lou_chou

@civid said:

You're exactly right. That, and responses on a handful of other sites really bothered me.

That's a great example. Similarly, the scene where a Licker jumps through the one-way glass at the police station in RE2 absolutely had me shook. Then there's the T-Rex through the window in Dino Crisis... Man, Capcom sure loves windows.

I'm glad this has stirred a bit of a debate, I will admit I was slightly worried there'd be a majority of people who were against me on this, but I'm glad to see so many people agree that, like @patrickklepek said, in a vacuum and with considered use, it's a decent tool.

Honestly, it's the absolute worst when you're watching/playing something that has put little or no effort into creating atmosphere, and then tries in vain to hit a jump scare as a substitute for it.

As a child of Nickelodeon, I'm as big a fan of fart jokes as anyone. So please don't misconstrue my analogy as an attack on fart humour. I will always defend fart humour, god dammit!

As a few of you have pointed out, and something I attempted to say myself in the blog post, a jump scare in the right context is absolutely at home in a good horror experience. @syz mentions Outlast, and I couldn't help but think the same thing playing P.T. - the jump scares that do exist don't punch you in the face while screaming, things feel a lot more restrained; and to better effect.

Plus, man. that use of environment. Fantastic vision. Plus (again, as I mentioned in the post) it taps in to the Silent Hill legend really nice.

@mooseymcman: @theht: it inspired me to be a better armed robber, and that tank tops work in all scenarios.

Would have been a system seller, too.

@gaff: I use the light gun from Duck Hunt.

Surely this guy is far too popular for that? There isn't a person in the building who doesn't chant YES when he's out, which seems pretty rare...

So this is strictly online? As someone who plays games mainly whilst commuting, and with little or no data/wifi access, that's a shame. I would have been totally up for sinking a mentally unhealthy number of hours into it.

@seppli: I don't think it's that easy to reduce it down, especially if one appears to be copying another. I do agree that a style of game is a genre, though. The same way Sonic and Mario co-exist, or Call of Duty and Battlefield. Not everyone to release an FPS is plagiarising Wolfenstein, but if someone releases an FPS about storming through a castle killing Nazi zombies, then it's perhaps a different conversation.