Panzerfaust on 29/6/2004 at 04:23

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I'd say I'm sorry to revive this thread, but considering the circumstances that would be an extremely poor choice of words.

Possibly some spoilers, but by now if you haven't played, I pity you.

Shalesbridge Cradle. Never thought such a simple word as "cradle" would creep me out. Till the day I die, I swear.

Lemme just say for starters, nothing gets to me. I'm the kind of person who'd stare into the barrel of a gun and say "Hey cool, I can see the bullet" if I was being robbed. Obviously, the little note about the workers refusing to get near the Cradle didn't scare me. Drept couldn't intimidate me out of playing this mission with his little story. The friends in Black Alley listening to that story about the hag? Nuh-uh.

I played the Cradle three times in all.

The very first time I went in, the briefing alone was enough to make me go back and save before I actually proceeded. Garrett didn't sound so sure of himself, so you can understand my hesitation.

Level loads, and this great big, forgive the word, monster of a building looms over you. Gnarled trees and barred windows... Yeesh. My confidence showed a microscopic fissure. I wandered around for a bit and then went into the cellar.

I did not at all like the notes I found lying around about "treatments". Especially the heat therapy. A chunk of my confidence fell to the ground and shattered. Eventually, the notes annoyed me enough to push me out of the basements. I wander around a bit and come to the second floor. In that room with the apple and the note about staying still, a metallic crash plays. Another piece of my confidence fell and shattered like that tile in The Matrix's lobby scene, but it wasn't for comedic effect.

I circle around the catwalks and come to the staircase leading to the attic. I hear banging, just barely, but I think it's footsteps somewhere, so I hide in the shadows for five minutes (which is saying something if it made me wait that long). Someone said this level combines sheer terror and grim fascination, they were right. I move out and up the staircase, hearing the banging get louder and louder. I eventually get to the door, and I reconsider, all the way back down. I climb up again slowly, save (my back to the wall in a shadow, no less), and open the door. Nothing but a puddle of blood and a painting. My first thought is "Loot!". My second is "Oh crap, is that...?". I grab the needed item and approach the picture, all the while staying in the pillar's shadow (at this point, I'm getting paranoid, and I have more holes in my confidence than actual substance to it). Ghost appears, talking in that sickly sweet voice of hers (thumbs up to Lauryl's voice-actor). Maybe it was the time of night, maybe it was my long period of time playing up to that point, maybe it was the Cradle twining its tendrils of terror around me, but the child-shaped shadow behind that blue light was giving me chills. Terror and fascination, I went behind the ghost looking for the cause of the shadow. The brightness of the light had to be calculated, it's blinding after all that darkness. "They filled a bottle with my blood" is just disgustingly vile, especially after all those notes about medical 'treatments'. I reluctantly agree to help and make my way to the cellars again. It must have taken me fifteen minutes, the speed I was going, before I got there, and in the Cradle, time is not your friend; all those little sounds chip away at your sanity. My confidence? Hanging by a thread.

"It's still warm. Great.". At this point, I felt like running outside just to make sure there were still living people in the world. I quit, without saving, and loaded up another game and tried to talk (Natural Selection, Half-Life mod, I was using voice communication), but all I could manage were whimpers.

I think that right there is the best compliment I can give Null, and it's saying something I think he'd take it as a compliment. A great job on this level.

Second time through had me lasting up until the room with the electric chair until my hands (and arms, and legs, and body) were shaking too much to play, and I just plain bolted out of there again. I survived the third time clear through the end, but boy was I GLAD to be out of there.

Oddly enough, while I did notice the lights breathing (did someone mention that already? How the lights slowly breathe?), it wasn't until I showed my friend around that I really understood the generator. His words: "You fool! You've brought it back to life!". Ah, with the Cradle, the cold chills travelling up your spine never end, do they...

How much was calculated with this level? The lights breathing and flickering, the generator, the residents' convulsions and absolutely noiseless walk, their high-fashion attire, the personality quirks of the patients, the portraits in the observatory, the grim and faceless Staff, the nightgown (nearly had me running the second time through, that did), not to mention every single sound and sight, and all the little notes lying about the place? I'm not sure how much of it was planned and how much is pure chance, but it'll be setting standards in Horror for years to come.

I still flinch sometimes, when I think of this or that detail... If I never again play anything so scary in my life it'll be too soon.

When's Thief 4 coming out? :ebil:

Ethne on 29/6/2004 at 10:57

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Someone has been watching too much David Lynch....

Jomero on 29/6/2004 at 14:41

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No, he's right. They do. He's not talking about the lights flickering rapidly when a puppet walks by. I noticed them breathing the other night as well. The lights kinda slowly, slowly pulsate when a puppet isn't nearby.

Also, did anyone else notice that Lauryl's blue glow actually has a FACE in it? I noticed it the first time through. It might be because I had bloom turned off, I don't know. But I couldn't see it my second time through. But it's there.

borzwazie on 29/6/2004 at 17:27

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Null, you sick, twisted bastard.

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Whispers of past screams. Towering dread. Old stones piled high.

Dead.

Dank cellar. Door creaks.

Eerie noises. Hackles rise. No-one in sight. Listening, listening.

Take a timid step. Another. One more.

Tiptoe through tulips? Creep amongst dead, haha. Fear a fertilizer for horrors.

WHAMBANGBANGBANGTHUMPTHUD. Monsters in the closet, childhood nightmares. Shamblers in the dark? Unseen horrors? Where? WHERE??

Not supposed to be here.

Out of the light, into the dark.

Cower. Breath (but quiet).

Move again. Always to shadow - Can't see me! Can't see me!

Right? Please?

Up the steps. One. Two. Three.

No counting now, only small, only invisible. Please?

WHAMTHUDBANG! RIGHT HERE! WHERE? FRONT? BACK? UP?

Vertigo killed by panic - Where?

A door!

WHAMTHUDTHUDTHUDWHAM!

Musn't. Can't.

Frozen

WHAMWHAMBANG!

Must - NO! Must...

Door creaks.

Bracing. No tool to banish the unseen...helpless.

Teeth crunch.

Hand trembles, moves before thought intervenes.

Door opens

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Count me as one of the people more horrified by what I couldn't see. What a level!

Yandros on 29/6/2004 at 17:43

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I wasn't aware of any planned SS3 project... I thought that franchise was dead.