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What are the scariest games you've played?

Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
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Sweden
Most games that I find scary lost their luster as time goes on but the ones that scared the shit out of me when I first played them are:

The first two Penumbras. Took me completely by surprise, didn't expect them to be that scary at all.
Amnesia.
Silent Hill 1 when it was first released. Played the intro (where you "killed" by those little things) and had to turn it off.

EDIT: Bonus round. Anyone remember the whacky SNES / Sega game Zombies ate my neighbours? It's filled with humor but I still found it pretty scary, playing it when I was a kid. It was kinda relentless in difficulty so that probably added to it. The chainsaw dudes stressed me out so bad.
 

Bitcher1

Cipher
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Jan 9, 2012
Messages
263
The opening levels of CoC: Dark Corners of the Earth certainly deserve a mention here, even if the game turns into a rather generic shooter later on. Barricading doors with wardrobes in a desperate attempt to stave off a bloodthirsty mob remains an experience I've yet to see repeated in any other game. It also nicely and subtly foreshadowed the horror in the initial town exploration.

Anyone played Forbidden Siren on PS2? Is it worth fucking with emulators to try out?
 

Ovplain

Arcane
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RPG Wokedex
I'm a massive pussy when it comes to horror games. I love horror movies! Really wish I could love horror games too. But it's just too much for me for some reason. I get like panic attacks! I get these really overblown physical reactions with my heart POUNDING out of my chest, it's crazy.

Stasis I could handle fine. Vanishing of Ethan Carter too. But something like Outlast, Steam says I only managed 2 hours! 102 minutes for Alien: Isolation, I didn't even meet the damn Xenomorph yet!

Sucks, hate it.
 

skacky

3D Realms
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The City
The opening levels of CoC: Dark Corners of the Earth certainly deserve a mention here, even if the game turns into a rather generic shooter later on. Barricading doors with wardrobes in a desperate attempt to stave off a bloodthirsty mob remains an experience I've yet to see repeated in any other game. It also nicely and subtly foreshadowed the horror in the initial town exploration.

The shoggoth section was also pretty nerve-wracking. Should've mentioned Dark Corners of the Earth in my post, knew something was missing. :salute:
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

because of those fucking pigs, man. I'm not saying the game itself is good, but those pigs.

Alien Isolation is wonderful, and probably the best "scary" game I've played.

I wasn't scared by Dead Space 1 or 2, but I did find them mildly stressful.

Haven't finished Amnesia, and I haven't played Soma or Outlast yet. I also have Stasis in my backlog, but I didn't realise that was a scary game. I found the first FEAR to be mildly unsettling, but then I was having way too much fun with the shooting mechanics (probably the best I've played) to be scared by anything.
 

Jazz_

Arcane
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Jun 13, 2016
Messages
1,069
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Sea of Ubiquity
Damn I forgot the haunted house level in VTMB, gotta admit that I skipped it thru console cheat the first time around. :lol:
 

Max Stats

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 26, 2016
Messages
1,091
Nothing really scares me except jump scares, which are pretty much fake, cheap gimmicks. Still, they always get me in RE 1, even though I know they're damn well coming. I guess just because the dogs are so much harder to kill than zombies, I know my health's about to get raped.
 

PEACH

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 22, 2017
Messages
285
Hard call to make.

Silent Hill 1-2 have atmospheres I find really oppressive in general, and tend to make me the most uncomfortable and queasy feeling even if nothing is going on. Little things like pacing around the school or apartments trying to figure out where to go the first time / how to figure out the puzzles had me feeling anxious, claustrophobic and eager to get to the next save location so I can take a break. It's not always overtly scary so much as a feeling of pervasive dread and tension, but it definitely elicits a strong reaction out of me. As far as Scariest Game goes though, SH1 still takes it for me. Could probably wax eternal about the virtues of tank controls and static cameras for creating disequilibrium.

Condemned: Criminal Origins would be the other one that immediately stands out. I have never seen a game with first person melee combat that felt so personal. It shares a lot of the same qualities with the aforementioned games, but often has you wandering even tighter hallways and more dark and claustrophobic locations than they do. In addition, combat is far less avoidable and more frantic and (generally) more life-threatening as well. It's definitely what I consider to be the last outstanding horror game that I've played and a rare one that let you confront enemies head on in a way that rarely detracts from the overall atmosphere. Turns out being able to crack a guy's head open with bent rebar sounds a lot more empowering than it actually is.

(Dis)Honorable mention to Code Veronica for being one of the more malicious/sadistic feeling horror games I've played. Doesn't ever feel as discomforting through atmosphere/sound/level design as anything aforementioned or the previous RE games often did, but it chooses instead to evoke horror by being even more obtuse and taking advantage of the fact that it knows what's about to happen while you do not. This include a boss fight that's liable to end someone's mid-game save if they're not prepared or accustomed to the game, hour long (or more) trips between saves, and mob placements often designed to catch you the first time you come into contact with them. I don't think it's a great game, or a great way to design a game, but there's something to be said about being more afraid of what the developer is going to put on your plate than anything else
 

Talby

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Codex USB, 2014
The original Silent Hill scared the shit out of me as a kid. Those fucking chirping ghost babies. Still managed to beat it and get all the endings, including the hidden one where the main character is abducted by aliens.
 

Machocruz

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2011
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Hyperborea
I'm so edgy that my nightmares are fun to me. But games that came close:

System Shock 2 - Hair raising experience the first time I turned around and there was a zombie or whatever they are called in game standing right in my face and beating me over the head

Resident Evil Remake - Crimson Heads intimidated me. Dreaded going into certain rooms + tank controls.

Resident Evil 1 - Hunters intimidating

Friday the 13th (NES) - Going through a cabin and then Jason appearing.
 

Somberlain

Arcane
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Mar 5, 2012
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Basement
Hi guys,

I just registered here but I've been lurking for a looong time and I love this community. I especially like how welcoming and friendly this place is, keep up the good work!

Anyway, what are the scariest games you guys have played? I found this insanely scary game by accident while I was browsing Steam. It's a terrifying survival horror game where you are hunted by an eldritch monster that kills you if you look at it. All you have is a flashlight that runs out out batteries very quickly and you have to stumble across the pitch black corridors to survive. This game uses Unity, an engine used in many AA and AAA games, and features incredible soundtrack by Kevin MacLeod. This awesome game is especially good for streaming purposes and I recommend you check it out. I've never been so scared in my life!

Regards,
Nate
 

Alienman

Retro-Fascist
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I thought Doom was scary when I was a kid. I loved blasting stuff like everyone else, but sometimes monsters popped out from the darkness and that scared me. Being hunted by those invisible bastards didn't help either. It also had this oppressive feeling. I remember getting melancholy looking out seeing the gray dead landscape of the moon.

Thief, the first one. The crypt, mining area with the zombies. Can't really remember, but thanks to that area I have never finished Thief. The sound design in that game is fantastic and scared the shit out of me when playing it when I was younger.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Like Doom this game also gives me this oppressive somber feeling of despair.

Silent Hill 2. Everything about this game. The radio mechanic, the story, the strange otherworldly characters. It's also has this gray/bleak atmosphere that triggers something in my mind :)
 

DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
5,958
Wolfenstein 3D was great for jump scares back in the day...those pesky Nazis were always lurking just around bends and behind doors.

I found quite a few of the levels in Thief: the Dark Project creepy and disturbing. FEAR might have been scary if not for the awesome firepower you had and the death it could readily dispense.
 

Outlander

Custom Tags Are For Fags.
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Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
AvP (1999) marine campaign. The game makes you feel under powered and all alone with murderous monsters running around in the dark. It's not 'scary' per-se, just very stressful.
 

Curious_Tongue

Larpfest
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Codex 2012 Codex 2013 Serpent in the Staglands Codex USB, 2014
I'm not sure I could name an actual scary game. Atmospheric or tense, maybe. I'm usually too busy trying to fuck with the AI to end up scared; it's fun getting the horrible scary monster to walk back and forth like an imbecile due to a coding oversight. I think the closest to a scary game recently would be Dark Souls, with those times you end up deep in new territory, whilst low on healing and carrying a bunch of souls. There could be a bonfire just around the corner, or you could die in the next encounter and lose it all.

Edit: Oh yeah, there was that HL2 mod with a creepy mannequin segment. That was pretty well done, if a tad cliché.


 

Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
I guess I'm the odd one out, but I felt System Shock 1 to be scarier than System Shock 2. There is a freeware game out there called SCP: Containment Breach that gets frightening. You have no weapon when it starts and blinking is a game feature. If you look away from the initial creature or blink too long, it gets closer to you. If you look at it it stays frozen. If it reaches you, you die. You can't harm the creature. It's a lot harder to escape than one would think.
 

Severian Silk

Guest
The only scary games I played where when I was a teenager, and I don't really remember them that well. Maybe DOOM, Silent Hill and RE2 I guess.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
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514
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In a ship with cooked grenade
I second sentiments about Thief (fucking Escape after Return to Cathedral) being scary. But some FM's are even more - like Night in Rocksbourg 3... First Amnesia while great, fan-made "White Night" and "Great Work" are even more scary (using assets from Penumbras). Some games are scary while not even remotely in horror genre - Operation Flashpoint (I recently replayed its campaign remade in ARMA 3) and the mission where your entire team is down and you need to crawl to safe space having one save slot is scary as fuck. You can just get into situation where you are near enemy vehicle and pray god that they don't see you because even sound of .50 cal is loud and scary.
 

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