Scary Games Thread

[JONJONAUG]

It's that time of the year again where we shift to playing games with the hopes of scaring the shit out of ourselves.

Figured I might as well start a thread for it, will try to update this as much as possible (at least once every couple days hopefully) through October.


Title: Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut
Content: Psychological horror, monsters, really wacked-out levels
Requirements: Half-Life 1
Price: Free (as long as you already have Half-Life 1, note that it requires the original Half-Life 1 to play, HL:Source won't work)
Link: Here

Description

You play the role of a man who is addicted to a certain kind of pills. He goes to a hospital for treatment, but finds another canister of the same pills in the bathroom. He takes the pills, falls unconscious, has a really freaky dream, and wakes up in a nightmare world filled with monsters and really creepy wallpaper.

Pros: This game can be incredibly terrifying, even the tutorial level is pretty damn creepy. The level design is pretty good, and the gameplay is mostly solid. Really though, the main reason to play this game is that the scares are really top notch.

Cons: Lack of lighting is great for atmosphere, but when you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing in the first place and the way out of the area is locked by a door that can only be unlocked when you press a small button that blends into the wall and is completely faded (you won't be seeing it unless you shine your flashlight directly on it)...well let's just say that there were a few sections where I kept running in circles. Some indication of where to go next would be nice in some sections.

 

[Shegokigo]

Awesome idea for a thread JON! Looking forward to more updates!

 

[Hailey Knight]

I find Left 4 Dead on campaign at night to be very scary, especially when it's time to sleep afterward.

 

[JCM]

The three games that almost made me have to change my udnerwear-

System Shock 2 -
The sound, story and overall creepiness of the game was awesome, but then at the near end, when Shodan, who helped you along, suddenly reveals she's against you, and all walls break down into a matrix-like landscape, man, that was freaky.


Resident Evil 2 -
So I pass through the same damn boarded-up window corridor running after keys and herbs and how to open this or that door, to the point where Im feeling bored, then suddenly, the boards break, and zombie hands clutch at Leon, and I throw the controller at the tv, almost breaking it in fright, as my character dies. I can just imagine how they decided to put that in-
Beta tester- This is eerie and all, but why is this corridor running still here? Seeing this damn corridor over and over again is boring, didnt you get this in my last report?
Capcom executive - Sooon...sooon


Aliens vs Predator 2 -
Awesome game, especially the marine campaign.. at one point in the game you see one blip on your rifle, then another, and the "hey, its a few aliens, I'll go there kill them as usual" smile wipes off when suddenly the thing beeps endlessly and you see the screen fill with blips, until it seems like there are a hundred aliens. Seeing a wall black with Aliens really makes one shit bricks.


Anyway, I ran backwards, shooting, and just when the screen fills with more Aliens than I've killed in the past 3 hours of the game, the floor below gave way and I fell into a safe place.

 

[Frank]

Fatal Frame games. Most of these horror games have you as capable heroes with guns. Fucking Fatal Frame is you, as a young teenage girl, armed with a camera which is what you use to kill (and see) murderous hellghosts.

I have had GREAT difficulty playing through a Fatal Frame.

 

[@Li3n]

Creepiest experience i had was with the original Unreal, at the very beginning, when you walk around the ship without any weapons... i kept expecting something to happen, but it never did... it was perfect. of course i was younger then, and maybe it wouldn't have the same effect now.

 

[Iaculus]

Dead Space practically shredded my nervous system.

*wibble*

 

[AshburnerX]

See, my problem is that while I've played lots of horror games, very few of them have actually scared me. The ones that have (Silent Hill, Resident Evil 2, Fatal Frame 1-2) have already been listed.

I supposed I'd also say Disaster Report got to me with it's intense runs for survival during an earthquake/flood.

 

[Shegokigo]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. actually threw me for a curve when I first entered a Lab.

The entire game I was fighting military and rebels, I thought it was a Military style FPS. Then I entered the lab, and the very first mutant/zombie/open flesh creature greeted me.

I had to say, I was plesantly surprised. :uhhuh:

 

[Mutiny]

I haven't played the newest one, but the Alone in the Dark series had some pretty creepy moments.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Friday the 13th for NES.

I swear, my heart was in my throat every time Jason just popped out of nowhere when I was walking the paths.

 

[Bowielee]

Friday the 13th for NES.

I swear, my heart was in my throat every time Jason just popped out of nowhere when I was walking the paths.

LOL, it's funny you mention that. Prior to you reminding me of that game, I would have always said that RE was the first video game that made me jump, but I remember playing Friday the 13th and it scaring the shit out of me.

So, yeah, thanks for bringing back the repressed memory

 

[figmentPez]

I generally don't play horror games, so I barely made it through Ravenholm my first time playing Half-Life 2. I found it very creepy, and I couldn't play too much of it without getting all jumpy and freaked out. The horror elements were stronger than in any game I'd played before.


I also agree with escushion that Left 4 Dead is scary... or rather, was. That game gave me mild nightmares the first few times I played it. I often heard the witch sobbing and other sounds from the game for hours after I'd finished playing. Then I played so much, it lost most of the scare factor. After a while I just started feeling more bad-ass than fearful. Actually, a similar thing happened in Bioshock. That game scared me for the first area, then I started to feel powerful and spent most of the game not fearing anything, though it was still creepy in other ways.

 

[Bowielee]

Short list of scary games that kind of got to me, many repeated from above...

RE2- still think that was the scarriest of the bunch.

Silent Hill 2- never finished it because it unnerved me too much

Dead Space- The sound designer deserves an award. The ambient sound in that game was the scarriest I've ever heard in a game.

L4D- I have to have lights on when playing. It's funny because sometimes I'll be fine and the next minute I'll get sucked into the game so much that I get freaked out and have to stop playing.

System Shock 2- Stark and creepy as hell. Shodan, you bitch!

These are the ones that people are going to say "huh?" to.

The Blair Witch games. They were creepy as hell.

 

[The Pumes]

Fatal Frame (The whole freaking series)

This game series still makes me jump and pause the game to take a break from the unsettling creepiness of it. Fighting ghosts with a camera is not cool brohantas.

 

[Fun Size]

In the twenty minutes every three months that I play my Xbox, I'm trying to play Fatal Frame 2: Director's Cut. I get myself to a point where I'm thinking of it as a game (the camera is a gun, you point and pull the trigger, it's all good), some goddamned thing pops up on the stairs next me whispering and cursing. Scares the hell out of me every time.

 

[Nile]

Silent Hill 4.

Of the first four, it's probably my least favorite, but damn if the prison level isn't unnerving.

 

[Cat]

I need to find They Hunger for Half Life.

 

[JONJONAUG]

System Shock 2

I need to find They Hunger for Half Life.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/they-hunger/downloads/they-hunger-1-2-and-3

I hear that there's this new Google thing, and that it's AMAZING.

Anyway...

Title: System Shock 2
Content: Sci-fi, survival horror (somewhat, with inventory management and ammo conservation playing a pretty big role through the first two-thirds or so of the game), body horror
Requirements: Either about 30 or so dollars to pick up a copy or the knowledge needed to pirate it (can be found in the usual channels). Running it under Windows XP and multicore systems requires doing a few things first, see below.

Description

The story begins in 2114, forty-two years after the events of System Shock. After joining the United National Nominate, the protagonist — Soldier G65434-2 — is assigned to the Rickenbacker, a military spacecraft. The Rickenbacker is escorting the Von Braun, an experimental faster-than-light starship, on its maiden voyage. A few months into the journey, the ships respond to a distress signal from the planet Tau Ceti V. A rescue team is sent to the planet surface where they discover strange eggs. The eggs infect the rescue team and integrate them into an alien communion that calls itself the Many. The infestation eventually overtakes both ships.

The soldier awakens in a cryo-tube on the medical deck of the Von Braun with amnesia due to a computer malfunction. He is immediately contacted by another survivor, Dr. Janice Polito, who guides him to safety before the cabin depressurizes and demands he rendezvous with her on deck 4. Along the way, the soldier battles the infected crew members. The Many also telepathically communicate with him, attempting to persuade the soldier to join their collective.

The gameplay is a mix of FPS and RPG standbys. The game plays like a shooter, but weapon damage and special abilities (and there are a lot of those) are determined by your level in certain skills. You get "cyber-modules" that can be used to buy level upgrades from advancing in the story, as well as finding some extra ones lying around the station if you bother to look around. The horror aspects come from the enemy design (most enemies are horribly mutated, speak in guttural noises, or are just really freaky like the large poisonous spiders or psychic monkeys), the low amount of ammo available to the player through the first two-thirds or so of the game, and the overall atmosphere. The story unfolds through audio logs that you find lying around. While primitive, it effectively tells the story, there are a few characters with multiple audio logs that you'll feel a connection with despite never interacting with them.

Pros: Great mixture of shooter and RPG gameplay, the way the story is presented really helps the atmosphere, level design is some of the best you'll get out of any shooter from the 90s.
Cons: Enemy respawn rate is wild, security cameras are the most annoying thing ever (and it takes forever for the alarm to turn off), weapons can degrade too fast until you get your maintenance level up which makes the first 25% or so of the game unnecessarily difficult and offputting to new players. Textures, models, and gameplay elements really show their age. There are mods to fix some of these, but the game still feels outdated at times.


Getting System Shock 2 to run

I'd recommend this link here

Of particular note are the sections regarding fddshow and multi-core processors. These were both problems I encountered getting System Shock 2 to run the first time.

The cause turned out to be ffdshow. When a video is played on my system,
it went from the indeo codec filter, then to ffdshow, then to the renderer.
To fix my problem I had to run the ffdshow Video Decoder Configuration,
select 'Info & Debug' from the options on the left, and then in the Debug
section of the menu I placed a check in the box for 'Don't use ffdshow
in:'. I then added 'SHOCK2.EXE;' to the list by typing in the field
provided. a semicolon should separate program names if you have more than
one in that list.
example: 'Oblivion.exe;explorer.exe;shock2.exe;'

Since I have a Dual core processer, I had to use the 'imagecfg.exe' tool
to set shock2 to use only one core.
From the command line:
imagecfg.exe -u \"C:\path\to\SS2\Shock2.exe\" ; to set shock2 to
uniprocessor mode.
then:
imagecfg.exe -a 0x1 \"C:\path\to\SS2\Shock2.exe\" ; to set affinity to
processor 1

I can now play the multi-player version with all the mods for better
textures sounds and bug fixes.

Of course, the "C:\path\to\etc" is wherever you have Shock2.exe on your hard drive.

Other Stuff

There are a lot of mods that help System Shock 2 look and play better. There are also a lot of other issues that you can encounter trying to get System Shock 2 to run under a modern system.

Here's a link containing a bunch of mods and instructions for fixes for common problems

I would strongly recommend running the game using the enclosed System Shock 2 Mod Manager, as it does a couple of things on startup that help the game run stabler anyway.

 

[AshburnerX]

Oh, just thought of another: The Suffering. This game probably had the best sound design until Dead Space came out. It's sequel is pretty good too.

 

[Enresshou]

Oh, just thought of another: The Suffering. This game probably had the best sound design until Dead Space came out. It's sequel is pretty good too.

Loved The Suffering, and loved Dead Space...but Dead Space disappointed.

It didn't scare me, and after reading how it was supposed to be terrifying, I really wanted it to. I still had a blast with it, but there was only one time where I actually got the creepy tingle run up my spine:

Spoiler

]

 

[Shegokigo]

Oh, just thought of another: The Suffering. This game probably had the best sound design until Dead Space came out. It's sequel is pretty good too.

I was enjoying the hell (pun intended) out of Suffering way too much to feel creeped out. I can see why some would though.

 

[Frank]

Yeah, I think the key to making a game scary is to make the player character much more helpless than they would normally be in any other game. I'm never really scared in games where I'm armed with a small army's worth of weapons. I personally find games like Fatal Frame or Clock Tower to much more terrifying than Dead Spaces or Resident Evils. Though, the first Silent Hill really took me for a loop the first time and the second was scary for entirely different reasons.

I'm really looking forward to the upcoming Wii Silent Hill game again for the same reasons, you're pretty much helpless. There's no combat to speak of, only running from monsters when they appear.

 

[AshburnerX]

Oh wait... was Clocktower mentioned? If not, totally the Clocktower series. Being nigh helpless for nearly the entirety of the game, with only sporadic environmental objects to use to defend yourself from the serial killer chasing after you. Except for Clocktower 3, where they turned you into fucking Sailor Moon and made you kill all the monsters.

Haunting Ground follows in the same vein, but it did it with SOME ability to defend yourself. It's pretty good too.

 

[GeneralOrder24]

Oh wait... was Clocktower mentioned? If not, totally the Clocktower series.

Heh, great game. Definitley have to give it a nod.

I'm surprised no one yet has mentioned F.E.A.R. That game was creepy as hell, whenever it wasn't being inconvenienced by gameplay. I swear the game would have been three times as good if it were only twenty minutes long and only contained the alone scenes with Alma.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

I remember playing Resident Evil 2 for the first time and getting freaked out.

I'd just broken into the police station and walked down a hall when...something...skittered across the window. No music cue, no cut scene, nothing. And it freaked me the hell out.

 

[Fun Size]

I remember playing Resident Evil 2 for the first time and getting freaked out.

I'd just broken into the police station and walked down a hall when...something...skittered across the window. No music cue, no cut scene, nothing. And it freaked me the hell out.

That and the interrogation room. Empty when you check it out, and then when you're on the side of the glass you can't see through, one of those goddamned lickers busts through the window. Scared the bejesus out of me.

 

[JONJONAUG]

Yume Nikki

Title: Yume Nikki
Content: Creepy, trippy dream worlds, exploration
Link: Here
Requirements: Japanese language pack installed (I think, this might not be necessary), but I don't think you need to run it with language settings set to Japanese

Description

Yume Nikki is a freeware game that runs under RPG Maker 2003. You play the role of a young girl who refuses to leave her room (if you try to use the door, she just shakes her head). You can use the bed in her room to explore her dream world, where the main part of the game is located. In the dream world, you can explore any of 12 different worlds. By exploring these worlds, you will find 25 "effects" that can be used from your inventory screen. Each of these effects grants Madotsuki (the main character) some sort of power, although many are mostly useless. There are also many areas with no effects in them, but are still quite interesting and worth checking out. A good few (Uboa, the alien spacecraft, the flying witch scene, five-armed girl, and others) require a lot of exploration to find.

To finish the game, find all of the effects and drop them all in the world hub, then go out to the balcony in the real world. Good luck!

Controls

Arrow keys: Movement
Z: Accept; interact with objects (also Enter, Spacebar)
X: Cancel; open the game menu (also C, V, B, N, Insert)
1: Use an effect's ability
3: Cancel an effect's ability
5: Drop an effect on the ground (only in the Nexus)
9: Pinch yourself to wake up and return to the real world


Pros: Amazing atmosphere, the effects are pretty cool, some scenes are pretty disturbing considering the fact that the game was made on the RPG Maker engine.
Cons: Lots and lots and lots and lots of wandering around in circles, to the point where you either have to draw your own map of the game's world flow or look up a guide online.

 

[Cat]

I need to find They Hunger for Half Life.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/they-hunger/downloads/they-hunger-1-2-and-3

I hear that there's this new Google thing, and that it's AMAZING.

[/QUOTE]

Google has nothing on flipping through old disks in the nostalgia box.

 

[AshburnerX]

The ending to Yume Nikki is incredibly depressing though. It almost feels anti-climatic.

 

[JONJONAUG]

The ending to Yume Nikki is incredibly depressing though. It almost feels anti-climatic.

SHHHHH!

No spoiling.

 

[AshburnerX]

Oh... Eversion is another kind of mind-fuck scary game too. It's free to play too. Just do a google search for it.

 

[JONJONAUG]

Clock Tower

Title: Clock Tower
Requirements: An SNES emulator, the ROM (not included, but easy to find), and a translation patch
Link: Translation patch can be found Here
Content: Stalker/slasher, some grossout

Description: You play as Jennifer Simpson, fleeing from the insane psycho killer Bobby Barrows (AKA "the scissorman") in the Barrows Family Mansion. It plays like a point and click adventure game.

You don't have any weapons or anything to defend yourself with, and you get "scared" (slows movement speed) pretty easily and die quickly. Despite being released on the SNES, this is one of the scariest games ever made and still one of the best games in the survival horror genre.

Pros: Tons of different endings depending on what you do, you can finish the game with the worst ending in as little as ten or so minutes. The mansion layout isn't that hard to memorize.

Cons: Some puzzles are very tricky. There are some points where if you didn't do something in advance, you die and the game ends there. The game is pretty short though, so it isn't that hard to work back up to where you were before (or just use save states before doing anything important, since you'll be playing this on an emulator)

 

[ZenMonkey]

I'm an old lady so I'll say Infocom's "The Lurking Horror," while not like run-screaming-into-the-night scary, had an excellent Lovecraft vibe and some good creepy parts. The best being, of course, that you have to visualize it all yourself, and I was a very imaginative kid.

 

[AshburnerX]

Clock Tower

Title: Clock Tower
Requirements: An SNES emulator, the ROM (not included, but easy to find), and a translation patch
Link: Translation patch can be found Here
Content: Stalker/slasher, some grossout

Description: You play as Jennifer Simpson, fleeing from the insane psycho killer Bobby Barrows (AKA "the scissorman") in the Barrows Family Mansion. It plays like a point and click adventure game.

You don't have any weapons or anything to defend yourself with, and you get "scared" (slows movement speed) pretty easily and die quickly. Despite being released on the SNES, this is one of the scariest games ever made and still one of the best games in the survival horror genre.

Pros: Tons of different endings depending on what you do, you can finish the game with the worst ending in as little as ten or so minutes. The mansion layout isn't that hard to memorize.

Cons: Some puzzles are very tricky. There are some points where if you didn't do something in advance, you die and the game ends there. The game is pretty short though, so it isn't that hard to work back up to where you were before (or just use save states before doing anything important, since you'll be playing this on an emulator)

It also has different endings, depending on what you did or saw during the course of the game.

Clocktower 2 (or just Clocktower in the use) on the PSX is the same kind of game, but with 3d graphics and a different story.