Cry of Fear

[dextermorgan]

Sup bros,

There's something new and free on the market for those of us who are horror starved: Cry of Fear.

It's a HL1 mod so you'll need a copy of that to play. I have no idea how good it actually is but preview vids are promising. I'm downloading now, thought I'd give you lot a heads-up.

 

[Jack]

From what I've seen of it so far it looks crazy good for being a HL1 mod, heard that it relies heavily on jump scares though. Will try it out when they've fixed the worst of the bugs.

 

[Skittles]

"...new gaming styles...such as advanced cutscenes..."

 

[dextermorgan]

I'm desperate.

 

[Skittles]

Fair enough, let me know how it goes. I would be interested knowing more about any new game mechanics they've implemented, but feel too lazy to reinstall HL right now.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

http://www.moddb.com/mods/cry-of-fear/features/cry-of-fear-spotlight

Unlike the majority of half-life mods CoF is not a linear game. You will often find yourself backtracking as you pick up items for areas you have since passed, however the world is far from static. New obstacles will appear within areas you so bravely exorcised on your first pass, familiar routes will change and new areas and shortcuts to old will open up. Players who have ventured into the Dark/Demon Souls games will have a good idea at what I am hinting at. This is all thanks to the above mentioned level loading system where every door you enter loads (rather quickly I might add) a new map within the game. With each new instance the enemies you face will be randomly placed, codes for doors and computers change meaning each new game will be different.

Well, I'm intrigued. Post some impressions when you get it running.

 

[dextermorgan]

Yeah, about that. It's Steam version only, which I don't have. Might be a while yet.

 

[SerratedBiz]

There's some fledgling LP's out there already for whoever is interested.

Very dependant (from the 15 minutes of gameplay I saw) on shock scares, though.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Played it for maybe an hour. Seems alright. At first I tried to use that Desura thing to install it, but then realized it needed an account or something. Screw that. Downloaded and installed it myself, not overly difficult. Graphics obviously are great for this engine. Animations in the cut scenes are a little wonky. Only really encountered one visual bug so far, with water rendering, but nothing major. And the game started to bug out pretty bad on a level load, but redoing it seemed to fix it.

As for the game itself, there are a number of shock scares, but the atmosphere did start to get to me after awhile. The first time I got a gun and heard/saw a dark thing coming out of a corner I spazzed out and burst through most of my magazine. There is also a neat section where you stumble into a room covered in serial killer type photos, then the lights go out and you hear a bunch of creepy noise and footsteps above you. But then nothing happens. I would definitely like to see more creep things, however, kind of like Dark Corners of the Earth (which I never finished and should probably revisit at some point).

Unfortunately I'm kind of stuck in the apartments looking for the elevator code. Once you unlock the various shortcuts and doors, the place becomes really easy to wander around in circles. No puzzles or anything so far, mostly just find a bright note that will give you a password or code number for your current obstacle.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Watched a dude stream it. Atmosphere was quite well done, very reminiscent of the first Silent Hill, although the mod's authors lack the subtlety and thematic consistency that made SH1 good. There's too much combat, and some of the enemies look really silly, like they were randomly glued together from horror movie cliches. Tons of jump scares and monster closets. I guess it's more scary than any mainstream horror game from the last few years, so if you cannot into indie adventure games, give it a spin. Otherwise, just go play Penumbra or Darkness Within or what have you.

 

[dextermorgan]

...horror...indie adventure games...

Any good ones you can recommend?

 

[barker_s]

There's a mod for Half-Life 2 called Nightmare House 2. It's more of a shooter than an adventure, but it's got some great scares and I enjoyed it very much.

Here's one of my favourite mindfuck moments -

 

[Eyeball]

The Yahtzee X Days a Z games are pretty good and atmospheric. They were how I initially became aware of him, years before he started being paid to rant.

Just finished Scratches as well. A pain in the ass as far as gameplay is concerned, but extremely atmospheric and creepy.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

...horror...indie adventure games...

Any good ones you can recommend?

If you haven't played the games from Frictional, you should start there, although I'm going to assume you have, if you're desperate for horror. Beyond that, it's down to your preference in horror. If you want Lovecraft, there's nothing better than Darkness Within 1 & 2 - the second one even features full 3D movement for your popamole needs; and if you prefer ghosts, there's the likes of Dark Fall or Lost Crown out there. Lost Crown even has high enough production values to be third person with fixed camera angles, like SH. And if you happen to own a fagbox, there's an episodic adventure game called Decay on XBLA, which I haven't played, but have seen and heard good things of. Thematically it's along the lines of SH4 I think, except more subtle.

Oh, and if you're really , you can try Scratches I suppose.

 

[villain of the story]

There's a mod for Half-Life 2 called Nightmare House 2. It's more of a shooter than an adventure, but it's got some great scares and I enjoyed it very much.

Here's one of my favourite mindfuck moments -

That was pretty moody.

 

[laclongquan]

Le fuck, Skittles?

"...new gaming styles...such as advanced cutscenes..."

 

[Skittles]

A red flag.

With some dude under it.

OT: The Nightmare House mod looks good. That looks like a new Dr. Who inspired level...

 

[dextermorgan]

...horror...indie adventure games...

Any good ones you can recommend?

If you haven't played the games from Frictional, you should start there, although I'm going to assume you have, if you're desperate for horror. Beyond that, it's down to your preference in horror. If you want Lovecraft, there's nothing better than Darkness Within 1 & 2 - the second one even features full 3D movement for your popamole needs; and if you prefer ghosts, there's the likes of Dark Fall or Lost Crown out there. Lost Crown even has high enough production values to be third person with fixed camera angles, like SH. And if you happen to own a fagbox, there's an episodic adventure game called Decay on XBLA, which I haven't played, but have seen and heard good things of. Thematically it's along the lines of SH4 I think, except more subtle.

Oh, and if you're really , you can try Scratches I suppose.

Eh, I suppose I lost heart after a dry spell of PC horror gaming following CoC: DCOTE that was only interrupted by Penumbra games. I haven't looked for games actively and what popped up from time to time either didn't look interesting or was shitty action fare.

Thanks for your tips, Darkness Within looks particularly interesting.

 

[garren]

Booted the game up, mouse acceleration. Disabled some smoothing option from settings, no effect. I'm so tired of this shit, must be bad luck but every game I try nowadays has some fucked up mouse algorithm, give me raw mouse input or at least an easy way to turn it on damnit.

Ah well, lets give it a try. Played 1 minute, cheap jump scare. Uninstalled.

Fuck this game.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Watch from 8:00. Horror masterpiece.

 

[UserNamer]

There's a mod for Half-Life 2 called Nightmare House 2. It's more of a shooter than an adventure, but it's got some great scares and I enjoyed it very much.

Here's one of my favourite mindfuck moments -

but why mannequins? Why would anyone find mannequins scary? what's next, desks? Oh no I'm surrounded by desks that moves when the light goes off! The exciting world of "scary" videogames, not for the faint of hearts! Be prepared to be scared of little girls and furniture! BOO! Aha ah, I bet you just died of fear.

Seriously though I'm starting to think trying to make scare based game is just a retarded idea in concept.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

There's a mod for Half-Life 2 called Nightmare House 2. It's more of a shooter than an adventure, but it's got some great scares and I enjoyed it very much.

Here's one of my favourite mindfuck moments -

but why mannequins? Why would anyone find mannequins scary? what's next, desks? Oh no I'm surrounded by desks that moves when the light goes off! The exciting world of "scary" videogames, not for the faint of hearts! Be prepared to be scared of little girls and furniture! BOO! Aha ah, I bet you just died of fear.

Seriously though I'm starting to think trying to make scare based game is just a retarded idea in concept.

Do you find anything fictional scary at all? If so, why?

 

[MetalCraze]

A game where you being the toughest character that kills stuff en masse using assault rifles is scary as fuck.

 

[Haba]

Watch from 8:00. Horror masterpiece.

Well... That WAS pretty horrible.

 

[lightbane]

Akward, unintentionally hilarious cutscenes and/or voice-acting? Silent Hill suffered from the same flaws as well and yet it wa considered a survival horror (or at least the oldest ones).