When somebody thinks of horror, the first thing that will probably pop into their minds is a movie. Usually it's a movie involving masked men with knives or cruel mutant monsters slaughtering innocent victims left and right. And of course, it's either at night, in a dark place, at a deserted and/or isolated location away from any possible help.
With today's video game savy world, where the more and more people are playing games, there is a growing number of people out there who would include video games in the realm of horror. With classic horror games like 11tth Hour, Phantasmagoria, and Uninvited to more recent games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and F.E.A.R., more and more people are getting into the horror video game genre.
Just as all forms of media, which includes television, video games and movies, it is a recent invention. As a species, we haven't evolved enough to be able to handle these types of images and video. The human race still isn't quite used to seeing them on the screen yet. One could ask, do games have the ability to better manipulate our minds then when compared to other forms of media?
Ever since my experiences with the Silent Hill series, I've felt that this is true. As I sit down to watch a good horror movie, I might get a little nervous or figity. And that's certainly something that's good. That's what a horror movie is supposed to do. But if I was to play a similar horror game, I could tell you right now that I would have a harder time handling myself. As I'm playing a Silent Hill game, and I'm roaming around a darkend building that's covered in grim, blood, and who in the hell knows what, I'm suddenly petrified when I hear a strange unearthly noise close by. I'm actually afraid to continue on into the next room to find out what's making that noise.
I think it's because I'm actually in control of the game and the character that makes it so much more frightening than if I'm just watching it as a third party. There's so much more interaction with that game versus just watching that movie or show.
The kind of creeping dread you feel in a good Lovecraft story is different than the startling scares and disturbing imagery of film horror like Psycho or Ringu, just as the more tense horror you experience playing Silent Hill or Dead Space is unique to games," says Richard Rouse III, the lead designer of The Suffering, which appeared on the Xbox.
"I think games have the definite advantage in terms of immersion and raw tension, because in a well done narrative game the player starts feeling like it's them in the world and starts feeling threatened themselves. Other mediums simply can't deliver that type of horror in the same way."
You could ask, why do we even have the survival horror genre at all? Why do we need to experience horror? It has been thought that all animals, which includes us humans as well, developed the sense of fear because it helped us survive in the wild. Although there are some irrational forms of fear, like when somebody is afraid of clowns and balloons, this sense of fear would certain help explain why humans would be afraid of heights and other dangerous situations, like being around spiders or snakes who could certainly be poisonous and in turn, do us great harm.
It would be obvious that as a stimuli, we would try staying away from things that would scare and terrify us. So why would we come back to it and experience it over and over again? I felt that it is that sense of thrill that you get when you face you fear. That's another point as well. Facing your fear. When you face your fear, it could be trying to gain a certain level of control over your fear, so that when real life beckons and you are faced with legitimate fear, you won't be so out of control of the situation.
No matter the reason, game developers will always try using that sense of psychology when they are creating a horror video game. By these good practices, it, in the end, makes for a great game. Giving the player that sense of danger and foreboding really adds to the thrill of the game.
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