Did the ability to control the camera, killed the horror genre?

I'm talking specifically about third-person games, at least in first-person games, your vision is limited. I was playing PS2 games with my friend the other day, and we started playing some horror games, and when we played Fatal Frame III, i noticed that i couldn't see around corners and that the fixed camera did a good job of creating tension. Then, we started playing the first three Resident Evil games and we noticed the same thing. Sure, the controls were confusing at times in all of these games, but it did the job of an horror game pretty well. Compare this to Dead Space and i just don't feel ANY tension playing that. I feel too much in control.

So, why we don't see fixed camera anymore? It's not marketable? It's something that people don't like? Why?

I disagree. Compared to todays standards, it's clunky and doesn't feel satisfying (for me personally). And the few moments I did play of Dead Space, I was on the edge of my seat.

The horror comes down to you feeling vulnerable, and that can be achieved several ways. One is limiting your vision, through fixed angles and/or lighting. Another is making the enemy hard or even impossible to fight, which is where Dead Space, Amnesia and Slender succeeds.

In my opinion horror game is not just about surprising the gamer.

Take Alan Wake, you usually have slow motion part telling you they are surrounding you. It's not about there appearence, it's about the ambiance, getting in your characters shoes, letting the game get under your skin, wondering what's comming next.

"What" is comming at you is more relevent than "From where ?".

I'm personnaly not a fan of fixed camera as I find it harder to really get into the story as I feel more like a spectator with some limited power on the story rather than actually living it.

Camera control was never necessary.

Amnesia, Dead Space, and hell even FEAR are all games that give you full control of the camera and have given me plenty of scares, less so for the later two given the nature of their gameplay, but still some good scares.

@VilhelmNielsen said:

I disagree. Compared to todays standards, it's clunky and doesn't feel satisfying (for me personally). And the few moments I did play of Dead Space, I was on the edge of my seat.

The horror comes down to you feeling vulnerable, and that can be achieved several ways. One is limiting your vision, through fixed angles and/or lighting. Another is making the enemy hard or even impossible to fight, which is where Dead Space, Amnesia and Slender succeeds.

I do not agree that Dead Space succeeds in making the enemies hard to fight. I always felt like i could CRUSH the enemies easily, even at harder difficulties. When i played Dead Space 2, i bumped up the difficulty and the game became frustrating, not scary.

@Anactoria said:

In my opinion horror game is not just about surprising the gamer.

Take Alan Wake, you usually have slow motion part telling you they are surrounding you. It's not about there appearence, it's about the ambiance, getting in your characters shoes, letting the game get under your skin, wondering what's comming next.

"What" is comming at you is more relevent than "From where ?".

I'm personnaly not a fan of fixed camera as I find it harder to really get into the story as I feel more like a spectator with some limited power on the story rather than actually living it.

To be fair, the fixed camera does a very good job at making the gamer question what's coming next, because well... You can't see what's coming next. And when the designer chooses what you can or cannot see, it gives a whole new world of opportunities to create atmosphere, so both of these criticisms are flawed. The "feeling like an spectator" is a valid one, but i guess it's more of an opinion than an argument. Also, one question, do you enjoy horror movies?

Not really... camera control can kill most jump scares (although not always), but those are the cheap kind of scares anyway.

Isn't it more that developers wouldn't know how to use camera control for a horror setting? Penumbra's a first person horror game, and I can kind of imagine that being scary. (More on that when it comes.)

It definitely takes away from the experience. Horror can be enhanced by the lack of ability to control and asses the situation. This can be achieved with other ways like when using 1st person perspective where you can't see what is behind you. Mind you that lack of camera control does not necessarily make a game scary by default.

I can't say i agree with that there have been recent games that are third person which were pretty good horror games in my mind. Dead space, Resident evil 4/Resident evil revelations, siren, copse party( which is not third person but it does not have a camera to work with at all) no turning corner or anything but it still pretty scary.

I feel the real reason is pure horror games have fallen into a nich appeal which means many who are passionate on making a true horror game will have a hard time making it how they want. It's much more marketable to create a watered down horror game than to make it even more scary.

@Video_Game_King said:

Isn't it more that developers wouldn't know how to use camera control for a horror setting? Penumbra's a first person horror game, and I can kind of imagine that being scary. (More on that when it comes.)

I would argue with you that most videogames don't even know how to make the horror setting itself. I just think that the fixed camera is a valid tactic that opens some cool possibilities, and yet... we don't see that anymore. About Penumbra, well, i said it in my first post that i was talking about third-person games only, so yeah.

@charlie_victor_bravo said:

It definitely takes away from the experience. Horror can be enhanced by the lack of ability to control and asses the situation. This can be achieved with other ways like when using 1st person perspective where you can't see what is behind you. Mind you that lack of camera control does not necessarily make a game scary by default.

No, but it can be used to make a game more scary.

@phantomzxro said:

I can't say i agree with that there have been recent games that are third person which were pretty good horror games in my mind. Dead space, Resident evil 4/Resident evil revelations, siren, copse party( which is not third person but it does not have a camera to work with at all) no turning corner or anything but it still pretty scary.

I feel the real reason is pure horror games have fallen into a nich appeal which means many who are passionate on making a true horror game will have a hard time making it how they want. It's much more marketable to create a watered down horror game than to make it even more scary.

I guess that's just opinion, but Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 weren't scary. Siren was fucking great, and i haven't played Corpse Party. About the last part, i do agree that it's quite hard marketing ultra scary games.

@MikeGosot said:

I would argue with you that most videogames don't even know how to make the horror setting itself.

Maybe. Clock Tower's the only survival horror game that I could see as reasonably scary, so it's at least possible.

@Video_Game_King said:

@MikeGosot said:

I would argue with you that most videogames don't even know how to make the horror setting itself.

Maybe. Clock Tower's the only survival horror game that I could see as reasonably scary, so it's at least possible.

I like Fatal Frame III. I wasn't scared playing it, but it's okay, it has some good tricks and at least it knows how to create tension(Even if that goes to hell when you're lost and just want to move on but your character is slow as fuck.). Siren is a weird game, and i really enjoy it. Again, not scary, but a worthy experience. But yeah, i think the SNES Clock Tower is the closest i have ever gotten to a truly scary game.

God, i think i don't like horror games.

@MikeGosot said:

God, i think i don't like horror games.

Does anybody?

@Video_Game_King said:

@MikeGosot said:

God, i think i don't like horror games.

Does anybody?

Well, the concepts are cool as fuck... Sometimes.

@MikeGosot:

It's almost always the execution that's lacking.

@Video_Game_King said:

@MikeGosot:

It's almost always the execution that's lacking.

Yeah, most of the time i find myself saying "You know, that would be cool with a little more polish". And even when the game is GREAT(Silent Hill: Shattered Memories), it's... Not scary at all.

EDIT: Did you played Metro 2033? It wasn't an horror game, but that was great too.

To be honest, I kind of miss the old RE/Alone in the Dark style camera. It wasn't the best, but I like how you didn't know what was around the corner. The angle changed and all of a sudden you couldn't see shit but you could hear something. It really messed you up. I think the Gamecube REmake did this masterfully. That was (at the time, anyway) probably the scariest game I had played in years, even with my history of all the old RE titles.

I wouldn't want every game to be like that, but at least have an option for that.

It's all about atmosphere. Silent Hill had it, Resident Evil had it (until 5 anyway) and Amnesia has it.... THAT"S what makes a scary game.

I think it's the survival aspect that makes the horror game, watching your ammo count and medical aids and once in a while introducing a new type of enemy to keep the player guessing.

@hermes said:

Not really... camera control can kill most jump scares (although not always), but those are the cheap kind of scares anyway.

It does allow for a very specific kind of jump scare, the kind used in games like Slender. The bullshit (in my opinion) "Look left and see that nothing is there, look right and see that nothing is there, look back lef-SPOOKY GHOST RIGHT UP IN YOUR FACE!!" thing.

Not really, I think that they design of horror games just had to evolve. A lot of it fell on great sound design, and more intelligent use of lighting, I think. While the clastrophobic cameras of yesteryear certainly enhanced those games, I don't think it's fair to say that they are needed to make a good, scary game. In some ways, I think it's a pretty lazy way to make a game scary.

Having camera control actually makes me more paranoid. When tension is up, I'm constantly looking around and building up that sense of dread myself. Without that control, it just feels like a scripted, predictable encounter.

@Stonyman65: I wouldn't want it in every game too. But i would like to see a comeback in some games, after all, it's a cool way to build tension!

@Cold_Wolven: While i think that not every horror game should have a survival aspect, i really like the whole "Watch your ammo, don't waste yur resources" thing. It's done really well in some boardgames, you should try them out.

@BBAlpert said:

@hermes said:

Not really... camera control can kill most jump scares (although not always), but those are the cheap kind of scares anyway.

It does allow for a very specific kind of jump scare, the kind used in games like Slender. The bullshit (in my opinion) "Look left and see that nothing is there, look right and see that nothing is there, look back lef-SPOOKY GHOST RIGHT UP IN YOUR FACE!!" thing.

To be fair, the fixed camera allows way more than that.

@project343: Control is something that i haven't seen a lot of horror games do it right. I can't name one of them, actually. Scripted encounters also don't mean that said encounter is bad or not scary. I understand the need for games to evolve and use the interactive aspects of the medium to try and scare the player but-- HOLY SHIT, USE THEM WELL!

No, it simply puts the developers with a higher responsibility for creating tension in the game. When the camera is fixed, you're only getting one type of "tension" and that is the idea that something might be around the corner. That's essentially a lazy way to do things and is pretty much no different than a "monster closet." When a player has control of the camera, the developer is tasked with innovating the scare. I think the problem is that when it was a fixed camera, a monkey could scare you, but now it takes imagination.

@ck1nd said:

No, it simply puts the developers with a higher responsibility for creating tension in the game. When the camera is fixed, you're only getting one type of "tension" and that is the idea that something might be around the corner. That's essentially a lazy way to do things and is pretty much no different than a "monster closet." When a player has control of the camera, the developer is tasked with innovating the scare. I think the problem is that when it was a fixed camera, a monkey could scare you, but now it takes imagination.

Could you show me an example of an effective and creative scare in an horror game with camera control?

@MikeGosot said:

@ck1nd said:

No, it simply puts the developers with a higher responsibility for creating tension in the game. When the camera is fixed, you're only getting one type of "tension" and that is the idea that something might be around the corner. That's essentially a lazy way to do things and is pretty much no different than a "monster closet." When a player has control of the camera, the developer is tasked with innovating the scare. I think the problem is that when it was a fixed camera, a monkey could scare you, but now it takes imagination.

Could you show me an example of an effective and creative scare in an horror game with camera control?

Don't the early Silent Hill games have some kind of camera control? If not those, then games like Amnesia, Slender and pretty much any first-person horror game (mostly PC but I remember some on PS2) have plenty of scare moments - a lot of which are based on your field of view and how you use it.

edit: sorry, just saw you were talking about third person games mostly. Well like others said, there are plenty of monster closets in Dead Space, and Alan Wake had some good creepy sequences. But I get your point, and I would love to see some more fixed camera horror games, or just fixed camera games in general, I think we won't though because something about them seems old-fashioned.

I'd agree that camera angles help a lot. The combo of sound and camera in Fatal Frame 2 are really effective, but I don't think it's required. I really like Siren a lot and that doesn't have forced camera angles. What's interesting to me is how many popular horror games are first person now which basically solves the camera problem without the forced angles.

What do you want a horror game to be? Most people honestly seem to use "how many jump scares can this creepy haunted house manage?" as their metric for efficacy in horror. Amnesia's probably the most effective game in that field, followed by Slender. This is, of course, not having played any Clock Tower or Silent Hill, beyond the first couple acts/chapters of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

Shouldn't a real horror game make us believe in the devil, like The Exorcist asks us to do? Or make us fear the beach, as Jaws does? Or even make us feel a little crazy, like Hotline Miami does? Stephen King argues for three stages of horror in one of his nonfiction works (I think Danse Macabre.) There's suspense, which is the moment where we know something could happen. Think Brett in Alien, looking for Jonesy after the Alien's already burst from Kane's stomach and the cat's run out of the ventilation shaft. Then there's terror, which is when the audience knows something bad is going to happen. That's when Brett finds the Alien's skin, and realizes it shed for some reason; that means it's probably growing. Finally, there's horror, which is when the bad thing actually happens. Brett dies off-screen, but it's really when the Alien descends behind him that we experience this horror.

But I would argue that there's a fourth stage. The fourth stage doesn't have a catchy name; I'm calling it "social horror" for the purpose of this conversation. Social horror is what the most effective horror accomplishes; it makes us fear the world around us. It makes us believe that what is on the screen could actually happen to ourselves. This is probably the hardest kind of horror to achieve, and it requires some actual insight into human sociology or psychology to accomplish effectively. And social horror is obviously not exclusive to the horror genre; a quality satire, science fiction story, or even shonen anime can accomplish this piece. But horror should do more than "scare us" for a moment, it should shake us a little bit for good.

While Amnesia is, in many ways, an attempt at a legitimate horror game (as the evils of man are as implicitly responsible as eldritch horror, and it doesn't present this in a campy way a la Resident Evil,) the only legit horror game I think I've ever really hung out with was I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream. I could also give qualified responses for Majora's Mask and Friday the 13th.

Budget and the rise of "Action" ruined horror. With a large budget, a lot of companies start to lose sight of what makes horror a big deal, tiny details. Noises at the edge of your hearing. When action started to become huge thanks to the rise of games like COD and such, focus changed to big set moments rather then the smaller details and they sold well still for that.

Siren had camera control. That HD episodic remake was pretty good. The fatal frame series made up for the fixed camera with a fully controllable one when you raised the camera to the characters eyes to interact with enemies, environment etc.

I'd say just just different and a bit harder to do than fixed camera angles. But like people have said, amnesia and fear both terrified me and to an extend dead space 1 and some parts of 2 were very spooky.

Dead Space, F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Slender: The Eight Pages say no, the horror genre is alive and well with camera control.

CONDEMNED! Totally forgot that one!

Survival horror? Arguably. But while I can see what the fixed camera brings to the horror genre, I really can't agree with the idea that we can't have scary third-person games because there's no fixed camera any more. If that's the case then surely we're very uncreative in terms of game design. The fixed camera isn't something I think gels with modern audiences though, and I'm not really a fan of it either, it feels stiff and restrictive.

I don't think that camera control killed it, I think horror is just really hard to pull off. Certainly the fixed camera angles can add to it (paranormal activity proved to be very successful with that formula) but atmosphere doesn't rely on camera angles. I can think of parts of dead space, dark souls and even gears of war where setting and atmosphere made very tense moments

I am not a horror buff at all, but one of the most tense moments i had playing a game recently, was heading back to the Ishimura in Dead Space 2. Just the complete silence of that entire mission, just creeped me the hell out.

I don't really consider first-person camera control in the same way you can swing a 3rd-person camera around to see the full area around the character. It seems just as confined and sometimes more confined than locked camera angles. Sure, you can look around, but you have to turn your character around and face that noise coming up behind you. I'm not traditionally a huge fan of first-person games, but I think the added immersion of the style actually works better for horror.

The RE remake on Gamecube was a masterpiece, I loved the fixed angles. It just makes it more cinematic and camera angles can create tension in, I believe, a very authentic way.

It's all in the eye of the player. I was surprised to see how many people were terrified by Dead Space.

Personally, I find the classic survival horror to be... less than effective. Don't get me wrong, I adore Silent Hill and Fatal Frame, and RE2 was the first game to make me leap from my seat, but they never let me forget that they are games.

@MikeGosot

Only tangentially related to this thread, but I wholeheartedly agree about Dead Space. Insanely enforced ammo conservation as a method of raising the difficulty bar is a dumb mechanic.

People have just found ways around the camera. To use Dead Space as an example again, Isaac's hallucination moments were some of my favorite survival horror moments in awhile.

That is some terrible grammar there, son.

No, I think it rendered the genre playable.

They don't ruin it, i just don't think Dead space and resident evil aren't great examples of horror games.

There are plenty of games with camera control that I think are scary, FEAR, Dead Space, Amnesia. The thing is I am very susceptible to jump scares, I'm a very jumpy person. There are times when I turn the camera while swimming in a game and a harmless little scenery fish thats to close to the camera can scare me. Then again I don't like swimming in games either, Thanks Mario 64.

But games like RE1 and 2 weren't scary because of the camera angle, it was the sense of helplessness that could be tense, but not really scary. RE1 wasn't really scary or tense for me until there were Hunters, RE2 got scary when the Licker jumped through a 1 way mirror and when Mr. X busted through a wall. That made me stop playing. The camera never got in the way and only served to direct what you were looking at. If anything the camera was there to make it more cinematic and so the pre-rendered graphics could be there allowing the game to look nice and probably load faster. Those old RE games are pretty seamless. For the most part something like an old RE game really is just an action game you have to plan out. You solve puzzles and are helpless for most of the game but by the end of that game you have magnums that just tear through enemies.

To be honest I'd compare an old RE game to Left 4 Dead in terms of how scary or tense it is. Both games forcus on limited inventory and a feeling of loneliness to be scary. Sometimes you'll just be overwhelmed because the situation didn't go as planned.

For me it has nothing to do with a fixed camera, I actually think that makes the game less scary because I can always see what is near my character. Imagine if Bioshock had a fixed camera, that dentist/ doctors office where a guy just appears behind you would be no where near as scary.

Granted there are many old fixed Camera horror series I haven't played. Stuff like Onimusha or the original Devil May Cry would be a bit scarier if the camera wasn't fixed (and if you weren' such a badass.)

@MikeGosot said:

@Anactoria said:

In my opinion horror game is not just about surprising the gamer.

Take Alan Wake, you usually have slow motion part telling you they are surrounding you. It's not about there appearence, it's about the ambiance, getting in your characters shoes, letting the game get under your skin, wondering what's comming next.

"What" is comming at you is more relevent than "From where ?".

I'm personnaly not a fan of fixed camera as I find it harder to really get into the story as I feel more like a spectator with some limited power on the story rather than actually living it.

To be fair, the fixed camera does a very good job at making the gamer question what's coming next, because well... You can't see what's coming next. And when the designer chooses what you can or cannot see, it gives a whole new world of opportunities to create atmosphere, so both of these criticisms are flawed. The "feeling like an spectator" is a valid one, but i guess it's more of an opinion than an argument. Also, one question, do you enjoy horror movies?

Also... Alan wake, a horror game?

But that scene in the shining where Doc is riding through the halls on his tricycle the camera is in front of him and pointing directly at him. You can't see what is coming down the hall, and it's one of the scariest things I've witnessed.

I think fixed views CAN add to tension and horror, absolutely, and I really do love them. Now that I think about it, the confining hallways of Dead Space almost act like an occluding camera angle.. And that game was pretty terrifying. I think you may be on to something here.

The whole fixed views thing is cause of the first rule of horror (that I just invented) it's ALWAYS the things you don't see that are scary. Always. Which is why atmosphere will always be the most important thing, not shitty fucking jump scares.

I never played a lot of horror games as I have no interest in horror regardless of medium. That said I never found the few games in the genre I did play scary. Bad controls did not make Resident Evil 1 a scary game. Make it a annoying one to play. Which could be argued adds tension but still not for me.

@GetEveryone said:

That is some terrible grammar there, son.

I'm sorry. If you can, please point out my mistakes and i'll try to get better.

@AlexW00d said:

The whole fixed views thing is cause of the first rule of horror (that I just invented) it's ALWAYS the things you don't see that are scary. Always. Which is why atmosphere will always be the most important thing, not shitty fucking jump scares.

Indeed. People saying that fixed camera is bad because they open the door to a shitty jump scare are not giving a fair chance to fixed cameras.

@Nottle: So you would argue that the parts in Fatal Frame where you can't see what's in front of the main character would be more scary if you had control of the camera? You would argue that, by giving you the freedom to look everywhere you would be too tense to know where to look? Because that same feeling can be achieved with a fixed camera. Clock Tower did a good job with that. You could see the entire room, but you don't know from where the killer is coming. You don't even know if exploring(Something that you do a lot in the game) could trigger something bad.

@ImmortalSaiyan said:

I never played a lot of horror games as I have no interest in horror regardless of medium. That said I never found the few games in the genre I did play scary. Bad controls did not make Resident Evil 1 a scary game. Make it a annoying one to play. Which could be argued adds tension but still not for me.

@MikkaQ said:

No, I think it rendered the genre playable.

I think that's why we don't see fixed cameras anymore.

@Little_Socrates: Thanks for the interesting informations, dude! And it's weird to think that the most interactive medium has a hard time pulling out the "social horror". Also, your example for truly horror games are incredibly interesting, specially Hotline Miami. And i think that my use of the word horror, specially in the title was pretty bad. I made it sound like you can't have horror if you can't have a jump scare, which is not true at all.

@LikeaSsur said:

Dead Space, F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Slender: The Eight Pages say no, the horror genre is alive and well with camera control.

Of all those games, only one of them could scare me. And it was with a jump scare, so i guess you can see why my faith in camera control decreased.

@Gamer_152 said:

Survival horror? Arguably. But while I can see what the fixed camera brings to the horror genre, I really can't agree with the idea that we can't have scary third-person games because there's no fixed camera any more. If that's the case then surely we're very uncreative in terms of game design. The fixed camera isn't something I think gels with modern audiences though, and I'm not really a fan of it either, it feels stiff and restrictive.

After having this conversation, i think that the fixed camera is a valid option, but the lack of it doesn't necessarily kills horror. My title was... Well, not a good one, to say the least. About that last part, i think that a possible solution that would please both sides would be having a fixed cameras only in certain situations. That would be fun. To me, at least.

No cuz Dead Space, the game was smart in knowing where the camera was pointing at to increase the surprise effect of those behind your back attacks and the sound design is top notch.