Like many of you, there are some games from my childhood that still give me the creeps when I see them. Is it just "creepy nostalgia," or is there actually something to it?
The limitations of technology in these games are 100% integral to their nostalgia now, to the point people have to struggle to recreate the same ambiance. I wonder how many of the jerky aspects that we loved about these old games were completely unintentional and frustrated the programmers who were trying to make an experience as smooth and flawless as they could. I hope they're happy to see that those limitations are part of what we all fell in love with.
I was noticing a ton of people talking about how creepy and lonely playing Mario 64 or the older versions of Minecraft are, so I'm thinking these reasons are likely why
@@Nero_Jerono game is ever perfect. For example, Super Metroid... uh... hmmm.. well... doesnt... let you skip the intro cutscene? Apart from that and the later games having improved shinespark mechanics, super metroid (and zero mission) are as close as it gets to a perfect piece of media.
Not being able to skip the intro makes it imperfect??? Have you heard about Rush Syndrome, when a person has no time for nothing and is always in a rudh? The slow intro is part of the perfection, it allows you to step deeper away from the here and now and get more close to the mood the developers had intendet. Greeting from a GenZ who loved this Game since my NerdAunt let me play with her private museum.
As a little kid, I always found games like this scary, because they felt so big and mysterious. I felt like there was so much more happening behind the game, that I could never see. It was an uncertain kind of unease, like not knowing what's making a weird noise at night.
In this regard I always point to Silent Hill. Back in the day it was creepy as hell but as time has gone by its age has made it even creepier. Something about the odd movements, stilted dialogue, aged graphics and such just add so much to atmosphere of being in a living nightmare.
I remember the “nononono…f**k this. I’m out” point in the game. It was the quiet moaning sound coming from far into the sewer before walking for another minute before these Xenomorph looking monsters shows up. The only thing that comes close is the original Amnesia. 😱
@@TheRexTera That was the hospital for me, though I powered through it. Don't like hospitals at the best of times and "normal" and otherworld version both creeped me the F out for years.
Ocarina of Time had some of the scariest monsters of all time. The redeads, moblins, skultillas, even some of the friendly npc's were scary. And the whole entire game of Majoras mask lol
I think a lot of it comes from a degree of separation. Old media, like anaolg video, are so far into the past at this point that they are no longer the norm, as such they are unfamiliar, and even if you grew up with them they were the norm when you were younger and more impressionable. The separation applies to graphics as well, that style of presentation is antiquated and due to it's uneven nature or separation from realism it feels a lot more alien than the modern photorealism. It's like the fear of the unkonwn - it looks and functions differently from what you're used to, it's harder to comprehend
So, I have to confess... I don't really get this video. As someone in my 40's that grew up with gaming since the Atari 2600, and has even played most of the games you're talking about in this video at some time or another, I can't get past this idea that there's really nothing special that any of these games did that darker, horror themed games today don't also do the same way to the same general effect. Retro games, to me, have never really done anything special or different compared to the way modern 3D games go about this kind of thing, and that's the standard, universal concept of establishing atmosphere and mood by way of darker graphics and moody music and establishing a darker, somber tone. Something that not only old games and new games BOTH establish and execute the same way, but also taking these basic concepts from non-interactive media like films and television that use these same methods to establish mood and atmosphere. I can't really see what defines these universal concepts any differently based on what year something came out in, or something equally arbitrary as what type of media employs mood and atmosphere any differently. Maybe there's some big hidden secret to what makes these universal concepts any different than each other from where I stand that this video seems to be pointing at that I'm not getting, but I've never noticed any difference between the universal concepts of what sets mood in media between old games, new games, or tv show or films. I know lots of people will point to things like "well low-fidelity and things like grainy film or VHS effects makes things scarier", but since they all spring from the same well of mood setting techniques, and I don't see how certain things like 1980's camcorder footage or pixelated dark corridors of tight liminal spaces is doing anything more special than any other media trick or special effect out there.
Thanks for the well thought out comment, that's awesome to see. If I'm reading you right, it's true that dark, horror games have always drawn on certain techniques to ratchet up the chills. Stuff like bizarre animation, lighting, and sound design. I guess what I was trying to get at, and this may not have come through fully in the video, is I'm not sure the "creep" factor in games like the ones I mentioned was fully intentional, and may have been the result of technology or design principles at the time. Like, nowadays, games can be incredibly true to life. But the fact that older games were limited by their technology unlocks something else in our brains that goes, "that's weird, and I'm not comfortable with it." Like music that doesn't sound natural, or jerky movement, etc. Those things were baked in at the time, rather than tools in a developer's bag that they could choose to use at will. It may be one of those things that either just bothers you or it doesn't? I dunno.
Without getting too controversial, at least part of the psychological concept stems from the same reason you showed gameplay footage when mentioning older games and movie footage when mentioning newer games. I’m a little older, so I experienced most of the kind of thing you seem to be describing more with some Nintendo and Atari games than I did for games for the Super Nintendo or Nintendo 64/PlayStation. Either way, I think part of what it comes down to is phenomenological context and awareness. Newer games have long cut scenes, behind the scenes internet campaigns, and a much better understood production process, all of which make aspects of the interactive “story” more clear. While I do mean in terms of the characters on the game screen, I also mean in terms of the characters who created the content on the screen. Players today have a more direct pipeline of awareness running to their brain from every aspect of a game experience, even meta elements. It’s extremely clear what Arthur or Master Chief’s drives, feelings, and intentions are when we play those games. We also know how everything on the screen came to be there, and in most cases who put it there and why. We know these things not only because there’s more behind the scenes understanding, but because games aim for a more one-to-one representational experience than the more symbolic and surreal representation used by older games. We didn’t know much about who made them, how they were made, or-due to their symbolic, surreal representational nature-why they were made the way they were. Old games just existed in a surreal and unknowable space. The more symbolic and analogous a game had to be, the more surreal it felt, the creepier or more unsettling it was. The disconnect also ironically allowed an elevated sense of responsibility over the characters. Does Samus really want to run around this ship; does Mario really want to go down this dark pipe? Are they scared? Upset? Not knowing made controlling them a little more real. You can get a lot of it from much older arcade style games with black backgrounds and symbolic character sprites. Because of all of this, older games can feel like some kind of coded communication from a lost or alien entity-indecipherable, uncanny, and largely unknowable. They feel like fading echos from no place still perceptible to no one discernible. They’re electronic ghosts, driven far too mad by incorporeality to know their cries to the living no longer make sense. There’s a longing loneliness to them you could feel at the time. There’s a kind of confused sadness on the edge of creepiness to all of that.
I find some old games as eerie, mostly because I play them without having any sound and without watching anything because of how lazy i am to turn the sound on
Alien vs Predator on the Atari Jaguar was a traumatizing experience back when I first got it. It had no music, just an ever present hum and the screaming of the aliens or the clicking of the Predator. It was the stuff of nightmares.
I haven’t done the cursory search to verify, but I believe Sega games were indeed designed in Japan? And of course Nintendo is. I can’t help but think that I’m the 90’s, Japanese game studios hadn’t gotten an intuitive sense of what jelled with American culture/sensibilities. That might be why the games seem just left of center when compared with today Edit: Also great video. Got me through today’s cardio
The soundtrack of Super Medtroid is sooooo good!!! It feels so creepy, it feels so isolated, it feels so claustrophobic. Best enjoyed as a kid awake at night in a dark room with headphones on to not awaken the parents. One of my favourite Games of all times. 🖤
Honestly there are times where the 8-bit nature of games in certain environments can be eerie and unsettling. Not because they're intended to be scary or anything, but the quietness, the vagueness in what's being seen, or just how some times of games portray themselves.
Really interesting topic! I think some aspects of older technology really lent themselves to unsettling atmospheres, intentionally or otherwise. Older games and media tend to be a little uncanny valley; with some combo of liminal spaces, janky movement from limited framerates, and compressed audio you can end up with something that's undeniably creepy in a hard to define way. I think some of these same qualities are what give analog horror an extra layer of spookiness.
it's a mix of the various limitations of the tech at the time. surreal animations, pore view distances, clunky or limited Controls, weird discordant midi tracks. it forces the players brain to fill the blanks and make sense of what is shown. modern stuff is clear and clean, yes a flesh hallway made from twisted bodies is going to be creepy in both eras of games, but a modern one can fully render it, and it'll be more... defined, real. which weirdly makes it less scary, less alien, yet more viscerally disturbing. it's a different type of fear.
You made a comment that you wouldn't see games like Alien on Nintendo anymore... But in reality Nintendo has the most lax censorship of the 3 major consoles now. Hell if you go through the new releases on the switch it's a butt load of hentai games
Yeah the entire vibe of those early games is creepypasta (but I guess it’s because that’s what most vgpastas are based on) but yeah there’s definitely something inexplicably freaky about them
To love retro games better than newer games is not delusional by any means, imagination plays an important factor and Pixel graphics is a form of art all unto itself
When I was about 9 or 10, Ocarina of time used to freak me out a little bit. And when I was about 13 me and all my friends would pass around a copy of Silent Hill but couldn't bring ourselves to get far in it.
Okay, I'm still at the beginning of the video, but I'm going to write my guess as to your main explanation why older games tend to be more unsettling: It's the suspension of disbelief. And engagement, allowing your imagination to fill in the blanks. When you play a game with minimal graphics, if you let yourself be engaged with it, those two dots and a line can suddenly express more than what modern facial capture might do, because you can ascribe the exact emotions to that face, than good graphics can when you're not engaged. If you can get past graphical limitations as a consumer for a game you play, then you're able to engage with a game a little easier. Edit: Okay, so I didn't guess right.
It's called "Surrealism" Surreality is distinguished by the sense that things seem real but are so illogical and unsettling that they can't possibly be.
if anyone, and i mean ANYONE wants a complete breakdown , u need to play XARDION on SNES, sure it starts colorful, big mechs, what can go wrong ? well...u have 3 mechs and guess what ? one of them dies, a hero dies, in a 16 bit game, digested in the stomach acid of a planet sized monster, then when u reach the end, then the music hits, and u find out the whole war between galaxies was fought and millions died over a hologram because an AI was made to protect a little girl that died, so to not lose directive, the AI made a hologram of her and chose to burn the whole galaxy.....then when the final monster dies but still kneels to shield that hologram...it was insane...and all the game is styled over the HR GIGGER artwork of Alien .
i feel like its a combination between graphics, colour schemes, and atmosphere. I like to think about what made scott cawthons games so uncanny and its that 1990's and early 2000's internet era where the colours were almost always incredibly vibrant
Seems like you need to be introduced to the pixel horror genre of indie games! Titles like Corpse Party, Ib, The Witch's House, etc. There are many reasons those games are still so effective at creeping you out, and their old-school sprite-based presentation that skirts the line between 8-bit and 16-bit aesthetic certainly is among them!
I definitely thing sound was the most important factor. But the vague shapes leave a bit more to the imagination then newer games. It's why I think horror books are so much scarier than movies. You're imagination fills it in with the worst possibility for you.
F.e.a.r Hitman Contract Hitman Codename 47 Gta vice city Human Cannibalism And San andreas Ghost Car gta 4 Rats man And ghost kate Halo 2 Ghost player Silent Hill 1 and 2 re Half life 2 Ravenholm Gmod Gm_construct maps they are one of the scariest one i ever seen
Literally almost every older Rockstar open world games has this creepy unsettling atmosphere. Even the ones that are not horror like Bully, Max Payne they still gives that unsettling feeling.
I feel like the music of King’s Quest IV was enough to haunt me for decades… I’ve never been able to go back to that game, I’m still unsettled by its audio atmosphere…
Just want to throw it out there : these days the kids urban horror/legend often involves tech like smartphones showing you things. It's the stuff kids come up with now. My generation was tapes and such and I don't find horror involving smartphones or modern tech scary. So it might be a generational thing? I don't know. Maybe it's the stuff we bore in our minds while we were still developing?
I kinda compare it to Ocarina of Time 3D vs the original Ocarina of Time on the N64. The former uses more lighting and smoother polygons, which sort of removes the “gritty/horror” feeling you get from the N64 version. The final battle with Ganon serves as a great example.
The answer to why they are so much more creepy and so much more unsettling is partially already answered in this video with the mentioning of all the musical gaps that are there. But to expand on that base, I'd say at least for me the very obvious reason is that technical limitations of that time often forced developers to either find creative and clever solutions around them and / or, as mentioned, leave gaps, but not only musical ones. For example a way too pixelated face where you can barely make out any details (good example would be the T Rex staring at the car in this video) and other things like that. And our very own mind tends to fill these gaps, and since our brain has the tendency to fll stuff out in a manner that fits to the context it fills these gaps with some of the worst things we're able to imagine. Like for example a lot of you might have not notices I wrote "fill" up above without an i and your brain filled that gap with the fitting letter. And yes, another thing why they are so much more scary is that they relied way more on a creepy atmosphere and that is achieved way better by artful gaps at the right moments than any jumpscare ever could achieve. For example, the only horror game I ever really felt fear was the very first "F.E.A.R.", albeit not that old in comparision to the games mentioned in this video it came out in a time period of "horror" games that relied waaaay too much on zombies and / or jumpscares en masse and as such hardly deserved the genre classification "horror", instead this little title in my opinion mastered the art of "leaving gaps at the right place" and "crushing your expectations" in a good way, for example there's a dark, long corridor in the game where you expect something bad to happen very soon because a creey tune sets in but then abruptly stops and that's the moment your mind goes to red alert, but they just "dared" to let nothing further happen in there, just the music cutting out, nothing else. That moment is engraved in my mind and was way more effective than anything that could have possibly happened there. Pretty much the ultimate proof that for real horror you have to master the not so easy art of daring to leave gaps, musical, graphical and gameplay wise ones so the imagination of the audience is enabled to fill these out with maybe way more horrible scenarios than the creators imagination ever could have done.
i got Princess of Persia warrior within on GameCube early today. The game is scared of going 10 minutes without blasting rock music at me. but in quiet moments... i forgot what its called but that creepy sound from horror moves and games that sounds of nothingness but its not really music. " creepy background sounds" my point is in Princess of Persia its quiet and there a feel of loneliness but a feel there might be something following like you want to get out of there quickly
For the NES: Legacy of the Wizard had incredible atmosphere, mostly dark and it was easy to get lost. The music is epic, and I've always found that the whole thing adds up to be a creepy romp. For DOS: Iron Helix has you navigating a space station. Your vision is cramped. The UI takes up much of the screen, and one wrong move will have you assailed by robots. It has stuck with me since I was a child as primo spooky
It is just "creepy nostalgia" - you just retain the feelings what you had when you played those games as a kid. For me (being around 50 years old) this same "atmosphere-thing" applies to games from the early 80s and no 90s games have the same creepy atmosphere (Super Metroid being the only exception). I am sure that if I listed some of the creey atmosphere games from the 80s, someone born 10 years later would not feel the same way. I am sure nobody born in the, say, 90s finds "Monty is Innocent" for ZX Spectrum creepy, but for me it is very creepy.
I think the main thing that's affecting you is the music/sound but jurassic park game does have super low key lighting that makes the trex look extra spooky. in terms of older media tho, for me, back when I wandered the shelves of video stores, the biggest reason why some videos seemed extra frightening to me is because it wasn't made by a large corporation. there's a lot of assumptions that come from something being made by paramount or universal or disney. they have a reputation to maintain. they are RESPECTABLE. you KNOW that there are hard limits for them. you're safe. but with these low budget, indie movies from who knows where, you have NO GUARANTEES. you have no idea what kind of depraved, deranged psychopaths are making this and you don't know what they are going to expose you to. that danger, I think, is what makes it feel different from the modern stuff that feels moderated and curated to be safe.
"I'm nostalgic, but not delusional." - Coming to call you out on saying they're not the "greatest window" for gaming with one console defining one of the best libraries to only be rivaled with the next gen PSX and the most powerful 3D hardware at the time (with admittedly painful drawbacks) whose more important games are still today THE templates for quality in their own genres. Other than this, nice subject for a video! The limitations at the time made for unique forms of "tones" to be set by ambitious developers. Some games played with silence, some others played with random outcomes, some games made a darker tone in contrast to their overall nature. Super Metroid is easily edgy, being the only game I can short-hand bring up that has corpses on its main title (so you know how serious this is)!
Oh man! When I was 3, I was frozen for 10 minutes straight when I booted up Jurassic Park on the Sega Genesis, until my mother came into the room and turned it off.
Alien 3 scared the bloody fuck out of me. I remember playing that at a friends house, and goddamn... I think all of us were scared shitless. The difficulty, the atmosphere, the music and sound design. It was a legit scary game.
For me it's the Simpsons games on the NES, I disliked them as a kid but nowadays I feel that there's something really off with them. It has probably a lot to do with the almost bootleg tier sprite work along with a sound engine that still rubs me the wrong way. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's demonic, but the games just disgust me in a way that no other games do. I kind of get the Jurassic Park example even if I don't get much of a reaction from me, but there are quite a few DOS games that do give me that specific feeling.
The scariest old game for me is Missle Command on Atari 2600. Trying hard to save my cities from incoming missiles. Playing alone at night with the lights off on my old aging crt television not knowing if it will finally give out everytime it makes a weird flicker. Only the warm glow of the tube phosphorus sustains and comforts my lonesome gameplay but it sometimes get to me. So I change the channel really quick but there are no more channels only snow and static then I am reminded that things don't work like they used to anymore especially my mind.
I think the emotions encountered as a child shape more what you find creepy. Games in particular, back in the 90’s had more investment from you as the user (cost was high and more time to play) so you have that emotional connection. Same with movies. Some puppets from old 80’s movies are infinitely more creepy than any cgi today
I think mystery has a lot to do with it. Simpler graphics had a higher level of abstraction, the story elements were not so clear, and you used a lot of your imagination to fill in the details. Besides that I think there's a technology element involved. CRT monitors and TVs produced a blurrier image and there was that buzz emitted by them, as well as how they illuminated the room when you had the lights off. And when you had no signal they were really creepy. Add to that the glitches and bugs of all games. To summarize I would say the technological limitations made us use our imagination more and in some cases increased the creepy factor.
One game that I find unsettling is the Sega Genesis version of Warlock. The first level begins very quietly with equally quiet, yet somehow menacing, music but then the sky darkens and moments later a jarring change in music heralds the very moment that all hell breaks loose. The second part of the first level goes back to having disturbingly quiet music, but this time it stays the same even as innocent school students suddenly transform into hideous things that slowly shamble towards you.
A lot of indie games are using the first Playstation aesthetic to create horror games. I play since Atari and it's true that many old games are very creepy. Toki for Genesis is one of them. The bosses and their soundtrack are nightmare fuel. I played a lot of games with a creepy aura back in the day even though they were not always horror games (specially in the first Playstation).
I believe that a factor in this is the limitations of the tech at the time forced people to be creative An example is the original Alien film, the creature was almost never shown directly because the animatronic could look lame or obviously fake, so a lot of cinematography techniques were accidentally invented to make up for those limitations. Wouldn't the same be true for games, especially due to how much more technology influences their development?
I think besides the presentation with the atmosphere and music like in the opening of the alien game, the hardware limitations worked pretty well in favor of horror in terms of graphic. The reason it couldn't be as realistic as games can be today made it creepy, since your mind tries to fill in the gaps and creates something uncanny. Its like in eldritch horror, where the monster isnt directly seen or described, but different in the way, that it can only be shown as good as possible. Thats why, for example a picelated Ridley together with its otherworldly digitized screeching from a metroid game back then can be creepier than a modern version of ridley with a realistic animalic roar. For example, if someone with limited arts skills sees a monster in a movie and tries to his best ability to redraw said monster from his memory, his depiction can either be hilarious or more unsettling than the original, so his limitations can work in his favor.
Old games couldn't deliver the fidelity of graphics needed to explicitly depict a scene with so much detail that it didn't warrant any imagination. Back then, your mind filled in the details that the current tech could not deliver unadulterated, and implying the contextual details let the viewer imagine the nuances of the content that was not clearly presented.
I think old things can come off as creepy because they're from a culture that no longer feels familiar, especially if you come across something that hasn't been interacted with in a long time.
Learn how to use background music properly. I don't wanna hear goofy upbeat piano music on a video about unsettling and discomfort games. It kills the whole vibe
@@hettige Not really. The video was about why older games feels unsettling. Doesn't necessarily means the delivery has to be creepy too. It's not a creepypasta video.
The intro to Gyruss and Phantom Fighter on the NES really got me as a kid and the cinematics of Astyanax. Also Sanitarium on PC well the whole game is so creepy and I all about it.
You've got a limited vocabulary and you're not very articulate. It would have helped if you did more research into the games you covered and interviewed the developers of them.
Sometimes games that aren't even meant to be creepy get to me too. Like Link to the past or Mario 2 on Gameboy. It's like these small moments of dread come across me at certain parts. Even Streets of Rage 2 does it
