You know, I had this thought for a while now. I never felt any real fear for playing any single game in any generation, from Clock Tower to the "modern survival horror" Dead Space... and when we're talking about movies I usually get scared as hell if the movie is any good, specially on those "girl with long hair in the face" japanese-ish movies. Am I missing a screw in my head or other people feel the same way?
The Resident Evil games genuinely scare me, and I'm not easily scared. It's the atmosphere more than anything that does it, I think. Books are a bit different. I've been reading a lot of Stephen King lately, and while it very often creeps me out, I'm never scared in the way I would be if I were watching a scary movie. It's hard to shock people with words.
That is what I like with the fear factor to certain horror games, it always seems to be different. Unfortunately, Resident Evil only creeped me out when I was younger. Although the REmake had some tense moments! The only game that ever truly freaked me out to this day is Silent Hill 2. The story and cutscenes are just downright fucking weird if truly payed attention to, not to mention how in depth the game goes with the main characters past memories and faults/downfalls all embodied in the Town of Silent Hill through its enemies and other events... That's fucking creepy. Here is a small excerpt I pulled from some Silent Hill Wiki... You have to have balls and play at night with headphones! It truly is the only way! :smile-new: Yeah it's gameplay isn't the greatest and wielding difficult to maneuver melee weapons is never fun, but it creates even more tension during the game! But as for horror games now a days, yeah, they suck. They suck hard. They rely on cheap scare tactics that are for the easily amused/frightened.... Unless something slipped by me...?
The most you can hope for in horror games today, and even movies for that matter, are jump scares. =/
Most horror movies aren't scary either...especially not the kind where some guy is killing a bunch of teenagers. The Nightmare on Elm Street series is my favorite horror series, but I don't find it scary at all (except maybe the first movie), I just watch them to see Freddy kill teenagers in funny and creative ways. The horror movies I find actually scary are the ones that are more psychological, and no game has really taken that route except Silent Hill, and even that's a stretch.
What is scary to one person may be laughable to another there is no set standard. Many games like movies rely on the "Jump scare" for effect but to me that is always sort of cheating. Games do not so much scare me but I like the dark, Gothic, creepy type of atmosphere and settings many games can provide.
I've played "The Golden Butterfly" or something like that and I left bored pretty much after an hour.
Fatal Frame (at least the two first games) are damn scary when playing alone. Silent Hill it's just one step behind.
Playing games like this in the dark with headphones on your own is the best way to increase the fear facture. It also helps if you do play the game for the first time so you do not know where the emenies are coming from. Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark, Fatal Frame and Doom have given me scary moments. The first Bio Hazard / Resident Evil game was so funny that there is no way you could be scared.
Amazingly I'm always replaying RE, SH on my PS3 (pissing off my Battlefield 3 clan) that's why I'm not sure if I would be scared by playing them again on Headphones on a dark room on a abandoned asylum or in an abandoned forest... but they are too fun (at least for me) to stop playing them just because "they don't scare", they never did for me anyway... Now I DID get scared on that movie that a girl gets out of a television set... and that's one of the reasons I tend to avoid horror movies hahaha And would Parasite Eve 2 count as a horror game?
No mention of Bioshock? While it isn't particularly scary, it did have a couple instances of "jump scares", like in the dentists office. It also had themes that I found to be creepy. One thing about games and the level of scariness is where/when you play it. If you play the game with friends, mid day and on a TV that's kinda small, you're not going to be as scared as if you were to play on a PC with a large screen, up close and at night with no-one around.
Whats even worse is about 3:30 in the morning when you're daughter sneeks up behind you during a really suspenceful moment! XD
I was playing Resident Evil 4 alone in the dark once. My room mate BURST into my room and scared the crap out of me.
Amnesia (for PC) can be a bit scary at points. Like the water monster, for example, or when the thing that follows you starts searching around for you.
Alone in the Dark was pretty damn scary back in the days. I remember the crazy wolf jumping through the window and first zombi making noise in the trapdoor. Incredible atmosphere, sound, music and camera angles
