You Don't Scare Me

[Avatar Roku]

I actually just remembered a good example of this. Think of Dead Space. Not too scary a game, despite it's best efforts. That is, however, except for one thing: the Hunter. This enemy can't be killed, and you're trapped in a small room with it. I was genuinely terrified.

 

[BonsaiK]

The writer of the article has nailed why the Thief games are the ONLY games to have scared me in the last 24 years of computer game playing.

The only thing scarier than Thief was Forbidden Forest (the first one) on the Commodore 64. In 1985. That was poo-pants-scary.

F.E.A.R. on the other hand was a joke. Pretty and fun, but not scary in the least.

 

[Orange_Clockwork]

Enough of that, I also remember distinctly a very under-rated game. In this game you weren't the tough, chainsaw-wielding bi-curious man (pun) who could kill just about every one with a trained shot, you are as defenseless little girl, so the game contours your imagination to the view point of the girl. Personally, that was my biggest scare. It put the fear of death into frame because you were a defenseless little girl, who's only friend in that world was a dog and everything was going to hurt you. I want a game that makes you feel defenseless in all ways, but only serves to shock, instead of kill. Don't remember what it was called unfortunately.


Edit: RULE OF ROSE, HOLY CRAP, THAT WAS THE GAME.

Hmm, sure of that? I don't know anything about Rule of Rose, but the game you just described sounds more like Haunting Ground to me... the dog bit, mainly.

I've played haunting ground, but I didn't get the same feel for it than with Rule of Rose, I distinctly remember differences, like the worlds and how they were represented.

 

[Hammith]

Never been really scared by a game, I'm too damn cynical for anything but jump scares, which just tend to make me more pissed off than scared. For one thing, most of the main characters in survival horror games are not supposed to be tough guys, so I don't expect them to do anything but die. What would be nice is if we had an actual competent hero versus something that just can't be beaten, and the end of the game isn't about you beating it but escaping it.

Honestly, the only thing I personally think is close to an actual horror game is Sherlock Holmes: The Awakening. Competent protagonist, up against a threat that's just barely able to be defeated.

 

[Rack]

For me it still always has to be "Survival Horror" if the game isn't about survival (ala FEAR) then it lacks the punch to scare me. Of course while it has to be about survival it has to be pretty easy to actually survive, which generally means that your character needs a deceptively large amount of health. This means you very easily get to the condition where it looks like you're about to die, but really you very rarely get there. This is because dying breaks the illusion, but also saving does.

The exception is The Path, where you can't survive and really you're not even looking to survive as long as possible. But htat's not even really a game.

 

[FallenPrism]

I don't play many games with scary elements at all. So I'll have to go with an equivalent. The scariest moment was the first time I heard a balverine in Fable. They did a good job of setting up an atmosphere of being closed in, and then they introduced the monster that you're trapped with. And that howl is just creeeeepy. It loses a bit of the edge on repeat plays though.

Where does "thrill" sit under? Very specifically I'm talking about the kind of thrill where you are immersed in the game, but generally playing in a third person view, and all of a sudden the floor drops out from under you, or you run off the edge of a cliff that you had no idea was around the corner, and your character drops. And then You feel very real vertigo. And it's even better if it's more of a scripted moment in the game that you are intended to live through, as it doesn't interrupt the flow of the game but instead adds to the atmosphere.

 

[Fearzone]

Horror is created by the feeling there is something, an evil, impossibly big and menacing around us, that one never fully understands. If you have a suspicion that your cellar door opens into the gates of hell, that's horror. Running into it with a chain gun and rocket launcher, not so much. Killing it in an end-level boss fight, that kills the feeling.

Alien = horror.
Alien 2 = survival.

 

[susurs92]

silent hill 3 ~2AM, alternate hospital and the freaking screechy locker(single one in the center of a blood stained-rusty room with some bloody dresses on the walls) door opening in nurse's room! Guess it was cheesy as hell but at the point i didnt had a thought about cliches, i was so freaked out, guess the phones helped a lot.. also the mannequin room...aaaghr...

 

[ScarletScapegrace]

I don't know about the rest of you, but the game that really got my adrenaline pumping in the sense of "survival" in several points was Portal. During that first play-through, I played the game like a puzzle game, but it wasn't until those disturbingly-adorable turrets that my heart was pumping. Either I find a way to take them out, or I die in a shower of bullets. "I" die.
I may not play too many first-person-shooters but that thrill to survive definitely left an impact.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Shamus I disagree with the notion of games inspiring a difference in "oh no i'm going to die" and "oh no I'm going to lose" on any basis beside immersion. Silent Hill 2 wasn't very scary for me but something like going into overtime in a friendly football game can get my nerves wracked. The level of danger of failure is cruise control for panicked profanity while whether or not the pipe swinging nurse has a mutilated face is cake decoration.

Scariest moment recently would have to be the Arachne room in mission 10 of Devil May Cry 3 is you want as SS rank you had better pause the game a lot to check for parasites and keep an eye out for that cheap ass web attack.

 

[DJ OMiY]

My favorite games of horror have got to be the Fatal Frame franchise. Let's take a quick run-through.

FATAL FRAME: Second-scariest. My first fatal frame game and had plenty of cheap scares and tense moments. Lemme just say this. The appearance of Blinded as a capture ghost in the Rubble Room on the first or second night. Scared the living shit out of me. Also, the silhouette seen through the screen in the Fireplace on night Three(?). Quiet, slow koto music plays, but if you get too close...TWANG! The silhouette disappears and the music stops.

FATAL FRAME II: Least scariest, but best storyline. The scariest moment of this game has got to be the scene in the Great Hall with the UNKILLABLE Kusabi, and quite possibly any battle with Broken Neck Woman. Oh yeah, the "Curtain Shadow" ghost is creepy as hell. Walk far enough down a hallway and see a pair of disembodied legs walking under a low-hanging curtain.
*Shudders*

FATAL FRAME III: Um...hidden closet much?

Spoiler

On one of the hours, there is a small closet space in one of the hallways. Step inside and the door closes behind you. Suddenly, slowly building cacophony of moans and whispers and voices surround you, as well as many creepy faces appearing on the walls. Thirty seconds later, the voices stop, the faces disappear, and the door opens. THAT kind of tension is AMAZING.

Also, the MANY apparitions found throughout your house scare the living HELL out of me. I'm looking at you, Crawling Woman. "LET ME OUT!!! LET ME OUUUUT!!!!!!"

The games are great because as someone (who I can't remember) said before, the best fear occurs when your thoughts and perceptions of what is going on are shown to be wrong. And then, you must face the consequences of your misconceptions.

Also, someone seeing you in Gregory Horror Show is TERRIFYING. Carry on.

 

[lewiswhitling]

i was thinking about this issue not 2 days ago.. and the obvious example which springs to mind (after reading this article) is the vampire masquerade: bloodlines, ocean house level. That, perhaps stupidly, is one of the scariest moments i can remember i felt in any video game i've played... probably because it was all so unexpected.

The first thing youre told after accepting the mission is that ghosts are harmless.
And secondly you know that youre a vampire who can take huge amounts damage, regenerate and are already dead.

And i was still scared.

 

[Avinant]

Silent Hill one by far f'ed with my head when I played it (back when I was 14 or so). I couldn't sleep because I kept thinking of the crazy lady in the church, which was the point I played to before I decided to call it a night.

Condemned 1 I played more recently and I literally played the whole 8 hours or so straight because I needed closure in the game. And I played it in the damn dark the whole time. The ending was especially terrifying, since I had fear mixed with exhaustion.

 

[Ryank1908]

I'm not much of a horror guy but I think you can find horror in a lot of places if you're open to it.
I have actually been terrified of Final Fantasy 7 and 8. I know they're not horror titles by genre but they really have had some bizarrely scary moments in them, namely through attachment to the plot, like knowing how powerful a character is, or feeling a time limit that isn't there. There's several particular moments, so, *spoilers*.

In 7, seeing Jenova for the first time freaked me the hell out. I was a lot younger then, but it was really freaky at the time. Thus, when the ***** actually appeared on the boat, I bricked it.
When Cloud went a bit doolally, too; when he was climbing around on the ceilings and walls like some kind of zombie, that creeped me out too, in the same way that Rinoa went all crazy/possessed in space. To see a character that used to be normal, that you feel like you almost know, go all weird and demonic like that, really unnerved me.

However those times didn't creep me out anywhere near as much as when in 7, Sephiroth succeeded in casting Meteor, and when Lunatic Pandora was unleashed in FF8. They both had similar effects aesthetically - the skies changed, all foreboding and sinister. This really had an effect on me and I really don't know why, I just paniced, like the meteor would actually fall if I didn't stop it. The 'time limit' that was imposed on the characters in-game, I felt imposed on myself. I guess that's the power of a decent engrossing story, more than actual horror elements.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Horror is more or less a dying genere.

I see what you did there.

Horror isn't really dying, it's just been overused. You can still get a really good scare just by being inventive and working on the endemic fear within us.

If you seriously think Horror is dying, cough next time you go into the chemists and see how much Horror you create. Different horrors for different ages.

 

[runedeadthA]

[quote="Georgeman" post="6.152721.3651296
Silent Hill 2 wasn't difficult at any rate. quote]

Gah it was a b*tch though sometimes, only a twisted mind could comprehend that you needed to shove canned juice down a garbage chute for the key -_-

 

[Greyfall]

First few bits on Bioshock when you just have the wrench and the pistol, oh and summing ou the courage to fight that first big daddy.

I remember that. I hid in a corner swinging that pipe blindly everytime I saw that Spider Splicer. Freaked. Me. Out. The "Would You Kindly" Finale was kinda freaky in its own way. More horror than terror.

 

[TrogzTheTroll]

I know it's there. It's in that water, I can't see it though... I have to get through to go on but its waiting. I could use all my gernades but how do I know that will kill it? Do I quicksave, jump in, and load if it's still there!?

All of these thoughts manifested in my mind while playing Half-life for the first time. I hate fish monsters.