Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, the parts of Silent Hill 4 that didn't frustrate the fuck out of me, Doom 3, Resident Evil REbirth, Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 4, Condemned 1 and 2, and Dead Space.
Truly Scary Horror Games
- Thread starter Mar451
- Start date
I recently played through Alan Wake and found it genuinely creepy and atmospheric through and through. However, it suffered a fatal flaw shared by many alleged scary games, and that is that I do not fear that which I can KILL (then it becomes a challenge). Games like clock tower and friday the 13th where you must run to survive, giving you a true sense of being outmatched. You have to think that realistically Halo is a very scary game for your average grunt, with all the plasma burns, the smell of burning hair and fresh fecal matter wafting in the air, fallen comrades strewn about. But Master chief came to play. And that's basically how I feel about all these horror games where I'm given a weapon, never given that necessary helpless feeling as much as I feel challenged by my next opponent.
Silent Hill 1-3
Penumbra Overture & Black Plague
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat (Clear sky is good, but its more action oriented and the scares aren't permeating the whole game)
Dark Seed 1 & 2
The first "Manhunt"
System Shock II
Penumbra Overture & Black Plague
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat (Clear sky is good, but its more action oriented and the scares aren't permeating the whole game)
Dark Seed 1 & 2
The first "Manhunt"
System Shock II
Mainstream Games will always disappoint in horror, since marketing is involved; obviously...
The only shooters I can barely recommend are the ones that everybody knows, like Resident Evil, Silent Hill or Dead Space maybe. None of the FPS'es ever managed to scare me since you're always armed with a gun and plenty of bullets that conveniently manage to splatter everything the games can put in your way.
The Fatal Frame Series (Project Zero) are the only mainstream games to manage that horror/scary scenario without any mindfuckery, like Silent Hill who pulls more on your WTF strings than on your nerves.
The Indy market however pulled off some nice balanced WTF/Horror games.
"The Path" is one of those games, just google it, it's like a mix between Fatal Frame and Silent Hill, the only problem here is that you have no thread, "no physical enemy" so to speak. No thread, no scare, but still one of the best horror games.
Also, funny as it might be, the Wii has some potential there of late:
Ju-on: The Grudge (Kyoufu Taikan: Ju-on)
The Calling
Fatal Frame 4; Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
Just four tiles that can be really scary, if you play them in the right mood, all dark at night and alone.
There is a great Patch for FF4 since it got never shipped overseas.
http://www.cameraslens.com/forum/index.php?board=76.0
The only shooters I can barely recommend are the ones that everybody knows, like Resident Evil, Silent Hill or Dead Space maybe. None of the FPS'es ever managed to scare me since you're always armed with a gun and plenty of bullets that conveniently manage to splatter everything the games can put in your way.
The Fatal Frame Series (Project Zero) are the only mainstream games to manage that horror/scary scenario without any mindfuckery, like Silent Hill who pulls more on your WTF strings than on your nerves.
The Indy market however pulled off some nice balanced WTF/Horror games.
"The Path" is one of those games, just google it, it's like a mix between Fatal Frame and Silent Hill, the only problem here is that you have no thread, "no physical enemy" so to speak. No thread, no scare, but still one of the best horror games.
Also, funny as it might be, the Wii has some potential there of late:
Ju-on: The Grudge (Kyoufu Taikan: Ju-on)
The Calling
Fatal Frame 4; Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
Just four tiles that can be really scary, if you play them in the right mood, all dark at night and alone.
There is a great Patch for FF4 since it got never shipped overseas.
http://www.cameraslens.com/forum/index.php?board=76.0
their not really anything scary (in overture at least, much better design in black plague though), just zombie dogs, spiders and a giant worm.Mr.Pandah said:
that being said though, the penumbra games are easily the scariest games ive ever played. i try to play at night with the lights off and my speakers set up perfectly, and thus far overture and black plague are the only 2 games ive ever played that i would call truly scary.
and for those looking for more, frictional is releasing amnesia in august, and from the vidoe i watched it looks to be even better than penumbra:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWHBlDCvhkg
several games have scared me, but quite mildly.
two however made me feel extremely unsafe:
penumbra tech demo (not the official games)
system shock 2. that game never left you any real breather moments. once you encounter the first ranged weapon wielding enemy, the only real hiding place is the pause menu.
two however made me feel extremely unsafe:
penumbra tech demo (not the official games)
system shock 2. that game never left you any real breather moments. once you encounter the first ranged weapon wielding enemy, the only real hiding place is the pause menu.
No sir, Crimson Butterfly excelled in every damn thing that it went for. The only BAD things about it was the camera system. Yet, in my opinion, it was just crappy enough to make the game scarier because you never are really quite sure if the thing will actually...well, work.Hazy said:
Silent Hill 1 was the only horror game I have played that genuinely freaked me out consistently, and was trying to do so. Much to my regret, I still have not played Silent Hill 2 or 3, which I have heard are much better games than the first one in this regard.
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I downloaded it just now after reading this, and it was indeed freaky... until the 100th time trying level 6. Then it's just frustrating.Logic 0 said:
I'm going to add another vote for penumbra. The original clocktower is was the best though. The sound of the scissors literally kept me awake for a few nights.
Most apparant Horror games these days arnt really that scary as you always have around 1000 guns up your characters arse. but probably the most scary game for me would probably have to be The Suffering: Ties That Bind or maybe S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call of Pripyat.
System shock 1 and 2 creeped me the hell out. In number 2 is was the midwives and the monkeys. You could hear them long before you could see them so i was constantly spinning in circles trying to figure out what direction I was about to be attacked from. Most horror games these days seem to go for the startle type scare which works for a few times but then gets old. Setting the right atmosphere works wonders in keeping someone on edge so the littlest things spike their adreneline.