We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

I'm several hours in and I can count the number of times the game has actually gotten me with anything remotely horror-like on one hand. The number is four. They were all jump scares.

To be honest, at this point the jump scares don't even get me. This is a saddening fact and it only occurred to me yesterday when a monster jumped out of a vent right in front of me and I promptly fired my magical masterkey and dismembered pretty much every limb on its body in a single shot purely out of reflex. I only remembered I was supposed to have been surprised when I noticed the musical sting fading.

Honestly, the best part of the game so far (other than assembling my own weapons) was a segment in a dark environment where a horde of lesser foes was overwhelming me in a circular room. It started with a hallucination/mental attack scene (the only one I've seen so far in the game) that ended with the lights of my helmet flickering back on and me getting a slight shock to note how much they resembled an evil jack o' lantern face, then winding up being rushed in a rectangular/circular room with tight corners and being chased by a pile of weak but fast-moving critters (meaning my shotgun was much more difficult to use than usual). It got my pulse racing and I actually found myself muttering, "Now this is more like it!" Unfortunately, when it ended I found I'd only used two of my fuckmillion medkits to get through it. A shame. The feeling was also completely ruined when I left the area and was treated to a lovely scripted cutscene of machinery operating itself, as the NPC who was supposed to be going through the motions had somehow managed to get despawned.

The rest of my medkits were sucked up by the third fight with the gimmick boss, wherein the sequence you'd used the previous two times only got you a certain distance. After that it became a Zelda boss, requiring you to hit a switch, lure it into position, then AGGRESSIVELY MASH THE F KEY FOR LIKE AN ENTIRE MINUTE and then boom you won the fight. (It sucked up all my medkits because it took me so darn long to figure out what I needed to do.)

Also I agree with Gen that Dead Space 2 is where it hits closest to the mark. It's an acceptable blend of horror and action and made me hope the franchise was heading in the right direction. It has fewer terrifying moments than Dead Space 1, but still makes some memorable ones, and the combat was greatly improved without sacrificing the survival horror feel; ammunition and health were both pretty scarce still.