What is your scariest Game ever?

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ArachnePhobia

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Loved this level. Also the mirror scene from 3. I was disappointed that 4 didn't take more time in the amusement park. That seemed like a wasted opportunity for scariness.

Anyone played the Clock Tower games? I've heard good things but not played them.

All three four* of 'em, and Haunting Ground/Demento. I love them and count them among my favorite games, but they didn't really get under my skin; I tended more towards, "Woah, cool!" than "Oh, no!" The very first one, for the SNES, is gorgeous-looking.

The Silent Hill level that made me wanna cry was Midwitch, from the first game.

*How did I forget the side-story CT: The Struggle Within, when I'm one of the two people who actually like it? I mean, I agree the backtracking will make ya tear your hair out, but it's almost worth it just to get squashed by Masaharu or root around in that corpse looking for a lost key in the last level.
 
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Rhoda Nightingale

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^Totally. It surprised me for some reason that the school was creepier than the hospital. Just because I'd already heard so much about the nurses at that point (I actually experienced the 4th game first, and worked my way backwards--not sure how that happened) and wasn't mentally prepared for the gray children.
 

ArachnePhobia

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Back on the subject of Clock Tower, it has multiple endings. In my favorite from the SNES CT (SPOILERS):

Ms. Mary chases Jennifer through these (gorgeous) catacombs, to a grungy old ladder that leads all the way up the side of the titular clock tower. The rain is pouring, there's thunder, and Jennifer frantically scrabbles up the side while Mary gains on her. Mary grabs her ankle, she kicks... and Mary falls screaming off the tower. It's not the same kind of scary as the Kusabi lurching your way with his grabby outstretched insta-death fingers, but it's definitely intense.

Oh, hey, I totally forgot about Echo Night! There's a scene at the end where you run into a friendly-seeming character and start a conversation with him. And then his voice starts to change. It's so gradual, it's hard to notice at first... but then it gets deeper... scratchier... and something starts to go wrong with his eyes... I think this particular scare is so effective because it's so slow and deliberate. I also liked the oppressive atmosphere in the third one, Echo Night Beyond.

In the adventure game Sanitarium, there's a scene where you wake up in a room. There's nothing inside but a slab with a dead body on it. That slab is right next to the only exit. You have no choice but to pass it. It does not take a particularly genre savvy person to figure out what is going to happen when you try to pass it... and that actually makes it worse.
 

kenebaker

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I was never really scared by Alan Wake, but the first monster in the game accusing me of being a lousy writer while it chased me definitely gave it extra creepy points.
This had me in stitches. I never realised!

Hmm. A little of each - I can think of a few people who have been playing games for years and still get confused about the controls, so the aspect of running away in the right direction (rather than twirling on the spot) is part of it. I would get slapped silly if I revealed some of the more embarrassing moments though. :D

Having played lots of scary games and seeing the same things crop up again and again is a major part of it for me, so that is definitely a concern when picking up games. There are still moments where I find myself having to pause the game and sit back, but it isn't for the monsters (which, lets be fair, aren't in and of themselves scary), nor the moments where something jumps out of a shadow. The truly scary elements of gaming comes mostly from the psychological elements, or the Fridge Horror of dialogue.

One of the most powerful moments in modern gaming, for me, was the bench scene at the end of The Darkness. Nothing scary, nothing moving around which shouldn't be, but the emotions involved in that scene had something in there which pushed it into lingering uneasiness. Earlier in the game there were (obviously dead) people getting up from the ground and fighting on, but the simple, calm scene carried a much more powerful and profound weight to it.

The Darkness as indeed a unique game. The way you felt about the ending is the same way I felt about moving through the war-trenches. There was something foreign and gritty about the experience, something visceral - which is what I really enjoy if a game can make me feel that.

I watched an interesting video yesterday from Gamespot - and it's basically how the survival horror genre has changed since Resident Evil 4. I remember playing that game on the PS2, and while I don't agree with all the commentor's opinions (particularly about Deadspace 1), it is food for thought on how the genre has begun to stagnate around a particular favoured design mechanism.
 

wampuscat

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I watched an interesting video yesterday from Gamespot - and it's basically how the survival horror genre has changed since Resident Evil 4. I remember playing that game on the PS2, and while I don't agree with all the commentor's opinions (particularly about Deadspace 1), it is food for thought on how the genre has begun to stagnate around a particular favoured design mechanism.

I agree with a lot of that video. I have missed the sense of vulnerability and mystery in modern video games. Most new games feel like hack-and-slashers to me.

ETA: Sanitarium! I had forgotten that one.
 

lilyWhite

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I typically don't play "scary" games; I lean more towards RPGs and have no love of (playing) survival horror games.

However, MOTHER 3 has some frightening stuff, mostly when it comes to Tanetane Island when the party is forced to eat some suspicious mushrooms. For all of the goofy moments of the game, there is some really dark stuff in it.

Everyone's waiting for you.
Everyone's waiting to throw rocks at you, spit on you, and make your life hell.
Who's "everyone"...?
Everyone you love.​
 

Shadow Dragon

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Fallout 3.

Played it in a dark room and zombies ended out jumping out at me from the dark - I'm a jumpy person!
The vaults in Fallout 3 certainly had a creepy feel to them. Especially the one with the hallucinations. I loved the part of that one where you found messages from you to yourself on the computer and then found out that, in truth, hardly any of those computers were real to begin with.
 

Shenanigans!

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Being a really big chicken, I don't play a lot of horror/scary games. I guess Dear Esther would be mine and it's low on the scare factor. However, I've been with friends a lot more scary games as they played so I've seen the Shalebridge Cradle from Thief Deadly Shadows and I think that takes the top spot.
 

Gynn

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For me, it was Doom 3, especially since your only weapon at the start is a flashlight!

At one part, if you go into a bathroom and look in the mirror, a monster bursts out of the stall and attacks!
 

IAMWRITER

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The vaults in Fallout 3 certainly had a creepy feel to them. Especially the one with the hallucinations. I loved the part of that one where you found messages from you to yourself on the computer and then found out that, in truth, hardly any of those computers were real to begin with.

They were creepy. I remember playing it and just thinking "What the...?"

The dark subways were the worst though for me. Always took me ages to get through them as I had to always look around first.
 

wampuscat

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Sort of off topic. I remember playing Arkham Asylum and thinking "This is really dark. There's a lot of f-ed up stuff in these villains' back stories, etc. This could be really super creepy." Great game, but I was always a little disappointed that it wasn't scary. I also wished there were decent/more difficult boss fights, but what can you do?

More on topic: I never got around to playing The Walking Dead last year. The amazon reviews seemed to say it's more like the old adventure games, but I've not read anything that says it's particularly scary. Anyone played it? ETA: I've not seen the comic book series, and only one episode of the tv show, which I didn't find particularly scary.
 

kenebaker

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More on topic: I never got around to playing The Walking Dead last year. The amazon reviews seemed to say it's more like the old adventure games, but I've not read anything that says it's particularly scary. Anyone played it?

It plays like Gabrielle Knight 3 - if you ever played that game, you might know what I'm talking about. The Walking Dead didn't scare me, but there were some scenes that made me nervous because you know something is going to grab you. You'll enjoy a lot of dialogue and choices in the game, but I wouldn't call it scary. Download the demo to check it out... :)
 

Davarian

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D
De
Dea
Dead
Dead S
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Dead Spa
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Dead Space

DEAD SPACE #1
 

Davarian

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Also, if anyone has played Bioshock one with the light off and the volume on... That's pretty damn scary.
 

VelnR

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First game to really creep me out was Gallerians back on the PS1. Early on in the game you enter a hotel bathroom that is covered wall to wall in blood, with several body parts around the room. It was a fairly poignant image that still sticks with me. :-D

Other than that Resident Evil 3, the part where Nemesis jumps through the window in the police station damn near made me piss myself. Oh, and the first Silent Hill, right near the beginning when the children (or whatever they are) with kitchen knives are chasing you down.
 

DPRichard

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Q-Bert.

There's something downright evil about the squishy-hoppy thingy, IMO.
 

kenebaker

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Might have been scary. I just couldn't get over how shit the gameplay was.

What was shitty? He did have a very slow-turning circle which I found particularly trying when I was panicking and trying to shoot anything that moved, including the walls and ceiling.
 

kenebaker

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Yup, that. Also the fact that the character seemed to take up about fifty percent of the screen. Bought it in a Steam sale, played for about ten minutes before going 'screw this' and quitting, never to go back.

You must hate Gears of War then :) I didn't notice that about DP1, but maybe I'm just looking for a good excuse for another playthrough.
 
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