GP: "More than any other genre it seems that horror games include a fair amount of female protagonists. There are certainly many male leads as well, but the amount of women is striking when compared to most other types of titles out there. Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Resident Evil, and others have all had a female lead at least once and probably will have even more in the future. Is there a reason for this?
There must be something about the genre of horror itself that leads to this trend. How are men and women presented in the world or horror games? This is my attempt to see what exactly gender has to do with horror."
Cultured Vultures: We’ve rounded up the most well-aged PS2 games out there, just in case you’ve been meaning to revisit some childhood memories, or even if you’re checking out the PlayStation 2 for the very first time.
id throw haunting ground into the mix. it still looks fantastic.
but i still dont quite understand why we never got a dragon quest 8 remaster for ps4. even the damn 3ds got one.
Silent Hill 3 was straight up sorcery. It has better hair animation than most modern games, which is wild to me.
From GameWatcher: "Embracer has shut down Pieces Interactive, the studio that recently developed the Alone in the Dark Reboot for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Pieces Interactive, acquired by THQ Nordic in 2017, worked on the Titan Quest franchise. Its most recent game, Alone in the Dark, received mixed critical reception at launch but was improved with subsequent patches."
Like we did not see this coming. Pieces and Alone in the Dark, had a kick me sign on their back the entire dev cycle to release. Perfect example of not reading current market trends, bad forecasting, marketing and release.
Why is it the perfect example?? It was actually one of the few games that did all those things well. In fact considering the current environment in the industry it actually did all those things very well.
The problem was the game itself was just rough around the edges and that’s the problem we currently have in the industry it’s hard to release something like that when everybody wants perfection and the developer and publisher doesn’t have enough to pay off all the reviewers.. it has a large cult following and had potential to be exactly what survival horror fans have been crying out for while they were waiting for silent hill 2. Don’t see what market trends and forecasting has anything to do with it at all. I don’t remember it fighting in its release window either.
Alone in the Dark would've gained more praise if it released in 2022, well before Alan Wake II and other horror projects
The demo they released a while back didn't leave a good impression, and it seems like they were riding far too much on Jodie Comer and David Hayter to be the driving force to buy the game. They're both great actors, but their performance on this game from what I've seen felt very stiff/forced - like they were out of their comfort zones. It's a shame to see another studio closure, though, and I hope the people effected (affected? I always get it wrong) can find more work soon.
Embracer's takeaway from this will probably be that they should focus on live service games.
TNS: “Nightmare fuel to say the least, check out the 10 most terrifying Silent Hill monsters, and what they symbolize.”
well, I used to believe in this thing about female protagonists being more scared or weak, but I actually have a different take now. I think it has more to do how men view about women in horror games, films,etc. I actually felt Heather in Silent Hill 3 going from the "wtf" to a woman that knows how to stand up for herself. Maybe Heather is not really a good example, but I guess I had the impression she was weak because I was being biased. There are other games like Rule of Rose where the female lead is extremely weak, but I think it was done intentionally in order to make the game more scary which it's not something I support. I think the wtf sensation is something I prefer as it's more believable. Women are strong in their own way, which may not seem strong to men because they simply don't think exactly the same. I know women know how to take care of themselves just fine, so men are just being a little overprotective.
Strength is not a gender thing, it's an individual thing.
I know plenty of weak willed, pathetic men and women, on that same note I know some of both with an iron will.
That said in the media it all falls into stereotypes, men need to be tough as nails and women need to be scared and flailing about.
Also it falls into the way the brain works for both.
A man's brain works more with logic, where the brain of a woman uses more emotion.
To me it all depends on what the story calls for, that's how I look at it, Dead Space 2 was one of my favorite horror games, and Isaac did not act afraid all the time. Just because it's horror does not mean the main character needs to flail about helplessly.
women are usually smaller than men which can make an individual zombie or whatever the "foe" is potentially seem scarier.
I would like a female protagonist in Dead space since it would be a nice change of pace but i think it all comes down to how good the character actually is with voice actor and personality.