Bit Blot Forum
Bit Blot => Games => Topic started by: Cobar on March 17, 2007, 11:47:59 am
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I decided to make this thread after finishing Condemned: Criminal origins. Now i will forever see nightmares of wall crawling addicts :'(
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Oh man... games scare the crap out of me. Its kinda sad. I couldn't even play through Doom3, 'cause the audio creeped me out so much.
Right now I'm playing through the original Deus Ex in my spare time (sooo awesome) and I've had numerous heart attack moments getting caught while trying to sneak past a guard bot.
:'(
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I don't really get too scared by games anymore. When I was a kid, I was mortally afraid of Rescue on Fractalus (and still am, having discovered it on emulator, it still scares the crap out of me) - if you've never played it, you should. Wikipedia claims:
Some old-time gamers claim that this is the first time a computer game included a true, "shock appeal" moment.
I happen to agree.
I also used to get nightmares when playing (or watching my dad play, now that's youth) the Alternate Reality series, also for the Atari 800. We had both AR: The City and AR: The Dungeon. The gamaplay and particularly the music was awesome, but some of the enemy sprites were a little too scary for my sensitive young self. ;P
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Resident Evil 4 recently did it for me, even when playing on easy. (I'm not that good at it)
I had never played a RE game before, and I only played this when it was dark with the volume turned up. Some real jump moments in there, without giving anything away for those who have not played it yet.
Spiders in games are usually scary for me, except for the ones in Twilight Princess, they sucked. The pink spider(!) in Knytt was scarier for gods sake!
Playing Quake3 against a friend of mine is quite scary too, with Instagib enabled and carrying the flag, some tense moments.
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Mm... Silent Hill 2 and Fatal Frame 2 are perty much the scariest things I've played. The human demo for Alien Versus Predator 2 was also really scary for me, but I was disappointed to find that the version I had bought was after a patch which moved all the Aliens into incredibly easy to spot places.
I almost had a heart attack when an alien fell from the ceiling to right in front of me and clawed my guts out.
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I managed to find a good video of condemned from youtube. It shows pretty well the atmosphere in the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07y0kwM01SI
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Actually, Resident Evil (the remake for the GameCube) did make me jump a couple of times. Definitely worth playing in the dark at 4am >:D
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Sonic the Hedgehog 2, played with Sonic and Knuckles, on the final boss, with only one life and no continues left, and the fear that I would have to start all over again to finish the game. Then dying, and having to start all over again the next day. :(
xander
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Actually, Resident Evil (the remake for the GameCube) did make me jump a couple of times. Definitely worth playing in the dark at 4am >:D
RE4, Widescreen TV, at 4am no lights... it got to a point where my buddy and I opened a door and aimed a gun, opened a door, aimed, opened, aimed... paranoia rocks so hard at that hour.
Doom (the original) had my heart pounding as well.
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Altered Beast. :'(
Seriously, I can't believe they packaged that game with the SEGA Genesis!
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Altered Beast. :'(
Seriously, I can't believe they packaged that game with the SEGA Genesis!
You what?!?! ;P
I don't really remember much of it, but I don't remember it being that scary. All I remember is "Powerrr UP!" but I could be wrong. *goes off to find his Mega Drive*
I've thought of another one from my childhood: that Ghostbusters game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters_(computer_game)) where you run the franchise. For some reason the Marshmallow Man used to scare the crap out of me!
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I've thought of another one from my childhood: that Ghostbusters game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters_(computer_game)) where you run the franchise. For some reason the Marshmallow Man used to scare the crap out of me!
As I got older, but not too much older, that is one of the things that always confused me. In the scene where they are all supposed to make their minds blank, and Ray thinks of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, he claims that he is trying to think of the one thing that could never harm him. However, as a kid, the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man scared the f*ck out of me. I couldn't understand how he found that thing to be safe. Of course, years later, I figured it out, but when I was 10, it MADE NO SENSE.
Now, to answer the original question asked in a serious manner: I don't tend to play horror/suspense games. In general, they are not my style. I like old school SHMUPS (Ambrosia's Deimos Rising is excellent, by the way), old school games in general (I grew up with a Genesis, and still think it had some of the best games ever made), and an eclectic mix of modern games (Rez, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, &c.).
However, there is a spot in Metal Gear Solid 2 that really bothered me. I am a bit claustrophobic, and really don't like the idea of drowning. In the section where you have to get E.E. through the flooded corridors, I found myself very close to panic a couple of times, as she nearly drowned. It was not a comfortable feeling. Not quite the answer that you were looking for, I assume, but man, that part of the game freaked me out...
xander
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There really has been no game that scared the **** out of me just yet. I think it's not quite possible for games to have a real scare effect on me, it's just not convincing enough to make my heart pound a bit faster. I don't get scared by movies either though.
Doom3 had it's moments of trying to 'boo' me towards the ceiling, but it didn't quite work. It mainly uses the same scare tactics over and over again. Some growl noises in the background, perhaps the ocassional fast footsteps, then the lights suddenly go out and woosh once they're back on there's this monster in front of you. Infact it's so close that if it would be real you would have faded from there bad breath instead of suffering the consequences of the heartattack. :p
Well, that's not scary or frightning, but it can indeed give you a heartattack, but purely because of this sound thing.. Criminal Origins' atmosphere is w
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Just recently, "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth". Seriously, I'm often afraid of going on while I'm playing, and it's really creepy how the character starts talking to himself and starts hearing voices and seeing things after you encounter disturbing stuff.
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I completely forgot freaking F.E.A.R. Little insane girls FTL.
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Just recently, "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth". Seriously, I'm often afraid of going on while I'm playing, and it's really creepy how the character starts talking to himself and starts hearing voices and seeing things after you encounter disturbing stuff.
Did you ever play Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem? Beautiful little Gamecube gem. More shock than actual fright, but it had its moments. Paintings dripping blood, statues turning to look at you, then you go back to look and nothing's wrong. Makes you nice and paranoid. Then you walk into a room and your head explodes!
Incidentally, ED was often called "Lovecraftian" as the story was vaguely similar to the Cthulhu mythos.
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ED is one of my all time favorite games... even though some people really hate it. :'( It was actually the reason why I bought a Gamecube, believe it or not.
For me the whole story and atmosphere win out over the sometimes funky graphics and limited freedom.
But yeah, I guess that's my taste. I also really liked Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (http://www.siliconknights.com/Kain_Walkthrough/faq/faqtoc.htm) by the same company; Silicon Knights. Even though functionally it was a dungeon crawl with funky graphics; the story, world vision and the main character really made it a great game for me. It felt great to storm around, killing and drinking the blood of everything that gets in your way. It also used voice acting to bring the story across really well. (Kain narrates while you play, sound familiar? )
And hey, they're working on a new game for the 360. They have a blog up on IGN, and I found this post (http://blogs.ign.com/silicon-knights/2007/01/25/44648/) interesting.
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I loved ED. Back when I was doing steady reviewing and editing, I gave it a favorable score that some people contested because it wasn't their deal. But for what it was I think it was a quality game with a lot going for it. Though really, I never found it at all scary. Not even a little bit. Creepy atmosphere in a fun way, but not scary.
For scary... Silent Hill, Silent Hill, Silent Hill. The first time I played the first game I didn't have a clue what I was jumping into. I just picked it up on a whim because it looked neato, and all I'd seen was a couple of screens or whatever. The whole first scene going through the chain link maze, and then when you first go to the alternate reality school... holy mother@!#$ing crap those blew my socks off! The first one was just perfect greatness for an opener, and I thought "Okay, great way to introduce the game," but then there wasn't really anything like that for a good while. And then when you go to the alternate school... it was just so subtle. You know something is up, but you just can't place it until you walk through those doors and see the rust and blood and nastiness. Man, that clobbered me in the face like a mallet. It was awesome. I've been a huge fan of that series ever since. On no level do I find the games fun to play. In fact, they're kind of arduous in a lot of ways, and are often more a pain in the ass than "fun"... but the ambiance, that atmosphere so thick you could punch it, such intriguing stories and characters... I can't get enough. In fact, the franchise has more or less destroyed horror movies for me. I hate them now because they aren't scary. I'm not there. I'm not in control. I'm just watching people... and Silent Hill showed me how much scarier it is to be in control. For scary games, Silent Hill is where it both begins and ends for me almost entirely.
An exception that springs to mind is the original System Shock. The sequel to a degree also, but mostly the first. That game really rattled me in certain parts, and it *still* can. I was replaying it recently and was surprised at how much I still got drawn in and freaked out.
And though Doom 3 on the whole was not a scary game, I have to say that there was one particular moment where the graphics and sound and everything just came together for me and caused me to physically panic in a way that I never had before. It didn't happen again during the course of the game, but no matter what all the naysayers proclaim, I enjoyed the game thoroughly... and that one moment of fright was just awesome. Happened in the tight little claustrophobic area you get to when you first see the massive goopy wormy hell stuff growing around. You go into a room, pick up a key, and a ton of guys spawn. I completely knew what was going to happen and was totally prepared, but at that time I'd just never seen a game look that good or play that amazingly on my system, and I had the thing cranked all the way up... lights out, expensive headphones, you name it. The adrenaline just took me over at that moment, and I just freaked the hell out. It was a defining experience, and to this day I can't tell you why exactly it happened since I *knew* what was coming. It was incredibly obvious. But everything just felt so real to me in that moment... it was gaming bliss for 15 seconds. So yeah, not a scary game, but I'll always think fondly of that one odd moment where it got me.
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I think Doom3 uses the shock and awe strategy way too much. It's noises, lights out, loud noise, lights on and a monster has spawned right in your face. Off course that will 'scare' a bit, but it's mostly being shocked because of the 'surprise'. The downside of that strategy is that you will get used to it, at some point I really didn't think of Doom3 as a scary game anymore.
A recent example of a game that does scare me at times would be Bioshock. But.. not because of the gameplay or it's monsters, but more so because of the disturbing ideas and the overall story behind the game. It's awesome nonetheless, but for example (plastic) surgery a-la Picasso on humans to make them "pretty", daammn. ^^
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System Shock 2 continues to reliably scare the piss out of me. Alone In The Dark used to hammer my nerves pretty seriously. Parts of Undying were pretty terrifying. I am talking exclusively in clipped syntax today.
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System Shock 2 gets another vote here, and BioShock sadly fails to succeed it in that respect - partly because it's so amazingly easy (I'm a really terrible FPS player, and 'Hard' is a doddle). I don't really play that many 'scary' games, though Thief 3's "Robbing the Cradle" has its moments, and I at least jump a lot when playing Thief games when someone or something is where I didn't expect it. F.E.A.R. is just hilarious.
EDIT: Oh, and I was fucking freaked by the shark in Banjo Kazooie until I realised it hardly did any damage :P
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When I was 10, Hunt the Wumpus on my father's KayPro scared the hell out of me... there was always the chance of falling into a pit, or being set upon by bats, carried off to some random room, and falling into a pit.
xander
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The Legend of Zelda : The Wind Waker...
Stop laughing at me XD I have been attacked by a filthy rat in the underground dungeon beneath Link's Island house (for the Triforce Map) and I fell in a hole. I tried to get out of it but suddenly there was a awfull scream (very very loud scream) made by a kind of vodoo mummy that I never met as far as I went through the game and that I didn't even saw before she screamed because I was busy with the rat.
I thought my heart was going to explode XD!
More than the fact that the monster is indeed scary, it was because the last thing I expected to come from this game was fear. XD
When you play Silent Hill, you know that this is a horror game, the spooky environnements, wierd sounds and so on... It make the thing less horrible than something scary in a childish-like game ^^
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ReDeads are pretty creepy monsters; Dead Hand from Ocarina was a horrifying beastie.
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1st place: Penumbra + Penumbra:Overture (scariest game imo)
2nd place: Condemned: Criminal origins(on pc)
3rd place: F.E.A.R.
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Did anyone play the original Clock Tower for the SNES?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_Tower:_The_First_Fear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_Tower:_The_First_Fear)
You had to run around a spooky mansion while a scissor-wielding kid stalks you from room to room. The first time I saw Bobby with those huge scissors, it scared the bejesus out of me!
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I remember reading about Clock Tower for PlayStation. Sounded like it could be an awesome B-Game.
This screenshot is all kinds of great:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/DAN3.JPG)
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Jeez... For some reason, games with bad graphics are infinitely scarier to me than games with good graphics. Like, I can do RE4 no problem, but Friday the 13th for NES scares the crap outta me. I guess it's because with bad graphics, more is left to the imagination...
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Resident Evil 4 is not really a horror game.
The only scary moment is when you are in the sewers of the Castle and when Salazar had sent his right hand to hunt you down. ???
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I'm not much into scary game, but I do fully played "F.E.A.R. - Director Cut" which is, up to now, my scariest game. The tunnel part, at the beginning, where you even see the rat running away from where you need to go, with that hard breathing sound effect... Geee....
Resident Evil Biohazard 4 was not really spooking me out... I made it into the castle but left the game at this point. :S
I got my and on "Condemned: Criminal Origins" lately so I'll give it a go and see what it has to offer. ;)
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Goddamn, I love Resident Evil 4. It's not scary, but it sure is fun. Especially with the Wiimote. I actually think that it has one of the best control systems out there. I just love it.
RESIDENT EVIL 4 BABY!
But yeah, it ain't scary.
You know what's scary? Playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R with a huge, fat set of speakers right next to you and your easily-startled girlfriend just behind. So when that dog suddenly leaps outta nowhere, it doesn't scare you, but the simultaneous roar of the speaker and squeak of the girlfriend shit you right up. Hot piss.
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Resident Evil 4 is not really a horror game.
The only scary moment is when you are in the sewers of the Castle and when Salazar had sent his right hand to hunt you down. ???
Augh that sodding castle bit is dreadful. Well, it's enjoyable enough, but I really liked the atmosphere that'd been building throughout the first half of the game...it's kind of salvaged later on, but as soon as you cross that drawbridge it seems to turn into Auto Shotgun Dungeon Crawl for ages.
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Resident Evil Biohazard 4 was not really spooking me out... I made it into the castle but left the game at this point. :S
I got my and on "Condemned: Criminal Origins" lately so I'll give it a go and see what it has to offer. ;)
Well the two only scary moments in the game are both in the Castle.
Then I really loved the Wii control of the game, it's very handy and fun to shoot with it. Eventhough the knive is just like in Zelda --> pretty pathetic.
I hope other games such as Disaster : Day of Crisis will make even better.
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Duke Nukem3d (first FPS i played)
doom3 is inherently scary. which i think is one of it's strong points.
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Doom3 is not scary ... :P come on, they heavily rely on the following approach: you hear a sound, lights go out, you'll hear a louder sound, lights on and a monster jumps or is spawned in front of you. That's not scary... it's a bit shocking perhaps, especially the first few times, but it's not scary...
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Well the two only scary moments in the game are both in the Castle.
Would that be the point where forty cultists charge at you and you effortlessly mow them all down with the auto shotgun? Or the point where Krasuer's arm explodes and then you stab him inna leg twice and he dies?
I love RE4 but most of the castle run is just lazily-designed dungeon crawling.
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Those two moments are not swary. XD
I thougt about the moment in the sewers chem you hear the sound of a crawling beast, and then nothing...
"Why did this scary sound just stopped? O...O "
And the other one is when you see through the eyes of Salazar's right hand in the darkest place of the game and where he is running on the wall behind us.
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*joins*
The first game that honestly scared me was American McGee's Alice. I forget at what point, exactly, but I was playing it at three or four in the morning with everyone in bed and all the lights off. That game has a really creepy ambiance. Particularly all of those mental patient kids.
Half-life got me a couple of times too.
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Speaking of American McGee's Alice, I heard they were making a movie from this game.
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Speaking of American McGee's Alice, I heard they were making a movie from this game.
Indeed they are, sir. With Sarah Michelle Gellar as Alice.
:)
Anyways, Seven Days a Skeptic. Terrifying.
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Ahh, RE4 had one monster that just creeped me out terribly...the Regenerators. Especially when you fall down into that sewer and land on one... everything about them sent chills up my spine. BioShock so far has had some moments, but not a lot. F.E.A.R. had some too. But, like some others, I'm not much of a scary games type of guy, only a little. But I do enjoy scares when I get them.
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Silent Hill pretty much demeted me for about a two weeks after i finished it.
the added effect might have come from the fact that I finished the game with the bad ending... back then i didn't know it had more then "ONE!" ending hehehe so yeah it was pretty freaky getting that.
as mentioned before in the thread, some older games are actually creepyer becouse of theyr age, example: Dark seed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Seed_(game))
that game can seriously give people nightmares.
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The only game that really made me jump in my chair was the first Clock tower, on the snes. In one of the "bad endings", while running away, you enter in the elevator, the doors close, and then, after waiting the same amount of time you're normally waiting for the "ping" sound, you hear the crunching sound of rusty shears closing on flesh immediately followed by a scream. Then there is blood flowing from under the elevator's door. All without warning, in the middle of a "running away from horrible things" sequence. It gave me the goosebumps each time.
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"Ultimate" Doom. Or Doom 1. Why? I was at a friends house when I was around 9 years old, who had a PlayStation and I managed to get up to Level 14, but I tells ya, there's nothing worse than walking down a hallway, then turning around to see a huge Cacodemon shooting a lightning ball at you! OMG! :o
The funny thing is that when you're young, you don't notice the pixels and it just seems so real. At one point, I had to hand over the controller so I could take a break, plus, there were no save files! Only passwords. If you die, you're pretty much screwed. But that's the PS version, and one of the best though I am a Nintendo fan.
I once set up a netowrk for Doom 95 for Deathmatches. Pitty was that my anti-virus software Trend Micro crashed the computer because of the program (Hamachi) I was using. :-[
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Doom 2 certainly did a number on my tender nerves when I first played it...I got it for Christmas in 1994 and proceeded to complete it in maybe two or three marathon sittings. I was ten years old. Rent my feeble pre-pubescent mind in twain.
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I was actually quite amazed that, some time ago when I was replaying System Shock 2, this game still scared me like hell.
I loved the Thief series for it's subtle suspense - had some really unsettling experiences with these gems.
Eternal Darkness I also liked, I remember this bathtube scene - the videogame scene that shocked me most, ever.
Newer games haven't really succeeded in scaring me, but we'll see what the future brings.
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I remember being a little startled when my GBA fired the tense music of Metroid Fusion when there was an "Emergancy in Sector 3". Also Saxx scared me a little, though I found it awefully fun to sneak from my hiding spot and shoot... er... it?... causing the "Saxx has spotted you!" music then quickly hiding again leaving it rather puzzeled. ;)
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The Silent Hill games can be creepy as hell. Also, DOOM 3 and F.E.AR. were a bit scary...but only because stuff was constantly jumping out and you in the dark.
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Great, now I looked for Clock Tower on Wikipedia/Youtube and and now I hate scissors.
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Hmmm, System Shock 2 was awesome. Great atmosphere. Those crazy midwifes gave me the absolute creeps :P. I remember late one night I was playing with my sis as spectator and I was being persued through the darkened corridors by those evil spider creatures, horribly low on ammo. I ended up in a dead end and turned around and emptied the last of my clip into them and they are all over me. I'm screaming my head off, my sis is screaming "Throw the gun at them, throw the gun at them" when the light switches on and my mum tells us to shut up and go to bed. Hehe.
I found The Suffering quite creepy, the creatures with blades for arms and legs where freaky.
Despite what everyone says I thought RE 4 was pretty scary, though I never made it as far as the castle.
An old game called Sanatarium had a really spooky vibe.
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At one point I decided to put a big distance between me and games that are - in my eyes - just violent.
That's because I simply can't play them. Acting/playing violent just makes me kind of sick.
This means I'm not playing games like shooters, especially, and also horror/mytery - themed games, because I don't like horror at all.
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Mm... Silent Hill 2 and Fatal Frame 2 are perty much the scariest things I've played. The human demo for Alien Versus Predator 2 was also really scary for me, but I was disappointed to find that the version I had bought was after a patch which moved all the Aliens into incredibly easy to spot places.
I almost had a heart attack when an alien fell from the ceiling to right in front of me and clawed my guts out.
I can't argue with that. While playing silent hill 2 my one roomate was throwing pillows in the dark and putting ketchup on huge steak knives in the kitchen. It freaked me out completely.
And he played fatal frame 2 and I watched and I would have to leave the room half the time
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The original resident evil is the only game that has scared the shit out of me =( back in the day when i was a lad
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1st place: Penumbra + Penumbra:Overture (scariest game imo)
2nd place: Condemned: Criminal origins(on pc)
3rd place: F.E.A.R.
Wait hang on I just re-read this thread.
Let me double-check that.
F.E.A.R.
Are you serious.
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Actually the first game to scare me shitless was clocktower. when i was a weee weee lad lol
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Dark Seed 2.
Played it as a kid a looong while back. Scarred me for life :p
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Alien vs. Predator, either one.
As the Marine.
Jesus... It's just ridiculous
Oh and System Shock 2
F.E.A.R (and many like it) weren't bad attempts, but I do wish the world to start to realise that little girls with long hair are not scary.
I mean, come on Japanese Horror Films
That's just silly :p
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I liked F.E.A.R but I didn't find it scary except for "BOO" moments which make you jump but, as has been mentioned, are just cheap shots and are not the same as a real feeling of unease or fear. That said the crazy gunplay was quite enjoyable and some of this insane shootouts I ended up in provided some quite memorable moments.
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I liked F.E.A.R but I didn't find it scary except for "BOO" moments which make you jump but, as has been mentioned, are just cheap shots and are not the same as a real feeling of unease or fear. That said the crazy gunplay was quite enjoyable and some of this insane shootouts I ended up in provided some quite memorable moments.
Hehe, too true. My friend and I played through while shouting out every time a 'scary' moment occurred. That and slide kicking charred, blood spattered skeletons ^-^ The gunfights are awesome; if your machine isn't rendering the dust and flying chunks of wall you're missing 3/4 of the experience.
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The dust and gun smoke make it. I remember one time where there was so much carnage at one point that the gunsmoke was so thick I couldn't see a damn thing. Suddenly this guy looms out of the smoke at point blank range, my heart is like doing %200 and I let go with the shotgun and take his whole head off. Yeah, its gross, its too much. But as I sat there catching my breath, it was a moment. He was the last enemy in the room so it was "Sit there and let the smoke clear". Sure its not crap your pants stuff but it was cool. The adrenaline was running and I was glad Id paid the price of admission.
In case Jack Thompson is watching us "video game crazies". Yeah, I know its a game.
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Bullshit Acronym Squad does look gorgeous with all the settings ramped up, but it's very samey and shallow. Plus, because all that wicked-looking masonry dust is a purely cosmetic effect, the AI can see right through it - so they can use it as cover (because your puny hu-man eyes can't penetrate all those floating decals) but if you try the same trick they'll cut you to pieces. It's not a major issue but it's kind of annoying when you can't see shit and there's a room full of baddies going "why is he just hiding behind that box, come on lads let's go kick his head in."
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*Sigh* This is one of those situations where we are going to have to disagree, you hate it, I don't think its so bad. There is no right or wrong here, it is simply a matter of taste. I like it, you do not. Yes it didn't make me afraid in the way that other, better games have made me afraid, but that doesn't make it a bad game. I can see you disliked this game very much, but that does not mean everyone feels the same. Nor does it mean that people disagree and enjoy the game make your opinion wrong. On the flip side that doesn't make us who enjoy it wrong. So we like it *Shrugs* Each to his own. You hate it for your own reasons, I enjoyed it for my own reasons.
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Actually I haven't said, at any point, that I hated the game, or even disliked it! That is not what I said.
In fact, I enjoyed the balls off it when I first played it through. Solid gunplay, excellent enemy AI, completely satisfying weapon selection, Actual Genuine Decent Use Of Slow-Motion, pretty as all get-out on a machine that can handle it. But I was not frightened! I was shocked a few times by shadowy monskers popping up and going "BOOGABOOGABOOGA" in my face, but I do not mistake "surprise" for "fear." I say it's samey because it is; you fight the same five enemies in the same three environments over and over again, with the odd segue into Shadowy Hallucination Realm, where you fight the same one enemy in the same one environment over and over again, except with a Gaussian blur applied to everything. And when I played it on a slightly-less-good PC and had to turn a lot of the graphical settings down, I had significantly less fun, unlike, say, Half-Life, which just looks nicer on better rigs and doesn't need to use envronmental effects and reflection mapping to distract you from cookie-cutter level design. IT IS NOT A BAD GAME AND I DO NOT HATE IT. It's just not a great game, and one I found roughly as frightening as Serious Sam.
(I call it Bullshit Acronym Squad because c'mon, First Encounter Assault Recon? Seriously? Who exactly are you people trying to kid here?)
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Hehe! We definately agree that the acronym is awful :) Even first play through that was my reaction.
Oh and I apoligise, it's just that you hadn't previously said a positive thing about the game, and even when I said it wasn't scary but had some memorable set pieces you responded negatively. It had gotten to the point where it seemed I could say nothing about the game you didn't disagree with :P
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I just didn't really want to get drawn into discussing F.E.A.R. alone in an All-Purpose Scary Games thread, but I suppose that ship has sailed.
ON WHICH NOTE. Parts of Trilby's Notes, and pretty much all of the end of Six Days a Sacrifice genuinely freaked me the freak out! I am unaccustomed to these sensations emanating from a fairly crude adventure games! What are you doing, Ben Crowshaw. You have unmanned me.
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Yeah those were cool games. That a fairly primitive looking game in a genre that conventional wisdom (I.e mainstream game reviewers) would have us believe is dead, can be so creep inducing shows that atmosphere goes far beyond graphics.
As for scary ships having sailed, I still wonder what happened with the Mary Celeste. :P
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The 'hallunication' monsters were the epitome of shit, most certainly. I really don't understand how people could be genuinely scared by anything in the game, and they made the horrible assumption that simply ramping up the hitpoints of an enemy makes it more interesting and formidable. No. Huge metal bastards just feel like crap design.
Incidentally, I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. takes the cake on the 'crap acronym' front - largely because nobody knows what it stands for. Where the hell did this "acronym=awesomelol" mentality come from?
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Hands down, and I think anyone on here who has played this game before, it would have to be System Shock 2.
I was scared to go to the bathroom at night in between saves. Of course playing that game in the dark with my headphones on alone didn't help.
Also one of the greatest and funnest games with one of the best storylines ever, also listed on many sites as one of the best games ever created for the PC. I've beaten it twice, and I almost never play a game after completing it once. Try to pick up a copy sometime for a special treat of a game.
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SS2's come up a few times in this thread, and rightly so. It's a great example of a game that relies on atmosphere and tension to build itself up, only springing its "ewww grosssss" moments on you in the climax (going swimming inside a giant alien's colon whilst psychic projections assail you from all sides, you say? Just let me change me trousers, I'll be right along). I don't remember anything in particular jumping out and going "BOO!", but I do remember quite a few occasions when I've been creeping carefully along a corridor (alliteration yuessss) and turned around to see some heinous space devil staring me down. And the sound design! Making you rely so heavily on directional sound to get your bearings is an excellent idea; it forces the player to concentrate more on the gameworld, which leads to increased investment and immersion, which of course lends the scares an extra punch.
(Apparently there's a FEAR sequel in the works, but Monolith don't have the rights to the name, so it'll be called something else. My guess is Special Command for Attacking Renegade Yugoslavians.)
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Some of my scariest SS2 moments were sound based. The aforementioned Midwives when you know they are around but cant find them ("I must protect the children") The protocol droids who explode when they get close, when you manage to hide from them ("Im sorry, I did not see where you went"). Even just the mutants who methodicaly move in place ("The many sings to us" "We are, we are, we are"). Sound was intergal to the game, it was a bench mark for sound use to creep the player.
*Spoiler*
When you think you are being guided by a female commander, someone you think is the only survivor left on the ship, and after many hardships you arrive at her offices only to find her corpse slumped over her terminal and Shodan explains to you that you have just been a pawn. The hairs on my neck stood up far more than any "Boo" monsters could have provided fear wise.
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This is going to sound totally weak but ...
When I was 8 I got Zelda 1 for the NES. In the first level on the first quest there's a room just south of the first Aquamentas boss that looks empty when you first arrive, except for a key. Going inside you find there are scary ghosty attack hands in the walls that come out and try and grab you! These Wall Masters are easy to beat but they scared the crap out of me. After that, any time I went in an empty room I started to get scared, like the screen south of Level 5 that just has some rocks and nothing else. I was too afraid to go through there and explore so I didn't finish the game until I ran out of other options :-[
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"Look at you, pathetic hacker, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors, nothing can compare to the perfect immortal machine" - Shodan
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Has anyone mentioned Uplink yet? I forget. That was, if not actually scary, pretty damn tense. I seem to remember it came pretty high up on PCGamer's (British mag) top 100 scariest moments. :)
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Oh totally, Uplink makes me so tense and not-really-scared-but-kinda in a way that no other game can. It's just a hacking sim but it makes you feel like you really got away with something bad when you destroy somebody's life or get them arrested by hacking government files.
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I played Dementium: the Ward on NDS with headphones by myself. I could not get passed the 2nd chapter without getting a heart attack! I turned it off and returned it to my friend. Never again... I could not walk home alone that night! :o Maybe it's scary because you hear the heart beat and when you turn off the flash light you cannot see 2 ft in front. (Also, i wonder why the main character only has 1 hand!) If i had to choose between defending with nightstick or seeing with flashlight i would see with flashlight and kill zombie with flashlight too.
If anyone beats it let me know the ending. :'(
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I've felt severely apprehensive only twice while playing video games.
Metroid II was the first time... That game just creeped me out like nobody's business. That music they played for when you first encountered a metroid terrified me!
And actually, the other time was when I was 17 or so playing the first Halo. When the Flood was first introduced, the scene right before that... really, the entire level really got my heart beating. I wasn't actually -scared- like I was playing Metroid II, but I was definitely on the edge of my seat. When you actually saw what the flood was, I was immediately no longer pumped.
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Rat-man assassins in Arx Fatalis
The ones who make that creepy chuckle and loud footsteps
Then the one who actually attacks you on dungeon level 5
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Metroid II was the first time... That game just creeped me out like nobody's business. That music they played for when you first encountered a metroid terrified me!
Metroid did for me too, except it was the first one, and it was (for some reason) because of the music in the rooms where you find the chozo statues. I can't really explain that reaction, because the rooms themselves give you good things.
I was also scared by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the NES, just because of the water level. Except the only thing in there that bothered me was seaweed (which would kill you if you touched it, but still...) Probably a good thing Aquaria didn't come out when I was a kid; it would probably've been total nightmare fuel for me. ;D
Also Shadowgate, again for the music. You had to have a torch lit at all times and if it started to burn low creepy music would start playing. Then if it went out you die and this grim reaper face pops up. But at least that game kinda makes sense to be scary. :D
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I only played the demo of Blair Witch: Rustin Parr but that was enough for me. freaked me silly and didn't want to have anything to do with that voodoo. crap, now I want to play the damn thing, and found out there's 3 in the series :'( :o :'(
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F.E.A.R., lol
I know, i know, very original, but this game almost made me crap my pants, I should NOT have played this middle in the night. >_<
And further, most games don't really scare me. I once had a weird game on my Xbox that was with some girl that went into a deserted city to find all sorts of ghosts, that game was immediatly removed from my HDD
Does anyone know a game that actually was meant to be scared? Besides F.E.A.R.
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Well I jumped more than a few times during Doom 3. And the F.E.A.R. demo was enough to make me not want to buy that game. I'm all up for some cheap scares, but the gameplay just bored me. Other than that I can't think of any games that are meant to be scary. Metroid Prime (the first one) scared me a couple times...especially when that terrifying space pirate music started playing. Creepy. RE games are meant to be scary too I guess. RE4 wasn't really tho, it was a change of pace for them. If I think of more I'll post them later too.
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Somehow not one Resident Evil game scared me, I like games based upon fear and being scared ALOT, in general I like alot of games that run on emotions, not only on fear.
Emotionless games usually get bored quickly. Which means that I like Aquaria alot. =p
However games that's all about love kind of scares me, lol
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Myst and it's first sequel, Riven, contained some parts that made me afraid even when they weren't designed to scare the player. Since 90% of the gameplay is just the player alone exploring and solving puzzles in nearly desolated and (the following only applies to the original Myst) bizarre worlds, the atmosphere itself can creep you out. Though not many "sudden" things occur in both games, I played them when I was a little kid so everything made me jump.
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I remember the hexen series quite well and all of them were quite creppy and made me scared many times, but since I was a kid in those days it's justifed.
From the last games... Yes, I think I can say it was Stalker - overall game atmospehere, music, desolated landscape you're forced to live in and felling of being trapped within the zone makes player to shiver all the time. I remember when I almost fall from the chair few times in some situations...
There were propably alot more games that made me scared while playing them, but It might be I just forgot about them now...
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Oh! I just remembered another one, pretty embarresing too, Super Mario 64, it was very fun game, but I NEVER liked the garden with the ghosts or the path to it and I never wanted to lose cause the laugh of bowser always made me scared. xD
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Yeah, I also remember Halo. This game had some unique scary moments. Maybe it wasn't so much frightening as F.E.A.R or Stalker (rather by the atmospehere, pure classical s-f I say), but the moment when master chief got trapped inside the structures on the marshes was terrifying... And the cut-scene before the introduction of flood... Man, I was scared when stumbled upon them for the first time.
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I remembered another one for gamecube. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. That was a terrifying game.
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I think Eternal Darkness has come up a couple of times already; I personally didn't find it that scary, but was completely fascinated by the use of fear as a play mechanic, the way that the player character was visibly more frightened than the player controlling them.
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There were a few, but none frightened me more than System Shock 2 - especially since it made so extensive use of surround speakers and used it for gameplay (a lot of the time you cannot see enemies and need to trust your ears - they could be coming from anywhere, also up and down. A frequent technique would be to carefully look around when you hear an enemy, so that the head of your avatar would move... then carefully listen how the direction of the sounds change, etc.). So, it really was a "game" in that you were not just a passive receiver, but actively involved and immersed in it - and this additionally boosted the fear-aspect of the game. Never play this at night!
About rescue on fractalus - yeah, i found that interesting when i was a kid too. However, the shock-situations only "shocked" me... they didn't deeply frighten me.
Another game which made me quite affraid but whichs name i cannot remember, was a doom-alike on the PC, with the setting being some military base on another planet. The thing now was that there were some enemies which were normally invisible - only when they were already directly in front of you, their image would suddenly and flash up while they attack you, then quickly fade away again until the next attack.... it was pure paranoia.
- Lyx
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Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force. Particularly the sequence where you have to recover Lt. Foster and the isodesium from the Borg. Slinking around on a Borg ship was bad enough, but when you end up in the part of the ship that's been taken over by Species 8472 and they burst out of the wall and come at you in swarms... ugh. The giant security robots on the Dreadnought gunship are pretty frightening as well, in a "there's a huge unfriendly thing charging towards me" sort of way.
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Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force. Particularly the sequence where you have to recover Lt. Foster and the isodesium from the Borg. Slinking around on a Borg ship was bad enough, but when you end up in the part of the ship that's been taken over by Species 8472 and they burst out of the wall and come at you in swarms... ugh. The giant security robots on the Dreadnought gunship are pretty frightening as well, in a "there's a huge unfriendly thing charging towards me" sort of way.
oh that game is great. I forgot about it, creeping through a borgified zone, brushing shoulders with them, so unerving. Voyager is my fave StarTrek franchise and that game was a real treat for fans.
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When you think about it, Star Trek really dips into the horror genre alot. I don't watch it too often, but occcasionally I'll catch an episode of Voyager on Spike TV and there's some scary shit on that show.
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Resident evil for the psx and silent hill
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Is your avatar considered a game? Because it's scaring me.
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Is your avatar considered a game? Because it's scaring me.
I second that :o
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I don't play horrorgames, I'm far to sensitive for those. So... no thanks. :)
Legend of Zelda scares me sometimes. Read: MiniBlins (little horrors I tell you!) and Wallmasters from the N64-Zeldas. How I hate those enemies because they creep me out. MiniBlins are infinite spawning pests making scary noises and the Wallmasters are a mental torture when making your way through a dungeon. I kind of panicked the first time one of those hands grabbed me... :'(
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Count me in among the System Shock 2 adherents. The game really makes an excellent use of audio cues, level design and plot development to create an atmosphere of palpable dread - making you constantly fear what's around the next corner, and playing on your expecations so that you'll still jump out of your chair when you hear that arachnid annelid chittering directly behind you. Doom 3 may be known for its "shock and awe" tactic, but System Shock 2 did it first and did it better.
The old adventure/puzzle game The 7th Guest does a great job of creating atmosphere too, and if you say you didn't jump at the first time you hit a dead end in the labyrinth, you're either lying or inhuman. :) It's one of the downright creepiest areas I've seen in a game to date.
While Doom 3 didn't really frighten me much, I've played so much of the original Doom/Doom II and player-made WADs for it that I react strongly to a lot of the sounds (the stomping of a Cyberdemon, for instance) instinctively and very viscerally. And a number of WADs have great atmosphere as well: the giant pyramid level in "Alien Vendetta" (map20, I think?) and the WAD "Asylum of the Wretched" are both top-notch in terms of atmosphere, including music use and map design.
However, there's one that got to me more than almost anything else I've experienced, and it's a mod. Freespace 2 is pretty much universally acknowledged as the pinnacle of the "space sim" genre, and rightly so - its game design is amazing in every aspect. It still has a lively modding community to this day, and from that community came a campaign called Transcend. Imagine an atmospheric horror game fused with a space sim; a Philip K. Dick plot combined with horror movie dread; the simultaneous claustrophobia of being trapped inside a tiny spaceship, and the sheer immensity and silent power of space; your sense of reality being pulled down around your ears while being murderously, relentlessly hunted across space. It's a truly mindblowing and harrowing experience, and its design is incredibly tight while taking advantage of all the things that made original Freespace 2 amazing. Everything from the visuals to the audio to the setpieces are brilliantly used. It's an experience without peer, and a fusion of genres I have yet to see adequately replicated elsewhere. It has a quasi-prequel called Sync that does some of the same things, but it's not nearly as polished or effective as Transcend.
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I tend to play problem solving games mostly and the one that made me feel scared ######## was and still is parts of Uru and I thought that I had an head for heights lol
Strangley enough Doom didn't bother me in the slightest, but then it was my son playing it while I just watched fascinated lol