There's a very clear distiction between modern "horror" and what developers think is genuinely scary now and 10 or 15 years ago. Since Resident Evil 4's success, many developers have taken the step from
actual survival horror and turned it into action horror in order to appeal to a broader audience. Don't get me wrong - Games like Resident Evil 4 and 5, Dead Space, and even FEAR are perfectly fine to play, I enjoy them as much as the next person. But since I grew up with
proper survival horror such as Fatal Frame, Silent Hill, The 7th Guest, and Clock Tower. I find myself longing for more traditional horror games with less action and more focus on the scary part - making players feel uncomfortable. I find developers are defeating the purpose of inherently scary concepts such as zombies by giving you tons and tons of weapons and ammo to defeat them with.
Seriously, when's the last time you got stressed out because you were unsure of survival in games like Resident Evil 4, 5, and Dead Space? These games have no fear factor for me because there is no penalty for failing. If you die, you restart in the same room you died in, full well knowing what lies ahead. Remember the old days? The original Resident Evil at one point, had me freaking out because I knew I was about to enter an area I had not been in, with very few rounds for the 2 weapons I could carry along my neccesary health items and keys, and I did not have enough Ink Ribbons to save. Silent Hill screwed with your mind by using ambient lighting to the best of the Playstation's ability, along with monster designs nobody was familiar with.
Recently, the only games I can think of that truly made me feel uncomfortable in the way the classic horror games did, are the games from the Penumbra series and Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
Especially the latter. That game is genuinely terrifying. It uses sound, visual cues, and classic horror clichés to make you feel incredibly uneasy while simply navigating a hallway. And do you know how much "action" is in that game? Nothing. The only action that's in there is running for your life, navigating the hallways of an old, broken down castle with a monster you can't really see chasing you - you know he's there but if you turn around to look at him.. you're done for. Run through hallways, go into an empty room and barricade the door with a table. Hide in a closet and pray that whatever was right behind you doesn't get through.
Less and less games are filling the true horror niche and I'm afraid the genre itself is heading the same way that point and click adventures went. I genuinely don't think there's enough demand for horror games such as Amnesia in which you truly are helpless to defend yourself from an unknown assailant. Even Amnesia is developed by an indie developer who took a risk -
had their game not sold well they would have been out of business. They needed 24,000 sales in order to continue. A game such as Resident Evil sells millions. We're slowly moving towards a shift in the horror genre I'm not too pleased about. They're fine games, no doubt, but they should have a place of their own and not replace what people expect when they think of horror.
Or maybe it's just me.