Does anyone play games that are actually creepy?

[Cryoxzonomony]

i mean, any other communities i fuck around, People get freaked out of resident evil hmmm. So im asking if people here actually play good art games that also do the horror factor very well. also if you happen to play some mysterious and obscure games i mean with this thread, you must share now.

Amnesia everyone knows now and being the scariest game ever for now.
but games like The path holy shit. Also id wish this thread was for GOOD horror games like very unappreciated classic called Scratches, i mean that game is really fucking creepy

also ones that are oblivious, should know about Yume nikki for start, a very great dream game. Also Yume 2kki that is a fan made sequel and its fucking massive, its just not done yet and the installing is hard. google around of it, theres alot of weird rpgmaker games actually

[LORD M]

Hehe yeah I agree, Resident Evil is more of an action game then scary - to me. When I played games before, I played the Silent Hill serie. The 2nd and 3rd are amazing and completely and utterly nightmarish. I never played the first one though, which is said to be the best of them.

[Stoat]

I enjoyed the Dead Space franchise very much. The first one was scarier, the second was more fun.

It was really more about manipulating your startle response and your engrained reaction to scary music, though.

[Psychotime]

Dead Space isn't scary. Any game that borrows RE4's gameplay can't be scary.

That said, RE4's gameplay is very fun, which is what matters to me.

I haven't beaten Dead Space 2, but I'm on the second disc. It feels really short. But it seems it took some ideas from the Uncharted series for some really cool (and frustrating) scenes.

[dpaint]

I always thought the blackouts in FEAR were pretty scary for an FPS, haven't played the recent ones ; no time for games anymore, just work.

[JFierce]

RE4 was ok scary if your playing alone no one in the house at night with headphones on type thing for the first time. As long as you don't know what's coming and are in a scary setting.


I don't remember what it was but there was this one game I can't remember the name of it. Played a demo with a friend, first person view, you can't actually look at the monsters or you'll start to go insane and die I think. There's a part where your hopping from box to box over water, and whenever you step in the water an invisible monsters treading after you. Monsters you can't really kill type thing but trying to survive, lol but you can't even look at them.

If I played that alone in the dark it might be pretty scary.

[Psychotime]

RE4 was ok scary if your playing alone no one in the house at night with headphones on type thing for the first time. As long as you don't know what's coming and are in a scary setting.

You sure you mean Resident Evil 4? The game where you play a US secret agent armed to the teeth with firearms and grenades taking down droves of rural Spanish villagers with pitchforks?

Yeah, I played the game (and love it), but 4 was the point in the series where any kind of fear was thrown out of the window. It's an action game. It's exciting, not scary.

You see trouble, you've got a pistol, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, an uzi, and a bunch of grenades all on hand. Shoot it in the face, roundhouse kick it, and do a double tap. And then reload with the ammo the monster immediately spawns after dying.

Every cutscene before a boss fight, which are usually massive mutated abominations, Leon will shrug it off and spout one liners like Stallone or Arnold. Remember how Devil May Cry was intended to be Resident Evil 4 before they decided to start over from scratch? I have to ask what made them change their mind if the second go wasn't too dissimilar in tone?


EDIT: Ok Super Salvador is scary. But he's only in the bonus minigame (which is about earning points for kills) you unlock after finishing the story mode.

There's absolutely no sense of hopelessness or vulnerability that the old games had. In those games you were limited on EVERYTHING, you knew that every step you took. You had to choose whether you could afford unloading a clip just to waste one zombie, you had to wrestle with awkward controls (due to pre-rendered environments that can easily throw you for a loop). The environment is large but confined. And to top it all off, you knew the majority of the things you had to fight were alot more durable than you are, even if you are specially trained.

But even then the TRUE horror games are the Silent Hill games (which I haven't played). As I understand they ARE about hopelessness you ARE vulnerable. You aren't some decked out special forces member like the Resident Evil games, you're a normal everyday person (except maybe the cop) moving through a specially designed hell that draws on and personifies the fears and subconscious thoughts of it's main characters.

[invinciblewombat]

it looks very dated now but system shock 2 nearly made me pee myself back in the day.

[JFierce]

Sure RE 4 is like that after you've played it already. I can go through the whole game mostly with the knife and handgun.

But once again, when you first play, have no idea where anything is, when you'll get ammo, where traps are. It changes the experience, especially in the dark, alone, with headphones on. Hearing enemies speaking their spanish phrases and turning around to see a zombie 2 feet from you makes you jump.


But everyone has their own sensitivity. There's a friends sister who jumps when playing Skyrim. While others won't flinch no matter what.



Like the first time fighting the main bosses right hand man, can't remember his name. The one you freeze with nitrogen, who runs super fast and CAN beat, but is quite difficult and has so much Health you have no idea if you can or not.

Or the enemies that creep in the hospital area slowly, that you have to use heat vision to see their weak points. Those things creeped me out.

[TinyBird]

I agree with JFierce, you can increase the scaryness of a game a lot by adding proper conditions. For example we tried playing Silent Hill 2 two times, first in a group of people who didn't know anything about the game, in the dark at night and it took only one person who truly got scared to infect every one else with their fear too (even the actual player who was used to playing horror games) and on the second time we had some lights on, a walkthrough for tight spots and a player who had this sort of "derp derp I'll walk into a closet for lols". Suddenly the whole game stopped being scary at all and we practically laughed through it.

Anyway, for recommendations, maybe you'd like the Fatal Frame or Siren series? They really take the "you are vulnerable" thing and run with it. Also I've heard that the LDS game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD_%28video_game%29 which is a dream simulator and not a horror game can have some seriously disturbing things in it. I guess it's more like Yume Nikki, and the point is to suck in the atmosphere.

[Psychotime]

Like the first time fighting the main bosses right hand man, can't remember his name. The one you freeze with nitrogen, who runs super fast and CAN beat, but is quite difficult and has so much Health you have no idea if you can or not.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100618145405/residentevil/images/thumb/d/de/Verdugo.png/640px-Verdugo.png

Verdugo

You can dodge every single one of his attacks with just a quicktime button press. But admittedly freezing him with the liquid nitrogen gives you the only window in order to deal damage to him without wasting ammo, and usually you won't have the firepower to take him down on your first playthrough.

This player had the firepower, but I'm posting the video to show how harmless the guy really is. Just dodge when he attacks, repeat.

rd0PT9mES_U

His boss fight is just there to stall you and burn up your ammo when you'll REALLY need it in the next level. He's a red herring that you just put up with on a time limit.

Or the enemies that creep in the hospital area slowly, that you have to use heat vision to see their weak points. Those things creeped me out.

The Regenerators (and their variant the Iron Maiden). I can see how someone would find them creepy, but the game flat out tells you how to beat them efficiently. And even then the programmers made sure you can beat them in even the most impractical way.

NwVYeQLO-R8

I think if you want a REAL problem enemy, you should look no further than the Crimson Heads of the gamecube RE1 remake.

Oh, man do I hate those. The thing is, whenever you kill a zombie in the remake, their bodies stay there on the floor. Unless you destroy their head, the body will be still around on the floor whenever you return to the room. This isn't there for realism. It turns out that if the body's still there, after a certain amount of time they'll come back stronger faster, and are an absolute nightmare.

S1283zTwDTM

The only way to ensure they don't come back is to cover them in kerosene and immolating them, but you can only carry 2/3 uses of kerosene at a time (so the prevention method becomes tedious busywork), and the spots where you get the kerosene will eventually run out.

[FightingSeraph]

How come nobody has brought up the original Splatterhouse?

[JFierce]

Once again comparing existing knowledge to first time experience. The entire point of being frightened is the unexpected. If you don't know the patterns you can't predict. After playing through a bit you'll figure it out.

It's the same with every game pretty much, AI has specific movements you learn and predict.

[Max Challie]

Once again comparing existing knowledge to first time experience. The entire point of being frightened is the unexpected.
Yes, after you've been experienced it once, the magic is gone.
RE4 was definitely a great action game, but the scares were few and far between. Sections of it that scared me though, were the tentacle wolves and returning to the village at night (that music really did it, the first time in my life that i finally knew what "chills down my spine" actually meant). Also, the Regenerator room got my heart pumping. That parasite-implant operation built up the tension, followed by the regenerator's breathing and the action itself.

I have to say that for me, only two games were really scary (Silent Hill 3 & Forbidden Siren, okay RE2 when i was 9, but does that count?). Alan Wake was pretty fun, and exciting, but it wasn't scary even though i played it while smoking Salvia, lol. FEAR? Fuck no, that was a fun FPS with lots of slow motion head explosions and cool weapons, but the attempted scares were just annoying. Well, the abominations in FEAR 2 were pretty darn well done i must say. It's hard to find good videos on youtube without nerds doing voice-overs that remind me stereotypes still exist

iUOvWDmYZQA

Silent Hill 3: the dogs were really well done. Best graphics on PS2 next to ZoE2 and MGS3.
Ty095dE6ydo

6LXWxekl9qICIx4V2gu-oc
Forbidden Siren (or SIREN in the US/Japan) was great as it took the cliche foggy dark forest/j-horror, yet added an element of tension as it was a stealth game; hiding behind a teacher's desk with one inch of the corner blocking the enemy's view of your head. Because of that once inch, you survive. The blood terraces were good too. But it was also full of frustration; how can a living dead sniper with a vintage rifle manage to see through the fog well enough to place every shot right between your eyeballs? Bullshit. And the video below is pretty much what the voice acting was like.
NmkDX3ISVTY

[Psychotime]

Once again comparing existing knowledge to first time experience. The entire point of being frightened is the unexpected. If you don't know the patterns you can't predict. After playing through a bit you'll figure it out.

It's the same with every game pretty much, AI has specific movements you learn and predict.

What I've been trying to say is that the nature of the game is what prevents it from being scary, in my opinion. You can't throw horrific monsters at me while at the same time hand me a plethora of weapons and constantly spawning ammo (that unless I unlock hard mode will never run out of) and somehow expect for me to be fearful of whatever happens next.

It doesn't help that the hero constantly spouts one liners in front of each abomination he sees.

How come nobody has brought up the original Splatterhouse?

It's just gross and intentionally goofy, not scary.

Wow, I'm being a real stick in the mud on this thread aren't I?

OK, I got one. Doom is a game that I find creepy for some reason. I don't even know why.

[Stoat]

The free taster chapter they pre-released for HalfLife2 skeeved the hell out of me. No One Goes to Ravenholm, I think it was called.

[Star Eater]

The Jaws of Cerberus was an early 90s first person click and move horror rpg. I harp on about it quite often, because I love it! It had it all

Satanism
Nudity
and more gore than your average video nasty

I've played it through twice. Finale involves you getting a priest to draw a pentagram in human blood in the parking lot and summoning Cerberus for the big showdown using native american weapons. It takes place in a possessed movie studio where the movie sets come to life.

Once I'm better I'm going to do an epic playthrough (like my Conquests of Camelot thread) to show you guys all the great deaths and monsters (eg getting your throat bitten out by a maggot mouthed zombie)

Doom 3 scared the hell out of me too, I loved it. Here are box shots for Jaws of Cerberus. (Cover art by Jeff Easley!!!)

http://i42.tinypic.com/1675we9.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/2qstboh.jpg

[Psychotime]

...ACCOLADE?

[Star Eater]

Yep, Accolade, they were the publishers. It was developed by Adventuresofts multimedia experiments in the horror genre, under the banner of Horrorsoft. They would later go on to create Simon the Sorcerer.

The game actually shipped with an X-rated sticker, which someone removed from this cover scan.

[JFierce]

God I really wish I could remember that one first person game. The epitome of the helpless psychological game. Just the concept of not being able to look at the creatures yet knowing they could probably see you and are walking around was pretty creative. I think you have a heart attack if you look too long? Also the fun of only having a limited amount of light/lantern.

Only played a bit but was pretty cool.

[Star Eater]

God I really wish I could remember that one first person game. The epitome of the helpless psychological game. Just the concept of not being able to look at the creatures yet knowing they could probably see you and are walking around was pretty creative. I think you have a heart attack if you look too long? Also the fun of only having a limited amount of light/lantern.

Only played a bit but was pretty cool.

I know what you are talking about! Name escapes me too, but it was released about 5 years ago right? You actually were not really meant to engage in combat if I remember correctly, you could, but most times it would be fatal. It scored high for its atmosphere.

[JFierce]

I'm not sure, I think this one was recent though, I played a demo. I'm going to ask some friends we were playing with. If I was playing alone in the dark with this game I'd probably be frightened from what I saw.

One of those things where your just randomly walking down the hallway and your vision and motor skills for the characters start to slip, and trippy shit is happening.



Gaaaaaaah.....

[JFierce]

http://www.amnesiagame.com/#main

This was it. Amnesia Dark Descent.
Only played a bit but seemed pretty nuts.


lol that was the game in the OP's response

[Star Eater]

How come nobody has brought up the original Splatterhouse?

Splatterhouse was an -awesome- series and while it had some disturbing visuals, it was too amusing to ever scare me. I loved it.

[JDSart]

Doom 3, dead space, are games that are in your face scary, its startles you but is something you really cant avoid, its a matter of reflexes. The first levels on Doom 3 did kicked me in the balls a few times with that, but as you advance it gets a lot weaker and repetitive.

Resident evil games were more about tension, you are not really as scared as you are nervous thinking if your 3 bullets are going to be of any use against wathever amount of enemies might be in the next room you haven´t been into yet.

Silent Hill is eerie, it creeps you out with the mood and not knowing a thing of what is going on and what is happening around you. The thing is after a while you realize how the game is just trying to mess with you, making you scare of things you havent seen and there is not really that much to harm you.

I remember being creeped out entering the school for example and the little ghost kids, but as i was exploring the place it felt weirdly comfortable and enjoyed the ambient if that makes sense.
Talking about the first one of the series of course, they have shifted the balance after that, the second one was way more haunting for me.

But Amnesia was scary, straight up, and maybe too much, at some point stopped being fun and just stressed me the hell out, i actually didn´t finish it. The game has its fair share of shortcomings, it almost feels like a N64 game sometimes, but the timing and the mood, just rapes your manhood.

You just know that when the designed it they werent making compromises, no balance or anything, no reliefs, nothing, just charge the game with as much horror that the could come up with, balls to the walls. And that what set the game apart.

Another really scary and stressing game is Condemned: Criminal Origins. I only try it for a while but was heavy stuff, i recommend looking into it for scare fans.

Fear was fun, i liked the game, but not horror by miles away, its an action shooter where they added a bit of supernatural on top to try make it more interesting, and i think they could do without that, the ring girl making little noises in the hallways between crowded rooms of enemies to explode into pieces felt silly and out of place.

[Psychotime]

Speaking of the original Silent Hill, anyone heard about this?

http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/219513-silent-hill-based-on-kindergarten-cop-confirmed-/SilentKindergartenProof2-620x.jpg
http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/219513-silent-hill-based-on-kindergarten-cop-confirmed-/SilentKindergartenProof6-620x.jpg
http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/219513-silent-hill-based-on-kindergarten-cop-confirmed-/SilentKindergartenProof1-620x.jpg
http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/219513-silent-hill-based-on-kindergarten-cop-confirmed-/SilentKindergartenProof5-620x.jpg
http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/219513-silent-hill-based-on-kindergarten-cop-confirmed-/SilentKindergartenProof4-620x.jpg
http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/219513-silent-hill-based-on-kindergarten-cop-confirmed-/SilentKindergartenProof3-620x.jpg

[Max Challie]

Doom 3, are you fucking serious? If tl;dr, then you are missing out. This review is a lot more fun than the game itself.

Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka on Doom 3 (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/feature-articles/on-doom-3.php)
My parents developed the behavior modification technique known as "Bibleman Submersion Therapy" around my eighth birthday. They would dunk me into the bathtub for thirty seconds, and as my head was briefly pulled up for oxygen, they would begin prophesying the future of Willie Aames. "Some day in the future Willie will depart from the hit comedy sensation 'Charles in Charge' and he will become Bibleman, a wholesome Christian hero intent on saving your soul, Richard," my mother would declare in between gasps of breath. "Yes," my dad confirmed as I flailed my arms trying to claw my way out of the bathtub. "Willie Aames shall one day demonstrate the importance of faith during an epic battle with Luxor Spawndroth and his cronies of evolutionists disguised as Christians disguised as evolutionists."

This extreme treatment was in response to a phase I was going through where I absolutely refused to stop insisting I was a blind janitor hired to clean up a futuristic space station of the future situated either on Mars or a planet solely composed of frozen mulch. My father would often try to break me out of this persona by asking questions he thought I couldn't answer, such as what marketable goods my employer manufactured. He always thought he was clever ever since the time he was watching Jeopardy with my mother and he was able to successfully guess, nine times out of ten, Alex Trebek's first name.

"According to the prospectus released last April, the corporation produces a wide range of technologically advanced weaponry, space freighters, and scientific equipment such as the touch screen LCD which never gets dirty regardless of what sewage processing station you toss it into," I would reply with the confident bravado of Marlon Brando before somebody finally convinced him to die. "But for all practical purposes, I've never seen the corporation manufacture a single thing besides these rusty red barrels which explode when shot. You may find such barrels spaced 10 inches apart every 10 inches of our highly futuristic space station of the future, assuming you have been equipped with a janitorial-strength barrel-spotting flashlight."

Eventually my parents abandoned the Bibleman Submersion Therapy just like Jason Hall fled from the smash hit Ice-T vehicle "Sanity: Aiken's Artifact," the only game daring enough to expose our government's secret plan to create large black men that will roam around the streets and collect outrageously gigantic rotating playing cards. However, I never abandoned my dream to work as a futuristic janitor of the future, performing a series of simple and menial tasks on a planet similar to our own but also very different, at least in the aspect of the restrooms. Last week I learned that all my dreams would soon come through, as id Software released the much anticipated "Doom 3" to a public which had already rated it five out of five stars on Amazon.com before they even had a chance to play it.

You know how all units in realtime strategy games always have one critical flaw? Like you can produce little motorcycles that zip around really quickly but never pack more firepower than a broken labelmaker, or you can pump out massive tanks which can destroy the entire Earth but are incapable of moving anywhere at all ever? This is what game designers like to call "balanced gameplay," which roughly translates to "you can have fun just as long as something's slightly irritating you," and I'm proud to announce this theory is often carried out into game production itself. The further technologically advanced a game becomes, the less of a plot and storyline it features, just to balance it out. And yeah, you can certainly find games which have complex characters and plots, but the graphical quality of it will rival that one Atari 2600 game where you had to drive the hot rod up the screen to catch floating numbers somebody had carelessly thrown into the streets, thereby successfully teaching you math.

"Doom 3" is the latest offering from John Carmack and the team of people paid to hang around Carmack and offer invaluable advice such as "please don't lose interest in computer games" and "boy it sure is fun to make computer games, don't you agree?" This title comes after Carmack spent the last half of a decade researching advanced optical physics, particularly in the area of black holes and bedroom closets after somebody had turned off the lights, so you can be sure there are a ton of complex formulas and equations in this game such as "x=60" or, in extreme situations, "x=67." The theory behind "Doom 3" is that lighting, the stark contrast between "not being able to see anything" and "not being able to see anything but randomly aiming into the shadows and shooting something throwing fireballs at you," creates a strong sense of horror and tension much like in the movie "The Ring" where the dead chick in the well threw fireballs at Naomi Watts.

"Doom 3" builds on the dark industrial success id Software created back when Trent Reznor used to spend time producing music instead of counting money, and is some sort of remix between the first two "Doom" titles and a flashlight switching simulator. The story is the same thing we've been exposed to over and over again; evil experiment by evil company goes awry and you are caught up in the evilness, the lone survivor who everybody is depending on to make the evil evil things stop being so evil. The weapons are the same things we've been exposed to over and over again, and the gameplay is the same thing we've been exposed to over and over again, but this is supposed to all be overlooked because the graphics look really nice in the off chance that there's a coding error and you can actually view them.

I admit, the graphics are impressive. Professor Carmack did an excellent job of emulating dynamic flashlight technology, probably to the point where a new generation of children will yearn to grow up and hold flashlights of their very own. Characters have a high polygon count and look more realistic than many of the people attending this year's QuakeCon. If any game has ever made me believe I was actually trapped inside a giant plastic lego industrial waste facility which couldn't afford to pay its power bills, it's this one. A generous portion of your ass will undoubtedly be blown off by the 500 million realistic looking sewage pipes, steel grates, and dirty metal surfaces you'll pass in your quest to reach the ultimate futuristic waste processing facility of the future. In order to break up the monotony of dredging through countless narrow hallways full of rusty metal and sewage pipes, "Doom 3" has a few missions requiring you to dredge through slightly different narrow hallways full of rusty metal and sewage pipes so you can press a button on a LCD which makes additional narrow hallways full of rusty metal and sewage pipes accessible. Sometimes you get to pass gigantic machines with no discernable purpose, such as the "big metal machine which rotates metal canisters around in a circle" and "the huge metal machine which glows and emits constant noises from a Bill Laswell sample CD."

In the near future, when I'm strapped to the electric chair and the sweaty, obese Alabamian warden asks me if I have any final words, I will proudly exclaim, "yes I may have murdered all those orphans the prosecuting attorney falsely claimed I murdered, but at least I never produced a first person shooter about killing spiders in a sewage processing plant." Then everybody will thoughtfully glance at each other as the words slowly sink into their brains, and they will soon be overtaken by raw emotion when it dawns on them that I'm not the real enemy, I'm merely a victim of circumstances. The warden will still flip the switch and fry my brains out, mostly because this takes place in the bleak and tyrannical police state future that KMFDM so astutely predicted, but at least everybody will finally realize that the gaming industry shoulders some of the blame. Here's a little message for you guys and gals coding the latest and greatest game about shooting with guns: we gamers don't have wet dreams about killing spiders. We don't talk about how awesome it would be to run around a waste processing station and either shut down or activate the processor which processes the waste processing; I'm not even sure who first decided that every game needs an obligatory sewer system level. When we think of our favorite video game moments, not a single one of them revolves around shooting a barrel which either catches fire or explodes. And as awesome you think the idea of "simultaneously spawning a bad guy in front of you the exact moment a bad guy spawns behind you" is, most of us generally don't agree. Let me rehash that list for some of the more lazier developers out there, complete with an animated gif of a checkmark to let you know exactly how much I love animated gifs of checkmarks:

THINGS NOBODY WANTS TO SEE IN A FIRST PERSON SHOOTER:
- Spiders and the inevitable Spider Queen because if there are spiders that means there's gotta be a Spider Queen, am I right or am I right folks?
- Performing a seemingly never-ending series of menial janitorial tasks inside a gigantic filthy industrial complex.
- Hundreds of millions of barrels which inexplicably explode when touched, yet are located in every hallway and next to every computer everywhere. There are apparently a lot of futuristic workplace accidents in the future.
- Enemies that silently spawn behind you and attack before you even know they are there.
- The phrase "powered by Lithtech" on the box.

As previously mentioned, "Doom 3" is a very dark game. Despite the fact that it's the future and you're in a highly futuristic industrial complex that manufactures highly technological machinery, the only portable source of light you can find is a 99-cent K-Mart flashlight which spent the last week repeatedly falling off the back of a pickup truck. One of this game's most awesome gameplay features is the flashlight juggling physics which revolve around constantly switching your flashlight for a gun or your gun for a flashlight. Remember that paragraph I wrote above about balanced gameplay? Well the flashlight juggling physics fall into that description as well; if you've got the flashlight then you are defenseless but can see what's killing you, and if you have a gun then you can defend yourself but you can't see what's killing you. Sure you know that your health is being gnawed away by a plastic spider of some sort, but you are unable to locate the exact position of this spider due to the fact that the lights are all out and every time it hits you, your character spastically flings his head 180 degrees backwards like a retarded child after licking a tazer.

I don't know, maybe I'm bitching too much just because I'm a bitter 28-year old webmaster with unrealistic expectations for so-called "revolutionary" games from revolutionary companies. But you know what? If you want to read ecstatically positive reviews of "Doom 3," then look on virtually any gaming site or magazine anywhere, all of which are currently researching ways to physically make love to id Software over the Internet. If you're mad at me because I'm the only person in the universe who is too stupid to understand that shooting spiders in a dark sewage processing facility is terribly frightening, then feel free to complain about my lack of journalistic integrity on one of a million public forums about choosing the correct neon light for your Evangelion case mod. None of this will change my opinions regarding "Doom 3" though. I'm sick to death of the goddamn "dark industrial" motif found in every first person shooter since 1994. I easily grow tired of repetitive "find the button and press it" tasks which are only made difficult by the fact that the buttons are miles apart and in different Martian area codes. I don't want to shoot spiders, I don't want to shoot barrels which explode, and I don't want to shoot only when I have put down my flashlight and therefore cannot see anything. Now if you'll excuse me, I must head out and tell children around the neighborhood how dinosaurs never existed and if they believe otherwise then they're going to hell. I'll bring my flashlight.

[Star Eater]

Funny review, but yeah, I loved Doom 3, it's really no big deal.

[JDSart]

I also had a good time with doom 3 when it came out. I don´t rave the game, but i did had a good time.

I think, of all, the thing that is unfair when people judge it down is on how much of a old time fps it was, that was kinda the point of it, it was the classic old time doom brought back to life. It felt like playing the old game in a lot of ways by design, and i liked that, as well as other people did, i wasn´t asking for the weel to be reinvented by the game, nor an intellectual epiphany, i wanted to play Doom.

When people bring up Painkiller for example everyones raves it for going back to old school ways, but then dissed Doom 3 for the same reason.

[ronin356]

Silent Hill 2 still scares the shit out of me.:wtf:

[Max Challie]

I think, of all, the thing that is unfair when people judge it down is on how much of a old time fps it was, that was kinda the point of it, it was the classic old time doom brought back to life. It felt like playing the old game in a lot of ways by design, and i liked that, as well as other people did, i wasn´t asking for the weel to be reinvented by the game, nor an intellectual epiphany, i wanted to play Doom.

When people bring up Painkiller for example everyones raves it for going back to old school ways, but then dissed Doom 3 for the same reason.

Yeah, that's not very fair. I didn't really hate D3 myself, but at least the initial weapons in Quake 4 were equipped with torches. Using the rocket launcher for example added to the mood. Speaking of which, i should have mentioned Q4 earlier as while it's not scary, the Strogg tactical units (orange guys) were, to me, pretty creepy but in a way that i liked. I really liked their design, how they would organise and talk about you as you walk into the area, knowing where you are. Only for you to suddenly kill them all, lol. But it was probably the most fun combat in the game for me. They were kind of Strogg special forces.

Though i do get sick of id's dark industrial theme, more than i tire of the overuse of urban areas in games, which i guess relate to the players well as most gamers live in an urban environment.

Now that i'm thinking about 'creepy' games, not scary ones, Homeworld comes to mind. It's one of the very few games in which the enemy force actually feels oppressive and too big to kill. There's those levels like Bridge of Sighs where you enter the area, creepy awesome music starts playing.. open the radar to find a large sphere of red dots across from you.. OH SHI-

[Star Eater]

The subway tunnels and some of the abandoned vaults in fallout 3 freaked me out. I hated ghouls...I'd hear their panting and their bare feet flapping in the dark, but I couldnt see them until they'd jump out and go BLLAAARGGH. Luckily my mini-gun was my security blanket. I'd often just fire it into the dark to stir up anything hiding in there.

There are some creepy vaults too, one in which the air is filled with hallucinogenics, another has a bunch of deranged clones in them and there's also...The Dunwich Building.

I enjoy immersing myself fully into games but end up scaring myself because I'm a big pussy when it comes to the dark.

[iambanana]

Amnesia was mentioned on the first page, can't recall by whom.

I managed to play it for a total of 45 minutes with headphones in the dark before throwing my laptop into the wall and curling up in fetal position. Weeping. Silently weeping.

And I wasn't even a kid. This was like four months ago.

Didn't even encounter any monsters.

Never again.

[TinyBird]

Also, apparently there's ".flow" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DotFlow), a Yume Nikki fangame which, at least reading the TvTropes page, might give lots of shivers.

[Stoat]

I watched the trailer for Amnesia and was distracted because I thought the modeling was a little crude.

I bought Dear Esther last night and I've played it for about 20 minutes. On the one hand, all you can do is walk around and look at stuff, so it's not much of a game, per se. But it's pretty to look at, so far.

[JDSart]

I played trough Silent Hill 2 again a couple days ago, what a great game, not as scary as the first time but i just love how everything plays out and the beautiful atmosphere and narrative.

I never knew about those easter eggs with the Schwarzenegger movie on the first one, but then again, seems like the Silent team does have a notable sense of humor.

I have only gotten the In water ending so i went on youtube to check out the other alternative ones, and there are these two, that for some reason i believe are not quite canon.

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Btw, i still think In water was the best ending for that game.

Yeah, that's not very fair. I didn't really hate D3 myself, but at least the initial weapons in Quake 4 were equipped with torches. Using the rocket launcher for example added to the mood. Speaking of which, i should have mentioned Q4 earlier as while it's not scary, the Strogg tactical units (orange guys) were, to me, pretty creepy but in a way that i liked. I really liked their design, how they would organise and talk about you as you walk into the area, knowing where you are. Only for you to suddenly kill them all, lol. But it was probably the most fun combat in the game for me. They were kind of Strogg special forces.

Though i do get sick of id's dark industrial theme, more than i tire of the overuse of urban areas in games, which i guess relate to the players well as most gamers live in an urban environment.



The lantern was a silly solution for wathever design problem they were looking to solve, a real shot to the ground, is the obvious joke about that game but they were really asking for the banter. Is not that theres no such thing as night or termal vision in the future, is that there is not even ducktape on an entire industrial complex, with all the suspension of disbelief at play, is still hard to ignore how bs it feels having to switch back anf fort in the middle of pitch black darkness without any good logic behind it.

I watched the trailer for Amnesia and was distracted because I thought the modeling was a little crude.

Thats the exact same thing i thought, then i played it

Even after playing for the first time i wondered, "why the hell was i scared of this? the damn monster actually looks rather bad" then i played again...

Its something i can´t quite pinpoint but it was scarier i imagined it would be.

[Stoat]

I "finished" Dear Esther (http://dear-esther.com/) tonight (I haven't nearly played through all the content, but I reached the end scenario).

Hm. Interesting idea, not as well-implemented as I could hope. Basically, you walk around a landscape while the narrator tells you bits of a story. It was a good landscape and a pretty good story, just not quite...enough, somehow.

Still, they were wise enough to price it low, and paid their investment back in six hours. I'd love to see more of this kind of thing being developed. With just a leeetle more meat on it.

[Crimsonstring]

I'd add Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth to the list. It has it's flaws but it's very creepy.

I believe that Silent Hill 2 & 3 are the best.

[Flashback]

This scared the crap out of me when I was three. They game had an amazing sound system. not to mention the C64's sid chip and all it's glory.
The longplay is missing the clip-clop from the footsteps. :(

xhgf1c6cj3I

[ChaoticKnight]

If we're talking about creepy, it might just be me personally but LIMBO was surprisingly creepy in the atmospheric sense. Also, I gotta reiterate Alan Wake. Haven't beaten it yet, (PC release was just about a week ago) but it definitely borrows from the Twin Peaks/Silent Hill creep-factor.

[Crimsonstring]

I feel like Alan Wake builds up so much tension, it's rather exerting pressure than crawling under the skin, but it does have some genuinely creepy moments. And the last special episode is wonderful.
The whole game is like a movie adaptation of Stephen King's novels directed by Lynch.

[GiantEnemyCrap]

i been playing Resident Evil Revelations and surprisingly its pretty creepy.

[Cryoxzonomony]

oh wow the f, almost 50 posts oh well

anyone who has half-life, must get this http://www.moddb.com/mods/cry-of-fear
Cry of fear is so fucking crazy and is awesome

Also recently got to play through Alice - Madness Returns, eventhough it can be dubbed as ALICE OF WAR in half-the gameplay though the battle is still satisfying. But mix
that with its depraved wonderland that is batshit insane and creepy.

Also Alice is hotter than ever

[Psychotime]

Beh, I'm near the end of Dead Space 2 (only 7 hours of gameplay so far, really short game for two discs), and I can't go any further until I fix the left shoulder button on my controller.

I've been able to go fine without being able to run (the Ripper definitely helps, STILL the best weapon in the series) but now I'm stuck at a hazard that REQUIRES running in order to cross.

Unless I WANT to be sliced to ribbons by rotating lasers.

And no, I can't use stasis. The game outright tells me that I need to run it.

[triggerpigking]

You sure you mean Resident Evil 4? The game where you play a US secret agent armed to the teeth with firearms and grenades taking down droves of rural Spanish villagers with pitchforks?

Yeah, I played the game (and love it), but 4 was the point in the series where any kind of fear was thrown out of the window. It's an action game. It's exciting, not scary.

You see trouble, you've got a pistol, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, an uzi, and a bunch of grenades all on hand. Shoot it in the face, roundhouse kick it, and do a double tap. And then reload with the ammo the monster immediately spawns after dying.

Every cutscene before a boss fight, which are usually massive mutated abominations, Leon will shrug it off and spout one liners like Stallone or Arnold. Remember how Devil May Cry was intended to be Resident Evil 4 before they decided to start over from scratch? I have to ask what made them change their mind if the second go wasn't too dissimilar in tone?


EDIT: Ok Super Salvador is scary. But he's only in the bonus minigame (which is about earning points for kills) you unlock after finishing the story mode.

There's absolutely no sense of hopelessness or vulnerability that the old games had. In those games you were limited on EVERYTHING, you knew that every step you took. You had to choose whether you could afford unloading a clip just to waste one zombie, you had to wrestle with awkward controls (due to pre-rendered environments that can easily throw you for a loop). The environment is large but confined. And to top it all off, you knew the majority of the things you had to fight were alot more durable than you are, even if you are specially trained.

But even then the TRUE horror games are the Silent Hill games (which I haven't played). As I understand they ARE about hopelessness you ARE vulnerable. You aren't some decked out special forces member like the Resident Evil games, you're a normal everyday person (except maybe the cop) moving through a specially designed hell that draws on and personifies the fears and subconscious thoughts of it's main characters.

I actually think re4 did have a few scare moments in it the first time I met the chainsaw guy I freaked the fuck out as I only had a pistol and barely any ammo.
5 is where the series got shit though as it threw away any good action and horror the series had and operation raccoon city looks like it'll be shit as well.
I actually think the re4 control style could be used really well for horror games though ive always envisioned what a re1 remake with the controls would be like and I think it would work brilliantly if capcom didnt fuck it up with explosions everywhere.
The newer silent hills have gone to shit I have barely any hope for the series
I played through the entirety of 5 and came out literally angry and depressed at how bad it was and what they had done to the series.
If you want to play a good silent hill game 2 is your best bet followed by 3 and then 4.
A few good obscure horror games

First would be haunting ground and I cannot stress this enough you need to train the dog in it most people really get pissed off with the dogs ai in this game but its a huge help once u train him.

Another game very similair to haunting ground would be rule of rose its a really artistic game it has a dog in it as well but I cant remember if you have to train him or not.
I will say this though there are some very annoying parts in this game mainly because its very easy to get lost.

If you like very japanese themed horror games you should try the fatal frame series theyre very original and have a brilliant atmospere 2 is actually one of my favorite horror games of all time.

Siren blood curse is a really good game as well as you can temporary knock out the enemies in it but never actually kill them it has a pretty good story as well.

The suffering is also a good horror game as well although its more action horror but its story and atmosphere is brilliant and has one of my favorite characters in any game doctor killjoy.

My friend also really recommends me cry of fear which ive played a bit of and seems to be very good so far so im definietly going to buy it when I get the chance.

A notable mention would be bioshock I don't count it as a horror game but it has some very creepy parts in it.

Being a major horror fan I find it really sad that horrors not being doing so well recently most great horror games were last gen and there hasnt been many good horror movies for a while either although movies like insidious and woman in black and games like dead space are giving me hope that theyre coming back.

btw crimsonstring do you mean the call of chtullu game which stars jack the man who can literally not walk down the stairs withought breaking his legs and has hilariously bad voice acting that call of cthulu.CHEESUS.

[Psychotime]

I actually think the re4 control style could be used really well for horror games though ive always envisioned what a re1 remake with the controls would be like and I think it would work brilliantly if capcom didnt fuck it up with explosions everywhere.

5 had a bonus short adventure (DLC, I think, but the Special Edition comes with it) where you play as Jill and Chris infiltrating another mansion that gives you alot of RE1 vibes.

It forces a little bit of vulnerability by making you play a stage near the end where the both of you are stuck without weapons and have to take on a bunch of pyramid head wannabes (carrying anchors) by setting deathtraps and luring them into it.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100514094925/residentevil/images/8/87/Guardian_of_insanity_2.jpg

[tobbA]

While it was quite harmless for the most part, Resident Evil: Revelations had some scary moments. Especially the part where you're looking for the communications officer...

[triggerpigking]

5 had a bonus short adventure (DLC, I think, but the Special Edition comes with it) where you play as Jill and Chris infiltrating another mansion that gives you alot of RE1 vibes.

It forces a little bit of vulnerability by making you play a stage near the end where the both of you are stuck without weapons and have to take on a bunch of pyramid head wannabes (carrying anchors) by setting deathtraps and luring them into it.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100514094925/residentevil/images/8/87/Guardian_of_insanity_2.jpg
That actually sounds pretty cool now if only the whole game had been like that.
I actually remember the re5 demo being scarier than the entire game my friend and I played the demo and it was actually pretty scary as the chainsaw guy in that one would just not go down I was backed up in a corner on my last 2 pistols bullets freaking out as he got closer.
But in the actual game they toned him down a shit ton to the point he was laughably easy.
Its very sad when a demo for a game is scarier than the actual game.

I think you'll find the dead space games pretty scary on harder difficultys as your usually very low on ammo and have to conserve everything.

[Psychotime]

I'm bad enough with ammo as it is and I get killed all the time. Doesn't make it scary, just challenging.

I don't use the telekinesis or stasis nearly as much as I should. Especially for those Pachycephalosaurus/Velociraptor things that they made for 2. I always die three to five times whenever I'm stuck in a room with a bunch of those. Man, do I hate them.

[triggerpigking]

I always found it more scary when im low on ammo I figured you didnt find it scary because it was too easy or something.
I never actually had a problem with the velociraptor things my friend's and everybody else I see who talks about the game always tell me how annoying they are but I always found them very easy with the linegun even withought using stasis.
While my friend swears by dead space (its his favorite game) I don't actually think its that scary either its got a lot of jump scares but I don't think its that great psychological scare wise (think there should have been more scenes like that part in the stasis graveyard).
Games got a great atmosphere though.

[Psychotime]

Finally finished Dead Space 2 the other day. Only 8 hours of total gameplay on my first playthrough.

The final boss was annoying and disappointing, especially considering the final boss of the first game.

No "cliffhanger" ending this time. Instead it looks like the series is basically over, but we'll see how that goes.

PRTwSNM8osc

EDIT: Scratch that, the "bonus" ending voice clip makes it clear that there will be a new one whenever they feel like it. Ok.

[amymist]

I'm a total wimp, so you probably shouldn't take my word for it, but I found Haunting Ground to be really unnerving. I mean sure, there is the need to train the dog, but there were a lot of wonderful little details that left me very confused and disoriented. I never beat the game, although at one point I did hide in the shower and left the game sitting unpaused for about an hour and half before Debilitas came in and killed me. That was at an early point in the game though, before meeting the dog. There are a lot of weird and gruesome traps, and a lot of surprising ways to die.

Also worth noting, on your first playthrough, you don't have any weapons, just the dog.
EDIT: Oh wait, you can kick stuff, but it's pretty much useless.

[Sanny]

If you want creepy factor there is Eternal Darkness as it really plays tricks with your mind, cant imagien how manny times i jumped as one hear a door knock or more stranger ocurance i wont tell for it only spoils the fun (or the plain fear you get) of find them yourself.

Condemned can get really freeky at tiems when you reath the middle of the game, shame its sequal explains to much and cause dit to be not as scarry, but it has isntead the most intresting monster in it.

Project Zero is another game i can suggest, it relys on old ghost stories type of mood and does it so well its werry tough on your nerves to play it as a ghosts can atack you anyware and any place, not even sanctuarys for saving is safe from them, and that is what make horror as you can never really predict when one apears.

Haunting ground im intrested in getting to se how it is, it would be a nice difrence from gunho horrors that is sadly the norm now.

[Velocity Kendall]

Half Life was fucking scary in parts i thought.