XJigsawX "Review from gamer staff here at FZ Drikanyx"
Recently I’ve decided to try and branch out and play some indie games that are supposedly scary. And a thought crossed my mind – These games are entertaining to play, but even more entertaining to watch people play – so instead of sitting all on my lonesome to test run these games, I invited a bunch of people to watch me suffer.
The first game I played was SLENDER, a simple game centred around the Slenderman myth, in which you are lost and trapped in the woods, and the only thing you have to do is collect strange notes around the area whilst being chased by a mysterious creature.
The game, at the start, wasn’t scary at all. You have a torch, you’re standing in the middle of the woods, and the only noises you hear are crickets chirping. You can wander around the forest for a good while and nothing will appear. This adds to this sense of safety; leading to a rumour amongst people who have played this game.
Slendy can’t get you before you get the first page. This is completely untrue. It is laughably untrue. To see what I mean, you’d need to watch Jesse Cox’s let’s play of the game (youtube.com/jessecox); the event didn’t actually happen in my playthrough.
Now after you get the first page is when things start to get creepy. You start hearing drums. More and more pages mean more and more atmospheric music. The music is designed to make you think you’re hearing things; footsteps behind you, but for the love of god don’t turn around; twigs snapping, whatever is possible in your imagination. Occasionally you’ll hear static. Sometimes your screen will start to get fuzzy. And if you linger for too long, Slendy will start reminding you he’s here, and my god is it shocking when he does.
If you watch your back too often, you might catch a glimpse of a tall figure in the shadows of the trees. The moment you do, he’s following you. The notes are correct; he follows. You can’t escape, only run.
Now the game itself isn’t scary. It’s tense, and it puts you on edge; that’s where the scare comes from. You’re on tenterhooks, trying to look straight forward in the hope that Slendy won’t jump out at you. You turn your head an inch to the left and SHIT HE’S THERE RUN LIKE FUCK runs through your head, accompanied by a very loud sting of music.
Another eerie thing is that you will NEVER SEE HIM MOVE. I don’t know why, but that un-nerves me. One minute he’s standing behind you, the next, he’s in the trees in front of you. Let him get too close, and you’ll struggle to move. Your screen will be very difficult to see.
And when you least expect it is the worst. He creeps up on you. You lose control of your mouse and keyboard. The last thing you see is that eerie white face, tentacles, and then black.
I’m not gonna lie, I freaked. My whole body locked in place, I jumped back in my chair, and my parents were probably jolted awake by a very loud “FUCK!”. Yes. I live with my parents right now. Before you cry “pussy”, I dare you to try playing Slender without even twitching when he sneaks up on you unawares.
The game is pretty much jump scares, I’ll agree. It in itself isn’t inherently scary at all. The graphics are pre-rendered from Unreal’s engine, Slenderman is pretty basically modelled, and you’ll notice broken textures now and then. But the developers worked around those shortcomings, making the game frightening not through what you see, but what you DON’T see.
If you’re a person like me who lives in their imagination, you might get a thrill out of Slender like I did. If you’re an emotionless husk, Slender won’t phase you at all.
A simple concept with simple execution, but it works for countless people. I recommend you try it.
The next game I played was Amnesia: Justine, the DLC from the Portal 2 Potato Sack ARG. Now it isn’t all that different from the base game, so I won’t waste breath reviewing it. You can see my review for the game on the Fucking Zombies Blog circa a month or two ago. I will mention that it has slightly different mechanics to the base game though, so it’s definitely worth playing. Also, fuck that water monster in the ass with a rusty spoon I hate him.
And finally, I rounded off the livestream with a little SCP: CONTAINMENT BREACH. Another indie game made with limited graphics and a small dev team, it focuses on the stories from the SCP Foundation. The first of the SCP creatures you meet will very happily kill you in the opening sequence. Believe me, it got me. Do what the voices ask you to do.
The monster is reminiscent of the Weeping Angels. Those of you who watch Doctor Who will know what I mean, but for those who don’t, I’ll give you the famous line; Don’t blink. Blink, and you’re dead.
Seriously, breaking eye contact with this thing means insta-game over. It’s not as easy as just keeping the cursor over it, either; there is a blink mechanic in place. After a certain amount of time, without the aid of eye drops and other equipment, you’ll be forced into blackness for a fraction of a second.
Pressing space will make you blink prematurely and refill your blink meter. It’s a very important mechanic to get your head around, along with the inventory system; something I failed miserably to do. Whoopsie.
Of course this guy isn’t the only one you’ll encounter. Many of the other experiments roam the randomly generated halls. I unfortunately didn’t encounter any others, but maybe you’ll do better than I would.
Now this game is not completely different to Slender.But scary? not in the least. Personally, I found it frustrating; mainly due to the fact I didn’t fully grasp the controls. Many people have told me that this game is nail-biting. I got fed up with it incredibly quickly.
It follows the same jump scare vein that Slender does, however there isn’t as much atmosphere; only dark rooms, long corridors, and way too many doors. The fact that the experiment is able to trap you in a room from which there is no way to progress without passing it, which in turn will make you look away from it, is very annoying. The concept is great. But in my opinion is more poorly executed than Slender was.
Maybe I’ll try the game in the future at some point, maybe get a better grasp on it and write another review. But at this point in time, SCP: CONTAINMENT BREACH was not an enjoyable game. Sorry, creepypasta fans, this guy is out.
~Drikanyx
The footage from the livestream is available to watch at
http://twitch.tv/Drikanyx and spans two videos, 3 hours approximately in total. Be warned, there’s a lot of “doing nothing” time, as I wasn’t fully to grips with my software.
