More Six Crazy Frights?

I know Abby is gone and all, but is it possible for more Six Crazy Frights (or something similar) to happen this month? I love Spooktober, and I love it when GB does something Halloween themed for games.

Doesn't look good especially since all the "horror" players are gone. Maybe Jason?

Not to cross promote but Vinny did announce he'll be doing spooky stuff with Abby, not to long ago in a stream.

I remember Rorie joking about taking up the series, but I don't think he was serious. I would love if he did though.

i'm gonna say no...Abby just started Alien Isolation back up with Vinny on Nextlander...

I’m fine with letting the series go. Nothing against Abby’s legacy (or Patrick’s before that), but I think horror games almost universally don’t work for me, playing or watching. It’s either proper horror and you’re powerless which usually makes for an awkward gameplay experience, or you’re *not* powerless so instead it’s more of an action game with minor spooky elements.

Also I think a lot of real shite horror games get a free pass around Halloween as streamers/gaming websites want to showcase horror games for a few weeks because it’s that time of year. I think really each year only has maybe 2-4 truly remarkable horror games and the other couple dozen that enter the rotation to pad out Halloween time are pretty poor experiences.

*horror

@bisonhero: Actually I always looked forward to whenever Patrick or Abby played a terrible horror game. Those are the best!

@ghost_cat: The part I enjoyed the most was Abby’s constant paranoia that Vinny was making a noise to freak her out, when 80% of the time it was just something in the game.

I miss spookin with scoops real bad. He was doing them on YouTube for a bit and then stopped probably due to changing work.

Do you have any examples that come to mind? I'm not debating your tastes or preferences, I'm just curious what you consider the bad ones? I agree that there are tons of cheap (and cheaply made) games like "Asylum Slow Walker" and "Abandoned School (Early Access VR Edition)," but I feel like those barely get any air time, while we see games like Phasmophobia (or that year's Dark Pictures Anthology game) get coverage pretty much everywhere.

I don't have a succinct way to summarize this, so buckle in.

I'm really not the target audience for horror games as a genre. I'm just very picky with them, and I think a lot of my expectations are unreasonably high. I don't carve out much of my personal time for horror fiction of any kind, so if I bother at all I want it to be really top shelf. I'd rather it be a very effective "that one really fucked me up" of an Amnesia 1 than the carnival ride of cheap thrills that a lot of horror games are.

I don't really play the genre much at all, but when I do watch horror games get played, I think more than most genres it really suffers from any lack of polish. Unlike most genres, the gameplay is often secondary to atmosphere, but there are so many cheaply made horror games (or modestly budgeted games that still bite off more than they can chew) and once something silly-looking happens it just kinda destroys the atmosphere and mood. I think it's funny that both Patrick and Vinny/Abby played Cry of Fear, because I think that game looked absolutely terrible both times and it only seems good for the laugh of "oh a weird horror game in the Half-Life engine where you're just firing a Glock constantly."

The ones that succeed the most often I guess are maybe the campy slasher-film based ones? Like Until Dawn does quite well for itself, that Friday the 13th game seems like a weirdly competent simulation of one of the movies if you ignore how janky it still is sometimes. Resident Evil, Condemned, etc.

I think Phasmophobia is bad; I get why it's a fun meme for streaming personalities, but it looks like a bad game to me between just running down the checklist of things to use against certain types of spirits, maybe you just die and then you're doing nothing for the rest of the round, and also the part where "real" ghosthunting tools are mega boring.

I appreciate when horror game devs try to work within their limitations, like how Layers of Fear basically doesn't need a character modeler/animator because the whole game is just an unsettling walking sim through a house and the whole game is all environment and sound work as you read a bunch of journal entries of how messed up this artist's life got and the house looks all weird. Even that series, I've never successfully sat through a Let's Play of either one because it's just kinda dull that clearly the player is in no danger yet the game insists on occasionally having something jump-scare-y happen instead of trying to go all the way SOMA and just be deeply disturbing.

I also think the writing can miss the mark pretty hard in horror games, even on the big budget, big polish ones. I'm not really digging the Dark Pictures Anthology theme so far that each one seems like there's *something* supernatural going on for 95% of it but then ends with a comically mundane explanation. The games are still overall good, but the way they're using that device to end off each short story just isn't landing for me so far.

I thought Outlast 2's faux Jonestown Christian cult was truly dumb when all of the people in the rural Arizona town were seemingly teleported out of the 19th century, where the whole town has nothing more advanced in it than a lightbulb or a 1930s radio, the whole town is in disrepair and clearly everyone in it should've starved or died of dysentery like 3 years ago because the town doesn't function whatsoever, and I guess whenever the protagonist isn't in a given area every townsperson is just aimlessly walking in circles while dragging a rusty pickaxe/hoe/shovel behind them because they have nothing better to do. At least the Looney Tunes criminal insane asylum event from Outlast 1 just happened and there's a dumb sci-fi reason for why everyone becomes homicidal. Just so strange that Outlast 2 starts off the game as you being this serious journalist couple with your wife and then the entire setting is cartoonishly dysfunctional to the point it should've been a national news story literally months ago, but then otherwise takes itself seriously again with all the baby murder and the flashbacks to Catholic school molestation. Truly bizarre choices.

For whatever reason, most horror games elicit a Bakalar-esque "well that's fucking dumb" from me, unless they're extremely well made, I-basically-can't-pick-out-a-flaw-in-this kinda stuff.

@bisonhero: Well you were right about not having a succinct way to summarize it! Thanks for taking the time to respond. I am legitimately interested in why some media works for some people and not for others (this isn't the thread for it, but ask me about my opinion of historical fiction some time!). I will say I get not engaging with a lot of horror. It seems that I watch more than you, but even then, we're talking like maybe a season of American Horror Story and a couple of movies per year. This year, I'm playing only horror games this month, but they aren't that scary. Like Dead Space, The Evil Within 2, A Plague Tale. That's the kind of horror game I can handle.

I will say that when it comes to something like Phasmophobia, I have a really high tolerance for janky co-op games that I can play with friends.

I think we can all agree that Five Nights at Freddy's is cheap streamer-bait.

I don't see Six Crazy Frights coming back. That was a Vinny and Abby project and both are gone. I wouldn't be surprised if Vinny continued doing it on Nextlander and have Abby as a special guest. As far as GB goes, they could easily make a new spooky gaming segment with the members they currently have. Jason seems to like horror, considering the background of his room has every Jason mask from every Friday The 13th film. But the crew have a lot of personal things going on, so don't get your hopes up.

@ghost_cat: just to let you and everyone else know, Abby & Vinny are continuing the series with a new name and it is available for free on the Nextlander YouTube page. First episode was posted on Sunday.

I know it isn’t GB material, but I hope this is the content you were looking for.

Series is called The Nextlander Scream Team

I kinda like that GB doesn't just keep a show going when people come and go. Some stay on, change form, but overall what has kept me somewhat interested in GB all these years is the ever-evolving nature of its content.

That'll change with whoever is guiding the show for sure, and you could totally revive the show with the right tough, but sometimes it's more freeing to just start anew with something else.