Last year, as Halloween approached, we talked about Scariest Game Moments we’ve had while playing. There was one of my own I hadn’t mentioned.
Although I don’t know if it should be called “scary”, or something else. This happened in Ultima Underworld. As many know, U2 (as I think of it) had the FPS perspective. Other games used that view - for instance, Might & Magic, Wizardry, Bard’s Tale - but Underworld was more athletic than those.
In particular, there was jumping (not something I’ve been fond of in any game). It is, thankfully, a bit dim now in my memory. But there was some place in that game where leaping was required, and that was a painful experience.
I was already nervous just surveying the prospect. Didn’t really wanna do it. Unfortunately, making that “big step” was necessary for whatever reason. So I grit my teeth, measured the distance as best I could, and made the leap.
Immediately, I felt an unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach. Eeeee! Ahhhhhhh!! I’m falling!! Brrrrrrr. Splat.
Time to try again. And I found I couldn’t bring myself to watch while I jumped again (and again). Right after liftoff, I’d look down at the keyboard, close my eyes, grimace, and endure that awful “pit of the stomach” feeling. Even with my eyes closed, I could almost see it happening.
It was the first-person view that did it. I’ve played many - too many - other games that required jumping, but never had that feeling. Those, however, were all third-person perspectives.
Watching that little character on the screen go soaring off into space was not a problem. No matter if I was jumping across the Bottomless Chasm Of Infinite Restores, or over the Fiery Lava Pits Of Imminent Reload, it didn’t bother me in the least.
Okay, maybe I was bothered in the sense of being annoyed or frustrated. But there was never that “eeeeee!” feeling. For whatever reason, my brain (such as it is) equates that FPS view with “being there”, when I know full well this is all make-believe. That I can restore if I don’t make it over. That I’m not gonna be hurt. Listen, little gray cells, this-is-NOT-real! Nope, won’t pay attention.
If anything shows the difference between “knowing” and “believing”, this is surely it. One part of the mind knows the game is illusion; another part believes what it sees….and the illusion wins out, every time. Now, that is scary!
i know that U2 place and it was some columns you had to jump from/to in order to get to another section/area. Gawd did i hate that experience!
it was very annoying and more video arcade button mashing then RPG as far as i was concerned.
I have had a couple console games where I got vertigo. Ratchet & Clank was one. When I was very high up on top of a building and you could see it was a loooooong way down, I got that feeling like I was standing on the edge of a cliff - butterflies in my stomach and head spinning.
I’ve experienced vertigo even in third-person and not just with games. I had to force myself to watch certain parts of Spiderman, the movie, for instance. All the while my whole body was insisting that I was in mortal danger.
I haven’t been scared (grossed out or nauseated, sure) of anything but heights in games since my first RPG, Temple of Apshai. The novel fear could never happen again for me in the medium. Movies and novels with an intense story and characterization can still do it, however.
Well, I didn’t have classic vertigo symptoms. No dizziness, for instance. It was all about falling from a height. Shucks, I could have stood on that rock all day, no sweat. But…jump from one to the next. Eeek!
Dell, are you sure about Temple Of Apshai? The game I played on my Apple had no heights. It was a flat game, in fact. Or was there a different version on another system?
Sorry Scorp, I wasn’t clear. I meant that aside from heights the only game that scared me was Apshai. It was the novelty of the situation. ;)
Here’s a scary moment for ya.
The first time I played Daggerfall in the very first tutorial cave. When you climb the big steps to the alter and the skeleton appears behind you and roars! Scared the crap out of me. LOL!
Another Daggerfall moment was one of those dang rats going “MEEP!” right at my feet. It happened about 10 minutes after the skeleton. I actually fell out of my chair with this one when I jumped. I still chuckle over it.
They were both cheap shots by the Dev’s as both materialized out of thin air but they got me to unplug my head phones for awhile.
My fearful gaming is getting to be the fear that the &$%@ thing is going to work with the nasty copy protections they are using these days.
I was planning on buying the Witcher then just read this little tidbit on their forum:
The Witcher protection system does not support any kind of emulation software such as e.g. Alcohol or DaemonTools. Using it may result in non-detecting a dvd with the game. Unistall emulation software along with its registry entries.
I already see posts of people in Europe having trouble getting it to run for that reason. I use Daemon Tools frequently. I have some Akai format cds containing digital instruments for samplers which can’t be read by Windows. I have made them into ISO images and can load them into DT and then they are useable by programs such as Reason. Well, it looks like the people behind the Witcher assume I am a pirate just because I have the program installed, not taking into account the many legitimate reasons to have a cd/dvd emulator installed. You just lost a sale guys.
Ironically, there is already a cracked version out just days after the European release on Oct 26th.
Maybe RETURNS will help these companies get the message. “Sorry, this game did not want to play nice on my machine. It’s too bad. Give me my money back, please.”
Vag, hehe. Sudden appearances can have that effect. That just reminded me of a moment in Barrow Hill. I was going around a building, and stopped to look in a trash can. CAW! CAW! A raven came flying out of it. OOF! I jumped in my chair at that one. ;)
Xian, sorry to hear that about Witcher. Since I don’t use any software like you mentioned, that wouldn’t be a problem for me. But I can see where it would annoy you considerably.
I’m still not sure about this one because of the specs, and also because I noted a patch has been released that’s over 100 meg. There’s always something :(
Coyote, returns are tough. Many stores won’t take back a game that’s been opened unless it’s defective, and then you can only get another one of the same.
Yeah, copy protection has really gotten entirely out of hand again. It’s beginning to remind of the bad old days of the late 80s/early 90s with intentionally damaged media and dongles.
In any event, wrt The Witcher, I’ve seen a post at the codex where someone mentioned that they were playing the game with fairly sub-par specs, IIRC an XP2500(maybe less), 768M, but a decent GPU a 7600GS IIRC. They said that they could run it ok IF they reduced all of the graphics settings and view distance, but that cut scenes were broken. (Apparently they got a blank screen at cut scenes, but they also said something about out-of-synch audio…)
Load times are said to be awful with less than 2G…
Cutter, thanks for the info. I’ll have to go check out the Codex forums. I don’t mind reduced graphics, although broken cutscenes are another matter. And there’s still that patch business, too. Urgg.
As for copy protection, yeah, I recall those bad old days, too. Wrote about it in a Copy Protection: The Useless Feature. But I don’t think they’re listening. :(
I believe that copy protection forces good law abiding customers into piracy by forcing them to search on the net for the codes they’ve lost or a nocd hack when their media gets scratched. This introduces them to that culture and they justify it in theiir mind due to the $50 they paid for the useless platter they can’t play. First step on the slippery slope.