Spoooky Games
The Citizen Soapbox is an area where we throw out topics to the users of Citizen Game. When we record the podcast on Sunday night we take the previous week’s Soapbox answers and use them in our own discussions. We think it’s a great way of involving you guys in our stupid arguments!
The Setup:
Halloween has come and gone, the only night of the year you can give sweets to children without being labelled a sex offender. It’s a time where we make popcorn, turn off the lights and watch scary films with mates. Unlike movies, games doesn’t have a “horror” genre per-se, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t been some genuinely terrifying games out there. We want to know, what games have made you scream in terror.
The Question:
What is the scariest game you have ever played?
Glass contact lenses claim another victim
I love to have the shite scared out of me by creepy, shadowy images and the ‘Did I just see what I thought I saw?’ attitude to the gameplay. Condemned and the first Fear are brilliant for this.
I have a thing about dummies and the department store section in Condemned is not a pleasant one. I can’t forget about the bath scene in Eternal Darkness though, which is pretty much the only game to make me jump out of my seat.
Everyone seems to forgetting Dead Space too, another extremely irksome and creepy game…and if you can tell me with your hand on your heart that the end didn’t scare you then you’re already dead!
The first Condemned is definitely the most scary game I’ve ever played. In fact, its probably the only game that ever scared me.
There were points when I wanted to stop playing because I was so terrified, but some sadistic part of me kept urging me to carry on!
Putting the player in unrelenting darkness, then giving them weak weapons and abilities makes them feel vulnerable and constantly on edge. The sequel lost that sense of terror by making the more powerful weapons more readily available and focussing too much on the supernatural.
the first game that cared me was alien trilogy on the playstation. I literally couldn’t play it without crying, i was like 9 though, recently condemned scared the shit out of me. mainly because i felt that i could quite easily die at any point, which i didn’t really get when playing stuff like resident evil 4 and 5 and dead space.
-Resident Evil 4, mainly just the sewer level with the fucking invisible bugs.
-Condemned 2 at points scared the shit out of me, but that bear chasing me almost made me shit my pants.
But the scariest game I have ever played has to be:
-Half Life 2. I played this game when I was much younger, and so many things scared me. The fucking scene where I was chased up the stairs I could have felt my heart beat out of my chest, and Ravenholm was my first experience with zombies….
Condemned scared me to the point where I couldnt play it anymore. Aliens Vs Predator should be mentioned (especially that first level where you dont even see an alien). The first FEAR game was pretty terrifying too. Grey Painter is onto somthing with Stalker too, the levels deep inside those labs are terrifying. Seriously atmospheric game.
Lastly, Call of Ctuhulu: Dark Corners of the Earth was a seriously tense and scary game. One really scarey mission is where your running, gunless over rooftops and through buildings as the townspeople chase you. Your screen is pulsating and distorting with fear as your charaters fear of heights (and stabbing) takes over. Very memorable.
I’m a big fan of horror games but as far really giving you a strange environment that keeps you on the edge Eternal Darkness is leagues ahead of the rest. Such a shame that the GameCube was almost overlooked in Europe that so many have not gotten a chance to play it. Its sanity meter is one of the best game mechanics I have ever seen. Also worth a mention is the Siren series, the idea of seeing from the enemies eyes as your hiding can create some really scary moments.
Great choices by Tamoor too, while Ressi 3 was probably the weakest game in the series it defiantly had that never feeling safe factor thanks to the nemesis.
Hands down the award goes to STALKER. Even before you get to the labs the environment and everything in it is hostile towards you. And then it turned to night. I remember waiting near one of the map transitions for an entire in-game night because I did not want some mutant dog jumping on me in the dark. It was bad enough in the daylight.
And then as I mentioned you get to the labs…
Condemned and the Penumbra series are the only games that have actually made me jump.
Codemned was genuinely frightening. Perhaps not in a horror-movie sense, but the tension and threat of unknown agressors planning on murdering me with lumps of wood.
STALKER is my video gaming definition of a bad dream. After the first time I went underground into an abandoned shelter, I’ve been reluctant ever since. The overwhelming sense of tension is coupled with dread seeping from the delapidated environments, and plus there’s giant psychic squidheadmen trying to give me cancer
I think there are only 2 games in my lifetime that have genuinely scared me, the first was the original Silent Hill and the second was Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.
Silent Hill had a very tense eerie atmosphere, the oppressive draw distance hiding fog contributed to this heavily, it hid f**king MUTANT ZOMBIE DOGS. The static radio and awkward but effective for ’scaring’ purposes camera also helped.
Resident Evil 3: Nemsis was scary entirely thanks to the Nemesis character, he was basically immortal until the end of the game and would wait just off camera and then come storming in screaming ‘STAAAAARRRS’. I would always just shout ‘OH SHIT’ completely unlearn all the skills I had accrued as a gamer and start handling the controller like it was my first ever time playing a Playstation, the feeble attempts to escape this rampaging titan felt even more ‘futile’ thanks to the tank controls of the main character’.
Special mention mention for the ‘creepiness factor’ go to Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid, that shit was just weird.