Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

@Octane No jump scares? That's surprising. I still don't buy it. Half-Life creeper me the heck out. HL1. HL2 was fine. it was the Headcrabs. But those were all jump scares.

(Then again, while not at all horror I just got my Farpoint for PSVR bundle....I've heard the spider things are jump scares a minute. In Vee-freaking-Arr. Send help.)

@NEStalgia Nope, it's less horror than you think it is. There are certain horror elements, but it's more an action-adventure (in the Uncharted style) mixed with stealth and survival. And of course a strong narrative that focuses on the characters and their struggles.

I can't remember a clicker popping up out of nowhere, and I hate any games that does that. The clickers in general are creepy, but they are slow (provided they aren't after you), and as long as you move very slowly and don't make a noise, they can't hear you.

The Monster Hunter World beta is December 9th 5pm UK time to 12th December 5pm UK time. You can preload on the 8th.

@Octane "The clickers in general are creepy, but they are slow (provided they aren't after you), and as long as you move very slowly and don't make a noise, they can't hear you."

Almost had me until that part I think, knowing it's a horror theme, I'd be creating my own horror out of it.

@Grumblevolcano Neat!

Can we delete demos by the way? I remember having issues deleting the Battlefront demo two years ago.

@YummyHappyPills Weren't you asking for this?

@Dezzy Okay, I didn't understand what you were saying then. Should I?

@Grumblevolcano FREAKEN' YASS!! I can't wait to wake up early, run up to the top of the Ancient Forest, and slide all the way back down spamming the Great Sword's charged rising slash and just uppercutting monsters in the damn jaw!

Apparently there's a unique face paint design for beating the demo quests.

@Octane Great. Own them all twice already.

You know what would be good? Just put my PS2 discs in my PS4 and do that. Like I could on past PS systems.

Or charge an upgrade fee since my PS3 copies are all downloaded and logged to my account.

To be honest I know almost nothing about global warming. Given that I already had a tiny carbon footprint (I'm a vegetarian who doesn't drive and has no pets), I figure I've already done my part and its up to everyone else to sort it out.

@Octane My god. They're releasing all the sequels on the same day? Christmas is early for me this year.

@NEStalgia As someone who is a major, major baby when it comes to horror, to the point that I literally fell out of my seat screaming when I played Slender a few years ago, I don't think TLOU is scary at all. The first infected I came across were a little unnerving because I didn't know how their AI worked, but past that point, the game was a walk in the park on the scary scale. I have absolutely no idea why anyone calls it survival-horror. To me, it's more like survival-adventure.

It's basically like the Uncharted games, except the generic mercenaries are replaced with zombies.

@Operative2-0 I got the first game because I pre-ordered the Lost Legacy I think? Never played a J&D game, so we shall see!

@KirbyTheVampire Nah. I mean, it's tightly structured like an Uncharted game, but there is much more of an emphasis on stealth, atmosphere, and crafting/looting/resource management than in Uncharted. This emphasis on atmosphere is especially important: the game (tries to) cultivate a constantly tense atmosphere and, especially through the use of clickers, instill a sense of apprehension and caution in the player. It's still a horror-themed game, even if it's not trying to jump scare you. Uncharted with zombies would be closer to something like Resident Evil 4.

And, let's be fair: TLOU is also filled with tons of generic, evil mooks for you to murder. They outnumber the zombies to a good degree and are often the biggest threat in any given part of the game, because, as we all know, humans are the real monsters. It's the standard set-up for these now tired post-apocalyptic horror dramas.

@Ralizah For sure the resource stuff and pace of the combat is different, I just mean it's similar in that when baddies are near, you can be stealthy or just run out guns blazing (although that strategy is quite often a bad idea in TLoU). There are no real jumpscares or stuff that games such as Outlast pull where you can't fight back.

And yeah, they do an admirable job of keeping you on edge when you're in a danger zone, although after the first few "chapters", that feeling basically ended for me. I was still on edge, but only because it was more than possible to die, and not really because I found the infected themselves unnerving. That probably varies from person to person, though.

And yeah, that's true. I was referring more to the segments of the game with the infected than the game as a whole, but yeah, I agree. There were a lot of human enemies.

I was actually just having a discussion the other day on another forum about how TLoU didn't really have an original plot, and that zombie apocalypse stories in general are so tired at this point. We've been through basically every plot idea several times over already, and yet we keep getting zombie media. I just wish they would give that genre a rest for at least 2 or 3 decades. The Walking Dead had a really compelling story until the wheels fell off on season 7, even more so on 8, and it became an absolute shadow of its former self, but even when it was really good, there weren't really many new ideas. Not that stories always have to be a completely new idea or anything, but still. The genre just needs to go away for a while.

I'll still buy TLoU 2 because I really enjoy ND games, TLoU 1 included, but I want Naughty Dog to make a new IP that isn't based on something we've already seen countless times.

@KirbyTheVampire Oh, sure. It's like a less fluid Uncharted 4 with way fewer guns and a much bigger emphasis on stealth kills.

I think modern Western horror games have conditioned people into thinking horror games need jump scares, but really, it's unnecessary in a game that cultivates a properly tense atmosphere. If you think about it, a lot of classic Japanese horror games have very little in the way of jump-scares, and usually allowed the player to fight back.

And yeah, the post-apocalyptic horror genre is largely played out at this point. Has been for the last ten years, honestly. Zombies, especially. It's sad to see how George Romero's nightmarish twist on the classic voodoo-inspired monstrosity, which fueled inventive and satirical narratives that deconstructed American racism, consumerism, and militarism, has lost all of its original inspiration and turned into another generic type of movie monster. Even Romero didn't know what to do with zombies after his first three living dead films: he made a couple of movies in the 21st century, but they were uniformly horrendous.

@Ralizah That's a pretty solid description, yeah.

And I think horror games should have at least a few jumpscares, although atmosphere is undoubtedly way more important. Games like Until Dawn were terrible for just being jump-scare fests, and it really isn't scary at all compared to games like Outlast or Resident Evil 7, where you feel constantly on edge throughout the whole thing. I know Until Dawn wasn't trying to be a pure horror game, but still. It was a horror game nonetheless, and the horror elements were pretty bad. As long as there's a real sense of danger and dread, it's a pretty solid horror game in my opinion, although a few jump scares sprinkled throughout do help, at least for me. They shouldn't be relied on at all, though.

The idea of what the world would be like post-apocalypse is very interesting, especially when you consider all the possible ways it could end....but it can only stay interesting for so long when everyone and their dog is writing post-apocalypse stories, zombies especially. Unless people can bring some genuinely new and fresh ideas to the table, I wish they would just make a story/book/movie in a different setting.

I haven't watched any Romero movies, although what you said about them is largely what I've heard from others. Pretty big bummer. How exactly was the setting different from traditional zombie stories?

Since the Vita thread has long since disappeared, thought I'd just let people know who have a vita that the old digitial PSP games have started to be removed from PSN. About a third of them have disappeared over the last week or so.

@Dezzy THAT SUCKS. What games?

In his later movies? He just tried to commentate on things that I don't think he fully understood or had interesting insights about. Land of the Dead, aside from being a bad horror movie, came off like a grumpy old reactionary liberal's take on George W. Bush's presidency. Diary of the Dead, his attempt at making sense of new technology and media formats, was even worse, and had a distinctly "How do you do, fellow kids?" flavor to it.

A lot of the settings and scenarios in his early films have become stereotypical and are referenced without an understanding or appreciation of the context they existed with. Take Dawn of the Dead, a film that famously took place almost entirely in a shopping mall overrun by the dead. It was set in a shopping mall because, at the time, it was an emerging and highly familiar symbol of Big Consumerism in America. It also paired well with the idea of lumbering corpses, with zombies satirizing the mindless, ravenous commercial appetite of the populace.

Day of the Dead is set in a military base and skewers the militaristic bent of the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the last several years of the cold war.

Of course, if the films had JUST been social commentaries, they still wouldn't be anywhere near as famous and revered as they are now. It's also worth pointing out that they pushed MAJOR boundaries for what could be shown in films at the time. Dawn of the Dead was famously released unrated after the MPAA slapped the film with an X rating, in fact.

The half of my family that lived in the Eastern Bloc would be so appreciative that a brave and wise movie director could offer such a necessary criticism

@Octane Damnit, and I don't think I've even cracked open my PS3 bundle...which doesn't have Jak X...I always wanted to try that one...but I'll probably save my money. I definitely don't remember Jak II looking that good...

EDIT:

Also, I found someone to party up with in Paragon who is a Support main. Made a world of difference so far, especially now that so much has changed, and playing as a carry is much more difficult than it used to be. You really need that support to keep you alive...still sucks to lane as a melee character, though, especially if you're up against a ranged character.