Rule of Rose

[James]

I cannot play survival horror games. Mostly because they scare me.

So, I will probably not be playing this game anytime soon, despite the fact that I am intrigued. However, I am also fairly creeped out just by looking at the screenshots.

The story is set in the 1930's and basically a little girl is sent to an orphanage and there's a bunch of other girls who are part of a cult/hazing group called "Red Crayon Family." And they do shit to her.

The whole game looks really fucked. I mean, just look at this.



I'm sure you're just saying "It's just a fat bitch who can't put on makeup." And you're right. But it's still scary.

I know the "creepy little girl" thing has been done to death. But this time, there's a fucking whole bunch of them. And one of them is fat.

And the game apparently has some sexual overtones about it regarding exactly how these creepy bitches fuck with the main character. I also think I saw them peeing on her in the trailer.

Seriously, this looks like it's going to be a fucked up game.

[Fathom Zero]

I can't stop laughing at that pic, but I also can't wait for the game. Horror movies and games have absolutly no effect on me. This thing looks good, really good.

[Shifty]

Kinkeh

[King Hadas]

Originally Posted by James

I cannot play survival horror games. Mostly because they scare me.

I think your just saying that so you won't get roped into another "tank controls" conversation.

but about this game it does look creepy as hell, I hope the game is able to live up to the spooky trailer they presented on Cinematech, I can't actually remember the last time I played a really good survival horror.

[James]

Well, no. I can't stand tank controls at all. but that doesn't change the fact that I've tried to play survival horror games with 3D controls, and I was scared.

[Marc Summers]

Is the Silent Hill series any good? I saw this clip of SH3, and it really gave me chills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkYtflr1KsM

[King Hadas]

Yes it's an excellent series, so far I have yet to see a movie or a book that is scarier than Silent Hill 3 (although you'll need some movie/literature buffs to come in here and agree with that statement before it becomes even remotely impressive).

[executioneer]

call of cthulhu scared the christ out of me

[ArrowX]

I'm afraid of any game that takes place underwater. Case in point Echo The Dolphin.

Call of Cthulhu is retarted scary unlill about 2/3 of the way in for about maybe 1 or 2 chapters, then it gets scary again

[Chojin]

coc is scary until you get a gun, and then it's just funny and really broken :<

like you can make the dudes chase you back to the save sigils and they freak out and run away while you beat them to death with a crowbar.

but you can do this all DAY

[James]

Less talking about faggot games, more talking about games where little girls bury other little girls alive and piss on each other.

[executioneer]

you're a fagg*t game

[Emu]

I haven't heard of this one. Who made it? And is there any available plot synopsis or anything? I'm desperate for new survival horror.

[King Hadas]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Rose

It's like a surrealistic version of the Lord of the Flies but with an all girl cast.

[MarioRPG]

Originally Posted by executioneer

call of cthulhu scared the christ out of me

I never got to the scary points in that game, I guess.

[executioneer]

my fav. is the part where SPOILERS

[Emu]

So has anybody tried this yet? I've thought of picking it up but I've heard almost nothing good.

[GADZOOKS]

It's disgustingly slow and not scary. IT STINKS.

[Emu]

I picked this up today. I've heard bad things, but I felt like it was something I had to have to complete my Giant Faggoty Horror collection. I'm on the thin line of hating the game so far. The graphics are sub-par for late 2006, and the game seems to shift sporadically between giving more detail than is necessary to uninteresting things (random hallway objects such as potted plants get their own camera pans when examined, for example) but interesting objects like cabinets get nothing more than an opening animation and a disappointing noise -- not even an "it's empty" text flashing at the bottom of the screen.

The game is very atmospheric so far, although it is really fucking slow and I have no idea where to go. The lack of a map is getting painfully frustrating, especially when many rooms share the same name (there are at least four 'Hallway's for example_

[Guitar Woman]

Doesn't the dog solve all the puzzles for you or something

[Emu]

I haven't met the dog yet.

[Emu]

I got the dog!

He seems useful, anyway. The sections of the game where you're by yourself leave a lot of explorable-but-empty areas that make it feel like it's not worth my while to deviate from the plot's linear room sequence. The dog can find hidden items and thus may actually give some kind of point to looking around, which has improved my perception of the game immensely at this point.

The most redeeming feature so far seems to be the music. It's moody and interesting, if painfully repetetive at parts. The voice acting has been good to superb at the parts where it exists. Some sections that should have voice acting don't, and one child had voiced parts for half of his dialogue and silent subtitles for the rest. Speaking of dialogue, the game is very well-written in the sense that there's no Engrish, although the children don't really talk like children (which is forgivable in a horror game or movie -- I'm still freaked out by the kid from Children of the Corn and how creepily articulate he was.)

The graphics are continuing to disappoint me. The characters move in an extremely goofy way that's pretty unforgivable for a game released as recently as this one, and especially when it's following in the heels of the Silent Hill and Fatal Frame series (and I guess RE4, if you count it as a PS2 game.) A lot of the textures are re-used too often and there's not a lot to look at -- and what you can look at you can rarely examine up close.

The worst part so far is the combat. I've only fought one monster, a warped little melted child in a tuxedo. It was a creepy monster in its own right, but it quickly lost its charm when I started stabbing it with my salad fork. Turning to target the thing was an ordeal in itself, given that it was so short as to stand well below my level fighting range. I had to actually disengage combat to turn and face it, and the thing was much faster than I was. It grappled me and I shook it off. It fell stunned on the ground while I tried in vain to make the bitch bend over and stab it. I had to wait for the thing to stand up again before I could hit it, at which point I was greeted with the cheapest looking blood splatter I think I've ever seen in a PS2 game. I get the idea that there's one manner of bloodsplat for each attack you make against any enemy. No salad fork is going to create the gusher of blood that shot out of the thing, not to mention the fact that this splatter was represented by one static expanding texture jutting out from the thing's head. Fuck.

I can say, however, that I am kind of sorry I had to spend 30 bucks on it, even for a new copy. The game's been out for a year and apparently hasn't been selling well. If you're a srs bizness horror junkie like me, you might want to pick it up for the notoriety factor alone. The game was banned in Poland or something.

[Girl Drink Drunk]

Originally Posted by Marc Summers

Is the Silent Hill series any good? I saw this clip of SH3, and it really gave me chills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkYtflr1KsM

Yes, it is very scary. Until the first Silent Hill is ported to another console in a collection or remade (you can find the PS game on Ebay, but copies go for around 50 dollars there usaully), I highly reccomend that you play Silent Hill 2 and 3. Rather than relying on scripted "jump out at you" moments, like in Resident, the series plays on your fear with ambient music and bizare sounds (also, you rely on a radio that detects creatures with static sounds) and darkness (your only source of light is a dim ray of a flashlight). Also, enviroments range from the ghost town itself to aged, abandoned buildings to the decaying and rusted backgrounds of the otherworld. These factors make playing the Silent Hill series (especially in the 1st and 3rd) a very intense and nerve-wracking experience.

[Emu]

This game is driving me nuts.

The story, for what little has been revealed to me, is interesting enough to keep me playing, but the gameplay makes trying to find out what the hell is going on a chore. Whenever you're attacked by enemies, you're literally swarmed; every hallway will be filled with little melting children in tuxedos. Thankfully I have a pipe weapon now that can hit 2-3 at once, although combat is so ganked as to just make it less painful to simply run away... and then I encounter 10 more in the next room.

The enemies are extremely repetitive, and that's an understatement. There have been four varieties of enemies. Three of them are the little tuxedo children in different flavors: Normal, rat-headed and bunny-headed. The rat- and bunny-headed individuals are sort of creepy in their own right as they tend to be related to the game's current theme. The other enemy I've encountered has been a boss, a strange fellow who seems to be a teacher that attacks with one of those old fashioned pointer sticks and beats the fuck out of you while you stumble around in vain attempting to aim for him. I died against him and shut the game off for the time being.

The game is permeated by graphics errors that are forgivable but sloppy, like shadows appearing through walls, or cast onto the wrong wall, or not cast at all. Or when your dog companion tries to ascend stairs and begins walking in place. Camera angles range from surprisingly effective to painful; occasionally your character will be able to run so far away from it that you can't tell exactly where you are with respect to it or other objects.

On the plus side, the children are relatively creepy, and as predicted, the fat one is indeed the scariest. The music is still repetitive but good enough to be tolerable. There are lots and lots of creepy violin themes, and that creepy string pluck from older horror movies.

As I understand it, the game's creator, Atlus, has released basically nothing but RPGs over its career, and its newness to other genres comes out painfully clear in this game. It's trying to be heavily story driven while having Silent Hill's constant on-your-toes action. As well, the most detailed part of the game seems to be the menu screen, which is unfortunately also probably the most entertaining part. It has a chalkboard-looking setup and a lot of cute-but-eerie drawings that have interesting quirks about them and probably some significance to the story that I haven't found yet.

I'm determined to give the game a full chance, and my girlfriend seems to enjoy it a lot. So hopefully I'll be able to make it through it.

[Emu]

I'd call the game mediocre, but that's too generous.

It feels like that time I accidentally downloaded a dump of a beta version of Sonic 3. It was kind of fun to fuck around on, but unplayable in any serious way. That's how this game is. Unpolished. I really think it could've been a great horror game, or at the very least in the realm of Haunting Ground in the horror game pecking order, if it had been given a few more months in production. The game's got an obvious pattern that the developers wanted to give everything some kind of significance. In the first hallway of the mansion, everything is examinable. That fades after a few rooms. It's a damn shame.