The survival horror genre has been long with us since the days of the original NES. Games like Castlevania to games like Hugo: and the House of Horrors. The genre is split into 2 real sub-genres, action and story based. The action style survival horror has much more emphasis on fighting and/or killing whatever horrors are attacking you. Story based, where it might have some action sequences, is usually more along the lines of puzzle solver while screwing with your head.
In the early days, it was really hard to make something to make you squeal like you've just been goosed on 8-bit graphics. At any rate, they still tried, and in many cases, succeeded. Usually by jump scares and the like. Actual general earieness was pretty hard to pull off. It wasn't until the rise of 3D that games actually started to become legitimately creepy. The best of the early days was the first Resident Evil.
Resident evil took most of what had been tried before, trashed it, and looked to classic horror film for it's reference. You start as a swat team member, stuck in a mansion full of zombies and other horrors, with no explanation as to why, other than you're looking for a particular person. And this is only the start of it. The game doesn't use a follow camera, but a camera bolted to the corner of the room, like you're some creepy voyeur watching this on a security monitor. Movement is also limited and very slow. Resident Evil was one of the first all 3D games that did not take any advantage of this for controls. All the controls are very tank like and slow. But, oddly, this actually helps the pacing. In so many games, you play as a super-human psychotic killer that can destroy all just by looking at it sideways. In Resident Evil, you are very alone, slower than your attackers (Severely) and with limited dwindling supplies. And not only are your supplies something that you only use if you absolutely have to, but you can only carry so much (unlike said super-human dick) so you have to pick and choose what you carry and hope you chose right.
Admitted, in the early days, RE's graphics were mostly crap. Extremely polygonal characters on a pre-rendered background. But it was cutting edge and the time, and did well enough that the series is still running strong today. They did a remake for the Gamecube, with revamped graphics and voice acting that actually made sense, and this, to this day, is still one of my favorite survival horror games. With the increased visuals, it makes home for some more truly disturbing imagery.
I do want to note, that what made the original RE good, was it's show, don't tell version of story telling. You're walking around, wondering what the hell is going on. You see things that give you the creeps, and most importantly, only use jump scares when they think they can actually get you. Not every 15 f@#&ing seconds. It proved that atmosphere is more important than anything else, and only trying to make you crap your pants every once in a while can keep a game fun. I do want to note, I come from a family of pranksters. We tortured each other with jump scares and the like for my whole life. Because of this, I have become extremely conditioned, and if you can get me, you can consider it a pretty solid victory. Trying to scare me with jump scares constantly doesn't scare, or even startle me, it just irritates me to wanting to turn it off.
Silent Hill is the next big survival horror franchise worth mensioning. It came out a few years after Resident Evil, and played more similarly to say, Grand Theft Auto. It was graphically much more advance, having full 3D rendered environments, and having players that didn't look like Lego blocks stacked together trying to look like a Picaso. Now, Silent hill took a different tact to the Survival Horror genre. Instead of zombies out to kill you wherever you turn. It takes a more supernatural turn, with demons and ghosts. It's actually more of a psychological thriller than RE as well, as it is more more apt to screw with you. The basic story is a guy and his family get in a car accident trying not to hit a girl in the road. When you come to, your wife and child are missing, and you have to find them in a cult down that's in the process of trying to revive some ancient evil (god knows why, maybe he promised them chocolates or something). While the over arching pretenses are a bit weak, the basic story is quite strong. You are a man out to save your family, and shit starts getting weird. It was also one of the first games to offer proper different endings to a game, with up to 5 different endings, and none are decided on if you played and Hitler or Jesus, but actual decisions and storyline points you may or may not have missed.
The next game I want to bring up, many don't consider to be a survival horror, but it plays similar to Resident Evil, is made by Capcom, and deals with Ghosts, Demons and Zombies, so I'm including it. Onimusha takes the more action aproach to this Genre. You aren't a scared and mostly helpless person walking around, not knowing what the hell is going on. You are a badass Samurai, trying to stop the un-dead resurrection of Nobunaga, who (at least in this games history) was a total monster. You spend your time killing spirits, demons and zombies to get to save you're lady master and an orphaned boy from being sacrificed. Once again, limited healing items make you want to take care to not get hurt. But the ability to shred anything within a 10ft. radius of you makes you a hell of a lot more capable than pretty much anyone else in this genre. Where Onimusha did borrow from many games, it also defined the samurai / ninja gameplay in 3D games, even influencing games like Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi when they moved to 3D. It was also one of the earlies games on the PS2 and, at the time, was a gorgeous game.
All of these games were mentioned because they were milestones in Survival Horror. They all did something, pretty much for the first time, or at the very least, better than the others for the first time. Survival Horror has since been diluted, most of the challenge removed, and almost solely rely on jump scares. To illustrate, I want to talk about one of the Daddies of modern survival horror, Dead Space. Dead Space reached acclaim for being story rich and scary. If you look at Dead Space with a critical eye, you will see very little of both. For starters, the story is so un-original, it's probably been used in more than a dozen movies and just as many other games. You're some sort of a welder or something (I think, just trying to explain the helmet he's so attached to wearing), and the ship is attacked by aliens. Everyone dies, and alone you must take back your ship. Wasn't that the plot of Aliens in 1986? (And every other Aliens movie now that I think of it). As far as the scary factor, it's nothing but jump scares. You walk down a hall, and boo! an alien jumps out of a grate screaming at you. You walk down another hall, and boo! an alien jumps from the roof screaming at you. They don't even do much to make a spooky atmosphere. The hall is dark, there are misplaced ceiling tiles and there's a blinking light. Kind of makes me think more of a public school rather than a ship infested with ravenous aliens. And the aliens are the worst kind of hunters. What jumps out screaming at it's prey before it attacks, rather than hiding in the shadows and kills you before you even knew they were there? Maybe they're just really bad practical jokers like Bill Murray in Zombie Land?
I could go on about the problems I have with Dead Space (and the whole franchise), but that would take forever. I'm perfectly aware, this view might piss some people off, but if you stopped, opened your eyes and looked at something with a critical eye, you might see where I might think games like this are crap. If you can't, that's on you, and I don't really care.
Even Resident Evil is starting to fall into this trap. In Resident Evil 4, you are thrown into Africa, and everyone is zombified and trying to kill you. It's more action based than any of the others, and relies more on jump scares, than any form of story telling and/or atmosphere. Oddly, the most disturbing part of the game is being forced to kill legions of black people, which is what got all the critics butts all clenched up when this game originally came out. Once again, not a popular view, but not a game I could get invested in.
I can't mention survival horror without talking about games like Left 4 Dead. With a 4 smacked right into the middle of the title to emphasize it's 4 player co-op. Once again, this is a franchise that's more dedicated to action and jump scares than actually really being creepy or scary in any real way. Honestly, games like this are the type that will make you want to kill someone in your team because they tripped a car alarm or something getting everyone else killed.
There have been a few glimmers of hope in the survival horror with games like Amnesia and Dementium: The Ward. The problem is even the good ones are starting to all copy each other. These days, survival horror always take place in some sort of hospital, or house (with the periodic alternate location like a cruise ship), you have amnesia, it's dark and there are monsters everywhere, and inevitably, you are why you're there; like you killed your wife or something. Yes, these games can be fun, but damn it all if they don't start seeming all the same after a while. It's like all story writers started huffing from the same bottle of paint and they can only write one story, and leave it to the game designers to try to find ways to mix it up.
If you look back on the early greats, there were truly unique ideas. Resident evil might have spawned the evil house thing. But you knew you were a SWAT (aka STARS) team member, and were looking for someone. And in the end, you were being f@#$ed with in a make shift lab by some dick named Wesker. In Silent Hill, you have the whole down to explore, you know what happened, you know your goal, and you have a cult sicking demons and shit at you while you try to save your family. Clear stories, that are unique and concise. I'm not even a professional game writer and I can come up with something different. You have an outbreak of vampire kittens roaming the streets, or you're a cave spelunker and you find an ancient cult shrine, and you touching it creates an outbreak of zombie hedgehogs. I know I'm being hyperbolic right now, but seriously guys, try something more original than 'YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON, IT'S EVIL AND IT'S YOUR FAULT'.
This is a franchise that might need a bit of a revival, possibly with a defibrillator. It's a franchise that can have amazing story telling and depth, and if done right can scare the willies out of you.
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