::Grill 13 Restaurant:: NEW Pictures on the Menu!

[Biohazard EXTREME]

SaintChaos

Now wait a second. We're talking two different things here. There's a difference between "horror" and "terror". Instead of me going on a tangent on the difference between, I'm going to assume you're a smart guy and you get what I want to say without having to say it. But on your comment of judging horror based on what scares you? Not all horror games have scare factors in them. And they're just as good. And I know games thats mainly terror, but not horror and its just as good. Then there's games with both. So it depends on what you want to judge. And what scares people is completely subjective. I don't find the RE games that scary at all. Big clunky monsters can be creepy yeah, but scary? Nah. But zombies have never scared me. They make me laugh. But ghosts however....at least you can see a zombie and most of the time know where one is if its nearby, by the obvious groaning or in RE 5's case, a random hug attack from behind. Haha. But ghosts? they came out of nowhere, and i know zombies can too, but ghosts come through walls or ceilings or maybe out of your a** (jk). And i guns aren't going to kill them. so personally, i find ghosts more scary then something physically tangible to fight.

everything else you said though i agree with.

Well, let's see...

Terror: an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety
Horror: intense and profound fear

It's not that different. There aren't clear definitions between being scared or creeped out, terror or horror. It's a really gray area. The only black and white type of horror I found is physical horror vs. psychological horror. Whether something jumps out at you, or suddenly happens to freak the hell out of you. Or whether it's the atmosphere, where something may or may not jump out, and it's the suspense of it that terrifies you. And yes, Resident Evil has more, "BWAH! Scared you!" type scares, where something crashes through. But the only game that made them effective to their fullest is RE2. In the other RE games, it's either downplayed, or not timed right. And half the time isn't really effective.
It's the quiet parts in RE that are scary. Sometimes there's no enemies at all, and you're thinking, "Oh crap, is there something behind the corner?" Remake was especially good at that, especially with the door openings. You hear that door rattling and you think, "Oh crap, is it gonna get through? I should get outa here."
But with Silent Hill, and its intense fog and extreme darkness, it just did it too well. You hear the enemies, but you don't see them until they're closer. And sometimes you don't even see where they are, even though you hear your radio static. And it's terror. And it's scary.

Same with Fatal Frame. I mean, I don't remember to which extent they use their gameplay mechanics. But with ghosts, yes, like you said, it can come from anywhere.

Look at something like Paranormal Activity, it was scary, it was creepy, it had its intense moments where you're like, "Oh ********!" and it had it's, "Somethingsgonnacomeoutsomethingsgonnacomeoutsomethingsgonnacomeoutsomethingsgonnacomeout..." But it doesn't. It was really effectively made. And it doesn't matter what your preference of horror is (other than gore hounds), I think if any type of horror scares you, then SOMETHING in that movie WILL scare you.

But if I wasn't initially scared by Resident Evil, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it much. I mean, yes, it had the kick a** concept, the graphics, the gameplay style, and I would've enjoyed that. But Resident Evil 2 for the first time proved to me that video games can be scary. And I think the majority of people who don't experience it first hand, don't understand the concept that games CAN be scary.
And maybe you don't think zombies are scary. But frankly, I think a decaying human being whose only desire is to eat human flesh, who will turn me into the same thing if he so much as manages to bite or scratch me, is a scary a** thought. Because even if you get away, you're infected, and you'll lose your intelligence, and your skin will start to itch and rot, and fall off, and stink. And you'll start feeling hunger for human flesh that will consume you. And that's scary as s**t. It's like rabies x 10.

Thee Stranger

Well, I think I've said this before, but AitD got plenty attention when it first came out. It was very popular. I mean, it never reached RE's level with its rabid fanbase or anything, of course, but it was definitely in the mainstream spotlight. It had the exposure. I can remember a time when everybody was talking about it. And I think the original AitD was pretty accessible for its day. I mean, it came out during the 90s PC adventure game heyday. That's essentially what it was... an evolution of the adventure game. As unique as it was for the time, you can still see that it bears a lot of the conventions and staples of that genre. But yeah, I mean, AitD was made by a pretty small company. Infogrames certianly doesn't carry the weight or the finances that Capcom does. And that's a testiment to Capcom's marketing when their advertisements for RE effectively labled the entire genre. I think the main problem with AitD, though, was that both of its sequels were pretty lackluster compared to the original, and then RE came out and pretty much just blew it away. And as much as Capcom loves to REhash their old games over and over again, Resident Evil only got better with its sequels, and kept adding innovations to the formula. AitD never really did, so there was never any reason to go back.

Yeah, but still. You say, "When it came out". I mean, while Resident Evil improved on its games with the sequels. When they ported and ported and ported, it's not like they really did much, other than Dual Shock controls, or whatever. I mean, the GameCube versions of RE2 and 3 were pretty much direct ports, only improving on the pixel resolution, that's it.
But AITD never took much effort at all in going out of its immediate area. Other than porting AITD 1 to 3DO, and AITD2 to PS1 and Saturn, (which is now impossible to find anyway). I'll admit, I have not played Alone in the Dark 1, 2, or 3. I undesrand it's become abandonware now, but my PC doesn't want to run it anyway, so I can't play them now. There's just no access to them.

IGN

A proud Japanese developer, Mikami is quiet about the extent to which he was influenced by a French computer game. When asked about his inspirations, he is quick to volunteer Sweet Home – a game conveniently made by his employer. For this reason, Sweet Home is often considered a progenitor of the genre – and indeed it was a relevant game – but the Alone in the Dark influence was far more obvious. Even before Resident Evil's release, the comparisons were frequent.

Despite borrowing its controls, gameplay foundations, and the signature blend of pre-rendered backgrounds and 3D characters, Mikami didn't seem to have a great deal of reverence for Alone in the Dark. Just as Shigeru Miyamoto downplays the impact of Pac-Land on Super Mario Bros by explaining all of the ways he improved upon it, Mikami was similarly quick to point out how much his game diverged in terms of tone and visual style. "I wanted to create a really scary game," Mikami said in a 1996 interview with EGM's Ed Semrad, "no ghosts or crap like that, but real monsters you could see that would come and attack." When asked specifically how his game would differ from Alone in the Dark, he remarked simply, "The graphics kick a**."

Yes, and Resident Evil 4 is the definition of a "True Horror" game, according to Mikami. And Code Veronica is scarier than Nemesis. And making Resident Evil in the first place was a bad idea.

Thee Stranger

Haha, well, I don't know. I like both of those games. Like I said, with Street Fighter 2, I think it's the simplicity. Alpha and SFIII added a lot of new mechanics that made the gameplay a bit too complicated for some. But yeah, they definitely looked better than SFII.

Yeah, but again, they're not saying, "It's awesome because of simplicity" on the contrary, they're saying, "The mechanics are so deep." And even if SF3 added some more complicated stuff. I mean, wouldn't that be the kind of thing that a hardcore Street Fighter fan would like?
I mean, paeallelling to Mortal Kombat, (even though I know it's not your cup of tea), with Mortal Kombat 3, when they added combos, and heck, with UMK3, where they added brutalities. It made the game so much more satisfying for me. Some people don't want to learn 12 hit combos, but me, I live for that stuff in Mortal Kombat. Nothing felt more satisfying than finishing your enemy off with a Brutality. So I figured someon who's a Street Fighter fan would like if if a SF game had some complicated special moves, that, if they manage to master them, would allow them to kick their enemy's a** that much more spectacularly.

Like I said, with the general SF2 reception, that's all I'm gonna chalk it up to. Fanboyness. It's like with Final Fantasy 6 or 7. (which is sad because some people say FF6 is the best and everything after sucked, some say that FF7 is the best and nothing before nor since has measured up. So there are actually two different sections of Final Fantasy fanboys/fangirls.)  

[King of Paradise]

I agree with Saint. What is considered to be scary is subjective. Like, I didn't find Silent Hill 2 to be scary. Not seeing what was in front of me because of a thick fog did not make me tense. It annoyed me. Now, not seeing what was making growling sounds even though I had a clear view of the scenery. Now that freaks me out.

And that, my fifty four cents on the matter, has nothing to do with most of the current debate. I bid thee all AHDOO.  

[Biohazard EXTREME]

Chase Me To The End

I agree with Saint. What is considered to be scary is subjective. Like, I didn't find Silent Hill 2 to be scary. Not seeing what was in front of me because of a thick fog did not make me tense. It annoyed me. Now, not seeing what was making growling sounds even though I had a clear view of the scenery. Now that freaks me out.

And that, my fifty four cents on the matter, has nothing to do with most of the current debate. I bid thee all AHDOO.

So, are you actually gonna tell me that you find Resident Evil more scary than Silent Hill?  

[Biohazard EXTREME]

Thee Stranger

Firstly, I have to disagree that RE2 was the only game that used the scares to their fullest effect. I think RE1 and RE3 were both effective in that department. When I replayed RE3 for the first time in a long time a while back, and I was running up those steps at the news station and that door suddenly popped open and flew off the hinges in front of me, it still made me jump. I thought it was another Hunter for a split second. I had forgotten all about it.

I didn't say they weren't effective, just not AS effective. I mean, RE2 had such awesome scares, where Kendo's window breaks. Then the crows that crash through the window. And who could forget the hands breaking through the barricaded windows? Not to mention when Mr. X crashes through the wall. The lickers through the mirror, ceiling window and vent. There was just more of them and they were spread out evenly enough not to get stale. And when Marvin turns into the zombie right before your eyes. When I first saw that, it numbed me with terror.
Yes, RE3 had a few of them, but only 2 or 3 of them actually got me. Every time a zombie jumps out of a car, I kinda saw it coming. Nemesis gives a good run for your money, but it's a different kind of scare, it's more of a panic, than a startle.

Thee Stranger

Yeah, I guess you're right about that. But by that time, RE was huge, and there was no overthrowing it, even if they had ported AitD over to the newer consoles. Plus, it was a lot older. You really should play the original sometime if you ever get a chance, though. You really have to play the game to see just how much RE borrowed from it. It wasn't just s**t like document collecting, which some would consider just a veritable no-brainer for a horror game. Even some of RE's puzzles were a lot similar, featuring boxes and cranks ('cause when I think horror, I think cranks).

Dude, if I COULD play the original, I would. I have the installation file on my hard drive, it just doesn't run, because Windows has shitty backwards compatibility. I couldn't even install the PC version of RE1.

Thee Stranger

Haha. Well, it's like anybody who gets famous for one particular thing and can't tear themself away from it no matter how hard they try. He was probably just plain sick of RE when he made that statement that it was a bad idea in the first place. But really, Mikami wouldn't be s**t today if it wasn't for RE. I mean, what was he doing before that? ********' Goof Troop for SNES.

Good Troop! My hero!
j/k
Okay, hold on a second... He said... He said, "I wanted to make a game about monsters that come right at you, not ghosts?" That's bullshit and a half! Mikami himself said that originally, when he started working on Resident Evil, it was going to be called "Psycho" and was gonna be about a slasher ghost. Wow.

Thee Stranger

Well, SFII is a simple game that anybody can pick up and play, but there are deeper subtleties buried within if you really take the time to discover them. But yeah, I don't know. And I'm not, like, a HUGE Street Fighter fan. I like it a lot, and I think think SFII is just as classic as it is iconic, but my all time favorite fighting game would probably have to be Soul Calibur 2 (Gamecube version). No other fighting game has eaten up as much of my time or given me as many fond memories and hours upon hours of enjoyment as that one, and there's been plenty of sequels to that as well. Mortal Kombat is equally as iconic, but I think there's a lot more of a learning curve there, and I'm not big on the graphical style. Not everyone can just pick it up and pull off those fatalities. You really have to know those long button combos, and even when you do, they don't always work. Same goes for SFII; sometimes you'll input the right buttons, but your character will do something else if your timing is just that much off, especially with a console controller. An arcade stick is pretty much essential if you really wanna play and enjoy it. So I don't know, maybe the whole SFII thing has more to do with the nostalgia factor. Like, RE2 and REmake improved upon the original RE in everyway imaginable, but I still like the original best. Probably mainly to do with its time and place, and a lot of the nuances that didn't translate to the REmake. Like, I played it when my brother got it when it first came out. I was in 6th grade at the time, kinda sucked at videogames in general, and I always picked Jill and the game still kicked my a** all over the place. And I didn't even know you could save Barry for the longest time. Like, I always wanted to be Chris, because he was a dude and he looked all badass, but his quest was just too difficult for me. When I finally beat the game for the first time with Chris, I felt really accomplished. And RE2 and everything since was like a cakewalk compared to RE1.

But again, back to Final Fantasy. Yes, I like Final Fantasy 7 a lot, and yes, it's about as iconic as it gets. But I've learned not to let nostalgia cloud my head. I mean, as far as Beat-Em-Up games go, I think Double Dragon 2 for NES will always be my favorite, but I'm not gonna say it's the BEST. Heck, the gameplay mechanics in it are slow and sluggish, I'll be the first one to admit that, and if you're looking for a more intense experience, even on NES alone, Double Dragon 3 improved a ton over DD2. DD2 is still my favorite, and maybe nostalgia has something to do with that, but I won't say it's the best. Because I know it's not.

Thee Stranger

And as far as Final Fantasy goes... there's been a lot of good ones. I loved FFIV and FFVI. As far as the PSX-era ones, I'd probably have to say FFIX is my favorite, with FFVIII following closey behind. FFVII... good game, but really overrated. Although there's no denying the impact it had, and the fact that many RPGs (including one of my very favorites: Skies of Arcadia) totally ripped-off Sephiroth. And then, ******** FFX. I tuned out after that.

But see what I mean?? It's like, I could say, "As far as the Arcade era goes, Street Fighter Alpha is my favorite, with Street Fighter 3 following closely behind. SF2... good game, but really overrated."
It works. And yes, FF7 is very overrated. FF8 is my favorite, period. But it's also the first one I played, and while nostalgia might be a factor, I'm not gonna say that FF8 is the best. It could get extremely grindy, especially for someone like me, who's a Draw whore. But the story, the art direction and the music win it over for me.


I'll read the article a bit later, I'm hot in the middle of making some kick a** 3D stuff.  

[King of Paradise]

@Bio: Err...Yes? What, do you want to argue with my mind now? I can't control what it finds scary man, so don't even bother lol. I mean, I see why people would find the creatures in the mist concept terrifying, but I personally can't. I think it's a much more terrifying situation when you can't see the enemy with a clear forecast. Such as in The Evil Dead movies, where Ash is constantly running from a spirit(?) he can't even see (Though it's never established if Ash is running from something invisible, it's generally believed to be so by The Evil Dead community.) So I know you won't give me s**t, being an Evil Dead fan and all.

EDIT: And that being said, I never brought Resident Evil into the equation in the first place, but now that you brought it up, yes, I do find Resident Evil to be more scary. Why? I don't know. Why don't you argue with my mind about it.

@Thee Stranger: Wooh! Yeah, Skies of Arcadia! Yes, I totally agree: Vigoro is such a Sephiroth clone.

I don't know if I can totally agree with your universal opinion. I mean, I want to, but I know there's people out there who don't find what us and the rest of the population to be scary scary. And those people are Africans and kamikaze pilots.

confused  

[ElenaMason]

guess i should have clarified then. i consider horror as in "horrific" or something graphic or gruesome. like maybe a guy getting his head shot off and exploding with the brains going everything. maybe to some that's terrifying, but thats more considered horror than terror because it doesnt make you "jump" from your seat. it makes you sit there with a jaw opened wide. someone getting tortured, like in the movie Hostel, its horrific, but its also terrifying because something like that could happen in real life: getting kidnapped and tortured in unspeakable ways.

i guess in short terms of what im trying to say, and its actually how they define horror flicks:

terror: something thats meant to jump out and scare you with frightening images and frightening, rightly timed, audio.

horror: gruesome images of blood, guts, and slashings or tortures, more on the lines of trying to "disturb" you, to make you squirm, but not meant to jump out and terrify you.

these are what are normally associated with horror or terror as definitive differences between the two. yes there are cases where both collide, but there is indeed a difference. but like i said, what is considered fear to begin with is always subjective.  

[Biohazard EXTREME]

SaintChaos

guess i should have clarified then. i consider horror as in "horrific" or something graphic or gruesome. like maybe a guy getting his head shot off and exploding with the brains going everything. maybe to some that's terrifying, but thats more considered horror than terror because it doesnt make you "jump" from your seat. it makes you sit there with a jaw opened wide. someone getting tortured, like in the movie Hostel, its horrific, but its also terrifying because something like that could happen in real life: getting kidnapped and tortured in unspeakable ways.

i guess in short terms of what im trying to say, and its actually how they define horror flicks:

terror: something thats meant to jump out and scare you with frightening images and frightening, rightly timed, audio.

horror: gruesome images of blood, guts, and slashings or tortures, more on the lines of trying to "disturb" you, to make you squirm, but not meant to jump out and terrify you.

these are what are normally associated with horror or terror as definitive differences between the two. yes there are cases where both collide, but there is indeed a difference. but like i said, what is considered fear to begin with is always subjective.

But you got movies like Grudge or The Ring, which don't have the piles of gruesome gore in it. They're still conisdered Horror movies. You can have a movie/game where the fear comes purely from the creepy atmosphere, it's still horror.


And speaking of the best Horror series, Silent Hill. Those who are fans, this is for you.





The rest I'll just hotlink so as not to stretch the page too much.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v459/Kovalevskyy/SH Room 3D/Render3.png
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It took me about three days to finish it. Gotta say, I'm damn proud of it. If I lived in Silent Hill, that'd probably be the room I'd stay in. Get hitched with one of them nurses and live the quiet and horrible life.  

[Alkaizer87]

Nice.......In my opinion otu of all of the horror games I've played I think Silent Hill is the scariest. Resident Evil is scary, but there a lot of too predictable parts on my frist run through in the games. The only parts that got me was RE2's two scenes where after you escape the squarish room from Mr. X I turn around the corner and bam! he blasts the wall open. Also near the beginning where you ahve to go back through the wooden barricaded hall. I didn't know that the hands would jump out and try to kill, or reach and and do damage. I naively went through thining nothign would happen, and then bam. I was like," WTF?! Get off me damn it!" when I went through that place again I had my shotgun I was like." I'm ready for you ********, try to grab me now! Sadly nothign happened. Those were more like "Oh s**t!" scary, not creepy scary where you you get goose bumps. I my opinion goose bumps scary is more liek Silent Hill.  

[King of Paradise]

Thee Stranger

Actually, I think the spirit thing that Ash was always running from was revealed in Evil Dead 2. And that was the ******** up monster head thing with all the other heads and s**t on it that tried to grab Ash, and then Ash stabbed it in the eye with the chainsaw. It was a spirit up until then, but if you remember, in Evil Dead 2 they cast that spell to manifest all the spirits into the flesh so they could all be sucked into the portal and s**t.

Err.. Vigoro? I was actually referring to Ramirez, but yeah...

Well, okay, maybe not so much what is scary per se. More like what is horror, I guess. The core elements that make it what it is. What truly scares you may be subjective, but there are certain conventions to it that are universal.

And I have to agree that horror in its purest form is basically the macabre. Like, "the horrors of war". Horror being blown up babies and watching your buddies die right in front of you and s**t. All the death and the corpses and decay. But I don't so much agree that terror is just a "boo!" thing. Terror is the feeling you'd have as you abruptly began plummeting downward at 3,000 feet in an airplane, and you were suddenly faced with the harsh reality that you were only a few moments away from dying a very horrible and bloody death as you were about to be crushed and mangled and ripped into bloody bits upon impact. And if you somehow managed to survive the initial impact, your entire body would be splattered and charred in firey jet fuel from the ensuing fireball. That's pure, unadulterated terror right there. Of course, there's really no way a videogame could possibly evoke that kind of genuine feeling of intense panic... so maybe "boo!" tactics are the closest thing. Still, I don't know if I'd call that terror. I'm not sure what you'd call it, other than a scare.

Yes, but as you said, that was the physical manifestation of the spirits, and before that, it was never revealed what was chasing Ash and the others. The only proof I can think of that the spirits were invisible was in the first Evil Dead, where Ash's sister is running away from them in the woods, and when she gets to the cabin and Ash opens up the door, it can be seen that the spirit is retreating within' eyesight, and no one notices. So, before the evil spirits became the awesome as s**t creature in the sequel, it could be assumed that only an invisible entity was chasing them, and from there within lies the terror. I'm not saying it wouldn't be scary if the cabin was surrounded by a fog with creatures in it, but to me, it isn't as terrifying. And if the general population think it's the other way, then that doesn't necessarily mean they're right. I mean, the world was once considered flat, no? Really, even the macabre I would consider subjective. It really depends on the individual. What if someone is totally unaffected by the arrival of death in any form? I'm not saying it's mentally possibly, but since it can't be proved or disproved otherwise, such as faith, it might as well be a possibility. If one person exists as such then that disproves a universal horror theory. So, really, it can neither be proved nor disproved. Then again, if you considered the near total consensus to be universal, then I guess this entire paragraph was pointless lol.

@Bio: Good work! I'm really impressed. Did you have to do everything from the ground up, or were you given some specific tools and pieces to help?  

[Biohazard EXTREME]

Well, I did use real materials for some of the textures, like, real concrete, metal and wood and stuff like that, but everything was heavily modified, often to the point where you wouldn't even recognize the original if you saw it.
For the paintings on the wall, I actually downloaded this Silent Hill 2 Model/Level viewer, and used it to capture good closeups of the 3D models from the game, then I photoshopped them.
The view out the window, I ripped directly from Silent Hill 2's texture folder.
But other than that, I made everything from scratch. All the models, and everything.  

[Canas Renvall]

A happy man is I today.

Near the end of 3rd hour, they announced that there was a water pressure buildup in the school and one of the water mains broke which might've leaked sewage into the water system so when the hour ended, the day ended. So I went to GameStop, picked up Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, then played in the arcade with my friends for three hours before returning home to hear the news that it might not be fixed until midnight tomorrow (it's an area-wide thing, not just our school), so I'm holding out hope that we don't have school tomorrow...  

[King of Paradise]

Whatcha play at the arcade?

@TheeStranger: Oh, and as for the Vigoro thing...The joke was that both Sephiroth and Vigoro both wield huge weapons. I think both are trying compensate for something...Especially Vigoro with his huge cannon lol.