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Post by JMMREVIEW on Sept 1, 2016 3:11:09 GMT -5
I find it infuriating when people mislabel an action game with horror elements as a survival horror game, it is doing serious damage to the genre. We are losing survival horror games and one of the biggest problems is people don’t even realise it is happening. It has become far too common and accepted to hear people say things like “I love survival horror games my favourite is Resident Evil 4”. (to clarify I love Resident Evil 4 and it is one of the best ACTION games on the GameCube) The most recent example of this mislabelling is with We Happy Few, Compulsion Games the games creators have publicly said the game is not a survival horror game and much to their dismay people continue to refer to it as a survival horror game. This might not seem like a big deal, especially to gamers who aren’t interested in the genre but I fear we will completely lose survival horror if this continues. There is a theory that neanderthals didn’t go extinct they just interbred with humans so much there were none left and I fear this will happen with survival horror games, they will be swallowed up by action games with horror elements and will never return to its former glory. In an effort to highlight this problem I decided to list ten of the most common games that get mislabelled as survival horror If you know any more games please feel free to list them or if you disagree I would like to hear from you. I hope you will get a chance to watch the video where I explain why these games are not survival horror but here is the list of the 10 games in my video. 1. Evil Within 2. Dead space 3. Eternal Darkness 4. Resident Evil 5 5. Resident Evil 4 6. Left 4 Dead 7. Back in 1995 8. Alan Wake 9. Bio Shock 10. We happy few
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Post by Greenfire32 on Sept 1, 2016 15:30:42 GMT -5
Great vid, JMM. Totally agree with most points.
Reminds me, I still need to play Alien: Isolation.
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Post by Blade Runner 07 on Sept 2, 2016 11:59:57 GMT -5
JMM, sorry it took forever to finally see this but this is yet another one of those videos I'm happy are around. I been off an on about the extinction of a whole sub genre of fps, but where that genre as a whole is alive and well, survival horror is a rarity it seems.
I consider horror games like horror movies. Resident Evil (2002), Dawn of the Dead (1978), War of the Worlds (2005). All considered horror to the general audience but vastly different in tone and setting. With all the horror games clumped together it's hard to pick the survival elements from them for some people, and that's why while I agree, I can see this being controversial.
I see what you mean though, if kids board today won't play fps without ADS and sprinting than something has been lost. Same here. If my idea of survival horror is Bioshock, I may never want to play Resident Evil Remastered... I would rather play more Bioshock... preferably with ADS, sprinting and throw in some regenerating health and plentiful checkpoints and well have the best survival.. um... first-person... EXACTLY!
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Post by JMMREVIEW on Sept 3, 2016 10:06:29 GMT -5
Thanks Blade glad you got a chance to check it out, I think the future of survival horror hinges on what happens next with resident evil. If RE7 is a true survival horror and is a success then maybe more companies will follow suit.
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Post by Blade Runner 07 on Sept 3, 2016 15:30:06 GMT -5
I know I've said it before but I think the success (moderate as it may be) of games like Alien Isolation and the surprising sales numbers of Resident Evil 0 and Remaster show that regardless of the misrepresentation of the genre in other titles, there is still a big audience for classic survival horror. Like my surprise at the success of Doom this year, it gives me comfort that fans of these genres and gameplay styles, while quieter than ever, are most definitely out there and in bigger numbers that you might think.
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Xargen
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Post by Xargen on Sept 3, 2016 22:51:36 GMT -5
Thing about Doom is, it's still a modern game in how it feels to play, even though its roots are in old games... Glory kills felt like a nice little touch, but if you think about it, if you went from the original Doom to the new one, it's a huge leap... Stunning enemies and getting close for an insta-kill would have been unheard of and is probably something a little different than what FPS games had in mind back in the day, but what it has shown is not all change is bad change, and some things we should embrace... Glory kills DOES change gameplay of Doom, where originally you would want to stay at range for your best odds (unless chainsaw of course) to wanting to be close enough to drop a glory kill to fill up HP...
I'm not saying it's time to change what we accept to be survival horror, but lets not count out every tiny change that ever happens... To much of the same stuff will get stale, yaknow?
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Post by JMMREVIEW on Sept 4, 2016 3:04:19 GMT -5
I'm not saying it's time to change what we accept to be survival horror, but lets not count out every tiny change that ever happens... To much of the same stuff will get stale, yaknow? I am not against change at all, I have said many times how much I love Alien Isolation and it couldn't be more different to Resident Evil. If 10 games came out next year the are FPS survival horror games I would be just fine with that! The problem with survival horror is very different to other genres, the new "survival horror games" don't have survival elements! At least no more that Minecraft or Gears of War. Imagine if the next Metal Gear Soild came out and there were no (or very little) stealth elements and websites just went ahead and called it a stealth game people would be pissed!
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Post by Blade Runner 07 on Sept 4, 2016 11:40:11 GMT -5
In other words. You would be pissed if something fundamental that helped define older games in the genre was lost for the sake of being new and different. What's worse is when the change is so well received it becomes permanent for the series and soon, the genre.
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