What Games Scare you?

[Omniponent]

I'm writing an article for my website and I wanted to get some community feedback on horror games. Everybody gets scared by different stuff, but I was hoping for some personal anecdotes to flesh out the article a bit.

For ME. Seeing the the impaled heads in the original Mortal Kombat was the first time I was ever scared by a game. I was pretty young at the time, and even though I wasn't bothered by the blood or the violence, the decapitated heads kind of messed me up.

The original Resident Evil and Dino Crisis both had that herky-jerky movement thing going on that made all the enemies really creepy, even if they're super lo-res and not to scary nowadays.

Recently, P.T. and Five Nights at Freddy's(1,2) have been the only games to really eek me out. Both nail the whole atmosphere thing. But share your thoughts!

Please write a few sentences if you have an experience you want to share!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Recently, Alien: Isolation. It's a credit to the game that even towards the end I never really lost my fear of the alien, less for its movement or design (by now we're all accustomed to the thing I think) and more as a symbol of instant Game Over. The sound design is fantastic as well.

 

[Omniponent]

Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven

Retrieve the Yoto Swords
A cemetery level filled with unkillable spirits/undead that forced you to run through the stage defenseless
Hell for a kid
I ended up climbing a tree too afraid to peer down for over an hour before noping out

Shame as it was a fantastic level
One part forces you to drop into a corridor filled with ankle high blood where a pierced-by-several-arrows undead samurai roams
What a great set piece

Spoiler: Cemetery Soundtrack

Spoiler: Motion capture of Tenchu enemies

First one recorded was in Wrath of Heaven and was by far the most unsettling for me at the time

Spoiler: These pantless guys can go suck it

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

First time was probably Hexen.

I'd played Doom before it and the worlds do face similarly apocalyptic cataclysms complete with zombies, but Mars was just the one research facility. Kronos was an entire thriving world controlled by three guilds before Korax turned the leaders of those guilds into his eternal slaves and everyone else except for you into some other kind of grotesque monster, the most common of which has two heads. Like with Mortal Kombat, there are lots of severed heads and other grisly body parts littered around most areas, including several entire impaled bodies. An entire world's population has been mutated into hell-spawned atrocities and is out for your blood... and as their cruel master so helpfully tells you, they can smell it.

It helps even more that Kronos used to have a blue sky and healthy forests in the lore. But when the game begins, no map has any sky colour except pitch black and bloody red, and any trees or other plants you see will be dying. Any building you find will be in the process of crumbling apart. Every body of water that isn't poison or lava will have vicious acid-spewing Stalkers swimming in it. That's what Korax does. It's what he is.

-

More recent was Shin Megami Tensei IV. Not at first, but as more horrific truths are gradually revealed, a large chunk of the game is a group of nihilistic former humans taking you and your comrades on a guided tour of the current Tokyo and several possible alternate versions. Each one has their own different flavours of nightmare fuel, from the Reverse Hills facility to seeing humans deliberately take pills to transform themselves into demons because they just can't handle the stress of constantly being on the run any more, from Blasted Tokyo's lifeless desert to Infernal Tokyo's eternal war.

The purpose of this is to bring you (the player, that is) into the same despair so that you will help their plan to annihilate the universe and remove all human suffering. They believe it, too. The story sequel had some jump scares, but nothing that slowly sets into your mind like the original does.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

Eh, nothing these days really scares me as such, aside from the obvious telegraphed jump scares that a lot of stuff uses, but I don't really think of that as "horror". Horror for me is making me dread whatever situation I'm in, forcing me to creep about, not wanting to move from my position for fear of becoming exposed to whatever force is pursuing me. It's that sense of utter unease you get from just being in a place that's not quite right, of being isolated from anyone or anything that might help you. The loneliness, helplessness, isolation from others. For me it's more the atmosphere the game builds than anything specific.

I honestly found a lot of older games did this pretty well, some of which weren't even horror games. The original Tomb Raider is actually really unsettling and unnerving at times, with large sections with no music, only sound effects as you run about largely empty levels, occasionally interspersed with sudden, loud orchestral music out of nowhere. And the fucking gorillas will shit you up every time!

The Myst games are similar; large empty worlds, no music, random distant sound effects, and in Riven at least, it made the few times you DID see another human, who would then run off before you could speak to them, so much more unsettling.

As for actual horror games that genuinely did me in, the original Silent Hill terrified back in like, 1998/99 (to be fair, I was about 10). I remember getting as far as the possessed school, hearing THAT music playing as soon as you enter and thinking "NOPE!"

Oh, and any game that gives enough hardware and guns to outfit a small military unit is not horror. Resi games have been going more this way for a while, where saving every bullet no longer matters because you easily have access to 4-5 guns at any time, in some cases even starting with fully auto assault rifles (though I still love you Resi 3!). I remember a friend of mine forcing me to sit down and play Fear once, because he wanted to see my reactions to this "horror" game he loved. I don't think I flinched even once during any part as I ran about gunning down everything. He was disappointed.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Honestly I cannot think of one back in the day the first Project Zero game (Fatal Frame) scared me or rather filled me with such a sense of dread that I could not handle playing for long but for a long long time horror games have just not done it for me. I am not sure what it is but I think its probably I am a lot more desensitised to it so that even jump scares rarely get a reaction out of me nowadays the other issue is one I also have with many films and books is that there is literally no threat so I find it very hard to be scared by them unless they can somehow get under my skin which very very few are able to do.

Last time I was scared through horror stuff was when I was reading some literature on haunted grounds when I was walking the country and I had to pass by a place mentioned in one of the articles I had read which was an old bronze age burial ground then when I got to my place I was staying I realised it was also mentioned in the literature. Did not help it was isolated and I was the only guest that night plus the decor was really really old. Did not get much sleep that night although gotta admit room was massive and very cheap.

Yeah went slightly off topic but in short for about the last 10 years if not more no game has scared me that said I do want to try some VR horror see if that will do it.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Old Silent Hill games scared me a lot, recent ones not so much.


As for more recent games, the Corpse Party series managed to get me extremely terrified of regular things such as looking across the corner and whatnot, truly a terrifying and atmospheric experience where the dread of what might happen causes you to scare yourself without the game itself needing to do much.

 

[MysticSlayer]

FEAR did a good job of keeping me at least uncomfortable. Combat wasn't scary at all except for those assassins, but they only appeared like once or twice. However, the game did a good job juxtaposing the power-fantasy of using bullet time to mow down super soldiers and the powerless state of being at the mercy of some malicious girl. Even the power fantasy eventually began to feel like Alma just toying with you for her own amusement, and it is that underlying implication that, for me, generally made FEAR a pretty terrifying game despite the body count. BioShock and Fran Bow are really the only other two games I can think of at the moment (and that I've played) that had similar underlying themes that made the whole experience more terrifying than most of what you experience.

Beyond that, Amnesia: The Dark Descent did scare me quite considerably at times. Eventually, though, I realized that there was absolutely no penalty for death, and there were some areas that were made considerably easier by exploiting that. Since the game didn't really have any underlying psychological aspects (like the previously mentioned ones) beyond just not wanting to die, I eventually stopped being scared and was generally more annoyed by monsters wasting my time.

 

[jademunky]

Underwater exploration. The final boss of Ecco the Dolphin scarred me for life.

I literally cannot even play Subnautica. yeah that cartoony underwater minecraft fills me with more dread than anything Amnesia could throw at me.

 

[Squilookle]

Call of Duty games. Their continued popularity terrifies me that we'll never get decent and also bestselling first person shooters ever again.

 

[Kajin]

First time I ever recall actually being scared of a game was when I was about two or three years old and I was playing Shadowgate for the NES. The reaper coming for me sent me charging down the hallway to get my dad to reset the game so I could keep playing.

The next thing I can think about off the top of my head is that damnable hotel level from Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines when I was a teenager. No enemies. Just traps and a spooky atmosphere, but I found it genuinely unnerving and always hated going through it again on subsequent playthroughs.

Most recently would be Five Nights at Freddies. I know a lot of people give it crap for using jump scares, but Cawthorn really manages to nail the atmosphere needed to make it work to the point that I found the atmosphere leading up to them to be infinitely worse than the scares themselves.

 

[lacktheknack]

Silent Hill 3 really gets to me. It's the levels where the walls start bleeding, man. You can't get out, it's all encompassing and awful.

To a different extent, "The Void" has been wigging me out, and I pin it on being very easy to die if you don't follow the game's rules, which I only ever seem to half-understand.

 

[Poetic Nova]

System Shock 2, after muting the soundtrack.
That and Amnesia are the only games I currently recall that genuinly scare me.

 

[conmag9]

It's not a game as a whole, but one of my favorite mods for Skyrim is Clockwork Castle. It's a story/home mod that involves (among a lot of other things), a ghost antagonist. Unlike every other ghost in the game, this one's played for much better scares because:

a) She's completely untouchable when you first encounter her. Spells and weapons don't even connect.
b) The mod developer is a masterclass with placement, from awesome skeleton arrangements in her (the ghost's) area, light and shadow play, and the ghost appearing and vanishing in just the right ways to be genuinely creepy (ie. you never actually see her vanish, but she's not where you expect).
c) She can phase through walls and being around her hurts you (and again, she can't be harmed at this stage).
d) Her wail is based on the nuclear air raid siren. This is probably not something everyone will find terrifying, but I sure do. Especially the first time you hear it when you're paralyzed and look like you're about to be murdered.

So yeah, that was a good one. Another, lesser antagonist in the mod, Amalgalm, is less directly frightening, but probably deserves mention for still being creepy. He mostly speaks through you through a set of dwemer speakers, with a massively distorted robotic voice...that constantly increases in pitch to make it sound like he's singing while talking about the means by which he's stayed alive.

 

[shrekfan246]

The game of life.

Spoiler

Honestly it doesn't take much for a video game to creep me out effectively. Amnesia, SOMA, System Shock 2, and Dead Space are games that I can't really play for longer than an hour or two at a time. The tension builds up to be too much for me and I need to stop so that it can kinda release.

Bioshock and the Souls games/Bloodborne all drip with the sort of atmosphere that keeps me on my toes to the point of jumping if I get surprised.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Horror for me is making me dread whatever situation I'm in, forcing me to creep about, not wanting to move from my position for fear of becoming exposed to whatever force is pursuing me. It's that sense of utter unease you get from just being in a place that's not quite right, of being isolated from anyone or anything that might help you. The loneliness, helplessness, isolation from others. For me it's more the atmosphere the game builds than anything specific.

I honestly found a lot of older games did this pretty well, some of which weren't even horror games. The original Tomb Raider is actually really unsettling and unnerving at times, with large sections with no music, only sound effects as you run about largely empty levels, occasionally interspersed with sudden, loud orchestral music out of nowhere. And the fucking gorillas will shit you up every time!

Subtlety is a lost art these days with horror, it's just BLAHHGGGGH!!! every once in a while, and it's usually really predictable when they use jump scares too. "Horror" game developers don't really GET atmosphere much anymore, they don't get that fear is something that has to build to work, and honestly I don't think there's really much in the way of developers who actually try anymore.

Oh, and any game that gives enough hardware and guns to outfit a small military unit is not horror. Resi games have been going more this way for a while, where saving every bullet no longer matters because you easily have access to 4-5 guns at any time, in some cases even starting with fully auto assault rifles (though I still love you Resi 3!). I remember a friend of mine forcing me to sit down and play Fear once, because he wanted to see my reactions to this "horror" game he loved. I don't think I flinched even once during any part as I ran about gunning down everything. He was disappointed.

Agreed. However, I also hate games that don't give you enough weapons and ammo to kill everything at the same time. If I have to just run away from everything just to have enough ammo to kill the things I have to kill I get really annoyed and bored really quickly, I didn't like Clock Tower or Resident Evil 1-3 much for this reason. I prefer it if I can kill everything, even if I have to make sure I don't waste a single bullet to do it, so much more engaging that way. The "Oh fuck! Run!" thoughts that run through my head when I do end up wasting ammo and I am suddenly defenseless do so much to help the fear.

Honestly I cannot think of one back in the day the first Project Zero game (Fatal Frame) scared me or rather filled me with such a sense of dread that I could not handle playing for long

You played the rest of the series yet? If not you should, they're just as good as the first if not better at being scary. I definitely know what you mean with Fatal Frame, I've never played a horror game that does horror better than that game series by a long shot, it's in it's own league.

for a long long time horror games have just not done it for me. I am not sure what it is but I think its probably I am a lot more desensitised to it so that even jump scares rarely get a reaction out of me nowadays

I'm the same, and incidentally I'd say it's after first playing one of the Fatal Frame games that I really got into that mindset. After playing a game that so effectively sanded my nerves raw other horror just seems like a day at the beach in comparison.

 

[Fijiman]

The Library levels in the first two Halo games used to get me pretty good. Usually had to have music or something playing to help keep calm. I don't usually play horror games though, so I'm probably not the best person to base stuff off of. I do, however, have the first two Dead Space games that I need to go through at some point.(already went through the third one due to a friend wanting to play though it on co-op. Never got around to finishing the insane mode run through though, most due to my friend either not being on or doing something else)

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Amnesia:TDD kind of ruined horror games for me, I compare pretty much every horror game to it and they always end up short.

 

[babinro]

Five Nights at Freddy's

I've never been scared by any of the traditional games growing up. Anything in survival/horror was just played for fun. The one and only exception to this was strangely enough Five Nights at Freddy's.

It's almost embarrassing to admit this now that the game is so over exposed and buried by sequels. But I have to admit that going into the game mostly blind for the first time made me feel a growing sense of stress, tension and even a little dread. The game was MASSIVELY successful at getting me sucked into its intended atmosphere.

Admittedly that's all it was good at...the actual jump scare didn't succeed on me..it felt silly and a little lame. In fact all my praise for this game only applies to your first 15 to 20 minutes of play. After that the game lost all charm on me. It felt like a regular video game again and one that had terrible game play. I never bothered finishing the game, nor have I ever bought its sequels.

Yet when it comes down to it...five nights at freddy's is unquestionably the best horror, survival, or scary game I've ever played in terms of evoking its intended emotion.