Scary Games
This is a thread to discuss games that are nightmare fuel, high octane or otherwise. If something from a game scares the hell out of you, gives you the squicks, or otherwise frightens you, talk about it here.
I'll start by mentioning a quote that has burrowed into my brain and won't leave:
Inside the mailbox was absolutely nothing.
Nothing after nothing came bursting out.
-Mother 3
I remember feeling exceptionally anxious while playing Eternal Darkness. Wasn't so much scary as it was incredibly intense.
Fatal Frame series?
(SPOILER)
Geez, Christmas, are you trying to give me a heart attack? Though I suppose I should have expected it...
Am I the only one creeped out by the Ratman dens in Portal?
I was going to mention Project Zero, but I didn't, for the same reason I didn't mention Silent Hill.
Which is the same reason I didn't mention FEAR. Maybe.
Never really got the Fatal Frame/Project Zero fuzz. It might have something to do with the fact that I tried playing 1 and 3 and never 2, which is supposedly the best in the series. However I just don't feel like giving the second one a try when I really didn't like the other two.Maybe if I find it cheap somewhere!
I'm still in the search of the perfect horror game, but I haven't found it. The genre has so much potential, but there's much crap that gets released, and it's not exactly the most popular genre on the market anyway. They're hard to come by!
I really enjoyed the Project Zero/Fatal Frame series (particularly the third). There's a lot of "Go from A to B, then go back to A and fight all the ghosts all over again" which got a bit annoying and less scary each time, but it's still my favourite horror video game series because of the gameplay and battle system. I say this without having played any Silent Hill though. I'll get around to it someday. xD
I also liked F.E.A.R. and it's use of horror. I hate the cheap shot, evil face bursts into screen horror trick when it's overused and to my best recollection, I don't think this game did it more than a few times. The buildup to the scary parts of F.E.A.R. are executed really well.
I always found Silent Hill 4 to be unsettling.
Guardian XIII and I were talking earlier about Arkham Asylum. And, now that I think of it, the Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth game is terrifying. You literally go insane if you look at the monsters too much.
EDIT: Blasted auto-emotes.
Might as well mention a few games while I'm in here too.Silent Hill is a standard mention, but for a very good reason, they really are great games. I was especially impressed with the latest installment, Shattered Memories. It changed up the formula of the regular SH games and it turned out very good. I like the fact that you can't kill any of the monsters, you just have to run. That's a game element I really appreciate.
Resident Evil, while not so creepy, they do have the typical jump scare factor to them. RE4 and 5 aren't especially scary except for Chainsaw dude and Giant axe dude. first level of 5 was pretty awesome! My favorite might be Code Veronica X, but if they ever make a remake of Resident Evil 2, then that would just be awesome.
Clock Tower and Haunting Ground are the closest games to perfection within this genre that I've seen, yet they're not quite there. I'm not scared when I'm holding a shotgun, I'm scared when I'm holding nothing and running away from a killer. Any future games within this genre is a must buy for me.
Sanitarium was a creepy computer game, the second level especially. I also found 7th Guest, 11th hour, Harvester and D to be extremely scary when I was young lad, but I'm guessing I wouldn't find them half as scary today. I've tried reinstalling them, but it proved really hard to do with a new computer.
Alone in the Dark is still creepy! There's just nothing like old mansions. I tried getting into Alone in the Dark 2, but it I just kept dying. I'm more tempted to just see a Let's Play video really. Alone in the Dark on Playstation was very awesome though! They captured the mood really well, I can definitely recommend that one. Never played the new wii game though, apparently it's supposed to be crap.
Scary games on my interested in list:
Siren Blood Curse, Rule of rose, Saw 2, Gray Matter, L.A. Noire, Silent Hill 8, Calling, Black Mirror 2, Eternal Darkness.
Uh oh, gotta go and catch a bus
The correct answer is System Shock 2, but most people won't go through the trouble to play it. It's old and you MUST pirate it (for various BS reasons). There are a lot of mods that update the graphics and make it look quite nice. It's still the pinnacle of scary games to me. It used to give my wife nightmares. I'd be a douche and wait till she was half asleep and whisper "your song is not ours" and other creepy phrases from the amazing ambient sounds that made you want to crap your pants constantly.
No game has made me feel as alone as that game did. Doom 3 and especially Dead Space, which are essentially the same type of setting, at least had some semblance of other human contact. SS2 did not. You were utterly alone on the Von Braun.
Enemies weren't always permanently dealt with... merely pacified. Weapons could break, and ammo was at a premium (especially with endless enemies). I remember specifically jumping onto a stack of crates in the cargo bay and hiding from something making unheavenly noises below. I knew I had to go out there and take care of it, but I had to take a break in the game to give my heart a break in real life because I was so unnerved.
Sound is one of the biggest things in the game. Lots of ambient stuff and stuff that gets you on a subconscious level or something. I swear there's subliminal terror programmed into the ambient noise.
A lot of people always say F.E.A.R. like it's something special. I got that game specifically to be scared because people talked about how scary it was. I made a point of only playing it at night with headphones on in the pitch black. I was extremely underwhelmed.
Wow. And I get scared when I play Portal at night. Polar opposites.
Are you allowed to post a link to System Shock here?
There is one incident that I remember, but I can't remember what game it's from. You go upstairs into a hallway, with three or four doors on either side. Knocking begins on the other side of one of the doors, about 3/4 of the way down the hall. As you approach the door, the knocking becomes more and more frantic, until you reach the door and fling it open to reveal-
(SPOILER)-nothing. There is no one in the room and no other exits.
Good God almighty.
SS2 is pretty terrifying, yeah. It's a very unique game overall, but is particularly freaky as far as scifi horror goes.Originally Posted by Yeargdribble
Enemy Zero was pretty scary to me. Not being able to see the thing that's attacking you or where it's coming from is a frightening thing. Of course, as mentioned, Silent Hill series is pretty scary. They use the dark and fog to obscure things. The sound effects were great because you didn't know if something was coming (unless it was the foghorn), or they were just messing with you. That's what made the series one step ahead of Resident Evil. SH didn't need pop-out scare tactics.
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