THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: elcapitan on 29 Mar 2006, 05:37
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What games have you guys played that really, truly creeped you out?
The reason I ask is that I'm halfway through Clive Barker's Undying, having just found my old CD. Even by today's standards, the graphics in this game are passable, but the atmosphere is bloody amazing. I've never played a game that pulled off the haunted house feel better.
What else?
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I think somebody was talking about this in another thread somewhere, but I know that Condemned for 360 has been seriously difficult for me to play alone in the dark.
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Actually, please tell me that people here remember the original Alone In The Dark. I spent too much time reading H.P. Lovecraft as a kid, and that game was awesome - pretty spooky as well.
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GODDAM! Ive been trying to get my roommates to try Undying since they both like spooky shit. One wont play it because its old and the other wont play it because he didn't think of it first.
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Fatal Frame was pretty freakin' scary. Doom3 was too, for awhile... just because of how bloody dark everything was. It had that 'ZOMG, WHERE DID HE COME FROM?!?" scare-factor to it.
I also thought that playing as the Humans in AvP2 was probably one of the scariest experiences. Playing as Aliens or Predator you felt like some sort of hunter... stalking from the shadows, killing without mercy. The humans, however, always felt like they were the ones BEING stalked. Friggin creepy.
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Doom 3 was pretty decent from the use of darkness and sound. Otherwise, it sucked ass. FEAR was pretty good with interspercing some scary shit with the regular killin'.
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i remember one of the silent hill games scared me alot more than any others in the series. i dont remember which one. the one when you start out in the carnival or whatever and theres the dead pink bunny mascot just chillin there. it took me like ten minutes to walk past that guy cause i kept thinking he was gonna stand up and stumble my way. but he never did. men in bunny suits are scary dead, alive, or undead.
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Maybe I'm making the "not a cool gamer" reply, but I thought the first few Resident Evil games were scary as hell.
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doom3 had some great tense moments ... but then ruined them with loads of cheapshot *BANG ITS BEHIND YOU* moments
i'm gonna join rubby and say my first plays through resident evil and silent hill were both pretty damn scary.
what can i say? i was young and i got sucked into them both far too deeply, plus they are/were both bloody fantastic games.
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I only played the first two Silent Hill games, and they scared the living crap out of me.
I think the first time in the first Silent Hill when I found myself in a hospital, and suddenly the walls were switching on me... going from plaster to metal, with gore dripping and bloodsmears... and those fucking children who you could barely see up ahead in the dark, that would laugh, then turn and start running at you.... JESUS. I remember that part very well... VERY tense!
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This might get me laughed at (or strange looks, at least), but...
System Shock (1 or 2)
Zombies, cyborgs, robot-ninjas (AHH!)... at the very least its an extremely tense game. But for me the freakiest part has always been the big bad bitch herself, Shodan. That horribly distorted voice mocking you every step of the way...
"Look at you, hacker: a pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?"
*shudder*
Good stuff, amazing game.
Its too bad we'll probably never see Shodan again... Bioshock just won't be the same without her :(
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Fucking Sanitarium! That game was scary and I dont care what anyone else has to say about it.
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Maniac Mansion creeped me out.
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the Silent Hill games were my favorite "scary" videogames. Fatal Frame 1 and 2 were some other great contenders, but for any game to be really scary, play it at 3 AM, with headphones and no lights.
Scandanavian War Machine- i'm pretty sure that was silent hill 3
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Maniac Mansion creeped me out.
Really? I laughed my ass off at that game.
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I remember Maniac Mansion scaring me, but probably because I was like 6 at the time.
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The Clock Tower series contains the only games that have ever truly frightened me.
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Silent Hill was really creepy to me, and I loved it dearly.
EDIT: And yes, SYSTEM SHOCK. Bloody amazing game.
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I'm going to go WAY out on a limb here, but the game "Titanic: Adventure Out of Time" scared the living hell out of me. I played it when I was like 13, and for some reason, I will never be able to play it again.
For those who have never heard of it, the graphics are really bad for a partial 3D game, and when you zoom in close, characters faces look deformed. It's especially bad when you're down in 3rd class, alone, with freaky piano music playing while you're trying to find out what's going down on this ship.
When you get down to this part in the boiler room, you meet this Vlad guy, and once you say the wrong thing, he quickly pulls out a wrench and kills you. It's amazing how fast he does it. And when you've been listening to the same piano death song for like 2 hours, it makes you edgy.
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I think that just out of principle I'm going to have to find that game.
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I think the first time in the first Silent Hill when I found myself in a hospital, and suddenly the walls were switching on me... going from plaster to metal, with gore dripping and bloodsmears... and those fucking children who you could barely see up ahead in the dark, that would laugh, then turn and start running at you.... JESUS. I remember that part very well... VERY tense!
Yeah, me too. So fucking disturbing.
Also, Thief (the original, and some fan missions) scared the living daylights out of me. It doesn't any more, but I was scared shitless when I played Cragscleft, the sword mission and the first Haunted Cathedral mission in particular.
Actually, I confess that Bafford's manor used to have the same effect on me as well.
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Maybe I'm making the "not a cool gamer" reply, but I thought the first few Resident Evil games were scary as hell.
Nah, I agree. First time I remember being scared by a game was in the first Resident Evil. My friend and I were playing it, just going through a room that we had cleared long ago, and then all of a sudden one of those damn spiders crawls out on the wall from around the corner (the room was more of an L-shaped hallway, really). It gave us both the heebie-jeebies, just because we were completely unprepared. I'm pretty sure whichever of us actually had the controller ended up using far more ammo than was necessary to kill him, just to make sure he wasn't getting back up.
Also, Mr. X from RE 2 was pretty creepy. Especially when he shows up in that little Factory area. I won't say too much about that, don't want to ruin it, but it was pretty awesome.
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Also, Thief (the original, and some fan missions) scared the living daylights out of me. It doesn't any more, but I was scared shitless when I played Cragscleft, the sword mission and the first Haunted Cathedral mission in particular.
Actually, I confess that Bafford's manor used to have the same effect on me as well.
Oooh shit thats a good one I totally forgot about. Thief has had some REALLY good scary missions, both official and fan made. Most of the undead (especially those goddamn skeleton things that sound like rattling chains when they move, and if they spot you they rush you inhumanly fast, screaming, and waving their big hammers about....GOD I hate those things.) are pretty freaky.
And if you've played Thief 3 (say what you will fanbois, its still pretty good despite the rampant Xboxation), there is one mission thats the king of all scary in that game... the Shalebridge orphanage, better known as The Cradle. Playing that, at 1 am alone in your room with the lights low and headphone volume up, will make you shit your pant(ie)s.
That level is bloody terrifying. First time through I was shaking SO bad (especially ascending the stairs to the 'attic') I had to stop at least twice.
It holds a record for me too - on a subsequent playthrough I actually screamed while in the prison/dorm area - and thats the only time I recall doing so in a game. It was just a perfectly timed coincidence, really. I came to a door leading to another hallway, peeked through the little window to make sure the hall was clear, and then hurredly set about picking the lock. Partway through the lights started flickering, meaning trouble was near. I started getting a little nervous fumbling with this lock, but eventually got the job done. Finished, I stood up again which let me look through the window... and one of those goddamn creepy chattering electroshock victims was staring right back at me. I swear to god my head touched the roof, I jumped so fucking high... and immediately spun a 180, dove into an adjacent room (just as the door I was picking opened), ran to the darkest corner of the room, hit escape, and damn near fell out of my chair. I had to walk around the house for like five minutes just to calm down, and then check my shorts before I went back to playing.
That was some good shit... and I know it's been said on forums elsewhere, but whomever is responsible for that particular level deserves a goddamn award. All of em. 'Tis nothing short of amazing.
Anyways, sorry for the ramble but Hammered there managed to jog my memory. :D
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Myst.
Also, Super Metroid, mostly just because the atmosphere was so well done. The Wrecked Ship and the dissolving Metroid-drained beasties in Tourian are just two examples that spring to my mind.
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Yeah I supose Super Metroid is pretty freaky. I've never really thought of it that way.
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here's a couple lesser known horror titles, both jap.
Forbidden Siren (http://eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=63000)
Kuon (http://www.gaming-age.com/cgi-bin/reviews/review.pl?sys=ps2&game=kuon)
My friend found both these games to be scarier than any Silent Hill.
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I'm surprised no1 has mentioned it yet, but RE: 4 was really freaky. Especially when the thing in the bag started jumpin around. I basically crapped my pants.
Also the regenerators, the first time I shot off the leg of one of them to run by before I could kill it, IT JUMPED AT ME AND TRIED TO RAPE ME. I swear that freaked me out to no end. I couldn't sleep that night.
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Maybe I'm making the "not a cool gamer" reply, but I thought the first few Resident Evil games were scary as hell.
Nah, I agree. First time I remember being scared by a game was in the first Resident Evil. My friend and I were playing it, just going through a room that we had cleared long ago, and then all of a sudden one of those damn spiders crawls out on the wall from around the corner (the room was more of an L-shaped hallway, really). It gave us both the heebie-jeebies, just because we were completely unprepared. I'm pretty sure whichever of us actually had the controller ended up using far more ammo than was necessary to kill him, just to make sure he wasn't getting back up.
Also, Mr. X from RE 2 was pretty creepy. Especially when he shows up in that little Factory area. I won't say too much about that, don't want to ruin it, but it was pretty awesome.
all of this is making me really want to go back to my parents, dig out my old ps and rock these games, which is of course a very good thing :)
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Maybe I'm making the "not a cool gamer" reply, but I thought the first few Resident Evil games were scary as hell.
Nah, I agree. First time I remember being scared by a game was in the first Resident Evil. My friend and I were playing it, just going through a room that we had cleared long ago, and then all of a sudden one of those damn spiders crawls out on the wall from around the corner (the room was more of an L-shaped hallway, really). It gave us both the heebie-jeebies, just because we were completely unprepared. I'm pretty sure whichever of us actually had the controller ended up using far more ammo than was necessary to kill him, just to make sure he wasn't getting back up.
Also, Mr. X from RE 2 was pretty creepy. Especially when he shows up in that little Factory area. I won't say too much about that, don't want to ruin it, but it was pretty awesome.
all of this is making me really want to go back to my parents, dig out my old ps and rock these games, which is of course a very good thing :)
Yeah, the early RE games might not have been as action-packed as RE4, but they're still masterpieces of atmosphere and suspense, and they have pretty good stories too. Especially the second one.
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When playing the re-make of RE 1 on the Gamecube for the first time do not think to yourself just after the game starts:
"Oh it's pretty fun when you open the door and the dog jumps in but you slam the door on it's face"
because you'd played the PS version and knew that this happened.
The dog does not get a door slammed on it's face.
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the scariest thing about RE1 for the ps was the acting
"barry. where's barry?"
"it's blood."
it was like the acting in garth marenghis dark place or something, only not a joke.
i kinda lost interest after i played the second one to death, in every combination of ways i could manage. i really loved that game.
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JILL SANDWIIICH
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I second the Haunted Cathedral mission from Thief. Haven't played Deadly Shadows.
System Shock
System Shock was an amazing game and I love it dearly and wish to hell that I still had it, but . . . I never found it scary. For me, if you know your character's going to get revived after he gets killed it takes about 95% of the fear factor out of the game.
Also: SHODAN WAS FEMALE?!?! (I only ever played 1, never got 2)
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Giant sledgehammer-wielding freak murders a little girl in a pink dress by chasing her around her own home and eventually smashing her melon in,then tossing the body down the stairs at you,hurrying down and looking right in your face,proclaiming in a demented,almost lustful voice. "I KILLED HER!"
Clock Tower 3.
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System Shock
System Shock was an amazing game and I love it dearly and wish to hell that I still had it, but . . . I never found it scary. For me, if you know your character's going to get revived after he gets killed it takes about 95% of the fear factor out of the game.
Also: SHODAN WAS FEMALE?!?! (I only ever played 1, never got 2)
She sure was! (http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/206/shodan1dx.jpg) :D
The immortal SHODAN was voiced by Terri Brosius, wife of one of the LGS/Irrational guys, Eric Brosius. She (Terri) also did Viktoria (from Thief), as well as other characters in System Shock 2, Thief 2, Thief 3, Deus Ex 2, and Freedom Force.
I hope this link works (finding a free host for a 1 meg file sucks), but here's her as SHODAN. Just imagine being suddenly "emailed" by this... thing... after you've been chased around by zombies and robots for the past few hours. BTW: SPOILER WARNING! Ok, so its not actually a spoiler clip if you've ever read a pre/re-view of the game, but it sorta hints at something you might not otherwise know. Mostly it just shows how much they distort "her" voice and just how irritatingly fucking arrogant the "character" is (part of why she's such an awesome baddie!). Turn it up reaal loud for full effect too. ;)
Clicky (direct link, right click it etc) (http://www.filethatfile.com/uploads/56000Shodan-EM0504.mp3)
I know its not like a super satanic YOU WILL DIE message, but being consistantly pestered/insulted/goaded/threatened by that bitch as you run your ass off just trying to stay alive is all kinds of intense. Scary probably isn't the right word - creepy would certainly fit better. Maybe its more of a total-package experience though... I know im doing a terrible job of selling it. Ohwell. I still loved System Shock (part 2 moreso than 1... I know, its heresy, but I played 2 before 1 so thems how the chips fell for me), and most definitly was thoroughly creeped out scurrying around space stations and space ships like a, well, insect. :)
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I never want to go back to the apartents in Silent Hill 2 again.
I don't know if it was just me, but they scared the crap out of me.
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Am I the only person who found "We don't go to Ravenholme" in HL2 scary as fuck? I played that section through, on my own, at night. It was scary (and somewhat amusing when I found the sawblades).
I also really enjoyed RE and the Japanese one where you had to take photographs of ghosts to hurt them. Problem was, you could only see the ghosts through the camera... scary madness.
I really want to play RE4. I take it it's worth getting out?
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Solstice, I'll take your word for it. It seems like your scary experiences are mainly derived from playing System Shock 2 which, as previously established, I've never played.
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Ahh yes, Ravenholme was fun too! Those damn superfast monkeyninja zombies that climb all over everything and jump like 20 feet through the air to claw your face off. Good stuff. Shotgun heaven too!
Oh and Indlander, don't mind me im just a SS freak ;). The games were simply way ahead of their times so I tend to get a little fanboish about them. Also, I don't usually play a lot of horror style games. They're so rarely done right on the PC it seems.
PS: Would Diablo 1 count? Maybe it was just my age, but that game got my heart pounding fairly frequently. Especially the damn Butcher. RAWRGH, FRESH MEAT! Whee. Here's hoping D3 returns to its horror inspired roots! (Yeah right, like the marketing boys will let them put an "M" label on it. Pfft.)
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Please, fanboy away! If I still had System Shock I'd probably still be playing it every other month.
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Ahh yes, Ravenholme was fun too! Those damn superfast monkeyninja zombies that climb all over everything and jump like 20 feet through the air to claw your face off. Good stuff. Shotgun heaven too!
Oh and Indlander, don't mind me im just a SS freak ;). The games were simply way ahead of their times so I tend to get a little fanboish about them. Also, I don't usually play a lot of horror style games. They're so rarely done right on the PC it seems.
PS: Would Diablo 1 count? Maybe it was just my age, but that game got my heart pounding fairly frequently. Especially the damn Butcher. RAWRGH, FRESH MEAT! Whee. Here's hoping D3 returns to its horror inspired roots! (Yeah right, like the marketing boys will let them put an "M" label on it. Pfft.)
Yeah, Diablo had it a bit, although I'd call it more of a startling element than out and out scary. The first time you opened the door to the Butcher's den was definitely an experience, that's for sure.
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The butcher was all kinds of fun though. The game kinda went downhill after that I thought though, 'cause you just were too powerful and you could kick anything ass once you'd got further on in the game.
:-) I loved it how sometimes you'd start and you wouldn't get the butcher as a mission, and then the times you did get him you'd be like "YEAH!"
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The butcher was all kinds of fun though. The game kinda went downhill after that I thought though, 'cause you just were too powerful and you could kick anything ass once you'd got further on in the game.
:-) I loved it how sometimes you'd start and you wouldn't get the butcher as a mission, and then the times you did get him you'd be like "YEAH!"
For me it was a much more gradual thing to get that strong, because I was playing it on the PlayStation and thus couldn't really save the game (it took almost an entire memory card, about 10 blocks out of 15 total). You could save characters though, so I would do that. But that really made it a slow process, having to start from the first level all the time. Also allowed me to see pretty much all the missions, though. And I killed the Butcher many, many times. Sometimes in one hit.
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I think I'm the only person that didn't find Diablo fun. It's just that I need a little more substance from a game then "go down a level, kill all the bad guys. Go down a level, kill a the bad guys. Go down a level..."
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I need a little more substance from a game then "go down a level, kill all the bad guys. Go down a level, kill a the bad guys. Go down a level..."
that's why i gave up on doom3 half way through... it had so much potential but once you get into the game every level is basically exactly the same.
really glad i borrowed it from my housemate instead of spending £30 on a copy of my own.
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The bit in Doom3 where you're walking through a pitch black area and the only light is a guy walking in front of you with a lantern was BRILLIANT. To hell with lights that bounce around when you shoot them, THAT was a great demonstration of dynamic lights. Too bad the game didn't have more masterful moments like that.
Shock 2 was a masterpiece of atmosphere creation. It wasn't as outright scary so much as creating a pervading sense of dread that didn't let up. But the midwives were fucking creepy.
Heart of Evil for Half-Life got really wierd later on, and was creepy as fuck. Remember the Female Assassin bits from Half Life 1? Same thing, but this time there are five of them, and instead of rooms full of crates and nicely defined edges, you're looking at scraggly jungle where these guys blend right into. Absolutely terrifying. Especially when...hmm, don't want to spoil it.
Vietcong (despite having zero sci-fi elements) had a handful of intense moments. For example, after sloping through endless VC tunnels, you come out in the middle of a village at night, massacre the four VC there, and must run through pitch-black jungle where your flashlight does nothing but give away your position and visibility is about ten feet. Then you get to the temple LZ and shoot off a flare, holding hordes more VC at bay for the couple of minutes the helicopter takes to arrive.
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Ooh, how about Unreal 1 and 2? When you first meet the Skaarj. In both games you're humming along in an elevator when suddenly it stops and the lights go out... god thats a bad feeling. You almost feel claustrophobic, stuck in a tin box with some huge beast trying to rip the roof open. Yeesh.
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The bit in Doom3 where you're walking through a pitch black area and the only light is a guy walking in front of you with a lantern was BRILLIANT. To hell with lights that bounce around when you shoot them, THAT was a great demonstration of dynamic lights. Too bad the game didn't have more masterful moments like that.
that bit was fantastic, they should really have tried to have more immersive moments like that to really up the tension and make you think about what you were playing rather than the endless "get a bigger gun" blasting gameplay that comprised the rest of the it.
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Zork Nemisis creeped me out a fair bit.
The games that have damaged me the most aren't scary games by defintion but have scary parts which have scarred me emotionaly.
Space Quest 4 Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers.
Theres this one bit at the start, where if you walk near this zombie looking guy, theres a little cinematic of him screaming, and you see like that dangly thing at the back of his throat. As a young child that's the scariest fucking thing in the universe.
Also Zack McCrackin. Scariest shit ever.
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Silent Hill is the single most terrifying series I've ever played. I love it to hell. It's the only game that caused me to jump across a room and nearly crap my pants.
Plus, the plot of Silent Hill 2 was so horribly twisted and Pyramidhead is the freakiest villian ever.
I can't wait for the movie later this month.
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I believe I've said it before, but whatever.
Grues scare me crapless.
Gebstar, you can come stay in my VERY LIGHT hiding place. With lots of light. Ack.
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I agree that Doom 3 used too many cheap tactics to really make it enjoyable for me. Not being able to see anything was far more frustrating than it was scary.
And I do agree with System Shock. It was creepy. It was probably even creepier because it was the first 3d game I ever played. The whole "things can come up behind you" business scared the pants off me.
FEAR was pretty good. A lot of their scare tactics have really become a bit cliche recently (yes, we know little girls with long black hair in their faces are scary, let's all move on now). But it scared me enough that I refused to play it when the man wasn't home to protect me from any ghosts that might find their way into our apartment, so I can't say that it wasn't scary to me.
The game that has scared me the most would have to be AMBER. I'm sure no one has ever even heard of this one, lol. It was one of those games where you are given one screen at a time and you click to move. I think the biggest reason this was scary for me is that I was just so young when I played it. But some elements of it (like the music that played in the garden sequence when you find the hanged man) still creeps me out when I see/hear something similar.
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I can't believe that no one mentioned Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem sure it sometimes used cheap tricks to get you scared but there is one thing that brings that game out for me ' body in the bath'
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ED had some of my favorite moments in any game. The game itself never scared me, but some of the sanity effects were pretty awesome. The BSoD, being unable to control you character while he's being mauled by zombies, and the Hamlet thing were all awesome.
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F.E.A.R. is a very appropriately-named game: I am only able to play the game for 10 minutes at a time, which is about the time it takes to get from a fun, happy "shoot-the-bad-guys" level to a "little girl creeping around on the wall" level.
My scares from F.E.A.R. are due in large part to the building-up of tension as the creepy parts grow near. I will slow to a crawl through the offices and urban environments whenever my radio crackles to life with static, and I will stop right-out when I hear laughter, or see the fleeting footsteps of a little girl. Tense, to be sure.
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Freakin' Dark Forces. The sewer level. The Dianogas. Gaaaah.
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Argh you beat me to talking about PyramidHead. if anyone want's some reference here ya go: http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6669/pyramidheadbitch4qv.jpg
He is the freakiest thing evar. And I haven't even played the Silent Hill series, I just read about it on Wikipedia and it's freaky. Basically when he's not chopping you in half with that giant knife, he's raping other demons and impaling the sexed up version of your wife repeadedly. It's just... freaky.
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THE GRUES ARE GOING TO EAT YOU ALL
I am so close to getting up and turning on another light right now!
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Argh you beat me to talking about PyramidHead. if anyone want's some reference here ya go: http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6669/pyramidheadbitch4qv.jpg
He is the freakiest thing evar. And I haven't even played the Silent Hill series, I just read about it on Wikipedia and it's freaky. Basically when he's not chopping you in half with that giant knife, he's raping other demons and impaling the sexed up version of your wife repeadedly. It's just... freaky.
I'm seriously, you guys.
Pyramidhead has the freakiest introduction of any villian in any game ever made. A lot of games try to make you hate and fear the villian by doing something like killing the family of the protagonist who you just met and don't give a rat's ass about.
With Pyramidhead, you get to hear him grab one of the demons you've been fighting, drag it to a kitchen, and rape it over and over before he leaves and you find said demon a bloody, torn up mess.
It's...pretty harsh and gives the desired effect of being terrified as hell of him for the rest of the game.
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Leon: Where'd you get that? That scene wasn't in the movie, though Pyramid Head is in top form otherwise.
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I've recently been inspired to make a short story game thing of the atmospheric variety. But that would require so many time and skill that I don't have.
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Freakin' Dark Forces. The sewer level. The Dianogas. Gaaaah.
God-damn that was unsettling. Those Dianogas picked the exact right time to jump you. Fuckers.
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I really wish I'd gotten into the Silent Hill series because I sounds exactly like the kind of thing I'd love. Something I'd soil my pants over but still love, somewhere down there in the fear.
Resident Evil is always going to be a win, playing the original games now seems kind of embarassing to think those graphics ever scared you like they did but as it's already been said, the remake of RE1 rocks. Really, even after knowing the entire game from the original I don't know how many times I entered a new room, headr a noise or saw something move and just stood there for 10 minutes (quite literally 10 minutes), gun drawn, crapping myself. Eventually I'd move and maybe a super zombie would suddenly burst around the corner and start galloping in the general direction of my throat. Good times.
RE4, even though I love it to peices, isn't scary. One of the main reasons I did so well in it, concentrating on trying to get head shots and such forth takes away most of the scare. Well, most of it, the regenerators part of the facility scared me a lot. Anything that lose a head, both it's arms, part of it's chest and both of it's legs that can still find a way to crawl upto you and lunge at your throat earns a place in my nightmares.
Doom3, not much to say about it except that it scared me on quite a few occasions. Atmospheric lighting in that game really was done nicely but I admit sometimes it was just frustration. Especially that your marine couldn't understand the concept of holding a at least a pistol in one hand and a flash light in the other. One of my favourite scares in the game is with the disembodied voice of a women that beckons you over to a door where she start telling you about her baby. The fact that that door never opens makes the whole thing ten times more scary for me, some how I don't think I ever really want to know what would be inside.
FEAR, I don't care how cliche little girls with black hair are it still worked and since 'Ring' it'll work every God damn time. There are a few times that game really made me jump, and I mean jump, not just scare the crap out of me. I mostly took solice in the fact that she seems to spend most of her time going away from you. But take the ventilation shaft, when the lights go off and you see something that looks like a little girl spider walk it's way towards you I couldn't help just open fire until the lights came back on again. From a gameplay point of view I really liked FEAR, it was nice to have the 'slowmo' mode to explain why you were doing so well instead of just saying 'Oh, you're a one man army even though you're just a regular soldier.' The fact that you could also hear your enemies communications rocked so hard too, I'll be sad if I never see that used in another game.
Apart from those more well known titles I don't think I've actually played any really scary games, which is a shame... Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem I have played but I laughed more than crapped myself. I don't want to beat down too hardly on it but the game was just trying so hard to be a horror genre that it was failing.
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But take the ventilation shaft, when the lights go off and you see something that looks like a little girl spider walk it's way towards you I couldn't help just open fire until the lights came back on again.
I know how you feel there. Even though I know that none of these paranormal occurences will ever hurt my character, there is no way in hell that I am going to let that ghostly little f*** walk around without some led going through her skull. I won't let off the trigger until the lights are on, or she's gone.
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I'm playing Silent Hill 2 for the first time and it's freaking me a bit.
My favourite kinda freaky game was Shadowman on the N64. The "Playrooms" level was twisted, with wierd clown surgeon guys and gimpdogs.
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Freakin' Dark Forces. The sewer level. The Dianogas. Gaaaah.
God-damn that was unsettling. Those Dianogas picked the exact right time to jump you. Fuckers.
holy crap, i hated those guys. fortunately you could GENERALLY hear them before you saw them. and thermal detonators helped. as well as mines.
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Speaking of Resident Evil 4 (which people may or may not have been doing): check it.
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Ooh, I'm glad this thread's been revived, because I have to refute something.
Every time we have one of these "scary games/scariest gaming moments" threads a bunch of people always nominate the "Robbing the Cradle" mission from Thief: Deadly Shadows. Well, having just played that for the first time last week I feel compelled to say: WHERE ARE THE SCARES?! Seriously, scares in the Thief games come from having nowhere to hide first, and having scary monsters and creepy noises second - ideally a combination of the two (see: the Haunted Cathedral mission in the original Thief). The whole of the Cradle was so drenched in darkness that there was never anything to fear. I mean sure, there were rather creepy electro-shock zombies - but anyone who's played through the Thief series has come up against more zombies than they care to mention; plus, the ones in the cradle always announce their arrival not only with their sound, but with the way the lights start to flicker whenever they approach. Secondly, the ghost in the Cradle mission: well, being scared of her is like being scared of Casper the Friendly Ghost. Except, you know, it's Lauryl the Friendly Ghost. And the staff once you go into the Cradle's memory? Don't even get me started!
. . . Umm, I think that's all I've got to say. Thankyou!
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Doom3 was probably the scariest overall experience for me. Granted, it was boring played during the day, but at night, it really was quite an immersive experience, and the cheap shots would scare the shit out of me. I guess it's true about being afraid of what you don't know.
F.E.A.R. was not scary at all, for some reason. Great game, fun and all, but I never actually was scared. I guess I just don't find little girls with long hair and blood all over the place all that scary.
Interestingly, I also found Half-Life 2's Ravenholm level rather unnerving. There was a bit of panicky desperation that ran through me as I tried to complete the levels for the first time (OMG POISON ZOMBIE AHHHH).
Spear of Destiney scared me as a kid. And so did Diablo. I guess I was a wimp those days.
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Oh gosh...
Fatal Frame: The Crimson Butterfly was some scary shit.
Then Silent Hill really creeped me out.
ALSO: Resident Evil 4. Oh my god... I swear, everytime I play that I get the jitters.
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I'm totally with you people on Dark Forces. It's the only game that's really scared me, and it's the first one that I thought of upon seeing this topic. Mainly for the sewer level, but the one that always freaked me out the most was the lever on the red planet with the robotic Dark Trooper running around.
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Th-Th-The B-B-Bar-Barbie G-G-Game-Games........they're after me, everywhere i go, the damn bright colours.
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I'm going to go WAY out on a limb here, but the game "Titanic: Adventure Out of Time" scared the living hell out of me. I played it when I was like 13, and for some reason, I will never be able to play it again.
For those who have never heard of it, the graphics are really bad for a partial 3D game, and when you zoom in close, characters faces look deformed. It's especially bad when you're down in 3rd class, alone, with freaky piano music playing while you're trying to find out what's going down on this ship.
When you get down to this part in the boiler room, you meet this Vlad guy, and once you say the wrong thing, he quickly pulls out a wrench and kills you. It's amazing how fast he does it. And when you've been listening to the same piano death song for like 2 hours, it makes you edgy.
You're talking bout the starship titanic 'myst' type game right? the one with that crazy fucking parrot? that game was eerie as hell... when i bought it i listened to the audio story tape that came with it... then played. its a total ghost ship in the truest sense.. reminded me of that movie Event Horizon.. and the game didnt really seem to be made to scare you.. it was just...eerie.
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. . . You mean the Starship Titanic game that was created by Douglas Adams? Never played it, always wanted to.
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Aliens Vs. Predator 2. Some excellent atmosphere-building, there. Masterfully combines lighting design, subtle incidental music cues, and the ever-present ping of the motion tracker to develop a truly immersive dread.
And I nearly pissed my pants every time I got facehugged. Gaaah.
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. . . You mean the Starship Titanic game that was created by Douglas Adams? Never played it, always wanted to.
yeah thats the one... for its time the game was huge... i think it came out before diablo 2 and it was on 4 discs... great game....
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Vampire: the Masqurade: bloodlines. There's a level where you goto a haunted house. To crete the level, the disigners researched the methods for haunted houses, and recreated them. It had me shaking in my seat.
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Video games scare the living hell out of me.
Shadow Of The Colossus has its share of moments that terrify me - namely, the snake-things and the scorpion thing. Fuck are those guys scary.
Gabriel Knight scared me. So I guess it served its purpose. And a lot of adventure games have scared me since. I was afraid to play Myst because I was afraid that somewhere out of the game's placid calm would come a monster to rend my soul in two and hell. I'll just let you guys know that pretty much every game scares me in some way, shape or form.
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"Majestic"
That was an eerie-ass game. very not-heard-of, but full of atmoshpere. you were exploring this abandoned space cruise liner using four remote-controlled drones. couple of riddles, a sentient computer chip, and alien intruders that could only be detected in a spectrum not visible to the human eye.
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i remember one of the silent hill games scared me alot more than any others in the series. i dont remember which one. the one when you start out in the carnival or whatever and theres the dead pink bunny mascot just chillin there. it took me like ten minutes to walk past that guy cause i kept thinking he was gonna stand up and stumble my way. but he never did. men in bunny suits are scary dead, alive, or undead.
That's the second one, that would be the creepiest game I've ever played for sure. Gah, just thinking about the creepy nurses gives me the jibblies
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The scariest video game for me was Project Zero (Fatal Frame in the USA) 2: Crimson Butterfly. It is basically a survival horror game, but you control a teenage girl in a village full of spirits and the only weapon you have is a camera that can destroy the spirits by taking pictures of them. The atmosphere is incredible, it is very much inspired by Japanese horror movies. If you found 'Ring' or 'Juon: The Grudge' creepy then you will love this game. Seriously, give it a try. I found it far more frightening than any Resident Evil or System Shock games (and I found those creepy!).
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Vampire: the Masqurade: bloodlines. There's a level where you goto a haunted house. To crete the level, the disigners researched the methods for haunted houses, and recreated them. It had me shaking in my seat.
I was hoping to be the first one to mention this!
Even the setup is great. When you ask Therese how in the world you're supposed to fight a ghost she goes, "You can't. But don't worry, they're harmless." And in a way she's right. They can't directly attack you. But they can manipulate the environment indirectly to intimidate or harm you.
What's brilliant about the level is that there's not one single enemy anywhere, but there's still this oppressive feeling of fear the whole way through. It's all atmospheric. There's the ghost of the man who murdered his family and set fire to the hotel, and he does everything he can to scare or hurt you. And then there are the ghosts of the wife and daughter (the son is strangely absent) who try to help you... but can only do so indirectly.
Like when you're crawling through the vents and you hear this soft voice whisper "...beeee careful..." and then you come out into the elevator shaft. If you don't move quickly enough you'll be crushed by the elevator that the ghost of the murderer causes to fall down the shaft.
But the most striking thing about this level is the end. The entire game of Vampire takes place during the night. It has to, vampires die in sunlight. But the very end of the hotel level brings you to the room the family was staying in before their deaths. At first it looks broken and burned like the rest of the place, but as soon as you step inside everything changes. You see a vision of the room as it looked originally... including the sunlight streaming through the windows. It is the only place in the entire game you see sunlight and everything looks warm and comforting. That's when it hits you that this room is the victims' sanctuary. This is the place the murderer's ghost cannot ever touch and the only place in the whole level where you are safe.
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The Suffering: Ties that Bind.
Although a bit cliche at times (the government "bad guys" that keep switching sides), it's still pretty freaky. The enemies are hideously deformed, the ambience is terrifying, it does a great job of capturing people in desperation, and the random still flashed of your dead wife and children, as well as the images of when you do something "bad", succeeded in freaking me out.
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I have to bring FEAR up again. It just makes you jumpy as hell, it's almost a relief to stop playing, but you still go back for more. Let me just explain it for everyone that hasn't played it: You're in first person, but you can see your weapons and body (when you melee). You're fighting through around 1000 cloned super-soldiers, who can easily fuck you up because the AI is so advanced (and you can hear them shout things like "he's trying to flank us!" if you try and sneak round them). You're walking along, jumpy as hell because you're trying to not get shot up then you see a rotting corpse flash before your eyes. You keep going, trying to ignore it but then you see someone walk past a half-opened door. You squeeze the trigger and spray the opening with your precious bullets. You edge forward and open the door, scanning all around you for enemies. There's nothing there, not even a corpse. And then more scary shit happens. I love that game.
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I love how random crazy shit just happens in FEAR. I cringe every time I hear white noise on my commlink.
Also, Autocannon = <3
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I have yet to play a game that has trully creeped me out. However, something about the heavy rain trailer gave me an extremely uneasy feeling.
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Resident Evil: Dead Aim scared the shit out of me. The setting is on this zombie-filled cruise ship, and all you hear in the speakers is your footsteps ringing...soooo creepy....also, there was the part where you first get the machine gun; you walk into this meat freezer which is filled with dead bodies and shit, get the machine gun - which of course has little or no ammunition in it - and the second you turn around there's a metric fuckton of zombies trying to eat you. Not to mention you use the GunCon instead of a regular controller, so every time you get in a firefight, instead of just mashing buttons with your thumb or whatever, you actually are pulling a trigger...I don't care how uncool it makes me sound, I'll admit that many, many times playing that game made me squeal like a scared little girl.