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Have you ever been trapped in a rule full of zombies, and the only way out is the key located in the main office in the second desk drawer? Or have you ever had to fight off hordes of angry beasts armed with only a pistol and one power up? Probably not, but those would be some pretty scary situations. Good thing occurrences like that don't come about often, or else the thrill of survival horror games would be pretty much non-existent.

Firstly, let's break down this genre into two parts. Horror, and survival.

Horror is the overwhelming feeling of basically being scared by macabre, the unbelievable, or the downright terrifying. Horror can range from the zombie apocalypse to car crashes to seeing your grandma naked. It's scary and unwelcome.

Survival is essentially fighting for your life. Being caught in a situation where your future is in jeopardy and you must do all that you can to make sure you're alive to see another day. No one really likes working hard to survive.

So why do these two un-enjoyable things combine to create such thrilling and addictive video games? Essentially, people get a sense of adventure and excitement from fighting for their life. None of us would really like to be locked in a room with brain eating zombies, but it sure is fun to pretend to be, especially when you have 6 packs of ammo and a machine gun.

Survival games are popular. So many video games are based simply on shooting the enemy and winning the game, or finding the treasure and living a good life, but add horror to this mix and it makes for a rush. There's a huge difference between being faced with the threat of getting sent back to a checkpoint and being faced with the threat of otherworldly beasts that want to consume your soul.

People like to get scared and game developers are taking notice of it. Games such as Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Condemned are all excellent examples of survival horror video games. Along with having the game play element of survival, they are also all well fitted with the horror aspect, that being dark backgrounds, violent enemies, and supernatural themes. They are all filled with not only action sequences, but also strategic problem solving situations that decide the player's fate.

There's no doubt that this genre is a popular one, and should continue to be for many years. Instilling fear in video game players will continue to be thrilling as game developers keep on creating exciting, and terrifying, new survival situations.

Learn more about this author, Tegan Mcrae.
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