Scary Games You Didnt Think Would Be Scary.

[clipped crow]

All the "horror" games are just funny to me. I've played the big ones and the small ones, and not a blink (side from laughter)

But the section of Metroid prime 2: echos level Torvus bog, The part where you had to go under water before you beat the boss... The fact I couldn't move, and everything else could.

 

[SonicKoala]

Half Life 2 - we don't go to Ravenholm!!!!!

Yeah, this - the headcrabs in Half-Life scared me enough, but to go and make them faster with longer legs...... scared the shit out of me.

 

[Pegghead]

Alan Wake. I've gotten so used to "horror" games that are more about monsters jumping out of closets that I was sure that Alan Wake would just be an easy going hike through the woods.

Pretty much this. I'm playing through it at the moment (Very good game in my opinion) and it contains elements from all kinds of videogame horror

-There's survival horror like the sections where the game chucks you nery a flashlight and a horde of "Taken"

-There's psychological horror, I'd go into detail but I'd probably spoil some things so the only non-detrimental examples I can give are when the 'Taken" start uttering snatches of phrases they used in their regular life but warped and distorted so it sounds like they're screaming and controlled

-There's startling horror, especially considering the fact that your enemies are shrouded in darkness and most of the horror comes from the night time sections in the woods

I figured that it might be a bit of a thriller (Or more befitting of the honest tagline "A psychological action thriller") but I wasn't epecting all of that. Honestly it's the first game I've played like this and for that matter it might seem like baby's first walk in the woods to gaming-horror connosieurs.

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

Half Life 2 - we don't go to Ravenholm!!!!!

Why did Ravenholm not scare me? Seriously? I'm a jumpy bastard who sleeps with the light on half the time, and I barely found Ravenholm remotely upsetting.

For me it was just the feeling of is there going to be a head crab over there or a puzzle

wait, a PUZZLE is as bad as a headcrab?

lol?

 

[Count Igor]

Thief 3 - Shalebridge Cradle (The level)
Everyone said it was scary, but MAN IT WAS FUCKING TERRIFYING. *Cough*
I apologise for the lack of Gentlemanness.
But really, it's the scariest thing you'll play. Go buy the game just for that level, and you won't be dissapointed, look almost anywhere on t'internet (Or friends if they've played it) I'll guarrantee that apart from the few people that don't like horror/stealth games , the reviews will be all positive.

Best review of it is this
http://gillen.cream.org/thecradle.pdf

But even that doesn't do it justice.
Seriously, go get it.

 

[Sybban]

In half-life? Yes puzzles from that game fill me with a sense of dread.

 

[caster272]

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

First night out in Hyrule field I nearly pissed myself.

Just got out of a forest with a few really big bugs, no problems there. Leave the forest, open up to a massive wide open field, beautiful blue sky, a painting that you could run through. I take a second too long to get to the castle. The wolf howls and SKELETONS COME UP AT YOU NO MATTER WERE YOU RUN AND THERE IS NO WHERE TO HIDE!!!!!

I didn't play again for a few days, but I was also about 9 or 10 at the time. And yet I still think its a bad idea to walk around in a field at night.

 

[The_Deleted]

Thief 3: The Cradle. Where the fuck did that come from?!?!?!
Fallout 3: Wondering the wastes at night, being stuck in a derelict building. The atmosphere in that game is immense.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Silent Hill 3, I had recently played through Silent Hill 2 and honestly hadn't found it that scary so I expected more of the same from 3, oh God how wrong I was, that entire game terrified from start to finish.

agreed, altho I played silent hill one and it was really scary but 2 just not at all

It probably depends on the kind of scare you go for. Silent Hill 1 and 3 had much more chaotic fear while Silent hill 2 was more calm.

OT: I'd have to go for Demon's Souls. It already had a pretty creepy atmosphere, but the moment I got to that jail level I was seriously pinching it.

 

[Eponet]

Ocarina of Time. Granted I was eight at the time; but those redeads creeped me out. As did the entire under the well/ Shadow Temple. Even the spirit temple gave me a bit of a scare.

In Majora's Mask, I actually expected the gibdo area to scare me; but I'd either matured beyond that, or the Gibdo/Stone masks had taken away all the necessary threat to be scary.

 

[Luftwaffles]

Headcreabs were real evil in HL when you had like 10Hp and desperately looking for health. So was the poison zombie in HL2, its a ***** to kill too. The latest one was Bioshock. Not so scary, but its immersive as hell. Then came the levels with Sander Cohens "art"....

 

[Vrex360]

Bioshock. It was at least scary the first time I played it, namely right at the beginning.
I just remember being in awe of the scenery as the bathesphere went through the underwater wonderland that was Rapture and thinking to myself that I couldn't wait to go in.

Suddenly the bathesphere enters the city and the first thing I see is someone get disembowled by a deformed woman with hooks for hands. I then refused to leave the bathesphere, demanding to find out how to get back to the surface.

To be fair, I've gotten a little less scared by it nowadays but back then, it freaked me out.

 

[RootbeerJello]

Half Life 2 - we don't go to Ravenholm!!!!!

Why did Ravenholm not scare me? Seriously? I'm a jumpy bastard who sleeps with the light on half the time, and I barely found Ravenholm remotely upsetting.

For me it was just the feeling of is there going to be a head crab over there or a puzzle

Headcrabs don't scare me either for some reason -_-

 

[alxhrmn]

I think my last real "AAARGHRGHRGRHGRHRG WHAT THE SHIT!?" moment in gaming was when playing Fallout 3.. I was down in one of the railway tunnels and could just hear a faint tapping echoing through the darkness. I didn't think much of it, until I eventually turned around and there was a Feral Ghoul up in my face. Almost shat a brick.

Until then, I was of the firm belief that 'scary' games didn't exist, so this came as a bit of a shock.

 

[tehweave]

.Metroid Prime? I'm sure I've been scared by the bosses a good few times.

Dammit! Really? You beat me to it!

The game itself has a rather eerie soundtrack and scenery to it, it just feels scary despite all the monsters never actually scaring me.
Echoes did the same thing, but made it worse by making the "dark world" actually DARK.

Plus, I can't be the only one who feels tense during the first game when you need to infiltrate the space pirate lair in the snow area.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Then there's SWAT 4. There are two missions in that game which involve taking down deranged subjects, and when you burst into their houses what you find is extremely disturbing. Again; Not a horror game. But I'll be damned if those two missions didn't have me on edge. If you've played the game you know which two I'm talking about!

Oh, yes, SWAT 4.
It makes me appreciate Rainbow Six: Vegas - alright, there's no planning or tactics but at the very least it didn't scare the shit out of me.
Seriously, the first non-training level the game had involved a creepy house with a fucking serial killer inside and one of the levels had cultists that

Spoiler

buried their children inside

.
SWAT 4 is actually pretty atmospheric and scary in its own right but those two were horror-game level creepy.

 

[MisterMojo]

Hello Kitty Island Adventure. The part where you fight Cthulu will not only scare you, but make you go completely insane.

 

[Valkyrie101]

Probably Half Life 2, although it was less psychological fear and more outright disgust, particularly with the headcrabs, antlions and above all the poison headcrab zombies. They really freaked me out.