Hey, we have forums!

Author Topic: What game made you afraid?  (Read 86771 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline shinygerbil

  • Extra Bit
  • *****
  • Posts: 132
  • Lustrous Rodent
    • View Profile
    • www.shinygerbil.co.uk
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #15 on: March 25, 2007, 04:37:32 pm »
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.
whut, we get signatures? K, lemme put something here. WATCH THIS SPACE >_>

Offline Alec

  • Administrator
  • Dream Bit
  • **********
  • Posts: 2211
    • View Profile
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #16 on: March 25, 2007, 06:25:06 pm »
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 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 interesting.

Offline Quemaqua

  • Monster Bit
  • *******
  • Posts: 365
  • Give to Zim!
    • View Profile
    • Overwritten.net
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #17 on: March 28, 2007, 06:27:52 am »
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.

"All you get from killing monkeys is a deep sense of shame." - Alec

Offline PHeMoX

  • Bit Bit
  • ****
  • Posts: 83
    • View Profile
    • Innervision Software (c)
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #18 on: September 14, 2007, 01:32:54 am »
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. ^^
"Fun is never superfluous."

Offline Toom

  • Extra Bit
  • *****
  • Posts: 195
  • What's yr take on Cassavetes?
    • View Profile
    • Jethica
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #19 on: September 16, 2007, 04:02:45 pm »
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.

Offline KingAl

  • Extra Bit
  • *****
  • Posts: 138
  • Nobody expects...
    • View Profile
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #20 on: September 16, 2007, 04:35:48 pm »
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
« Last Edit: September 16, 2007, 04:41:03 pm by KingAl »

Offline xander

  • Extra Bit
  • *****
  • Posts: 146
  • IV Migrant
    • View Profile
    • Reno Silver Blades Fencing
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #21 on: September 16, 2007, 05:06:06 pm »
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
FROG BLAST THE VENT CORE!

Offline Tosheros

  • Bit Bit
  • ****
  • Posts: 93
  • Sorry for my awfull english. I am a French X-D
    • View Profile
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #22 on: September 17, 2007, 09:23:20 pm »
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 ^^
I should think about something stupid to put in there...

Offline Toom

  • Extra Bit
  • *****
  • Posts: 195
  • What's yr take on Cassavetes?
    • View Profile
    • Jethica
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #23 on: September 20, 2007, 11:42:50 pm »
ReDeads are pretty creepy monsters; Dead Hand from Ocarina was a horrifying beastie.

Dodomaster

  • Guest
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #24 on: September 21, 2007, 10:07:07 pm »
1st place: Penumbra + Penumbra:Overture (scariest game imo)
2nd place: Condemned: Criminal origins(on pc)
3rd place: F.E.A.R.

Offline twinkiboy

  • Mini Bit
  • **
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #25 on: September 26, 2007, 07:30:55 am »
Did anyone play the original Clock Tower for the SNES?

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!

Offline Alec

  • Administrator
  • Dream Bit
  • **********
  • Posts: 2211
    • View Profile
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #26 on: September 26, 2007, 08:28:02 am »
I remember reading about Clock Tower for PlayStation. Sounded like it could be an awesome B-Game.

This screenshot is all kinds of great:


Offline Zeno

  • Bit Bit
  • ****
  • Posts: 85
    • View Profile
    • Internetography Forums
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #27 on: September 26, 2007, 10:26:36 pm »
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...

Offline Tosheros

  • Bit Bit
  • ****
  • Posts: 93
  • Sorry for my awfull english. I am a French X-D
    • View Profile
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #28 on: September 27, 2007, 12:00:42 am »
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. ???
I should think about something stupid to put in there...

Stalfos

  • Guest
Re: What game made you afraid?
« Reply #29 on: September 27, 2007, 02:07:41 pm »
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.  ;)