Study Declares Dead Space 2 "Scariest 360 Game"

[Armored Prayer]

Well congrats to DS2 I guess. I never considered it scary (though very disturbing), but I still had a blast with it.

Condemned on the other hand scared the shit out of me. It was beautify terrifying and should of won.

 

[Keldon888]

I wouldn't count any of those games as horror. DS2 tried I guess... so maybe that's just bad horror.

DS2 had no atmosphere, every other hole in the wall had a monster, every dead body was a monster, dark room + space zombie does not make a game scary.

Alan Wake is the opposite, it was all atmosphere and not real substance. At least to me.

RE5 was and action game through and through, I don't see people calling COD games scary.

Condemned was an action game to me as well, but was probably the jumpiest of all the games on the list.

 

[RedBeta22]

What? They only played a 30 min portion of each game? That's lame. I bet the didn't play the Department Store or Final boss levels of Condemned.

 

[vxicepickxv]

It depends what you class as scary, actually being scarred or just something going boogy woogy woo and jumping out from behind which is what most games seem to do, even Amnesia to an extent

Yeah, but it's no dog through a window. That got a lot of people, in fact, it still does get people.

 

[Mezzo.]

Play Amnesia and then I'll take this seriously. I've played through Dead Space 2, and at the most, I barely jumped. Amnesia was the only game that actually had me running in terror.

 

[de5gravity]

I played Dead Space on the PS3 and I loved it AND found it really scary. Haven't tried DS2 yet but i heard it's more action less horror.
Not sure why they even bothered with RE5.

 

[Grey Walker]

Dead Space 1 didn't scare me. Dead Space 2 didn't scare me.

They both startled me on several occasions, however. Like in the first part of Dead Space 1 when you're going down the elevator and a Slasher is charging at you as the doors open... I had just finished playing Mass Effect 1 and the long elevator rides had made me complacent. There was also later in the story when you run into Twitchers.

In Dead Space 2 I was only startled when I thought I'd killed everything in a room and then the arm of a slasher appeared over my shoulder.

But startle isn't really the same thing... A friend of mine can't finish the game because she finds it so scary but I really can't see why.

Ohh, I downloaded Amnesia: The Dark Descent... I should play once I figure out how many functions I have to assign to the keyboard...

Just learn a few keys for the menus and the rest is handled with your mouse. It's not overly complex.

On topic, did they include XBLA titles here? I think there are a few more horror games there. That said, I use a PS3 and a PC, so I can't be a good judge.

Although I think some of the psychopaths in DR2 were pretty scary in a subtle way.

EDIT: 30 minutes is not enough to take in enough of a game to get you into the horror mindset.

...Amnesia is either an exception or a LOT more terrifying than I've been able to experience. I'm tense after 5 minutes, if that.

 

[DustyDrB]

That's an extremely small sample size! No reputable journal would publish a study like that. One person could skew the results so far. This study is a bit more in depth and probably expensive than others, so you wouldn't need as many people as you would for more correlational research (Surveys, Questionnaires). But you'd still need to study at least 100 people and probably more than that.

As for the scariness of Dead Space...I can't say. But I'd probably have trouble playing it, as I don't handle horror well at all. Dead Rising scared me. The Re-Dead in Zelda games scare me. I steer clear of the genre.

 

[Irridium]

Who the hell considered RE5 a freaking horror game?!
You know what, just to be an ass, I'm going to ***** about these games being called horror games.

Alan Wake - Could have worked. Was actually really atmospheric. But after a while you know that scary things only happen when the scary music plays. Which leads to you knowing when scary things will happen, which doesn't make them scary.

Dead Space 2 - HA! It relies on the "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ALL THE DEAD AND DECAYING STUFF! SEE HOW SCARY I AM! LOOK AT ME!" type of horror. Which isn't that good. At best its startling, at worst its any other action game.

Condemned: Criminal Origins - Ok, this game is actually scary. As was the second, before the plot went all WTF on you.

Resident Evil 5 - Who the hell considers Resident Evil games horror games anymore? I mean really.

These people would probably crap themselves if they tried playing Amnesia. Maybe even get a heart attack.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

They chose some fairly ropey games to test on... DS1 was scarier.

 

[BrailleOperatic]

So it's actually the scariest of the four games chosen, and not the scariest game on the XBox. You can't assert is the absolute scariest unless you compare against every other game for the XBox. This is like saying PB&J is the most delicious food in the world because out of the choices of Bologna, PB&J, Ham, and Macaroni, more people preferred the peanut-buttery goodness. Which is fallacious at best.

But more to the point: No. Dead Space 2 is not scary. At all. Not even a little. I have fallen asleep to the sound of DS2 more times than I care to count (true story).

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I didn't find Dead Space 2 'scary' but it was stressful. That's probably what these guys are picking up with the frustration and suchlike. Theres a difference between getting 'chills up your spine' scared and something going ''BLARGLEBLARGLE'' in your face and you flailing ineffectually.

 

[EternalFacepalm]

Too bad those games were all crap, and the only reason Dead Space 2 was scary was because it had unfamiliar things jumping out from the same vent fifty times, saying "boo".
Amnesia, though, was amazing.

 

[Gitty101]

Dead Space 2 is more like an action game then a horror one. But it's a good action game at that ^^ Can't see how it's more frightening then Condemned though...

 

[Senaro]

Six people doesn't really make for a good study group.

 

[GideonB]

Dead Space 2? Scariest 360 game? BWAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA BE SERIOUS.
No seriously, Condemned should have won that if it was 360.
If it included PC, we all know Amnesia would have won.

 

[Puzzlenaut]

Am I the only one that thought, at least at times (and especially near the beginning) that Bioshock was quite a bit scarier than any of those except maybe the original Dead Space?

 

[Mad1Cow]

I'm sorry when it came to horror on the 360, Final Fantasy XIII won it for me (snark, snark, insert trollface picture).

Microsoft want everything Mainstream and Horror is not really main stream, it's quite a niche field. So this news is about surprising to me as if you told me a fish is wet.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

Condemned: Criminal Origins is WAY scarier then DS 2