Mister X, Alien, Scissor Assassin and other annoying creatures that have worn out players a lot of nerves
The tall busty lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village quickly became an Internet star and spawned tons of lustful memes. In the game itself, however, there is no time to admire a huge vampire – you have to hide and run away from her in an old Romanian castle, as Lady Dee is seriously going to chop the main character into small pieces with her giant claws. Dimitrescu, by the way, is not the first virtual pursuer to conquer the hearts and minds of players. In this article, we will tell you about the rest of the famous killers who, like the Terminator, tried to catch gamers in famous games.
Mr X from Resident Evil 2
Capcom invented the very first pursuer in the history of Resident Evil back in 1998. The original Resident Evil 2, as veterans of the franchise will remember, had multiple campaigns. And on a second visit to the police station, the player was faced with a completely new threat – with the tyrant Mr. X, who was thrown onto the roof of the building by a helicopter of the Umbrella corporation, so that the silent and soulless mutant would eliminate all surviving witnesses who learned about the oversights of the pharmaceutical company. Mister X followed Leon or Claire slowly, but did a lot of damage with his fists and even punched through walls, breaking into rooms where the player least expected to see him. Each appearance of the tyrant was scripted, but extremely memorable.
In the recent remake of Resident Evil 2, the tyrant became many times more dangerous, as the developers made him more dynamic and unpredictable: they gave Mr. X his own AI and taught him to search for heroes throughout the police station, tracking down the target using the sounds that it creates.
Mr. X turned out to be so scary that some gamers can’t stand the stress that he brings, and they remove him from the game with the help of mods.
Nemesis from Resident Evil 3
One cult monster from “Resident Evil” will not be enough: not to mention Nemesis as well would be a real crime. Nemesis is essentially a tyrant “on steroids”, reinforced by a special parasite that enhances its cognitive functions. Nemesis runs fast, attracts the victim with a tentacle and even uses a firearm – a huge rocket launcher (and also a flamethrower in the remake).
In the classic Resident Evil 3, the player had to make a difficult decision more than once: fight a monster or try to escape from it. The first option was the best option, since you could get valuable items for defeating Nemesis. However, the problem was that, with a high probability, the collision could end fatally for Jill: after all, even an agent of the STARS special unit is vulnerable to direct hits from a bazooka.
Alien from Alien: Isolation
In developing Alien: Isolation , Creative Assembly set out to create a horror game in the spirit of the very first Alien movie. Usually, in games based on the cult franchise, Aliens were portrayed as not so dangerous: for example, in the famous Aliens vs Predator 2, the brave Marine effortlessly destroyed dozens of aliens, as a result of which the gamer, as expected, quickly ceased to be afraid of them. The developers from Creative Assembly decided not to follow a similar path and tried to make a game about only one Alien, but about an extremely frightening and deadly one. It turned out flawlessly.
In order for the alien pursuer to make the hearts of players beat faster, the authors first of all made it invulnerable to damage and, in addition, made it possible to kill the player with one hit. It sounds somehow unfair, but the trick is that Creative Assembly also developed a complex AI for the Alien so that the monster would not attack the player in scripted moments, but dynamically seek him out on the Sevastopol space station. That is, the Alien can be outwitted and you can hide from him. To do this, however, you will have to show ingenuity and unprecedented patience: in order to survive, you need to think over your actions a few steps ahead, move carefully and not create noise, because the alien creature first of all tries to calculate the victim by sound.
Of all the pursuers mentioned in this article, the Alien boasts the most complex AI, and as the game progresses, it becomes even more dangerous and begins to use new tricks while hunting.
Clock Tower Scissor Assassin
Believe it or not, even in 2021, some retro horror games are still capable of tickling your nerves. The 1995 horror movie Clock Tower is a great example . It tells the story of Jennifer Simpson, a girl adopted by the mysterious Burroughs family. Arriving at their mansion, Jennifer is faced with various dangers, the main one of which is a childlike maniac walking around the house with huge garden shears.
The Clock Tower is a point’n’click adventure: that is, the player must interact with the environment in order to solve puzzles and find keys to new rooms. In general, the game has a fairly measured pace, but the Scissor Killer periodically appears: at such moments, the degree of tension jumps up sharply, you have to quit all your business, do your legs or hide from the maniac. Surprisingly, even 26 years later, the archaic chase mechanics are still relevant.
Collectors from Amnesia: The Dark Descent
In Amnesia there is no single pursuer, which accounts avoided. Instead, almost every monster found in the game serves this function. The so-called Gatherers move through different rooms of the castle, looking for the main character Daniel. The player has no weapons, his only means of escape is stealth. You need to hide in closets and behind various objects.
What makes Amnesia’s pursuers particularly unpleasant and even more frightening is the fact that they can’t even be looked at. One kind of monsters instills such horror in Daniel that he can literally die of fear, so you need to not just play hide and seek with the monsters, but also try not to stare in their direction.
Of course, horror games with pursuers will not appeal to all players (judging by the mods that remove Mr. X from RE2), but gamers who are looking for the most acute emotions are delighted with them. Yet there is something thrilling about feeling like the hero of a slasher movie and trying to outwit an invincible adversary.
