For those of you who know me well, you know that I almost despise the horror genre. While I do like games such as The Walking Dead or The Last of Us, those are more story-based intensity games rather than horror. No, I'm talking about the kind of game where the entire point is to freak you the heck out. Using all sort of methods to mess with your head and make you jump out of your seat in terror. For the longest time I have despised it.
It's not so much the terror itself that bothered me, but how they would implement it. Using blood, gore, and things specifically designed to give you nightmares; and for no reason at all beyond scaring the crap out of you. Almost every game I've heard of or seen designed specifically for horror has tons of disgusting stuff involved, and usually ends with you failing to defeat whatever evil is involved, or dying, or sometimes both, making the entire adventure pointless. For so long I absolutely hated the idea of horror, it just seemed like self-torture with no gain...and then this took the internet by storm.
Five Nights at Freddy's, a horror game from Steam that went viral after a Let's Play from a popular Youtube channel.
Based off of the Chucky Cheese franchise, Five Night's at Freddy's takes place at a pizzeria known simply as Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. You are the security guard working the night shift at the recently re-opened kid's joint...however, right on your first day working at the establishment, you realize you are in for way more than you bargained for...
Turns out that the animatronics created for the kids roam the building at night, and your real position as guard is to prevent them from leaving the building...by being bait. Apparently if they see you, they'll think you're an empty costume without a metal skeleton, and forcefully stuff you into one...which would result in a situation I would rather not discuss here. While you can't leave the guard room, you have a camera which you can use to check on things, as well as being able to close the doors outside your room to stop them from getting in...but power isn't cheap, and you have a limited supply for the night...run out of power, and it's game over.
To make matters worse, something...doesn't seem quite right about the animatronics despite what the company suggests. They seem to make erratic movements, glitch, make really creepy noises and stare directly in the camera's, as if they're somehow sentient...I won't give away any spoilers, I'd rather you find out on your own.
So...why am I talking about this? Well...to be completely honest, I've become absolutely enthralled in it, so far as to say that I may actually have to play this someday. Yeah, that's right, ME. So why exactly do I like it so much? Well, let's find out!
1. The Enemy
In pretty much every horror game, there's something I'd like to call "The Enemy". Whether some force, or a living being, or multiple beings, or...really anything creepy, there's something that you're supposed to be afraid of.
This is something that's bothered me about many games that I've seen. Not the concept, but once again, the execution. The Enemy in most horror games is this incredibly powerful force or being, something that is almost guaranteed to kill you no matter what. Some games, like Slenderman, exist purely for the sake of lifting said being to God-like status, and it gets absolutely obnoxious. What's the point of fighting an enemy if it's literally impossible to face?
The Enemy of FNaF is rather obvious: the animatronics out for your head. Beyond absolutely loving their concept and art style, I really think there one of the best "enemies" every created. They are indeed scary, as they are massive and made mostly out of metal, and are incredibly creepy...and yet they're beatable. In fact, that's the entire point of the game: survive five nights, and get your paycheck.
The animatronics, while really creepy, aren't covered in blood, guts, or anything, and shouldn't give you nightmares, which really impresses me. That combined with being a legitimate and difficult, yet beatable threat (both of which being reasonable and making sense) makes them the best "enemy" I've seen so far in the world of horror.
2. The Fear
Being a pure horror game, the point is obviously to scare you and give you that emotional high, both of which this game does really well at. It utilized the classic jumpscare (when you turn on the light outside your windows and see one staring at you, or when one gets into your office and kills you), paranoia (the constant fear of something coming at you at any point do to the game's random AI), and the overall creepy atmosphere (do I even need to explain? -. -').
Not only is it really simple, but there's no gore or blood. That's right, NONE. It's all done in incredible creepy, yet not unnecessary ways. Even when they find you, you're not shown your death, simply a gameover screen with you stuffed into the suit without any blood or anything. I'm so happy that someone finally realized that you don't need that kind of crap to make a game scare you.
And then there's the creepyness. Most horror games try way to hard to scare you, and go WAAAAY too far. The monsters they come up with and graphic scenes are so horrifying that I'm surprised they allow adults to simply walk in and see it. The goal is to make them feel frightened, not possibly make them insane.
This game, while creepy and can scare you...isn't that horrifying. In fact, from an outside perspective, it can almost look cartoonish. The enemies are simply the modern equivalent of Sesame Street, nothing more...and yet it succeeds at getting fear across. I think that's just awesome.
3. The Story
For some, this is one of the most important thing about a horror game: the story. Horror media often utilizes very mysterious and creepy stories, which is one of the major attracting factors to the genre. So, how does FNaF do?
Well, at an outside glance, it pretty much looks like there isn't any. You're just a guard facing off some horrifying animatronics...and yet it feels like there's something more. You know there's a story behind everything, but you can't figure out what that story is.
That's part of what makes this game so great and why it took over the internet. The story is hidden within the game: why the animatronics are so creepy, what happened all those years ago, what the hell you got yourself into...to a degree that we really don't know what happened. The story is told through small hints, that while give details and interesting facts, never really conclude much at all. There are so many theories about the game, and no one really knows for sure if theirs is right. This fact is possibly the greatest thing about the game.
Conclusion: Welcome to Horror
I'm sure you've figured out by now that I really, REALLY like this game. And yeah, I really do!
But I actually think this series means more than a really good game, and we'll see with the success with Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the very hyped sequel that was just released. This is just my opinion, and I could be totally wrong about this, but...I think this game is the best introduction to the horror genre in terms of a game.
This is a day and age where games aren't just for the nerds and geeks. Companies are now trying to encourage all kind of people to play games: sports fans, ordinary teenagers, even working adults. Trying to display to the outside world why exactly we enjoy video games, as well as why we like certain kinds of games in the hopes of maybe getting others to understand and possibly agree with us. This is what I believe this game excels at.
As I said previous, I hated the horror genre before this. While I did like some aspects of it, I really had no desire for any of it whatsoever. What this game did (and I'm not even sure it was part of the design to be this way) was display all of the things people enjoy about horror through simple (yet challenging) gameplay that even people who weren't really gamers could understand. And not just that, but with a very creative and mysterious story, a fantastic concept, and no unnecessary crap that tends to get shoved in to make the game more scary.
Because of that, while I'm still not fond of all horror games, I do have a better grasp on WHY people enjoy them. Now I respect the genre as a whole quite a bit more, as I'm beginning to understand why it's so popular (though still not understanding the appeal of gore).
Now, I'm not saying you will like this game. To be fair, for those used to the genre, this may not be scary at all. It is rather cartoonish and simple for a horror game, and it can get repetitive over time. However, I think this is because it's more for those who AREN'T accustomed to the genre, focused on the mainstream. This is a game I could see getting people into other, more serious horror games, and increasing the genre's popularity as a whole. Once again, this is all just my opinion, but I think it really has potential.
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