The innovation factor is important, I won't argue that. But I will contest that one's ability to suspend belief, as our friend earlier brought up, is even more important to the survival horror formula. Certain people are better at getting sucked into games than others, that's a fact. I'm not attempting to place the blame on gamers who won't take a pile of crap and thrust themselves in head first. Alls I'm saying is that even though certain games may definitely be lacking, if the will is strong enough a good experience can still be had.

I had beaten the first Silent Hill years and years ago when it first came out, and hadn't touched it since until a few months ago. This comes after playing the following three sequels. While playing it, during a few parts of the game I got the feeling that the developers never expected this thing to go past the first game. But overall, I was just as caught up in it as I was in the 2nd and 3rd iterations. Basically, the type of gamer playing the game can make the game as much as the content inside of it.