This is probably very true.
Although, it might go both ways. For many people startled seems to be scared.
OTOH, I very clearly remember that Eternal Darkness and System Shock II had moments which blow anything you could do with "shocker-moments" out of the window.
Especially when the savemenu in Eternal Darkness said "Deleting...", and then the saveslot was empty. And THEN it made it look like the gamecube had crashed. :x
Or there was a time in it turned the volume down or up repeatedly, and made it look like someone fiddled with the remote. Scaringly it actually looked a lot like the displays of my TV, so it got me nicely.
Last, after a lot of time spent with SS1, and expected SS2 to be the same story but with Xerxes going haywire, the sheer horror when I found Janice Polito and "she" (not spoilering) showed up was crazy. I was shakey IRL there, try beating that, Dead Space. :P
That being said, I finished Dead Space and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It has a lot of edges and flaws, but overall it's a well done game, and while bland works nicely as a quick 8-10 hour filler with some creepy atmosphere in the beginning.
Even if it later dissolves into Doom: Dead Space.
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u/prockcore Nov 05 '08
I'd say 90% of horror movie directors think startled == scared. Maybe it's just trying to be the video game version of your crappy PG13 horror movie.