Ravenholm is scary

Officer Combine said:
I am prlly going to get to finally play half life 2 sometime this week or the next. If I have my sound off but subtitles on will it tell me when fast zombies are coming?
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Sound effects are shown if you choose closed captions instead of subtitles, which is dialogue only. I can't recall if they show fast zombie screams, but they should.
 
Half-Life has such great audio quality though. I can't imagine playing with the sound off
 
If you put volume to zero, it doesn't help at all. Think about it. You hear nothing, you suddenly take damage, you turn a rouuuuNNDNND FTW! You've got 3 cute fast zombies schratching you back.<3

I have only played the demo, and in Ravenholm, it really makes it less scary if you speak to yourself. As someones have said. It makes it "lighter" if you think about things like "Come here you mother****ing zombahh biatch!1". ;) Playing makes it more fun.

Or you can invite your friends! :D
"Hey, wanna coem pwn sum zomahs her??"
It is fun to own some crabmen with your friends.
 
Edeslash said:
If you put volume to zero, it doesn't help at all. Think about it. You hear nothing, you suddenly take damage, you turn a rouuuuNNDNND FTW! You've got 3 cute fast zombies schratching you back.<3

I have only played the demo, and in Ravenholm, it really makes it less scary if you speak to yourself. As someones have said. It makes it "lighter" if you think about things like "Come here you mother****ing zombahh biatch!1". ;) Playing makes it more fun.

Or you can invite your friends! :D
"Hey, wanna coem pwn sum zomahs her??"
It is fun to own some crabmen with your friends.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Well, I played through ravenholm now that I have the game (on 360). I played on easy and with subtitles. I wasn't as scared at all. Just irritated as crap by the rooftops.
 
Ravenholm wasn't scary! I suppose it had its moments that would make the player jump. But scary? I don't thinks so.
 
Try to get your buddy there to play with you.

Or play it with your friend(s) in co-op (synergy mod)
 
Ravenholm is good theatre. The ambient noise echoes nicely, and the voice of the priest calling out is tailored to work on anyone with some church in their upbringing. Early in the level, you come around the corner and see him high up in his window, with the courtyard filled with flames and burning zombies. It's deliberately designed to look like a scene from hell. Top this off with the twist that the first objective in the level is to meet the priest at the church. It is very nicely designed.

Those of you who play FPS games a lot have developed an immunity to ambience. The fear on this level has nothing to do with its difficulty. It's about being surrounded by shadows and hidden enemies, while screaming, moaning, burning people with giant parasites on their heads stagger around shrieking in pain, and your only ally is a psychotic freak who thinks he is a preacher and spends his days inventing gruesome deathtraps for victims of the apocalypse.

I didn't have any trouble with this level from a gamplay point of view, but it is a nicely conceived and executed level.
 
kepler said:
Ravenholm is good theatre. The ambient noise echoes nicely, and the voice of the priest calling out is tailored to work on anyone with some church in their upbringing. Early in the level, you come around the corner and see him high up in his window, with the courtyard filled with flames and burning zombies. It's deliberately designed to look like a scene from hell. Top this off with the twist that the first objective in the level is to meet the priest at the church. It is very nicely designed.

Those of you who play FPS games a lot have developed an immunity to ambience. The fear on this level has nothing to do with its difficulty. It's about being surrounded by shadows and hidden enemies, while screaming, moaning, burning people with giant parasites on their heads stagger around shrieking in pain, and your only ally is a psychotic freak who thinks he is a preacher and spends his days inventing gruesome deathtraps for victims of the apocalypse.

I didn't have any trouble with this level from a gamplay point of view, but it is a nicely conceived and executed level.
Click to expand...

Agreed, Valve creates diversity with their settings, and they do a great job at it. Different settings provide npcs that synergize. Such as having bugs as your allies when you ventured in prison.
 
Scary is debatable, but it was certainly oppressive; I don't think anyone can argue with that.

It exhibits yet more brilliant level design, gameplay and atmosphere you could cut with a knife, even though the last two were not very appealing to me compared with what's seen in the rest of the game. Too formulaic and a little contrived.
 
The scary factor of Ravenholm is vastly overrated. It's not even the scariest chapter of Half-Life 2 (and there are several scarier chapters in Episode One).
 
New here, hidey ho! Haven't been to a forum-looking forum in years.

Personally, when I first played the HL2+ games, the zombies scared the HELL out of me. But my second playthrough of the areas, I realized... They aren't really scary at all. Hell, even the ep 1 underground elevator sequence thing just makes me tense at this point. Not sure what's with that, but...

And I hate it when people say you shouldn't be afraid because it's only a game. I don't like to think about the fact that I'm playing a game when I play, I like to immerse myself into it. Honestly, every good aspect of a game can be ruined if you tell yourself "It's just a game". I didn't really want to ruin the mood Valve set for us in Ravenholm for myself, so the thought of 'Its only a game' never crossed my mind.

Also, about the "hatching" thing, maybe they just meant "hatching" from their pods? And yeah, I can see where that part can be scary, though I never felt scared myself during it.
 
FlamboyantPencil said:
And I hate it when people say you shouldn't be afraid because it's only a game. I don't like to think about the fact that I'm playing a game when I play, I like to immerse myself into it. Honestly, every good aspect of a game can be ruined if you tell yourself "It's just a game". I didn't really want to ruin the mood Valve set for us in Ravenholm for myself, so the thought of 'Its only a game' never crossed my mind.
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Agreed.

And welcome!:thumbs:
 
Eh, it isn't that bad.
I find Stalkers a lot freakier than Zombies. But yes, Fast Zombies always make me jumpy, i have to admit that.
 
With the mod SMOD Tactical - makes Ravenholm a million times scarier, more zombies, and stalkers that shoot lasers.. They always just pop out from behind a corner too, makes you shit your pants.
 
Lol it's just a game! Don't be afraid if you lose some health or ammo. Just RUSH listening to HEAVY METAL and there you go! Pwning zombies left and right!
 
Thanks gFrohman :B

And why wouldn't you want to be afraid? That's part of the fun of it!

(Wow, just realized I forgot about this place for 2 weeks. This is why I have problems with forums, I keep forgetting them.)
 
Relatively new to the sheer awesomeness that is the half life franchise.

I don't generally go for zombie etc games. Coz I'm a pussy when it comes to that kinda thing lol. And naturally when I got to Ravenholm I was like "no thanks!". Eventually I just turned up the brightness to max and went for it. Actually it was very enjoyable and now Ravenholm is one of my favourite chapters. there's nothing more satisfying than watching rag doll zombies in motion.

And later when it came to "low life" in epsiode 1, I was like "oh noes, not again" The only part I was like "oh gee!" was at the elevator part. I swear those fast zombies use speed hax. :p
 
I don't think its scary but the Poison Zombies are DEADLY. Stick with gregorys tactics or even look up some cheats!

Why do I have to ba a scaner. How do you change that!
 
RAVENHOLM said:
I don't think its scary but the Poison Zombies are DEADLY. Stick with gregorys tactics or even look up some cheats!

Why do I have to ba a scaner. How do you change that!
Click to expand...

Scaner wut. You are the freeman.

EDIT Oh your user title, nvm. Post moar.
 
For the first time I tried bringing Dog's rollermine along for company in Ravenholm, last night. I must say, it more or less transforms the chapter from - as Kepler wrote - a good piece of theatre into a bizarre babysitting stroll, throughout which achieving some sort of balance between propelling the thing at zombies and keeping it out of fire and away from explosions is the only valuable objective.

I can now very well understand why people go through the effort of bringing the rollermine along for the ride as far as possible into the game - weighted companion ball much? By the time the two of us had made it out of the mine, I felt like the ball's damned surrogate mother. No place in particular feels like an appropriate one in which to part company with it.
So, uh. Now to take it sightseeing on Highway 17.
 
The only thing scary about ravenholm was that I forgot to make popcorn for my last playthrough. :)
 
wtf-cat.jpg
 
kepler said:
Ravenholm is good theatre. The ambient noise echoes nicely, and the voice of the priest calling out is tailored to work on anyone with some church in their upbringing. Early in the level, you come around the corner and see him high up in his window, with the courtyard filled with flames and burning zombies. It's deliberately designed to look like a scene from hell. Top this off with the twist that the first objective in the level is to meet the priest at the church. It is very nicely designed.

Those of you who play FPS games a lot have developed an immunity to ambience. The fear on this level has nothing to do with its difficulty. It's about being surrounded by shadows and hidden enemies, while screaming, moaning, burning people with giant parasites on their heads stagger around shrieking in pain, and your only ally is a psychotic freak who thinks he is a preacher and spends his days inventing gruesome deathtraps for victims of the apocalypse.

I didn't have any trouble with this level from a gamplay point of view, but it is a nicely conceived and executed level.
Click to expand...

:cheers:

Nice post! I certainly agree. I had the same thoughts recently, while playing Doom 3. Yeah, I'm a little late to the party. What I read from people who played the game had a degree of ambivilance, so I wasn't expecting the experience I got when I played it. And that's the best way to put it...an experience. I can't even say it was necessarily FUN, since it was so incredibly stressful to play. It wasn't the difficulty of the game, heck, Mario is 100 times harder than Doom 3. But sheesh, my blood pressure must have been up considerably throughout the whole ordeal.

The creep-out factor factor of Ravenholm and the other "scary" parts of the game is reduced because you assume it's just a segment of the game. Eventually you will emerge back into the sunlight. In Doom 3 you just emerge into Hell.
 
Ravenholm was scary the first time I played. It was a rip roaring good time too.

For those complaining about running out of ammo, you are doin it wrong! Ravenholm was intended to be a playground of physics blasting fun. If you aren't dropping cars or punting barrels into swaths of zombies, then I really don't want to talk to you.

For zombie hunting shotgun pumping horde blasting action Half Life style, which is what some people were complaining about for Ravenholm, that was what the first half of Episode one was about. I actually had a hard time with the elevator fight strictly because I couldn't calm my itchy trigger finger. Something about the claustrophobic dark coupled with the grenade happy zombines kept me from being calm enough to realize there weren't all THAT many zombies...I just kept blowin myself up.
 
Ravenholm scares the hell out of me every time lol...I hate horror movies.

The howling of the fast zombies makes a chill go up my spine, and I hate how you can hear them chomping at the bit as they are running toward you...or when they reach you and rear back and do that creepy ass growling sound...hearing the pipes clanging as they climb to the top of them...lol it creeps me out just thinking about it now....UGH. It didn't help that the first time I got to the cable car in Ravenholm, I fell off the building when I tried to jump in so I had to run ALL the way back around with a whole bunch of those buggers chasing me and sounding horrifying the entire way...

The elevator part with Alyx was freaky as hell to me also in Ep 1. In the PITCH BLACK I could hear those stupid fast zombies grumbling and hear them galloping toward us as I tried to light flares...

It was convenient that I played both of those parts in the pitch dark of my room with headphones on.

I jumped in my chair many, many times cause of those bastards.
 
I didnt get scared of Ravenholm at all, although it is a nice level. I Must have been immunized from all those times playing Silent Hill.
 
The firt time i played it i was in the dark every time i turned a corner i would scream DIE ZOMBIE SCUM DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Although all of Half life 2 really is practically equal in terms of amazingness, Ravenholm definitely was one of the biggest highlights of my first playthrough... i wasn't scared in a way that made me not want to play it, i actually loved its atmosphere and found myself going back and playing it endlessly. Im a big fan of horror-related things... who isn't?
 
Ravenholm is only scary when you play for the first time. I remember that I went very slowly afraid of a random zombie popping out of nowhere. The poison zombies were probably the scariestand still do scare me. The fast ones were scary at first but then they just got annoying later. The second time I wasn't afraid but it was still very intense. The third time I breezed through it. I do agree that Ravenholm in HL2 is creepy but there are waaaaaay scarier games out there.

Try playing Doom 3 in the dark and you'll see what I mean

Put some music on and have fun killing the zombies. and whatever you do, Dont play Ravenholm at NIGHT! That is what i did to stop being scared :)
 
Well if you've ever played gmod, your probably not gonna be scared of Ravenholm. Just think of them as pixels on your screen. You can always pause. Oh, and also, listen to some metal, that will will motivate you to completely tear apart those zombies!
 
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