Having worked customer service, I find myself a bit jaded towards scary stories. I can really only appreciate the craftsmanship, and how well they perform. I tend to make a game out of predicting when and where things will pop up.
The part of Amnesia that appealed to me was discovering the true nature, not of the unnameable menace stalking him, but of himself. It is spelled out with little uncertainty in a final memo right before the final confrontation, but there are solid, consistent hints throughout. This game does justify the narrative beginning with a self-inflicted amnesia. I give it high marks for that. The chase sequence in the flooded basement was pretty decent as well.
I don't find things going "bump" in the night particularly frightening. Doom 3, the few moments when I was not jumped by something attacking from a narrow space as I passed simply served as a certain indicator that I'd be backtracking through that same section of the map later. There were no surprises. There was no overwhelming dread. It wasn't interesting.
The game that does the best to put the fear in me has to be the Fatal Frame series. You do get to fight back against the ghosts assaulting you. But you can never be sure when they will strike. They move oddly. And your most potent strike is to look directly at the scary thing at the very instant when it is trying to kill you. You are rewarded for taking pictures of not just the attacking spirits, but the background ones. The game rewards you for noticing everything it does to frighten you. And very little of it is accidental. One segment, before you are attacked by a ghost of a woman with a broken neck, involves seeing her spirit take a nose-dive off a balcony you're standing under. You've almost certainly saved the game a room beforehand. And, if you are the sort of completionist who must photograph every rare shot in the game, you have a very hard positioning yourself for this shot. So you must reload and attempt it... each time, this woman's ghost repeats the moment of its death before you. The sickening crunch coming repeatedly. You cannot save her. You cannot stop it. You can document it, or you can try to forget it and merely survive.
Horror is different from fear. Games are lousy at providing you with fear. Fear involves the unknown. The uncertain. You can, while walking through a bad neighborhood, fear assault. It isn't certain. You might make it out intact. Where there is fear, there can be hope. Horror comes from certainty. I'm certain many of us have experienced an echo of it in games when we unexpectedly stumble across a room filled with health and ammo... because we know this means a tough fight is going to hit us in the instant we leave. A game can give us dread and anticipation.. but if they could reliably produce real fear and horror... we would stop playing. We always have that escape route.
What I think the original poster is really trying to learn is the nature of fear. Possibly how to produce it, perhaps how to experience it. And that... is a detailed and intricate psychological inquiry. We don't know what you fear, any more than we know what strains of viral infection you are immune to. It varies greatly by individual. But it is hard to find one's fears. Your fears manipulate and protect you. You avoid going where you fear to tread. You do not even think about it. But now that you've asked the question, and read this far, you will begin to notice the moments in your life when you avoid something without knowing why. And you will hesitate. If you have time, you will investigate. You will venture down that oddly lit corridor at work. You will look behind that strange piece of equipment, or under the stairs.
Most likely, you will find there was nothing to fear to begin with. You'll question what little information you had regarding your aversion to such spaces. Eventually, you will cease to fear and avoid such...
And we'll be waiting for you then, delicious friend.
The part of Amnesia that appealed to me was discovering the true nature, not of the unnameable menace stalking him, but of himself. It is spelled out with little uncertainty in a final memo right before the final confrontation, but there are solid, consistent hints throughout. This game does justify the narrative beginning with a self-inflicted amnesia. I give it high marks for that. The chase sequence in the flooded basement was pretty decent as well.
I don't find things going "bump" in the night particularly frightening. Doom 3, the few moments when I was not jumped by something attacking from a narrow space as I passed simply served as a certain indicator that I'd be backtracking through that same section of the map later. There were no surprises. There was no overwhelming dread. It wasn't interesting.
The game that does the best to put the fear in me has to be the Fatal Frame series. You do get to fight back against the ghosts assaulting you. But you can never be sure when they will strike. They move oddly. And your most potent strike is to look directly at the scary thing at the very instant when it is trying to kill you. You are rewarded for taking pictures of not just the attacking spirits, but the background ones. The game rewards you for noticing everything it does to frighten you. And very little of it is accidental. One segment, before you are attacked by a ghost of a woman with a broken neck, involves seeing her spirit take a nose-dive off a balcony you're standing under. You've almost certainly saved the game a room beforehand. And, if you are the sort of completionist who must photograph every rare shot in the game, you have a very hard positioning yourself for this shot. So you must reload and attempt it... each time, this woman's ghost repeats the moment of its death before you. The sickening crunch coming repeatedly. You cannot save her. You cannot stop it. You can document it, or you can try to forget it and merely survive.
Horror is different from fear. Games are lousy at providing you with fear. Fear involves the unknown. The uncertain. You can, while walking through a bad neighborhood, fear assault. It isn't certain. You might make it out intact. Where there is fear, there can be hope. Horror comes from certainty. I'm certain many of us have experienced an echo of it in games when we unexpectedly stumble across a room filled with health and ammo... because we know this means a tough fight is going to hit us in the instant we leave. A game can give us dread and anticipation.. but if they could reliably produce real fear and horror... we would stop playing. We always have that escape route.
What I think the original poster is really trying to learn is the nature of fear. Possibly how to produce it, perhaps how to experience it. And that... is a detailed and intricate psychological inquiry. We don't know what you fear, any more than we know what strains of viral infection you are immune to. It varies greatly by individual. But it is hard to find one's fears. Your fears manipulate and protect you. You avoid going where you fear to tread. You do not even think about it. But now that you've asked the question, and read this far, you will begin to notice the moments in your life when you avoid something without knowing why. And you will hesitate. If you have time, you will investigate. You will venture down that oddly lit corridor at work. You will look behind that strange piece of equipment, or under the stairs.
Most likely, you will find there was nothing to fear to begin with. You'll question what little information you had regarding your aversion to such spaces. Eventually, you will cease to fear and avoid such...
And we'll be waiting for you then, delicious friend.
