It’s Sunday (albeit 2:20am), meaning that it’s time for another Discussionist feature. This week’s topic is most appropriate, what with Halloween being celebrated today and all.
While not so abundant this generation, the horror genre certainly has a great presence in gaming. Many games, however, boast their ability to frighten the player but fail to deliver upon the play-through. What are some games that truly scared your socks off? Or even, made you ‘drop a brick’ in your pants, if you catch my drift? Why did the game scare you (spoiler warnings, please)? What are your personal most highly-recommended horror games? And finally — if you dare venture so far — how would you tackle the challenge of creating a horror title? How would you make it a truly satisfying fright-fest for the player?
You know what to do, readers. Commence discussion.
While I would never partake in playing a horror game, let alone MAKE one (I’m a pretty big chicken. the littlest thing can scare me), the game that definitely scared me the most was Bioshock. I don’t intentionally buy horror games (really REALLY don’t have the stomach for those I cannot stress that enough), but I bought Bioshock coz everyone was saying how good it was. And you could shoot lightning and BEES from your hands, how cool is THAT?
But when I started playing….what I got was the most oppressing atmosphere I’ve ever played (again not alot of horror games under my belt) The feeling of being completely alone underwater, and being completely paranoid of where the next psycho is gonna jump out from. The little sounds here and there and the insane monologue from the deranged citizens put me in a state that if someone were to tap my shoulder, I would swivel around and whack him with a wrench. Till this day I haven’t finished Bioshock coz its too scary for me. Yes….I’m pathetic…….I’ll….i’ll go cry in a corner now……TT.TT
Aw, it sucks that you can’t beat it. :-\ It’s a REALLY good game! Perhaps play during the day with the lights on?
For me, BioShock was the complete opposite. I loved the world; every area was a new discovery and its atmosphere gave off the impression of a magical new world that I didn’t want to leave. I still remember entering Rapture for the first time, looking out the window of the bathysphere and seeing the whale just swimming along in the city. It was amazing.
Nothing in BioShock really scared me, though, but we’re all different in regards to what scares us and what doesn’t.
@ Sal: i get that alot :P
i tried to go through it again quite a few times, but always fail. Farthest i’ve gone is killing that crazy sister with the hooks for hands. The one that stalks you with flower petals
To the guy above me, Bioshock is nothing compared to Silent Hill or Fatal Frame.
Again, I never buy horrors. I bought Bioshock expecting a great and action, but I got both that AND horror. So its prolly the scariest I’ll ever get by accident
I’ve always been a fan of horror games, in fact they are possibly one of my favourite genres. It is true though that this generations’ offerings in the genre have maybe been a little laclustre at times, with one of my most anticipated games (alone in the dark) turning out to be total rubbish.
For me, scares have never come from gore or shock tactics. Huge, slavering beasts, while fun to shoot and battle against, can never be truly frightening imo. The same goes for OTT gore; I don’t mind a spattering of blood in my horror games, but sometimes it comes across as overused and almost like a cheap replacement for real scares.
Truly unsettling experiences have always been about the atmosphere for me. Games like Project Zero (Fatal Frame), the original Silent Hill games and many PC-Adventure games spring to mind as examples of this. Indeed, some of the scariest games I have ever played include the original Project Zero, Silent Hill 1, and Darkness Within for the PC (still haven’t tried out the sequel yet!). All those games excel very highly at creating an atmosphere, with Project Zero coming as a highly reccomened title for anyone who hasn’t played it (I wish the Wii entry in the series would see a Western release). I’ll also add the latest SH ‘shattered memories’, an interesting reimagining in which you were forced to run from your enemies instead of fight. I found it to have a great atmosphere and original gameplay ideas (like the psychological testing)
Now, as for the question into how I would handle making a horror game, I would definately do away with all horror cliches and go in for a truly disturbing narrative/feeling. I have always liked the idea of insantiy in horror such as HP Lovecraft’s works etc; and the game could toy with this, creating an ever fuzzy, dizzying world were your always thinking of what is “real”. I also subcribe to the idea that what you cannot see or explain is far more sinister than that which you can (this is true in real life too). For this, both enemies and narrative/puzzles would have to be drenched in a genuine sense of the unknown. Also, in my own horror game, I would minimalise combat or shooter elements in favour of the above mentioned – I always find that when a horror game becomes an action game (RE5 for example) it loses itself in the process.
Now, I don’t want to go on forever like I did with the FFXII Discussionist, so here’s some reccomened titles for anyone into horror games (Some of these are obscure or even download only in some countries)
- Project Zero (Fatal Frame), and its sequels (Ps2, Xbox)
- Silent Hill series (ps2, xbox, ps3, 360, psp)
- Alone in the Dark The New Nightmare *(this was a Marmite game, but I personally loved it) (Psx, pc, ps2)
- The Lost Crown: A Ghost Hunting Adventure (PC)
- Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches (PC)
- Darkness Within (PC)
- Alan Wake *(not exactly horror, but very good game) (360)
Anyway, Happy Halloween to everyone at the site!!!
condemned 1, and 2, both great games. story..meh, haha, but action, and horror factor, top notch dude. there waay cheap now 2, i think condemned 1 runs for 7buks at gamestop. chek it out!
Silent Hill 1 scared me shitless, so to say :D Even though I played some months ago and the graphics aren’t, of course, that good anymore it still scared me more than, say RE 5 (which isn’t scary at sadly). The music did the most I think, Akira Yamaoka is a genius.
Silent Hill: Homecoming was scary, too, even though nobody seems to like it. It reminded me of the first SH.
And of course Dead Space, which had me as far, that I didn’t want to go into the next room xDD
I went into Dead Space hoping for scares, but came out slightly disappointed. I say “slightly” because it was an amazing game, but it didn’t succeed at giving me a fright.
A game that scared me a lot when I was young was Diablo. sure it was the music that was incredibly terrifying. I was 9 years old but it was a very good game, one of the best RPG I played in my life.
I’m a big horror fan myself. Thinking back to nostalgic gaming horror Resident Evil 1 and 2 are easily my favorites. Especially the GC remake of RE1, those rendered graphics gave everything a real creepy cryptic feel. How can we forget meeting the ‘licker’ for the first time in RE2? Even RE:Nemesis had some interesting scares; my favorite being the looming threat of Nemesis behind you almost the whole time.
RE4 was a good game but didn’t scare me one bit.
RE5 was a bad game. In now way scary, no puzzle aspects? WTF CAPCOM!? I HATE YOU! PLEASE DON’T RUIN ONIMUSHA LAWL.
I’m somewhat upset at the lack of innovation in horror games this generation. However, I believe Dead Space has made up for almost everything. What a superb game. Necromorphs aside, the sound design in that game is outstanding. Hearing the clanking of cans and metal in dark distant corners, the eerie silence in the zero gravity areas, and of course the faint babbling of someones voice over and over again throughout the game.
———————————–SPOILER—————————————
Also in regards to Dead Space….the ending of that game actually made me yelp. Seeing your dead lover with a mangled face leap at you as the last image you see was too scary. I’m 20 years old and I literally had a Dead Space esq nightmare the same night I beat it. I was thinking about it in class for the next week.
Dead Space II is my most anticipated game in Q1 of next year.
It has already been mentioned, the Fatal Frame series stand alone as the scariest games of all time.
Fatal Frame II is the scariest of the bunch. There is nothing worse than not knowing where your enemies are or how to defeat them in a horror game.
The atmosphere, music, sound, camera locations, etc are perfect for a horror game.
One of my fondest memories of FFII is when you running from an un killable ghost called “Rope Man” and I hid in a small closet. I though everything was fine, and starting hearing strange noises, like children playing and giggleing quietly. The room itself looked normal enough….Until I looked through the camera Obscura. There were strange words written in blood all over the walls, it looked like somebody reall got the buisness in this room, then more noises and suddenly, the door started banging like somebody was trying to get in!!
I shat bricks! RE as good as those games are will never be able to touch Fatal Frame whan it comes to truley scaring players.
I’m 29 years old, and I would not play that game in the dark unless my wife was in there watching me play.
That takes a lot, GOD I wish FF would come to current consoles.(not Wii)
I could agree that Fatal Frame is scarier, I just like the gameplay in RE and Dead Space a little more.
Really, nobody’s mentioned System Shock 2?
Can’t believe no one mentioned Siren O_O
That game had to of been the scariest game I’ve ever played. I’ve seriously never felt more fear than from that game. And I’ve played pretty much every horror game out there.
I will never forgot that principal shibito…o_o
The remake is still pretty creepy, but it is way less scarier. My second scariest franchise would have to be Fatal Frame. Silent Hill was full of games that weren’t scary, like 2, zero, homecoming, and shattered memories.
But every fatal Frame game has been a true fright, even the 3rd and 4th games.