What are some horror games that most of us here aren't likely to have already played?Installed picrel but haven't fired it up yet yet. Also just installed (with first impressions):>Goosebumps: Escape from HorrorLandLooks about as unpolished as 90s FMV games ever were, but I love everything about it. Perfect festive Halloween atmosphere. It doesn't entirely make sense and clearly just exists to shove as many references to the books together as they could into one game, but I still read the occasional Goosebumps. Also famously features Jeff Goldblum as Dracula (although I'm not that far into it yet).>DThe graphics haven't aged well, but it's only two hours long (at most) and pretty well-reviewed, so I'll probably push through and finish it. Also, calling a CGI model a "digital actress" and "casting" it in multiple games is mildly autistic, but all of the games Laura is in look at least playable, so I'll reserve judgment. You kinda wonder how much the creator was jerking it to her when the OG game file's executable is LAURA.EXE.>PhantasmagoriaOkay, a lot of people here probably have played this one, but I haven't. First impression is that the FMVs haven't aged terribly well what with the juxtaposition of real-life actors and badly computer-generated scenery that looks more at home in a cartoon, but I'm fully expecting to warm up to it some once I get more than five minutes into the game.
>>12716171Land of the Dead sucks, but you'll understand why some people hold a candlelight for it because it was the only REAL zombie game for years.
>>12716218By what metric? I keep hearing good things about it, most recently from this guy:https://videogamecritic.com/extras/themes/halloween4.htmHe's right about a lot of things and wrong about a lot of things, but it's clear he doesn't read video game reviews or interact with other human beings at all based on the schizophrenic ratings he's giving various things on that page, so I'm respecting his judgment at least a little.
>>12716171Land of the Dead is in my top 5 favorite horror games. Only first person game I can think of where zombies actually act like zombies. The axe and revolver are so satisfying to use.
>>12716218>Land of the Dead sucksFuck you, this game is actually pretty cool.This might have the worst soundtrack of any game I've ever played in my life, though. The first two levels are just 5-6 notes played on repeat until I'm about ready to gouge out my eardrums with a pencil.>>12716285Made me jump once so far, anyway
>>12716171https://youtu.be/jtyTZDKPmTQ
>Land of the DeadThe difficulty spikes massively around the hospital (and, I assume, keeps going up from there to some degree), and now I can see why some people don't like this game. It's not that it's entirely too difficult; it's that that difficulty is way too RNG-based, with weapons like the revolver and the fire axe doing an entirely random amount of damage. They might one-shot every enemy in the room, or it might take 12 shots to kill one enemy and now you don't have enough ammo to do anything other than die or preemptively reload a save. Other weapons are less RNG-based, but there's not always enough ammo for everything.I am finding that using the fire axe when there are only one or two enemies can save loads of ammunition and can be the difference between limping through the level with no ammo one hit away from death and cruising through with enough health and ammo to get through every encounter, but it's still entirely up to luck whether the axe kills everything in the room with two swings or I'm stuck helplessly trading blows with a zombie in the corner until my health is gone.Two different runs through the same area can feel entirely different based on how the RNG comes up, so the difficulty feels schizophrenic in general. You can struggle through an area, die, reload a save, and then cruise effortlessly through the same area with the exact same weapons and ammo count.>>12716370That looks awesome and also way too complicated for me to want to even pick up and try. But I'll bet there are a lot of relatively undiscovered horror games on ancient home computers; it's not like anyone but complete autists are familiar with the full catalogues on those devices (as opposed to retro game consoles, which most of us have most of the complete ROM lists of memorized by this point).
>>12716679Loved the RNG damage, it added tension and uncertainty while giving a huge dopamine rush when you instakilled an enemy. Crazy how more horror games don't use RNG.
>>12716684You can argue it doesn't really add tension or uncertainty when you can rationalize away any encounter that doesn't go well with, "Oh, well. If I die and have to reload a save, maybe I'll one-shot it next time," and just keep telling yourself that until you brute force it.That's not to say I'm not having a lot of fun, but it's an uneven design choice that unbalances the game a little.
>>12716250>By what metric?A good FPS metric. I mean you could be playing SWAT 4, No One Lives Forever, Quake, Duke Nukem, Doom, Rainbow Six, Deus Ex, Shadow Warrior, etc instead of Land of the Dead where you play a slow moving farmer with god awful weapons and inconsistent hit registry.
>>12716679>But I'll bet there are a lot of relatively undiscovered horror games on ancient home computersYep, quite a few on the jap ones too, many of which remain untranslated.
>>12716702>Deus ExGood list except for this. Great game but the shooting and enemy AI are terrible.
>>12716702To be fair, the enemy hitboxes are massive. That's not the issue. I mean, there are plenty of issues, but that's not one of them. Hits might do completely random things, but they are at least registering.>SWAT 4>No One Lives Forever>Rainbow SixGay and boring. If I wanted to play generic vibes military/spy/police shooters instead of a based atmospheric horror zombie retro game, I'd go to /v/ and play Call of Duty with the rest of the faggots.>Quake>DoomValid, but they don't really scratch the same itch at all.>Deus ExI do need to give this a try, but is it really an FPS?>Duke Nukem>Shadow WarriorI grew out of playing Doom WADs with cheat codes as an adult and enjoyed them more, but playing Build games without cheat codes as an adult makes me enjoy them less. Playing anything other than the lower difficulties just results in such constant hitscan death that it becomes a chore. I wish I knew how to play these games and enjoy them properly (but Blood is still objectively the best in every regard).
>>12717394Comparing Swat 4 and Rainbow Six to Call of Duty is like comparing Gran Turismo to Mario Kart.
>>12717417In the sense that both Gran Turismo and Mario Kart are gay baby games for faggots, exactly.
>>12717419Moreso they are completely fucking different. Swat 4 and Rainbow Six are tactical simulations while Call of Duty is an arcade type game.
>>12717426You race cars against other cars in the hopes of completing multiple laps and being the first to cross the finish line before the other cars. That type of game doesn't appeal to me whether you're playing an ultra-realistic car simulator or Mario.While we're at it, I don't know how you can say>ompletely fucking different. Swat 4 and Rainbow Six are tactical simulations while Call of Duty is an arcade type gamewhile comparing those games to fucking Doom or Quake.
>>12717394>I do need to give this a try, but is it really an FPS?Great RPG and adventure game but the combat is total ass.
>>12716171I've been meaning to play Land of the Dead on my softmodded Xbox. The OG Xbox library had so much soul compared to the Xbox 360 library.
>that hidden martial arts book in the first level that gives you the kung-fu fistsBest melee weapon in the game (second best being the altfire on the fire axe, due to a high chance of it crippling zombie legs), though you do lose it along with all of your other weapons at some point.
>>12717765I'm about 3/4ths of the way through the PC version, and this is honestly the most fun I've gotten out of a PC game in a while. It's janky as hell and has a ton of problems it shouldn't have, up to and including getting your character stuck in scenery, being unable to open/close drawers in level scenery (your main way of finding resources), and zombie AI just randomly not turning on so a group of them will just stand there staring into space while you shoot them, but it's really an addictive game if you can look past the bugs and questionable design choices.>>12717995>though you do lose it along with all of your other weapons at some pointHasn't happened to me yet? I just got past the docks and still have all my weapons, although most of them are low on ammo. I'll agree that the fire axe is a top-tier weapon (never found the martial arts book, although according to Google you are not lying).
>>12716171I think I picked this up from the discount bin. The trailer looked WAY better then the actual game. It's not entirely a bad game, but the melee weapons are horrible. The best weapon in the game is the kung-fu zombie fighting book. It's supposed to be a "easter egg" type weapon, but you can easily find it in like the second level in the upper level of your neighbor's home. You only need the kung-fu fists and you can easily beat the shit out of all the zombies if I remember
>>12717765You know, you might actually want to reconsider. The more reviews that I read from back in the day, a major common thread is how terrible it looks on on XBox. MyAbandonware has it, and it looks just fine on my 1366x768 monitor.It's actually pretty funny how abysmal the reviews for it were when it came out considering how much kinder retrospective reviews are.This one, for instance: https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/land-of-the-dead-road-to-fiddlers-green-review/1900-6140997/>And even when you are, all you need to do is run and find a piece of the scenery that the zombies just aren’t smart enough to circumvent–you know, like an open doorway, or a pile of garbage that sits maybe two or three feet high. And this is all assuming the zombies even come after you in the first place. Half the time, they’re content to just stand completely still, dumbfounded as you pick them off from silly distances.This is true.>he game purports to use some manner of location-specific damage model, but it’s also completely broken. Shoot a zombie in the chest, and his head will magically explode. Shoot another one in the chest, and it will react like it just took a shot to the shin.True.>Adding further insult to injury, Land of the Dead constantly sabotages itself with predictable and insipid level designs.I don't think this is true. I'm enjoying the level designs.>Land of the Dead is also one of the worst-looking Xbox games there is.From the screenshots, this is probably true, but the PC version looks fine. Not outstanding or anything, but fine.>And the music, if you even want to call it that, consists of a four-measure loop of grating unpleasantness that changes to a different four-measure loop of grating unpleasantness as you jump to each new level. If ever there were a game that demanded a mute button, this is the one.Painfully true. The music in this game is horrible.>the game supports things like Dolby Digital sound and a 480p resolutionlol
