Why Dead Space 2 Has Killed Survival Horror

NowGamer: Play Dead Space 2. Go on, play it. It doesn’t matter what side of the great console divide you’re standing on because it’s available for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. So play it. Good isn’t it? It’s creepy, it’s atmospheric, it’s tense, it’s nasty, it’s the perfect demo because it leaves you frantically working out your post-Christmas bank balance to if you’ll have enough money after Christmas to spunk it all on EA’s sequel.

But… Dead Space 2 is not a survival horror game.

[Shazz]

is there anything you guys at nowgamer dont nitpick about , deadspace is fcking fantastic and btw when you have big ass scary mutants chasing you around when you have no ammo its kinda scary to me but maybe thats just me .

[fastrez]

Think you missed the point. The article says the genre is dead because Dead Space 2 is insanely good, so no one else should even bother trying to compete.

Read before you criticise.

[sdtarm]

for more that i love this franchise i gotta agree =(

[jessupj]

Actually it's not even saying that. It's saying that DS is an awesome game, but it's not a survival horror because you're not very vunerble. You get all these great weapons and that makes you quite powerful. But we love it, and because we love it, we the gamers, have killed the survival horror genre because we don't want clunky controls and weaks weapons in our games.

And to be honoest, I'd mostly agree with that. Gaming has changed. We want to feel like gods when we enjoy our hobby, we want to feel powerful. The younger generation anyway. They've been bombarded with fast paced first person shooters where you can take 20 bullets to the head while at the same time killing 10 guys all in the space of 10 seconds. So as soon as they enter a game in which you are NOT god, they hate it. Thus the survival horror genre has mostly died and It's all thanks to us.

Having said that Dead Space is awesome. The beauty of it is that it's just so relenting, you just don't get a break. You're always on your toes through out the entire game. Even more so when you enter a new room. And when the lights go out I always say to myself, "O sh*t".

Dead Space has definitely set the bench mark.

[Shazz]

Did you not get the point I was trying to get across ? They said it doesn't feel like survival horror with tooled up guns etc but what I was saying is when your ammo runs out it's sure scary as fcuk to me trying to run from mutants in deadspace . I'll say again though many that's just me

[ABizzel1]

Actually the article says, thanks to games like Dead Space and Resident Evil gaining more of an action focus, there won't be Survival Horror games like the original Resident Evil's and Silent Hills.

Personally I don't think there is a space for those older type of games at retail, it's nice for PSN and XBLA to be able to play one of those slower paced, games, but not $60. I think the Horror genre needs to change from simple scares and thrills to Psychological suspense (with a touch of scares and thrills). But to do this they need to hire professional writers, and film industry people who have experience working with that genre.

Alan Wake while not scary, did keep me in suspense, because you never knew when the shadow people were going to attack. The scripted events could have been better, but the randomness of attacks added thrill to that game, and that's what the horror genre needs.

[TheREAL-HyDRo1x]

Yeah but they're still saying that not one occasion will you feel weak, but I beg to differ! These fools are judging the game on a 10/15 minute demo with medium difficulty option only available! I doubt that they will run through the hardest difficulty of the actual game unscathed! Besides, this game is scarier and puts you at harms risk a lot more than Resident Evil 5 ever did! Its only natural for RE5 to start the Survival Horror trend and have it die with it! This article is a fail by me!

[rockleex]

Silent Hill

'Nuff said.

[Scotland-Tha-Brave]

are you a retard fastrez? Thats not what the article conveys AT ALL,

[visualb]

fastrez

it does say dead space 2 is very good, frightening and not easy
but it also says that it kills survival horror

the whole point of survival horror is to be inferior and outnumbered and almost dead at every corner

survival horror is not having enough ammo to kill the enemies you face having to out run them and avoid them instead

survival horror is a game in which its so easy to die, the sight of an enemy causes more fear than a Boss in Dead Space

now I LOVE DEAD SPACE - but the article makes sense, its no longer SURVIVAL horro

its

ACTION HORROR - still awesome, just a new genre

[DatNJDom81]

@ visualb

I agree with you 100 percent. Dead Space is an action horror game. Sorry but Resident Evil 4 still holds the crown along with the silent hill series for true survival horror. Another scary game was Siren. I jumped a few times and felt very uneasy while playing.

I nominate Spelunker HD as a survival horror game. When those big ghost come for you and u cant fan them cause your time is running out. Nothing is scarier than that. I have nightmares with the ghost theme.......

That game is freaking awesome. No little whiners allowed. A true challenge, old school style.

[antz1104]

Along the lines of this type of sequel, Alien (survival horror) was great. And then Aliens (survival-horror-action) was also amazing.

This game's gonna be epic.

[SonyPS360]

Maybe the author shouldn't try feigning for bullshit hits then.

[Ratchet510]

We just got to wait for a new Silent hill PS3 then because Resident evil 6 going to be weak.

[rockleex]

Silent Hill is weak now because its not the same director as from Silent Hill 1 & 2.

[RedDead]

Fatal frame anyone? I've heard good things about that. Also that one, one sec I have it here...

Edit----Amnesia, the dark descent, scariest atmosphere ever

[King-Leonidas]

never thought i´d say this... but when i played the demo... IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME!!!!111!!

[RedDevils]

@Kenny (Shazz), I would still be scare even if I have a Machine gun :P

[skyward]

If it hasn't got tank controls like Resi it's not true survival horror - panicking and running the wrong way was half the fright

[velocitygamer]

I played the demo, it wasn't scary, but it did make me shake at times. The survival element is still there, i ran out of ammo half the way, so I had to use melee.

[Bnet343]

lol skyward good call. I loved old school RE. I know people say "Yeah well RE4 is the best" It was a great game don;t get me wrong, but I'm an old school Capcom fan. I liked RE back when it had those tank controls. They need to bring that back. Hopefully they learned their lesson with RE5. Wasn't a bad game, but too much like Gears and not that scary except the mine part.

[RadicalDreamer]

I think Skyward may have been facetious. Not being able to run the way you want because the controls suck doesn't reflect very positively on the design.

[CYCLEGAMER]

I don't know about you guys but I had a hard time keeping enough ammo in this game (which is a good thing) which caused me to ration my bullets and make sure every shot counted. In my opinion Dead Space is just as good of a survival horror, if not better than the RE of old (I played all of them except RE1).

[jessupj]

That's what made it scarey, the lack of ammo. I tried my best to make every shot count, but so many times I would get over run or ambushed and panic and spend more ammo. I told myself not to panic, but it didn't work :)

[dalibor]

Well I'm pretty sure but if I recall the first RE actually had scare ammo and even health, yeah no health regeneration here. Same with Silent Hill but SH just made you shit your pants because the monsters were creepy and so was the music lmao. Oh and the radio, you knew something was coming but you had no idea what and sometimes where.

[Feckles]

Survival horror needs to be about fear, you can't be afraid if you have limitless ammo and powerful weapons.

Still, Dead Space 2 does look like an awesome game.

[pansenbaer]

But you don't have limitless ammo and compared to some of the monsters, your weapons aren't that powerful. But I understand what the author is saying. It isn't the same as the old games, but maybe that's because they are just that...Old!

[Feckles]

Fair point.

But I would like to see a proper survival horror game where you have little or no ammo.

Something like Fatal Frame / Project Zero but without the Japanese horror style.

[dalibor]

Well with some survival horror games you could unlock stronger weapons. You play like a wimp the first play through than go rambo style the second or third time. But to solve some problems why not have an option of scarce ammo or plentiful ammo? Same for the health system. A win win situation imo plus you get to play in a different way depending on the option that you choose.

[King-Leonidas]

@feckles

damn.. when i played fatal frame i the great king Leonidas, was scared...

[zagibu]

@Feckles: have you tried Amnesia: The dark descent? It has NO weapons. All you can do is run from enemies. Also, it's pretty scary, and set in an abandoned german castle a few hundred years ago.

[Spitfire_Riggz]

The Dead Space 2 demo had me shitting my pants. Maybe its because I havent played a true horror survival game but I didnt even want to advanced through the levels. Im kinda a big wuss for these kind of games so take what I say with a grain of salt, never did get passed level 1 in Fatal Frame...

[lastdual]

Dead Space 2 is ACTION horror. I enjoy Dead Space quite a bit, but it's not accurate to call it a survival horror game.

Survival horror is about feeling vulnerable, not empowered, and it's hard not to feel powerful when you're a dude in a tank suit with half a dozen upgradeable tools of dismemberment.

Games like Amnesia and the old Silent Hills and Fatal Frames are survival horror. Sadly, we get very few new games in the genre these days, but I do have a little hope for the new Silent Hill...

[AKissFromDaddy]

In my experience, no matter how many times I upgraded my suit, weapons or abilities, I never felt empowered, especially on hard & impossible difficulty and that's scary. I felt less weak but not stronger in any sense that word is suppose to represent. In fact, I "proudly" abused the stasis recovery cheat as often as I could to see the ending.

I'm encouraged that Dead Space 2 will extend this with it's added difficulty settings, so enjoy surviving and stay out of the dark, muahahahaha

PS. I jump on the hardest difficulty first to maximize my enjoyment when I beat video games.

PSS. I agree 100% on the grounds that Dead Space, as a series, is an Action-Horror game because it the horror is removed from Dead Space, it makes a really good action game.

[LeShin]

I'm about to play the demo and this worries me. I hated Resi 5 as I expected a survival horror game and what I got was just another action shooter. Dead Space was refreshing as it was really creepy and with surround sound and playing in the dark on your own, it was bloody scary!

However, when EA announced multiplayer for the sequel, I was scared (pun intended) that this was gonna happen...

Oh well, I hope I see a Forbidden Siren sequel to get my scares from. Dead Space 2 may have to wait.

[soundslike]

on the contrary, real live people trying to outsmart you and surprise you can be much scarier than pre-scripted AI events. MP could be scarier than the main game.

[LeShin]

Sorry, but there are a shitload of multiplayer shooters to choose from where, as you put it: 'real live people trying to outsmart you and surprise you can be much scarier than pre-scripted AI events'

Why would I put money down for yet ANOTHER game like that?

[soundslike]

"Why would I put money down for yet ANOTHER game like that?"

And how many games "like that" do you own? The only thing this compares to is L4D versus mode and Splinter Cell's MP because of its lopsided nature.

I'm not a big fan of the move either, but I can see its potential IF DONE RIGHT. Will it be done right? Probably not, because it was a feature added on rather than integrated.
So don't try and take your frustration out on me in a long rant, because it will be misplaced. I miss the horror games of old as well, I'm just trying to see the positive here.

MP can be done in survival horror. Say what you will, but demon's souls was more survival/horror than any other horror game with an action system, I don't want to argue this because its not the point. The point is, that DS had an MP system which involved other players invading your world when you least expect it and try to steal your soul. Even if that seems too "action"-y for you, it is a success story and one that could lend itself to less action oriented game styles.

[04soldier]

I didn't know where you going with your original post until you brought up Demon's Souls.. And you're absolutely right. I loved invading worlds as a Black Phantom and backstabbing a unsuspecting blue phantom or player while they were collecting souls. You could see the FEAR in their characters movements when I sprang out of nowhere to deal a devastating blow...

[LeShin]

lol, I'd hardly call my 7 line reply to you as a 'long rant' especially when compared to your recent reply and I don't see why you've decided to take it so personally as it isn't directed at you but oh well :-)

Demon Souls was brilliant but you should play Forbidden Siren as a fine example of survival horror.

As for how many of those multiplayer games I own, I count 9

[trainsinrdr]

please remake resident evil 1,2,3 and code veronica x in hd

[ceedubya9]

RE HD Collection? I'd buy.

[jc48573]

you mean psx games in HD?

[Christopher]

The title is total flamebait, but they do get the right idea.

"This is our fault. We moaned for years and years and years about the controls through the early days of the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series. They were the true survival horror games. If something attacked you from the side, you had to turn to face it before your pathetic pistol would fart a few rounds in its direction. How uncouth! Imagine if the controls allowed us to defend ourselves properly, we complained."

That above is essentially the problem. If it was horror like the old days people would complain about controls. Now that the controls are improved, people complain about the lack of horror elements due to the action focus.

[soundslike]

The same happened in other areas of gaming as well. We kinda went through/going through an anti-renaissance where because the technology is way ahead of some new developers' skill the games got bland, sometimes relatively sometimes not.

One instance is difficulty, people are bitches and will whine when they can't beat a game instantly and move on to the next piece of junk they have ready to play. The other instance is graphics; After ps1 and ps2, and countless years of 800x600 pc games, everyone just felt like a kid in a candy store with the accelerating increase in graphics. Everyone just wanted to be wowed by the power of their new graphics card/360/ps3: "SHOW ME THE GRAPHICS I PAID FOR!" etc.

It's getting better though, I think devs are coming out of the "OOO PRETTY! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO" phase and back into "ok lets make some gameplay" again, because the bigger companies can easily outspend them in the production department. This includes a renewed interest in older, more effective mechanics, like true horror, IMO. It's not over yet.

When Silent Hill has ak47's with loadouts you can change to kill zombie terrorists....THEN its over.

[LeShin]

lol it's over already. Did you play that Silent Hill game that came out which was done by an American studio instead of Konami and your character was an army vet who had training in all sorts of weapons?? Hell, he could even take on creatures with his BARE hands and use bloody counters lol!!

R.I.P Survival horror.....well until the next Forbidden Siren :-)

[PhoenixDevil]

well said soundslike

yer it is effecting alot of areas of gaming n i can plea guilty to (quite probably) ruining the sequel of 1 of my favourite games Killzone 2

i kno this is whole other genre but everybody bitched and moaned about the controls being to heavy and how it would be so much better with easier responsive controls - then the Killzone 3 beta came i was thrilled to be 1 of the 1st in but horrified at the result of the more responsive controls had bought

Over saturation of gaming may prove to be its own downfall, the RPG genre is being eaten away, wen was the last RPG that felt lyk a good old school game - personally Demon Souls feels lyk a gd action RPG. I guess time will tell eventually, wouldnt it be ironic that in the future there may be a game that has everything in 1 some crazy shit n it will be hated by the very gamers that demanded it :/

[theonlylolking]

Why?because its the best survival horror this gen

[Vinushka]

Siren: Blood Curse says hi.

[awiseman]

Thats true I played the demo and had a more action/horror feel like RE5 than a survival horror feel like in Doom 3. Although DS2 is light years ahead of RE5 in just 1 sequel's time, It is a great game nonetheless.

[leahcim]

farewell for good RE2 feelings....

[Rubberlegs]

The demo isn't the start of the game, its further in the game and it starts you out with four weapons.
This is what the article is complaining about that you have all this fire power which is no different in the first Dead Space once you start earning more weapons.

Dead Space 2 pacing should be the same with earning new weapons over the course of the game. The first Dead Space wasn't some hardcore survival game. Its get easier once you start to get more weapons and upgrades, Dead Space 2 will be the same.

[gillri]

is Dead Space supposed to survival horror?

this guy is a moron

[ballsofsteel]

i think it's kind of stupid to complain about how it's not a survival horror in the vain of old Resident Evils and Silent Hills. game HAVE to evolve if we were still playing tank controls survival horror games right now the genre would have died out a long time ago. this can be said for any genre. Would you really want only old school 2D platforming rather something like assassins creed? Sure there is more emphasis on actions but if you really think back to resident evil there is a lot more actions than you'd think. the survival horror genre was pretty much dead when deadspace came along. i mean RE5 was a full throttle actions game with shitty tank controls, silent hill was still trying to recycle tried and true story lines. Deadspace was new fresh and most importantly fairly scary and tense. The devs said themselves that while most of the game will be tense and scary they want a few action oriented sequences to break up the pacing. personally i love dead space and have no problem with the fact that their is more actions otherwise i might as well just go back and play silent hill 2 for the rest of my life

[Blaster_Master]

I cant wait for this to come out. I need a good rpg right now, but Dead Space 2 is gonna fill any void that I need until TM and MSA come out.

[NYC_Gamer]

have you played Amnesia?

[Bnet343]

I can't remember if I have played it or not ...

[xX TriiCKy Xx]

rofl

[Lionhead]

Amnesia is insane!

Still haven't beaten it yet, but if you want a game that will actually scare you grab it on Steam.

[operative001]

was about to comment on that. Great controls and incredible atmosphere. Have not finished the game. I have to play in 15 min. chunks lmao.

[Bolts]

Played yes, finished, no. I'm too much of a pussy to continue playing that game. Sometimes I get so scared that I have to leave the computer and pace around my room a bit to clam my nerves.

What I find strange is that the monsters isn't that scary. It's just that game projects such an overwhelming atmosphere of fear and dread that it's impossible to take a step further even when I realize that it's all just a game.

[bronxsta]

Have any of you guys played Demon's Souls? Now that game is scary.

You feel vunerable when you venture into a new area, with no idea where the traps are, where the enemies are, what kind of enemies are waiting (every area has its own unique enemies)

You feel vunerable and scared when you're traveling through the pitch-black tunnels with only a little lantern barely illuminating your way and enemies that can kill you in one hit jump out out of the darkness.

You feel really vunerable and really scared where you have tens of thousands of souls (the game's currency) and the message "You've Been Invaded" pops. Now another player is stalking you through the level, hellbent on killing you, and the only way to leave is to kill him or be killed and lose all those hard-earned souls.

IMO, although it's billed as an action-RPG, Demon's Souls is the only game this generation that feels like true survival-horror.

[phntom]

I have never read so much bullshit in NowGamer. He means that if the game does not have the horrible camera system of Resident Evil or Silent Hill, it is not a survival horror?

[SnakeMustDie]

Amnesia Dark Descent?

[Xristo]

= scariest game ever

[ThatEnglishDude]

Bold article, I like it.

[chasegarcia]

I just want a scary game. This is not it.

[Legionaire2005]

Stop judging a game before it comes out. Dead Space 2 still have its horror elements in there just like the first one. Enemies do sneak up on you and tear you apart. Even with powerful weapons I still felt vulnerable cause you can get outnumbered with enemies quickly and you can only do so much to destroy them.

[fullmetal297]

I think RE5 perform the job pretty well

[ThatEnglishDude]

If you mean Resident Evil 5 did a good job at killing the survival horror then abso-fuckin-lutely. Come to think about it, RE4 did that pretty good, too.

[Sidewinder-]

I want dino crisis 4.

[Walrus]

It's called industry evolution. If games like RE2 came out today, they would be considered absolute shit because theres a greater quality of standard now. Give it a little time, and survival horror games will come back, just in different skin than before. Hell, if you're gunna say that there are no real survival horror games this gen, go play siren blood curse. That game scared me ten times more than resi 2 and silent hill 2.

[Picnic]

It seems to me that the best survival horror now occurs in games that don't even class themselves as that like the first Bioshock game. Parts of Uncharted were clearly like a homage to survival horror (not the part with the creatures by the way which I find too creepy). Those games showed that there can be a lot of action in a game and yet still a lot of atmosphere. It is these games that survival horror should be taking notes from (as well as from the great Gamecube Resident Evil remake).

Make Bioshock in an old mansion is basically what I want.

[ME1989]

"You might think it is because 1) you’re trying to survive and 2) it’s horrific."

That's my personal criteria for a survival horror game, sorry NowGamer. Feeling "vulnerable" (unnecessary gameplay decisions like scarce ammo and weak health) does not a survival horror game make. A real game developer can bring you a great game without the need to resort to those.

[SnakePlissken]

Dead Space was incredible, but im really concerned about them adding in Multiplayer. I think it will be a bad move, for the simple fact that whenever they start adding mulitplayer to the mix... It takes away from the single player experience.

Look at Bioshock 2! Developers are spending way too much time worrying about mulitplayer these days and less time on creating an awesome single player experience!

I really could care less about multiplayer, its gets so old fast for me! Same thing repeated over and over. I kill you, you kill me... over and over again! No fun, i want buildup, incredible level design, killer boss battles and characters, tension and a nice healthy challenge!

The way games were meant to be played!!!

[Raider69]

Deadly Premonition!I liked,but if they remade this game with better mechanics and graphics a little more polish,this game will be the one of the best thrillers of the generation!

[sephcor9]

This may not be "classic" survival horror (sans tank controls) but it's survival horror. When the creatures attack and can rip your head off or you think you've killed them all, and a sneaky little bast**d stabs you in the back, I can't think of a better genre to classify it as. I liked R4 but not R5. This is something between the two but with better controls.

(demo spoiler)For those saying the armor and guns make you feel invincible, those things don't mean jack when you find out you can get your head chopped off going through the zero g tube. I wasn't concerned with the timing too much and wallop! I felt pretty vulnerable after that.

[floetry101]

I think in any case it's impossible to determine how it will feel until the full game is released. I'm downloading the demo on my PS3 as we speak so I haven't checked it out just yet. I must say, I rarely felt helpless in Dead Space, but it never diminished my enjoyment of the game.

[dragonsight]

im sure when the retail comes out and you play on the hardest setting you will get all the suspense and fear of being vulnerable as you can handle. i think it is premature to decide those things based on the demo.

[GaMr-]

"Look ma I know how to create controversial titles/headings to make my bullshit article ranting about absolutely nothing sound more interesting than it is. My hope and expectation is that people will only read the title not the entire article...then go into fanboy uproars and start slamming me thus generating more hits for my site
That is all. The end."

Here is my opinion- Isaac Clark is good... but Chris Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy and the Sexy Jill Valentine are better. So watch your mouth.

[ps3destroyer]

Have to agree but I think the 360 downgraded the horror elements so that they could fit on a dvd.

[JAMurida]

I would say Condemned 2 killed it once they for some reason thought adding multiplayer to the game and half assing the offline story was a bright idea.

[TheTruth89]

then... trying uber hard difficulty.

[RankFTW]

I cried like a little girl through the whole demo and had to pause it several times just to get my faculties in order, 5.1 surround headset for the freaking win.

[Argento-Nox]

I really liked the horror aspect from DS1. There were plenty of times I felt vulnerable in DS1 when I felt my ammo was low overall for all weapons and when I didn't have enough energy packs or on hard mode where there's more enemies attacking. I agree that survival horror is more action orientated these days, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If the article is talking about survival games more based on atmosphere than action, I may agree though.

[mastershredder]

I'm getting so sick of sites and blogs trying to declare genres and play styles "dead". It's just like when idiots were trying to say 2D gaming and graphic adventure games were dead over 10 years ago. BULLOCKS.

Mix up your freak'n gameplay (it's not the industry's fault that all you play is survival horror games, or FPS for those whom prefer those types of games etc.). Things come back around. Just check out the current titles that are selling like hot cakes on the online stores. There are classic remakes/ports and even new titles using the same classic methods of story telling and player interaction.

Most of all, stop listening to people's opinions and taking it as fact. There is so much more that can be done with survival horror (and HORROR themed title games). Hardly dead, except to those whom sit and stagnate in it.

[violent80sarcade82]

WOW i have never truely played a game more creepy and scary then Deadspace part 1! what an amazing game if u are very brave i dare u too beat this whole game by yourself in the dark if you want the ultimate expierence,i'm not sure if i wanna go thru all that shit again with part 2 coming out soon,but i have beaten all the resident evil series a few silent hill games they don't come close deadspace gets the crown for the king of horror games imo!