion).