Lord, those who die still live in Your presence,
their lives change but do not end.
their lives change but do not end.
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Alright, apologies for the "prayer" at the beginning of this post, but it coincides with the image. Survival-horror games are dying, and it's becoming quite the stale market. So, I've decided to write up a blog post about the matter, and provide quite a humorous image I made which is the tombstone showing the faces of "Leon Kenny", "Isaac Clarke" and "Heather Mason". Each reflecting their game franchises which have been steering a little bit away from their original premise, and not exactly being scary anymore (I still have hopes for Dead Space 3)!.
If you read my blog, and at-least follow it. You may have seen my impressions of the Resident Evil 6 demo that released to the public earlier today, and how it made me extremely upset with the direction the series has went. I don't want my "horror" games plagued with quick-time events, and horrible action sequences. What ever happened to the exploration in the classic RE games? I really miss that, and that formula was amazing. This new formula was brilliant in Resident Evil 4, but has just turned into complete dog-shit with the latest installment. If I could bet what my Most Disappointing game of this year would be, it may just be Resident Evil 6, but we'll see when the game releases. Hopefully, it's not dog-shit, but it's not looking too good.
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| It's quite true, Resident Evil. You've turned into dog-shit. |
Our second head on the gravestone belongs to that of Isaac Clarke, everyone's favorite space-engineer from the Dead Space series. Dead Space brought a lot to the table, and provided a genuinely horrifying game in some instances, and some rather frustrating moments as well (that bullshit asteroid crap). Dead Space 2 wasn't as scary as the original, but it still had its moments and I may be one of the select few who actually enjoyed the multiplayer aspect of the game. Then, in early 2013 we'll be getting Dead Space 3, and lots of people are worried about that game, and that it may follow the same fate of Resident Evil and go completely action-oriented, which would sorta bum me out. However, I have high-hopes in Visceral Games and have a feeling they'll once again bring out a quality game with the latest Dead Space title. I for one think the co-op element will be fun, and besides. To all the people complaining, if you play it solo the "Carver" character won't follow you'll around. You'll just meet up once and a while, so calm yourselves.
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| Calm yourselves, and have faith. |
And we finally come to the last head on the gravestone, and it's the face of Heather Mason of Silent Hill fame. I found the Silent Hill series to be the most terrifying games I had ever played up until they started hitting the next generation of games, and we've been getting some quality dog-crap over the years. I don't what's wrong with the series as of right now, but there's just something missing from it. Maybe Silent Hill has out-lasted it's life, or as a concept it could be dated? There's a lot of issues with the new iterations of Silent Hill, and it's really hard to understand why. I had high hopes for both Homecoming, and Downpour which both turned out to be the worst games in the series, and for a massive fan of the series I don't count those games as existing. Even though Downpour was far superior to Homecoming, but still not good. It really hurts too, because back in the day Silent Hill was the master of all survival horror games.
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| Say goodbye to Pyramid-Head. This is shit-head. |
However, the last good Silent Hill game I touched was on my PSP back before I sold it last year. This game was hard, spooky, and added something new to the series that actually made it exciting and interesting. If you have a PSP and haven't had the chance, please check out Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Definitely one of the best Silent Hill games in recent years, with the last good title being that one in-fact.
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So, survival-horror is definitely a dying genre (in AAA standards) but it seems that the indie market is in full swing with bringing it back, and revitalizing some classical horror elements. Triple A horror may be dying, but indie horror is coming in full swings. It's definitely something I look forward to seeing more of.
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