Having a fixed or on rails camera can work very well in a horror game IMHO. Eternal Darkness for the gamecube is a good example. The camera isn''t really fixed, but the player can''t control the camera as it pans and moves around the room you''re in. This is used to great effect as your character starts going insane (a big part of the game is the hallucinations that then happen, read a reviewfor details), with the camera choosing odd, unnerving angles. The more insane you''re character becomes, the more the camera will rotate (giving a tilted view) and sometimes it will move towards the floor looking up at your character. This really enforces an unreal feeling and the fact that you sometimes can''t see where you''re heading is really scary. If the character regains sanity (one character can regain sanity by drinking whiskey for example) the camrea becomes more "normal" and gives a far more functional view of the scene.

Eternal Darkness is the first game I''ve played that wasn''t just scary because of monsters jumping out of hiding unexpectedly, but because you really didn''t know what was real and what was not. It''s a psychological thriller more than splatter, to make a movie analogy. This wouldn''t have worked half as well if the camera wasn''t fixed. So having a fixed camera can work really well, provided you do something intelligent with it.

I heard Eternal Darkness can randomly put the Gamecube into "sleep" mode or something when the insanity level is too hight, making you think the console has shut down by itself.

That can be very freaky late in the night.

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Original post by GameCat
Eternal Darkness is the first game I''ve played that wasn''t just scary because of monsters jumping out of hiding unexpectedly, but because you really didn''t know what was real and what was not. It''s a psychological thriller more than splatter, to make a movie analogy. This wouldn''t have worked half as well if the camera wasn''t fixed. So having a fixed camera can work really well, provided you do something intelligent with it.

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While Eternal Darkness is a great game, and does manage to do the ''horror'' game much better than most (RE games particularly) the fixed camera angles weren''t flawless. Although this could probably have been fixed by not hiding key items far away from the camera (or by putting just a bit more light around the obscured doors in the distance or at funny angles).

Undying needs to be played by anyone looking into horror games. A FPS style PC game (that you can probably pick up dirt cheap now) thats amazingly scary. It uses a combination of FPS camera and scripted camera cut screens (although just a few). Again its mainly psychological, with the continuous ''is this really real'' question.

Most of the fear in Undying comes from sounds and suggestion rather than graphic violence. The ''second sight'' which allows you to sense traumatic events in the past is particularly jarring. Switch it on and you''re suddenly confronted with sinister alternative paintings, images of characters betrayed or assulted, and perhaps most shocking the screams of a woman dying during childbirth.

Graphics are not all, sound is much underrated and needed for a gripping game.