Horror game genre

I don't know what's going on with horror games genre. I haven't played a game that scared me since Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

I thought Alien Isolation would be scarry since everyone hyped it so much, but i got scared a maximum of 3 times in the whole game (it was a good game though). It's just me? I remember when I was playing doom 3 and the atmosphere and enemies in that game scared the shit out of me. I heard about some japanesse horror games that are really scarry, but other than that what it is, at least for now? Also, currently which are your favourite horror games?

I do not like games that focus on horror. My times I find games that focus on scaring the player is not that good.
Game play focus on problem solving and suppressing emotion. Horror is about focusing on emotions while suppressing critical thinking.

Most of call I hate helpless main characters. I get more piss off that scared.

I do like survival horror games when it focus on surviving a horror movie more than scaring the player.

try Cry of Fear

Amnesia Dark Descent

Penumbra Black Plague

Outlast

Look out for Asylum and Routine when they are released.

And if you do not already have a good gaming PC get one, PC is were most the good horror games are.

Dead Space is creepy. so is F.E.A.R. and Outlast.

Get Fatal Frame 1.2.3 and siren on psn store

Horror games just don't make any money. They are the ultimate rental. Play it, beat it, return it. I Love them but they aren't profitable.

I find some horror games scary

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Dead Space

FEAR

Alien: Isolation

1 resident evil remake 2 alien isolation 3 sillent hill (psx) 4 resident evil code veronica 5 dead space 6 last of us 7 sillen hill 2 8 dead space 3 9 resident evil zero 10 evil within

I've been going nuts with Oculus Rift-based horror games. Dreadhalls is a very simple game but it's one of the most unnerving games I've played in a while. Granted it's only effective because of the VR, but even among VR games not all of them are that scary. This one uses the medium right.

-Byshop

Five nights at Freddy's 2

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

big Silent Hill fan.. the 2nd one is amazing

This game scared the hell out of me. I'm still halfway through though.

But seriously this game.

Way scarier than Amnesia.

@alim298: I don't know if I'd say that, but it was a really cool game overall. The lack of a HUD, the "healing" system, the story, etc. All the elements were well done. My biggest complaint was the game got kind of "actiony" in the third act but I was really impressed with it.

Remember, mommy "bites".

-Byshop

Yeah.. Resident Evil 4 was really scarry :D but Dead Space didn't scare me at all :) Doom 3 was far much scarrier :)

It is very unnerving the whole way through. Some of the shooting can take you out of the horror, but nonetheless this game has some outright masterful moments; I reckon you got past this part?

I absolutely didn't see that one coming, one of the rare video game moments which were truly horrifying

I just remember me and my friend were playing and then the little girl said that. It was like the American Pie "band camp" moment. We were like "oh, that's ok little girl. We'll just... wait. What the hell did she just say?" We looked at each other like "did we just hear that?"

-Byshop

The only Horror game that ever got me was Fear, after that I lost interest in all Horror games. I don't like the whole, in your face scare popup tactics that most are I feel.

Dead Space

Silent Hill 2

Do you have a rift ?

What you think of it, is it worth the money for one now, I think the development kit is about £250 now.

I watched Markipiler on youtube play Dreadhalls with the rift and he nearly cried he was that scared, he was literally speechless for a minute or two.

Dead Space 1.

Outlast.

Alien Isolation.

@SovietsUnited: @Byshop:

By mommy "bites" are you guys referring to that scene where that girl dies? Yeah that was very eerie.

I've reached the refinery. I guess that would be the third act right? Yeah way to actiony. I couldn't stand it. Might give it another try sometime tomorrow.

I love playing horror games but yeah most of them are not scary like FEAR maybe its just me but it wasn't scary at all neither were RE5,6 or Among the sleep. The only game scared the shit out of me was "outlast" everything was well done the environment, tension, jump scares.... everything

Yes, and the conversation with her leading up to it. We felt like crap after it happened because it was kind of our fault for agitating "mommy" until we found a note in the house that basically said the little girl was doomed to turn into the same kind of thing mommy turned into when she got older.

@thehig1: Yes, I've got a DK2. It's pretty amazing, but I would recommend waiting. I ordered mine back in June and I got it around the September/October time frame. It's pretty awesome, but the Crescent Bay prototype is a significant step up by all accounts (lighter, higher resolution screen, better and more comfortable head mount, and most importantly it's the first model to use the new audio portion of the Oculus SDK) and it is being demonstrated more and more at various trade shows. According to Oculus, it's still not the final consumer model and they haven't talked about releasing this version yet. The DK2 is rapidly becoming an "older" model like the DK1, even though it's technically the most recent model that's still available for purchase.

The DK2 as it is now is a pretty astounding product but it's not without its flaws. The 1920x1080 screen is divided between your two eyes so the resulting resolution is actually 960x1080 in stereoscopic 3D. The display is not as clear as a high resolution monitor. It's also a bit heavy for long term use.

-Byshop

A good scare for me was old school horror. The classics. Silent Hill (First One) Resident Evil (First 3) and Fatal Frame (All three) Now a days, the new generation type horror is so focused on graphics, that they lack substance....the only game that even remotely scared me; which wasn't actually a game was the PT trailer for the PS4, and that was a minor jump scare.

I LOVE horror games, that being said I wish there were more of them.

Just played PT with my friends this past weekend, it was pretty scary but the details for restarting the cycle and having the door open were getting more and more ambiguous and almost impossible to do without looking up the answers. Over all, a good creepy experience for a trailer to Silent Hills.

Also played The Evil Within, have yet to beat it. We will work on this upcoming weekend most likely. I enjoy the detail and story, so far it hasn't truly frightened me yet.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is one of my favorites. I own the Penumbra series and Amnesia: Machine for Pigs but haven't had the chance to play them yet. Also it doesn't help that I can only play in 10-20 minute intervals because of how scared they make me.

I played Dead Space on playstation 3 and really enjoyed them, not so much for just the scare or for just the action but a combination of both. Making the aliens killable helps a lot with making the game less scary but the art/story/sounds still add to the atmosphere. Sad to see where that game went as EA sunk its teeth into making it a series too quickly. Gun customization wasn't bad though, I'll give them that.

I haven't yet played the FEAR games, but I should. I own all of them..

Resident Evil games I was mostly a bystander for. I'd love to watch them all in order again because I feel like I missed a game or two.

I have to say based on nostalgia alone, the Condemned games are one of my favorite horror games from console, playstation 2 to be exact and Condemned 2 to be even more exact. The mixture of high stakes and needing quick reactions make it more suspenseful than anything I've ever played, as well as still being scary and having an intense story. Would definitely recommend, I'd love to see these games get remastered.

Outlast was fun to watch as a viewer. Over the top scary, especially good when drunk. Games like that all meet the same kind of genre to me which is the minimal mechanics (having a palm recorder, minimal battery life, etc) that make it extra scary. Good scare but the game doesn't last long.

I can't think of anymore off the top of my head but I play/collect horror games and probably have lots more. I'm the same way with scary movies.

I tried to like Amnesia but I don't like games where I can't fight back..

Horror genre has been going down over these years. I got scared many times but I don't feel fear like the old days with the creepy atmosphere of Silent Hill's living hell or Resident Evil's mansion..

With P.T. I felt that fear I used to feel.. I didn't play it yet.. cause I don't own a PS4 yet.. but watching people's gameplays at night, lights off, etc almost gave me a heart attack..

P.T. was effectively terrifying. It was almost SO minimal that it tricks you intro frightening yourself while looking for the clues.
That being said I still think the stages you needed to complete to beat the game were arbitrary and difficult to connect together.

I don't find the the horror genre is going down, but mostly like someone else said before, it isn't a money maker. I have huge respect for those who make horror games or movies because it feels like a true passion pursuit, instead of making something for a quick buck.
No matter how bad the games are I usually will play and enjoy them so I can show somebody I support their scary games. :<

@ashbee: Amazing words.. well I said it has been going down (since those golden days -PSX and early PS2 days) and I'm not going to back up here but finally I see some light at the end of the tunnel, and I don't want to get so hyped but I want to think next SH is going to bring back what only the first one made me feel.. darkness, tension, creepy stuff and heart beating so fast that you think it's going to explode..

There's something that I always mention in this kind of threads that is what is said at the beginning of Alan Wake (that Stephen King phrase) and one which I completelyy agree.. not knowing what you are fighting against, intensifies much more the horror atmosphere)

Absolutely. I think many horror games succeed in some ways depending on how they tackle what is supposed to be scary (PT : the environment, Dead Space: the aliens, Amnesia: The shadow following you, Condemned: Yourself etc). I'm really excited for the Silent Hill games but I worry because they already have such a following that they will be lazy and sacrifice quality for releasing early and getting preorder bucks. We will see. I'm normally optimistic about horror games, it just isn't often that there is hype for one unless it is a well known title.

I am super super biased with horror games though and don't judge them as harshly as other games, like I said, because I feel that they are passion pursuits. It is hard to dislike something when you are predisposed to like it.

@ashbee: With Kojima working there I'm expecting it to be a great (and why not?) kinda cinematographic experience

That in and of itself will make it worth it to me. Though who am I to talk? I'm just going to make someone play it for me if it is too scary.

@ashbee: That reminds me the first time I was playing Resident Evil 3. I was playing with a friend, it was his turn and at some point when he walked down the stairs (at the police station), Nemesis rushed through the window and we both almost die from a heart attack, he threw the controller at me, terrified telling me that only I should keep playing and he would only watch

LOL

And that's what I love. In horror, often less is more and this is a lesson that games like Dead Space could really benefit from. My only complaint about PT was that it was so freakin' obtuse and the clues were practically non-existent as to how to proceed. The game would specifically tell you what buttons to use, and then leverage controls that it never told you were included in the equation like the X button or a mic.

But yes. Think of a game like Amnesia that is just generally creepy. The actual number of instances where you have to flee from something dangerous are pretty infrequent, but it just makes them that much more effective when they -do- happen.

-Byshop

@Byshop: @matt2790: I need another horror game night now.

@Byshop: @ashbee: I'll be getting a PS4 on March hopefully, and I'll take a look at P.T. by myself (I coulnd't even watch it with a friend, at some points we had to look to the other side, (my fiend was covering his face with a pillow LOL)

So, guys.. whilst talking about horror genre, What are your top scrariest games?

Ashbee, I did not know you were into horror games a lot.=O

This is a topic I never get tired of talking about. :)

Amnesia 1 was one of the better ones in recent history. I don't consider all "non-combat" horror games to automatically be better than horror games in which you can defend youself, but Amnesia had an awesome mix of great story, excellent environment and great pacing of the scares. These days I would also draw a distinction between "horror" and "survival horror" since there seems to be a greater emphasis on action with "survival horror" games. The Silent Hill games (the good ones, anyway) tend to be a good mix of both elements.

If we are talking "of all time" I would also mention the following:

Amnesia 1 (a refinement of the Penumbra series that was interesting but early in their attempts)

Silent Hill 1 (amazing in spite of its technical limitations)
Silent Hill 2 (one of the best games I have played ever)
Silent Hill 3 (recaptured some of what made SH1 good and the tie ins to the story of SH1 were emotional)

Resident Evil 1 (the original PS1 version is really old but the recent HD update of the GC remake is very good)
Resident Evil 2 (one of the best games of the series)
Resident Evil Nemesis (decent, but this is when the series started leaning towards action)
Resident Evil Veronica (closer to the original formula. Originally made for Dreamcast while Nemesis was being developed for PS1 by a different team at the same time)
Resident Evil 4 (much more actiony than any previous game in the series but still a really good game on its own. Somewhat less "horror" than any previous game in the series, though)

Alan Wake (a bit combat-heavy but this game had a really good story, great environments and great atmosphere)

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (started off great but dropped the horror in favor of action by the end. Still, any halfway decent game based on HP Lovecraft is always welcome)

Phantasmagoria II (old FMV based Sierra game that was pretty awesome. The first one is supposedly also good but I never played it)

The Last of Us (excellent game on so many levels)

Fatal Frame II (best of the series but Fatal Frame games are generally pretty good overall)

Juggernaut (Myst-style game for PS1. Not the scariest game ever but very atmospheric and had a really interesting concept/story)

Eternal Darkness (GC game that was awesome. Not that scary, but one of those games that expressed the character losing sanity by actively messing with the player. The "insanity" effects were awesome and made this game one of the most memorable survival horror games ever made)

Galerians (creepy PS1 game with RE-style gameplay but about a boy trapped in a labratory where they were experimenting on children to give them psychic powers. Basically if you ever wanted a game based on Akira, it would be this. There was a halfway decent sequel made but it was more of an action game than an atmospheric horror game. It had a decent sequel, but it shifted from creepy to action)

System Shock 2 (precursor to the Bioshock series of games. Much creepier than those games were)

Parasite Eve 1 (RE-style game but with a very different premise. The sequel decent but a bit more of an action game)

Dark Seed 1 and 2 ("adventure" style horror games that leverages the artwork of HR Giger. Creepy, and old-school type adventure games were you can actually die if you even make a single misstep)

Dead Space 1 (not great with the pacing. Way too action heavy and jump-scare frequent to be a good horror game, but it's well done overall in spite of not being a great "horror" game)

Five Nights and Freddy's 1 and 2 (striaght up jump scares and pretty much nothing else but very effective at what it does)

I've played a lot more horror games than that, but these are the ones I would consider to be decent horror. Here are some of the ones that I would not consider to be great horror games, so you have a frame of reference:

Dead Space 2 (greater emphasis on action so not as scary)
Dead Space 3 (even worse in this respect, but add microtransactions to buy "power" in the game and make it easier)

Alien Isolation (great idea but some flawed gameplay mechanics make it an excercise in frustration more than horror)

The Evil Within (very flawed attemp at a horror game. Too over the top to be scary)

ZombiU (very flawed gameplay mechanics even though it had some neat ideas)

Silent Hill 4: The Room (very flawed. Missing much of what made SH great. Originally didn't start its life as an SH game but was rebranded during development)
Silent Hill Homecoming (not great, was closer to the original formula than the previous game)
Silent Hill Downpour (so broken on many levels technically which is too bad because it had some good ideas)

Aliens Colonial Marines (terrible game on almost every level)

I Am Alive (pretty cool indie game that was originally an XBL release, but more of a "survival" game than a "horror" game.)

Resident Evil 5, 6, ORC (these games marked the descent from horror into "action games with monsters")

I could go on but it's 2am here so I'm going to stop. The only reason I rambled this long is because I'm watching Babadook on the other monitor. :)

-Byshop

@ashbee: @Byshop: So you got quite a history with this genre then.. I only must have played the half of your list. In my case, I know everyone would kill me for saying this but the game I enjoyed the most in terms of survival was RE3. It was the first RE I played, then I played RE2 and RE1. I loved how Nemesis would come up from nowwhere and chase you. RE1 had the creepiest horror enviornment though.

The game with the best story, SH2, I'll never forget Room 312.. And for the last one, the icing on the cake was definitely SH1. I've never felt so scared in my life as I did with this one, the fear of even walking ahead a few paces was so intense and so hard to deal with it, I was only 13 years old and it was my first survival Horror

Special mentions to: Alone In The Dark: The New Nightmare maybe this one would be the second in my top scariest list (maybe the mysteriest game I've played ever. Never had I been so into a game trying to find answers to what it's going on). And the other one, Alan Wake.. this game though it's neither a horror nor a creepy, dark game, was truly what it was intended to be, a nightmare. Playing in nightmare difficulty, made me flee from combat and reach for the light almost everytime, just like in nightmares, plus an amazing storyline where you don't even know whether if it's all a dream or real, you can feel as Alan feels through the game, unable to distinguish dream from reallity. A game which in the very beginning told you what kind of game would it be, and how ending would be, (open and ambiguous ending). In my opinion, this game is amazing..

@Byshop:

President Evil 4 marked the decent of Horror.....

I adore them. What is sad is that I can't hardly play them, haha. I often make somebody else do it or I'll play in 20 minute intervals. It took me months and months to beat Amnesia: The Dark Descent this way.

I made a list earlier in the thread. It doesn't have all of them on it for sure but the ones that I thought of at the time. Byshop also had a good list including things I missed.
With our powers combined you will be terrified!

@ashbee: Man I always played Sielnt Hill and Resident Evil by intervals of 30 minutes per day xD

Anyone that can do any better has nerves of steel.

oh. the whole 5 minutes of PT. lol

I just added that game in my Steam wishlist, was really surprised I never heard of this game before since I love Lovecraft's stories!

I think you mean "descent", but yes I agree. However, unlike the later games in the franchise it was an all-around fantastic game. I've probably put 150 hours into it re-beating it across three different platforms. I just got done unlocking the PC HD edition to the same point that I was at with GC and Wii.

@matt2790:Oh yeah, Alone in the Dark. The original was -awesome- and was the first Resident Evil-style game before Resident Evil. AidD 2 was also really good. 3 was a little odd. New Nightmare was pretty good, though. I wasn't as big a fan of the 2008 game. It had some stupid gameplay lengthening mechanics and other balance issues, although it had some pretty cool ideas. The next game looks awful, though.

Here were some more games that I played but that didn't make the cut:

Most of the Clock Tower games. 1 was OK and these started the whole "non-combat" horror game idea, but the later ones all had issues.

Maniac Mansion (fun and quirky but not really scary)

7th Guest and 11th Hour (interesting puzzle games with FMV acting, but the acting is so god awful that it really ruined the experience, even when I was a teenager this was below my standards)

Blue Stinger (Dreamcast launch title but not very good)

Dino Crisis (Decent RE style game but not really scary)

Dino Crisis 2 (fun but more like an action game)

Carrier (another RE clone on Dreamcast. Not terrible but not remarkable either)

Fear Effect 1 and 2 (action game masquerading as horror. It's claim to fame was that it had no health bar, but you had a "fear" bar that went up as you took damage until you were dead. Sounds a lot like a health bar to me...)

The Ring: Terror's Realm (Dreamcast game based on the the storyline of the horror film The Ring. Absolutely terrible)

Extermination (very average horror game for PS2. I think I got stuck on the end boss and lost interest in trying to beat it)

The Thing (based on the John Carpenter version of the film. Cool idea, but badly flawed execution)

Lifeline (really neat idea, but marred by the technology of the time. Survival horror game aboard a cruise ship in space where you have no direct control over the main character, but instead you are guiding her from a control room using your voice. Suffered from poor voice recognition like pretty much all voice technology games)

Siren (horror game in a cursed town that was alright. It was divided into chapters where you played different characters from different parts of the story, so it was kind of like the first "episodic" game even though all the content was already on disc because it was a PS1 game. It had a sequel that was not released in the US so I never played that one because the first one wasn't good enough to warrant going to the effort to import the sequel. Got a re-imagining on PS3 that was a DLC game that was OK)

Kuon (fuedal Japan era Resident Evil. Really fun game but not very scary)

Cold Fear (mediocre survival horror game on a ship. Cool rain and water effects along with a moving environment)

Haunting Ground (neat idea, but not very fun. The main character can't fight but she has a dog that she can command to buy her time while she flees or help her solve puzzles. The dog has a will of its own and has to be trained in the game, which is pretty cool. Unfortunately, the bad guy is pretty omnipresent which makes him go from scary to annoying)

Condemned 1 and 2 (1 was a cool launch game that was creepy and with very visceral hand to hand combat, but the game was more about fighting than horror)

Darkness (cool game but horror is debateable. Great environments and a really cool game, though. Made by the same studio that did Riddick. Pretty cool re-creation of New York, too. The subway sights and sounds made my nostalgic for where I was born)

Manhunt 1 and 2 (just violent, not horror)

Silent Hill Origins (closer to the original SH games but started as a PSP game so it didn't get much attention. Later ported to PS2 but the main character/story weren't as insteresting as other SH games.

Penumbra series (not bad but Amnesia did the same formula better)

Cryostasis (interesting game aboard a frozen ship where not freezing to death is part of the gameplay mechanic)

Outlast (a lot of people like this game but it's too jump-scare heavy to be truly scary, but it's a well done game overall. Good graphics, sounds, atmosphere)

-Byshop

I'm playing The Evil Within and so far it is very good and pretty creepy. Some other scary games that I've played that were good are:

• Dead Space 1, 2, and 3
• F.E.A.R. 2 and 3
• Condemned 1 and 2
• Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Yeah......"P"resident Evil is good.