the suffering

oh my god. i unwrapped "the suffering," loaded it up on the xbox, turned off the lights in my room, and changed the brightness on my tv to the suggested setting. i didn't even make it to an encounter with an actual monster before i turned it off.

i could only play this game in a brightly lit room with at least 2 friends. if it was only 1 friend i'd be afraid of him mutating into a bloody torso with knives for limbs and skewering me x4. good god. raj, this is your kind of game, buddy. fucking creepy doesn't begin to cover it.

i just whipped that up and posted it right away, but i'm editing it now to include some more thoughts. 1) i can't play resident evil either. i've tried. 2) i don't know why i can watch scary movies but not play scary games. i think it has to do with passive vs active involvement. i can sit back and relax because it's not ostensibly _me_ wandering into the obviously haunted house or peeing in the indian burial ground. but running around, even in a third person view, constantly shifting the camera angle because i'm sure some knife doll mannequin is creeping up behind me (possibly along the ceiling instead of the ground) - that is an entirely different story. 3) i like fps's, and scary games. i've been able to play some. the exceptions, i think, have to do with ambushes. i hate needing to WATCH MY BACK. i'd love a game with linear progression and areas that, once cleared, stay that way. facehuggers crawling around in the ventilation system and lunging at your unprotected back (of course you always turn around just in time to get the face hugged), zombies appearing out of nowhere from the direction you just came and lunging at your unprotected back, knife torso thingies coming from a prison gate locked on your side and lunging at your unprotected back... can't handle it.