Video Game Horror: Dead Space and Resident Evil 4

Yes, it's past Halloween, but my post about playing two horror games will finally be up. Bear in mind that I played the games last week, but was just too busy to write them up, so here you go.

Dead Space (PS3)

There have been only two times I played this game before last week, and the first time I ran like a bitch shooting at anything that breathed. This time, however, I decided to take things a little slower. It didn't help my nerves any better, though. I mean, this game was meant to warp your senses and was all about setting the atmosphere to an uncomfortable level of horror. If you believe that a monster is breathing on your neck to your immediate right, chances are you're dead right. Well, at the least dead.

I would say that the majority of gameplay is just cowering your character in fear most of the time. Areas that are just a mere room become an acre of slow careful treading through dark crevices. Monster encounters become a counting task of ammo conservation as you become increasingly frugal at dispensing damage. Fearing death becomes an involuntary uber objective from the start.

Dead Space is still a game that gets me clutching at my heart and makes me second-think my peripheral vision. Will have to continue this game in the future with some extra clean underwear.

Resident Evil 4 (Wii)

Playing Resident Evil 4 after pissing my pants in Dead Space, the game came off a little light. Putting aside graphical differences, the initial setting puts me outdoors, in a village, in the evening with a light fog around the area. Okay, eerie setting...but still nothing like the darkness of space in a nearly-empty spaceship.

And the first enemy encounter was just a person my character mistaken to be a regular human, only to put it down after it came after me with a weapon. Not quite suspenseful, but it's to be expected for a Resident Evil game.

In fact, I ran through the first part just as I would in Dead Space, but there was no nail-biting "oh shit" moments. Just a normal town with less-than-normal residents brandishing weapons and wishing harm upon my being in afternoon daylight. In trying to focus on the story, I conserved my ammo for a while, then wasted it on the chainsaw guy as he took my head off. I was actually more annoyed than frightened at that point, as if the game flipped me off for even trying to play the game.

The controls are, however, nice and responsive. The game still had the awkward movement control system, so I found it hard to turn on corners, even with the added 180-degree flip.

In the end, the game went right back into the box. I think half the reason for that was that the game just pissed me off in a bad way, and the other half because it's a Resident Evil title.