Poll: What is the most scariest / creepiest game you've played / seen?

[J-Val]

Considering I have the memory of an intoxicated goldfish with Dementia, the most scariest game I remember is Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines. The abandoned hotel, with its creepy footsteps, poltergeists and tense music, scared the Hell out of me, especially when the sobbing ghost appeared or the music suddenly changed. Then, a few levels later, I was in the macabre hospital, constantly terrified of getting attacked.
The most scariest/creepiest game i've ever SEEN, however, would probably have to Forbidden Siren (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipt-0MuVvMw).

Anyhoo, what's the most scariest or creepiest game you've ever played, seen or heard of?

 

[eggdog14]

When i saw it was a poll i was afraid HL2's Ravenholm might be overlooked, i'm glad it wasn't.

That is the single scariest piece of videogame i've ever experienced. The Fast-Zombie is one of the best creatures i've seen in a game, a unique, terrifying twist on old-school gameplay.

And this little episode of horror appears in an otherwise straight-first-person-shooter. The contrast adds surprise and leaves you drained when entering the brightly lit subsequent levels.

 

[Kohlrabi]

I don't consider the top half of the games creepy or scary, and I don't know the lower half (yet).

But looking back I found "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" to be quite creepy in some parts, especially the beginning where the player is unarmored and is being hunted. And of course both "System Shock" games, while part 1 was a bit more creepy. The "Alien vs. Predator" games were also scary to some extent, as long as you played a human marine.

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

Penumbra. Not being able to see what is down that hallway, and knowing that even if something is down there I can't just shoot it makes it much scarier than any other game I've played. Not having any agency against the source of fear intensifies it. I've heard Clock Tower is this way, but have unfortunately never played it. As soon as I can fight something it becomes much less frightening.

Honorable mention goes to the haunted hotel level in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

 

[SatansBestBuddy]

I'm kinda miffed that there's no "other" option.

There's way more scary stuff out there than just these.

That said, Resident Evil on Gamecube was, and is, one of the scariest games ever, even more so if you played the PS version.

 

[J-Val]

I don't consider the top half of the games creepy or scary, and I don't know the lower half (yet).

But looking back I found "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" to be quite creepy in some parts, especially the beginning where the player is unarmored and is being hunted. And of course both "System Shock" games, while part 1 was a bit more creepy. The "Alien vs. Predator" games were also scary to some extent, as long as you played a human marine.

Dam, I forgot about System Shock and AVP. Ah well.
I've only played three games of the poll. Resident Evil wasn't particulary scary, but it had a great atmosphere. Ravenholm's dark corners, snarling zombies and loneliness made for a very tense segment. Surprisingly, Shadowgrounds had the scariest begining (walking, alone, down a blacked-out base while you heard noises nearby).

@ Satan'sBestBuddy; They're not the only options, just some of the common ones.

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

I played the demo of Shadowgrounds, and thought it was creepy, but then found out the rest of the game is apparently heavier on the shooting than the scary, and was disappointed.

 

[josh797]

ok so this one is easy. never owned it, but it was a cool demo. Eternal Darkness for the Gamecube. i was freaking out, and it really messed with the players head. i know a very strange game, a survivlal horror one for GC. but it was so cool. itcame out like five years ago, but its been on my mind since it came out. im still gonna go buy it used when i borrow my parents wii in february for smash bros brawl. i really thought this game was the scariest one ever, becasue it did more than horror or just monster in the closet. it really fucked with te player, not just at the gameplay, but all the way through, it happened that your head fell off or randomly, the game would say that there was no saved data for your old game. it was crazy.

definitely the scariest game ive ever seen

 

[BulletFestival]

The Marine campaign for AVP2 was actually surprisingly scary, although that might have something to do with the fact that I'm a big pussy and found the movies terrifying when I was little.

 

[runtheplacered]

Going to go with none of those listed there... I'd say Condemned Criminal Origins.. that games ambiance had me chilled to the bone. Amazing game.. glad to hear they're making a sequel.

 

[bovius]

Feeling the need to throw another option out there - the Shalebridge Cradle from Thief: Deadly Shadows. Easily scarier than anything else I've played, including a few of the games in the list above.

 

[Try_lee]

Hell yea!

The cradle provided THE most scaryness than any other game yet. The atmosphere combined with the freaky zombie-a-likes actually made me freeze and not want to continue for a while. Luckily I was young enough to have full control over my bowels at that time.
I'm not sure whether or not I actually want to play a game that has something scarier in it...

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

I just thought of not an entire game, but a particular enemy in a game that gave me the creeps. In Painkiller there is a level that I think is an asylum. It has been a long time since I played it, but once inside this place you find all of the beds, and usually the floors are covered with what look like zombie quadruple amputees. When you get close to them they crawl along towards you, and fling their bodies at you. It's kind of freaky. They just come flopping across the floor at you.

 

[Arbre]

I don't know how HL2 gets points when there's AvP in the list.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

Resident Evil creeped me out the most when I played it because I was younger, we played it from midnight to who knows when in the morning, my friend's house was in the middle of the woods and we had the windows open, and we had just heard that an escaped convict was running around in our area so we were primed to crap our pants. Looking back on it that game and that situation had a profound effect on me and I still have trouble keeping calm during zombie games and movies (haven't picked up another Resident Evil game since then) and it wasn't even that the game was scary just that we had the absolute perfect setup.

I haven't played most of the games on the list but I have to say while Ravenholm was tense I wasn't really scared just shocked when stuff popped out at me. I think the darkness and lack of ammo in Episode 1 while you are underground had me more jumpy than Ravenholm even though Ravenhold was, by far, the better sequence. Of course it could be that I was too amped up about being able to toss saw blades at my enemies and none of the gore really registered but who knows. Seriously, though, they should have tossed a few more saw blades in HL2 because that was the coolest use for the gravity gun in the entire game.

I wish I could remember the name but it will come to me right after I turn off my computer. There was a game for playstation where you were in dream sequences with all this blood and a crying baby in the background. That creeped me out to no end and I remember having to mute the TV because I couldn't concentrate on the game. Not scary, just creepy/annoying.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm seeing a lot of possible entries missing from the poll, but let's be honest... you'd need a page all by itself to list all the potential choices.

Feeling the need to throw another option out there - the Shalebridge Cradle from Thief: Deadly Shadows. Easily scarier than anything else I've played, including a few of the games in the list above.

Can I get an AMEN, brother! You can search YouTube for a video I put together of the Cradle. Easily one of my favorite, most creepy gaming experiences in recent history. Jordan "Null" Thomas was primarily responsible for it, and a while back he dropped by the Through The Looking Glass forums to talk about the making of the level with us. He's an all-around cool guy and an amazingly creative producer, and I'd buy any game he headed up. Along with an extra pack of underwear.

Seriously. If you've played through the Cradle, I only need to say two words. The Door. I spent five minutes at the bottom of those stairs with my bow out, just waiting for whatever was coming down at me.

I'll also agree with Ravenholm (the screams in the distance always made me stop for just a second), System Shock 2 (some of the best sound and voice work EVER), Eternal Darkness (never did get to finish it) and Deep Corners of the Earth (had lots of problems, but some areas really shone through). Penumbra was pretty good too, though half the horror factor came from the fact that you were nearly weaponless and not all that fleet of foot.

I'm rather surprised FEAR never got a mention. True, the scares were a bit cliched for any fan of Japanese horror movies, but even as jaded as I am, Alma seriously creeped me out a few times. There's this one moment where you're watching a live camera feed on a monitor in a security office, and slowly her head rises into the shot; just as you're about to see her eyes, the image cuts to static. I don't know why but that really just got to me, somehow.

I'll throw in a possible surprise entry here: Delta Labs 1 from Doom 3. The bulkhead opens to a dark corridor lit by only dim emergency lights and the ruddy red light of a Martian afternoon. It's quiet... too quiet. After fighting through so many demons out for your blood, the fact that you're only faced with darkness and disturbing sounds for a long stretch can put a player on edge- every dark corridor might hold something new and terrible, and was that noise something growling? Honestly, if the game had tried a bit harder in that vein, messing with the player's head ("They took my baby") instead of confronting us with Monster Closet #482, I might have enjoyed playing it a lot more.

 

[be0wulf]

I second (third?) Ravenholm. When I was playing it alone, with the lights out, I got goosebumps.

The level where the Flood first make their appearance in Halo was also pretty freaky (although it was somewhat of a rip-off of Half-Life). Just the swamp part though. Everything else was kinda meh.

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

I was having way too much fun with the gravity gun, and saw blades for Ravenholm to scare me.

The Rogue Wolf, I completely forgot about that part of FEAR until you mentioned it. That creeped me right the hell out too. The fact that is was lifted almost directly from The Grudge didn't lessen it for me at all.

I really need to play Shalebridge Cradle from the third Thief game. If I can ever get the damn thing to run on my dual core processor I'll report back. The standard fix doesn't want to work.

 

[Kemmler0]

Thief 1. Getting hunted down in the dark catacombs by zombies, and the whispering ghosts in the haunted mansions. With no real way to fight back.

Followed closely by AVP 2 as a marine. Played at night with no lights on and 5.1 surround sound system. You can almost feel the alien breathing down your neck.