Lurker > Snake5555555555

Okami
Gear

Santa Suit Maniac

Callisto baby

https://www.tiktok.com/@deburke321/video/7072145951200234757?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7081732342587688491

Time
Mario

Santa Suit Maniac

Auto
Hearts

Whoops didn't have time to come back, oh well!

Obligatory GARBAGE DAY

(yes I know it's actually Ricky who says that)

https://youtu.be/fjOt1evpKPM

NFUN posted...

I just beat Little Hope and lol

Ugh it's so bad

Santa Suit Maniac

Oh my god, I didn't see the gift until now, thank you so much, that's so generous!

Holiday
Homecoming
Letterbomb
Whatsername
Jesus of Suburbia
St. Jimmy
Wake Me Up When September Ends
Give Me Novacaine
She's a Rebel
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Extraordinary Girl
Are We the Waiting
American Idiot

What a god damn classic.

Nice I hope she gets nominated for a ton more. A Pearl best picture nod would be sweet as well (I can dream).

Also reminded me I forgot to put Orphan 2 on my list - slots between Mad God and Prey.

Ahhhhhh soooooo close SH2 :(

Wario
Ikaruga

So Smile was pretty good, sort of a mix of It Follows & The Ring. I'd rank it around mid-tier. A bit disappointing use of generic tropes (jump scares, the detective, the unbelieving fiance) but when the film leaned heavily into the psychological side I was really digging it. The birthday party scene was so messed up and sad and scary. That was great. (Has anything good ever happened at a horror movie birthday party?) Sosie Bacon's performance as a whole was great. Didn't like the ending too much but overall I enjoyed the movie.

Here it is

1. Smile
2. The Black Phone
3. Fall
4. X
5. Barbarian
6. Bodies Bodies Bodies
7. Scream
8. Halloween Ends
9. Nope
10. Terrifier 2
11. Don't Worry Darling
12. Beast
13. Pearl
14. The Invitation
15. The Cursed
16. Firestarter
17. Men

Looks like you had everything.

Charon I can probably fetch your list if you want.

1. Pearl
2. Terrifier 2
3. The House
4. Black Phone
5. We're All Going to the World's Fair
6. Wendell & Wild
7. Nope
8. Speak No Evil
9. Jujutsu Kaisen 0
10. X
11. VHS 99
12. Doctor Strange
13. Mad God
14. Prey
15. Hellraiser
16. Fresh
17. Werewolf by Night
18. Deadstream
19. Men
20. Scream
21. Shut In
22. See For Me
23. No Exit
24. Halloween Ends
25. The Bad Seed Returns
26. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
27. Firestarter

Watching Smile tonight! And Barbarian soon.

Billy Chapman

I loved Doctor Strange and quite enjoyed Werewolf by Night. The rest have been pretty boring to outright bad. But I am looking forward to the GotG special.

Santa Suit Maniac

Man of Medan is worse than all of those! Man it would've been hilarious and interesting to rate some Dark Pictures games.

Place posted...

I had a rather unusual experience with P.T.

Played it at a friend's place when it was brand new and I hadn't fallen in love with horror yet. All I really knew going in was that I'd be hunted by Lisa as the game went on. Yet...I never saw her, even at the top of the stairs where she's one to be. Now, I was a woefully fearful thing at the time, and even in just rounding the corner I'd peer around the wall and make sure that the coast was clear before proceeding. My theory is that the game somehow knew I would be more terrified in anticipating Lisa than actually confronting her. Generally with horror, you see the monster once and the shock factor rears diminishing returns on repeat encounters--but I never even had the chance! I could be misremembering, especially since you are supposed to trap yourself in the bathroom iirc, but the game really let me take my time and see it through to the end (my friend had the final puzzle's solution on-hand--no way in hell was I going to work that out lmao). Got to see all the sights: the refrigerator chandelier, the fetus, the photo fragments, the radio broadcasts. But, no monster. Had the game paused for minutes on end too, and didn't even encounter THAT alleged scare. She did make a proper appearance on my second playthrough, and fairly early into the run.

Love this game and am deeply saddened that I may never get to experience it again. Like you said though, its elusivity makes it all the more special. Like that one creepypasta yarn about the game that you can only play through once before it deletes itself from your hard drive and is impossible to reinstall, but made real and way cooler.

Haha, I love this! And I also agree completely. I mean it's like Resident Evil - by the end of the games you were always mowing down the monsters left and right by that point.

And P.T. is definitely the type of game I could see pulling that kind of thing too.

Now, perhaps P.T's most famous element - Lisa. She is absolutely one of the scariest antagonistic characters I've ever seen in a horror game. Lisa's general silhouetted appearance rounding the corner is a masterful blend of design and gameplay. You get so used to rounding that corner and basically seeing nothing, but when you do, there she is, looming, unmoving, human-like but monstrous. It's the unsightly nightmare you never knew you had, and again, that sound design comes into play here, her erratic breathing that would sometimes appear to alter between laughter and despair is so chilling. And then, you have to WALK towards her. Yes, yes, yes, I absolutely love it! THIS right here is why P.T. ranks so high on the scariest games of all time list. You have so many horror elements working together, cranked all the way up, and the game doesn't back down at any turn, only forcing you further down and down until finally you're in its deepest dark. This is pure fear and it scolds cowardice, it lectures on family pain, and it doesn't want you to be comfortable, ever.

Lisa is the clear representation of the wife that was unfairly slain by her own husband, though also perhaps a mother who suffered in silence, a person dead years before it actually happened, immersed in a world of horror surrounded by booze and drugs. Lisa carries all that pain with her, and it can be seen up-close in her disfigured visage and unhinged and intense for retribution. Only a short while later, you discover the next piece of tragedy - a fetus, writhing and crying in the sink, blood splattered everywhere. It says so much with so little, and the way it traps you in the bathroom gives you nothing but time to soak in the grotesquery. You'll never forget the sight.

The game's sense of reality starts to crumble. The hallway, you realize, is a long way away from ever providing the same sense of repetitive comfort it once did. Roaches now infest the whole house, a sign of abandonment. Pictures are ripped and defaced. Lisa surrounds your entire presence. No matter how long you've been there, you will never get used to it. Eventually, the swinging chandelier is replaced instead with a blood-soaked refrigerator, The sound effects and flickers on the screen now become your constant companions, always out-of-sync with your brain's perception, and confusion becoming the constant state of mind. The game completely validates its created nightmare and you're just another hapless victim of its poisoned narrative. I applaud P.T. for taking the metaphor so far into the realm of hopelessness. You're trapped, trying to figure out just what exactly to do while trying to solve the final puzzles. It's an onslaught on the senses in every regard. The room grows increasingly more distracting, the puzzle problems increasingly more complex, even the fetus starts taunting you.

Okay, okay. For such a small game, P.T. is one of the most densely packed experiences you will ever see or play. It uses absolutely everything from its claustrophobic atmosphere to its mind-bending mechanics to its sound design to its story, straight-forward enough so you can follow it through its more surrealistic elements but symbolic enough to continue SH tradition and poke at the psyche. This game was an absolute bombshell when it dropped, and horror games everywhere mimicked its hallways, looping, and psychological puzzle solving to often mixed effect. I honestly feel like games such as Visage or Layers of Fear often miss one crucial aspect that made P.T. the masterpiece it is, whether it be gameplay that's painfully slow or missing true scares in its monster design or more accurately, the way that horror is executed. P.T. still remains in a league of its own, and its supremacy comes with the reminder that it was never meant even be similar to Silent Hills. It was smartly made as a stand-alone experience, a horror game now hidden away in a black cave, and it's surreal and familiar world the catalyst for the scene surrounding the entire horror gaming experience in the past decade. If there's a level or map creator in a game, you can be guaranteed someone created the P.T. hallway in it. This is a game that will forever be iconic, because it doesn't just stand as a fantastic horror experience, it also became the symbol of corporate greed, the fragileness of game preservation, and the connection of fans that shaped and inspired their own games. P.T. is more than a game - it is a pillar in gaming history and it will forever remain as such.

P.T.

at special request of @plasmabeam (but expanded a lot)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/7/9/AAR-tQAAD7F_.jpg

Fear: 9.5
Importance: 10
Snake: 10

(29.5 points)

P.T. was a video game developed by 7780s Studios and published by Konami for the still new PlayStation 4 platform. This unassuming free download made its way onto the console in the late throes of summer, August 12, 2014. Just four days prior, another groundbreaking horror title Five Nights at Freddy's was released. A day prior, it was announced that famed actor and comedian Robin William had passed away. Hints of Russian invasion into Ukraine bubbled and ruminated under political chatter.

Along with the rest of those events, the release of P.T. sent out shockwaves still being felt to this day. This short game had everyone talking a game by an unknown studio that presented such subtle terror which had folks wondering what sort of madmen could have made it. Its incredible presentation, looping hallways, and brain-teasing puzzles demonstrated all the components to make P.T. a real winner for its debut.

Of course, we know how this story ends. P.T. wasn't made by some random developer - it was the brainchild of Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, who, as it turned out, were working on their collaborative project Silent Hills, the next huge main series entry in the then flagging horror franchise, the plan to bring the series some dignity back after the maligned releases of the HD Collection and Book of Memories in particular. This... never happened. In a fate more surreal than P.T. itself, a fallout between Kojima and his long-time publisher Konami (which is also still being felt to this day) led to the removal of P.T. from the PlayStation store, ensuring no one could download the teaser anymore and postponing Silent Hills indefinitely.

In its removal however, P.T. became more interesting than ever. It was pulled by one of the hugest publishers in the industry and it left gamers scratching their heads as to why it was taken away. It was now akin to forbidden knowledge, a game that no longer existed, somehow reflecting the horror of Silent Hill's curse in a game that was no longer there. People would pay out the nose just to have this game on a PS4. A cottage industry of P.T.-likes sprang up, such as the vaporware Allison Road by developer Lilith Ltd or Layers of Fear by Bloober Team. P.T. took on a new life of its own with the internet age, finding its place as a pioneering horror game and slowly making it so its influence was still being felt to this day.

Few games have come anywhere near P.T.'s accomplishment in the horror genre. So, what is it that makes this game so special anyway? Why is it as revered as it is? What are the elements that made this game so special, and how are those features replicated in other titles? First, I have a confession. I have never played the original P.T. as it existed on PS4. I wouldn't have a PS4 until the tail end of 2016, long after it was taken down. Of course, as a self-proclaimed survival horror enthusiast and historian, I had watched the game be played a few dozen times online after its release and I was able to get a general impression of its effectiveness. I initially wrote it off as one of those "walking sim horror games", like Amnesia or Outlast. I love those games, but it wasn't what I wanted Silent Hill to be like. It definitely seemed like a rehashed gameplay experience, but as I continued to dig deeper, I began to realize just how unique it was.

You awake in a non-descript room, with a roach and door, slightly ajar, in front of you. A single light source illuminates the space around you, with shadows lurking around the edges of your vision. You step forward and open the door further, revealing not a monster or devil, but a familiar looking hallway like one would have in their house, its walls lined with generic paintings and its floor a hard wood, as if you'd find it in an average suburban home. Still, you're wary, as a corner presents itself further down. As you push a little further in, an alarm clock stuck at 23:59 and beer bottles catches your eye - perhaps evidence that something unpleasant has been going on here recently. Even further now, and a dresser loaded with pictures and pills draws your attention next - alcohol and pills, not a healthy combo to say the least. Next, the corner. You hold your breath tightly as you peek around however, there is nothing to be seen but more hallway. To your right, you see a door, but nothing can be done with it. A radio buzzes in to earshot, a news report about a man who killed his wife, son, daughter, and unborn child, and that it was just one in a series of incidents involving fathers/husbands murdering their families. Scary stuff though perhaps not too uncommon for the town of Silent Hill. Other minor things to note are what appears to be a front door, an upper section of the hallway, and an open door which is your only path forward.

At this point, you've basically experienced the primary location P.T. has to offer. Beyond the next door, the hallway loops again, trapping you here. When it comes to survival horror, I feel like location is at least 2/3s of what makes a game scary. Hell, that goes for any horror medium. The environment is the conduit for the terror. YOU'RE the one that has to traverse this. YOU'RE the one that has to directly interact with this. Horror is adept at making even the most simple of areas a hostile environment, twisting what you deem as "safe". Perhaps you have a similar looking hallway in your own place, lined with the same kind of paintings, the same kind of drawers packed with junk, the same door you walk in and out of day after day, the same oppressive feeling in the dark you feel sometimes at night, that something is watching you from somewhere - something you can't see, but there nonetheless. P.T. and the broader horror genre brings those thoughts to the forefront - it makes you more closely examine just what a hallway's purpose is, and pushes you to recognize just how prevalent in your life hallways of all types are. Hallways inherently represent transition, and I think P.T. was a perfect precursor to the liminal space trend we now see most everywhere in horror game design. When horror is working in this type of constricted space, the results are often terrifying.

It is in this hallway where P.T.'s obtuse puzzles present themselves. It is where the environment and gameplay perfectly meld into one cohesive whole. You're forced to scour the place with a fine tooth pointer, combing every possible nook and cranny for anything that can help in your progression. That closed door in the hallway suddenly becomes a nexus point for the entire game, as the door rattles and shakes violently as if being rammed by something. It is unnerving - the tight claustrophobia of the hallway feels more closed in than ever, and while your solving the game's dastardly puzzles, you have this presence in the back of your head like a roving ghost ready to jump out of the dark just when you think you've caught a break.

On that note, you know what else is terrific in this game? The sound design. The sounds in P.T. are so well crafted and organically integrated that it's almost like you're living inside the game. Every clunking footstep, the pitter-patter of the rainfall, the swinging chandelier, these numbing sounds become part of your routine, and you begin to almost ignore them - that is, until a new sound enters the mix, usually something unknown and jolting. Every sound that emanates from the bathroom is nauseating and thought provoking in equal measures. The sounds of the baby crying feel so raw and unsettling and is inherently ear-catching. I also particularly love the radio sounds and voice actor in this, and how the radio broadcasts lend themselves to an intimate experience the creators were trying to invoke.

Billy Chapman

Guitar
Silent

Santa Suit Maniac

Surprisingly, I've never been a big fan of the Addams Family but the series has me a little intrigued. I might check it out, not sure.

F-Zero GX
Sonic Adventure 2

https://steamcommunity.com/id/CrossbonesGT/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1078420/Critters_for_Sale/

I used to keep my DS plugged in for days so I could start new Pokemon saves without erasing my original file.

plasmabeam posted...

Also, Snake, I would love your (or anyone else's) take on P.T.'s story

I'll make time some time this week, I'll probably just post it in my horror topic and tag you. I don't think I've ever actually fully discussed the story at length so should be fun!

All understandable points! The dismemberment part is definitely true.

plasmabeam posted...

Resident Evil Village: 2/10

Wow! Care to offer any quick words on this?

Joe
Half

RoseChevalier posted...

who the hell said agent orange

Pretty great band!

9/10

Probably the most easy to follow Soulsborne game overall - which is a good thing. Everything here is just super compelling, the lore is obscured enough to be rewarding to uncover but obtuse enough to always feel like you never have the whole picture and it constantly leaves you hungry for more and to understand it all. Just a lot of super weird, high concept horror & fantasy beats here. Way more memorable characters than usual too, and the pseudo-quest lines followed strictly on your own volition are a triumph of a freeform choice and consequence approach that don't feel in any way shoehorned or artificial or forced. If anything, the way quest storylines are approached leave you constantly second-guessing yourself if you're truly on the right path, and it leaves so much room for interpretation. However I will say the endings leave a lot to be desired unfortunately. Nevertheless, a lot of big impressive world building stuff that constantly sucked me in at every turn.

And I concur, this topic series was so much fun!

Colossus
Metroid
-

Oh damn it, fair's fair though.

I actually do need to watch that.

-
Evil

You will be singing that song to yourself for weeks.

masterplum posted...

Chiron beta prime and Joel the Christmas coal are the two best Christmas songs

Act accordingly

And so are Don't Shoot Me Santa and Dirt Sledding! (and the rest of the Killers Christmas songs too but Santa isn't in those ones)

Anyway, you should vote for the Santa Suit Maniac from Tales from the Crypt because he is one of the earliest and most influential uses of Santa has a horror/slasher figure and it's also just a delightfully macabre twist on the Santa formula.

No

3/10

Super boring

Castle
Devil

First match is kind of tough!

I guess I just always had it in my head they were since there's a lot of little continuity shared between them all, like set design, some characters cross over, etc, and most appearances of Santa are also voiced by the same actor, Mickey Rooney.

It's up to you if you want to count them all the same!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nofF4RCNC4

I wish we had time to get the Resident Evil Revelations games rated.