The like of Silent Hill would sit within this particular sphere. There have been some impressive efforts as King’s second “horror” category, too. Most horror games belong there – including popular franchises like The Evil Within and Resident Evil. Video games have been particularly effective at the gross-out over the years. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there…” And the last and worst one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it’s when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. If you think about the implications of what is depicted in Layers of Fear 2, and pay attention to the narrative, this game works as both a beautiful homage to classic cinema, and as a genuine work of horror.Īs the great Stephen King himself once wrote, in exploring the basic foundations for how horror functions (King is actually a superb theorist to go with his novel writing skills): “The three types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it’s when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. But is it scary without that? Yes, it resoundingly is so. Aside from some ill-conceived but blissfully brief moments where an apparition chases you around, there’s no sense of physical danger in the game. In a sense Layers of Fear 2 is one very brave horror game in that it lacks the physical sadism of more base horror films.
#Layers of fear theory free
Horror fans may want to give Layers of Fear a shot if they can find it in a future Humble Bundle or if it eventually pops up as a free downloadable via Xbox or PlayStation subscriptions. I can’t recommend it beyond that.Related reading: Lindsay’s review of the original Layers of Fear But by the halfway point I was just zooming along looking for whatever would trigger the next event and allow me to progress to another room, almost completely unfazed by any of the “scares” thrown my way. I’m generally a sucker for horror games – especially those that look as good as this one. Oh, more dolls that will almost certainly begin moving around the room when I’m not looking (I found myself musing that it would be more shocking if they didn’t). Of course this door doesn’t lead where it logically should, because almost none do.
The best psychological horror experiences create quiet interludes of engaging storytelling and insert unexpected revelations that leave us reeling – ready to be pushed over the edge by a single, perfectly timed audiovisual shock.Īlas, Layers of Fear has few (if any) such dramatic narrative moments and numbs us to its surprises by piling them on so rapidly and heavily that they cease to shock us. After a couple of hours I simply wanted to rush to its (increasingly obvious) conclusion.īut Layers of Fear has no sense of pacing. I grew attached to none of the game’s personalities, and cared little about the unfolding story. However, they needed someone with vision and a proper understanding of the psychology of horror guiding their efforts – not to mention a writer capable of crafting compelling characters.
Aside from a tendency to reuse assets from room to room and an occasionally hitching frame rate (especially during the final set piece sequence), I haven’t many qualms with the visual side of the experience. They also incorporate some pretty neat real-time environment morphing tricks that do a fine job of creating a sense of disorientation. Layers of Fear‘s mansion is beautiful, with a surfeit of lovely visual details. It’s clear that the artists at Bloober Team are gifted. Clues rolled out over the game’s four or five hour duration eventually coalesce into a pretty simple story of a man descending that leaves few open questions. I won’t spoil more than that, mostly because there’s not a lot more to spoil. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
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