NecromorphTX
Member
Nanashi no Game?
Wow, i used to think i was the only one who liked that game.
Wow, i used to think i was the only one who liked that game.
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28 developers share their picks for best horror games ever
- Thread starter SolidSnakex
- Start date
FlyingSaucer
Banned
I've completely forgot it existed. My mistake, and thanks for pointing it out :/
I love the two first games, too
encephalon
Member
Are they confusing siren: blood curse with the ps2 original the Japanese devs are likely referring to?
SMOK3Y
Generous Member
totally understandable but a different type of horror lol
nkarafo
Member
It used to scare the shit out of me when i was still learning how to play it properly.
Also, the way Cyberdemon's steps sound as he tries to find you. Gave me nightmares.
ForsakenLotus
Member
I think there are two ways to do this. One is to list the top 5 games that are Horror games. The other is to list the top 5 games that best exemplify the genre. For example: The Last of Us is somewhat a Horror game and I'd say it's better than just about any Horror game ever created from a general sense. But Silent Hill 2 is a better Horror game. To me it's similar to when people discuss the Mass Effect series as an RPG. The first ME game has more RPG mechanics than the other two, but I think ME2 is the overall best game in the series. So does that mean ME2 is a better RPG? It's a grey area.
To me Silent Hill 2 is the best Horror game because I think it's A) still one of the best written games ever, especially for a genre that relies on cliches and cheap scares, and B) is one of the best examples of psychological horror and I think that is much more interesting and difficult to do than jump scares.
I'd probably say my top 5 are:
1. Silent Hill 2
2. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterflies
3. REmake
4. Resident Evil 4
5. Dead Space
Although PT was pretty damn awesome.
To me Silent Hill 2 is the best Horror game because I think it's A) still one of the best written games ever, especially for a genre that relies on cliches and cheap scares, and B) is one of the best examples of psychological horror and I think that is much more interesting and difficult to do than jump scares.
I'd probably say my top 5 are:
1. Silent Hill 2
2. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterflies
3. REmake
4. Resident Evil 4
5. Dead Space
Although PT was pretty damn awesome.
spawnsniper
Member
so there we have it folks, Resident evil got more that 4. I say that's one for the books!
but in reality we know who the real winner is
here is how i would list them
1.Remake
2.Silent hill 2
3.Fatal Frame 2
4.Condemned
5.slenderman
but in reality we know who the real winner is
NAS
here is how i would list them
1.Remake
2.Silent hill 2
3.Fatal Frame 2
4.Condemned
5.slenderman
cj_iwakura
Member
Naughty Dog have great taste. Crimson Butterfly is a gem.
Regulus Tera
Romanes Eunt Domus
CTRL + F: "Clock Tower"
"No resuts"
shaking my fucking head
"No resuts"
shaking my fucking head
Melchiah
Member
I don't think there's any question about whether TLOU is a horror game or not (especially if RE4 is deemed as one), as it obviously belongs to the genre due to its content and atmosphere, eventhough it might not deliver constant scares, or disturb the player as much as something like Silent Hill series does. There are different kinds of horror, much like it's with horror films.
As for my top 5...
1. Silent Hill 2
2. The Last of Us
3. Silent Hill
4. Silent Hill 3
5. Resident Evil 2
ForsakenLotus
Member
Fair point. I feel like because I played Resident Evil when it came out and I still associate the franchise as a Survival/Horror franchise, so I automatically lump Resident Evil 4 in with the others. Comparatively I would have The Last of Us over Resident Evil 4. There is definitely an area of uncertainty with many of the shooter Horror games. The first 1/3 of BioShock felt a lot like a Survival/Horror game, which is why I love the game so much.
For some reason my mind just doesn't want to view TLOU as Survival/Horror and I'm not sure why...
Other than Prototype, all of these games would've been considered as belonging in the horror genre as regards literature or film.
Horror is very broad and does not necessarily mean it's scary or intends to be scary. I don't understand why people are so much stricter on the use of the term in games than in other forms of entertainment.
WhirlwindMonk
Banned
Nailed it. Add on to that that the ghosts are dangerous enough to scare you, but not so much so that a single mistake dooms you (I'm looking at you, Last of Us, one hit kills are annoying, not scary).
Until the other day, I had only ever played the second one, but I started the first a few days ago and am loving it. Best games to play in the dark, at night, while home alone.
In general, I tend to agree with the sentiment that the having things like shotguns or armor piercing rounds or the like tend to severely damage the horror feel. I'm sure it's possible to do good, Fatal Frame level horror with those, but I haven't played anything that has.
Melchiah
Member
Yeah, if Soul Reaver, Shadow of Memories and Heavy Rain were films/books, they'd probably be considered horror, or at least thriller, but it's a bit different with games. Even still, I just can't understand why TLOU couldn't be considered horror. It's like saying Jacob's Ladder and The Nameless aren't horror because they differ from the zombie and slasher flicks.
It's understandable. Clock Tower gets automatic minus points for being an unauthorized video game adaptation of Dario Argento's Phenomena but not including the amazing ending of the movie where
the primary antagonist is killed by an enranged razor-wielding monkey who has come to avenge the murder of Donald Pleasence.
WhirlwindMonk
Banned
I think it goes back to a earlier point someone made. Are we talking about the top five games with horror elements, or the top five games with horror as a central theme. Because games like The Last of Us and System Shock 2 are very well done games with horror elements, but I feel like the moment you have a backpack of find and grenades and knives and so forth, you have chosen action as your central theme, rather than horror.
Games with an action central theme can still be scary, but to me, horror is a more primal thing. It's about things being beyond your understanding and control, and a big boom stick gives that control back to you. A gun is a human invention. It shows that the things you're fighting are "real", controllable beings like you. Things like the camera in Fatal Frame, on the other hand preserve the horror feel, because you don't know where the camera came from, what it really is, or how it makes it possible to destroy ghosts. If it were gone, you couldn't just grab a pistol or a crowbar instead, you'd be dead in two minutes with not a thing you could do. It preserves the enemies as something beyond just another creature that can bleed and die, something beyond your comprehension, and beyond your ability to deal with without some sort of supernatural intervention. That, to me, it what gives something horror as a central theme, rather than just possessing horror elements.
Resident Evil King
Member
Haha, I just watched Phenomena about a month ago and it's probably the weirdest Argento movie I've seen, which is saying a lot... I've got some sort of enjoyment out of all his films that I've seen but sadly none of them have come even remotely near Suspiria for me - I saw Suspiria before any other Argento film and nothing else has really measured up to it, not even Deep Red which I actually struggled to watch all the way through.
Anyway on topic - I liked the ND guys lists best. Not surprised to see Manhunt mentioned, I had replayed it just before TLOU came out last year and the brick/bottle mechanic instantly reminded me of it. Listing it above games like SH2 feels a bit wrong though.
My list would probably be something like this (with the first two SH games swapping back and forth constantly, I can never completely settle on which I like more but right now it's SH2).
1. Silent Hill 2
2. Silent Hill
3. REmake
4. Condemned: Criminal Origins
5. Resident Evil 4
The Last of Us is easily one of the best games I've played but I feel like more than half the game isn't really that "horror" like so I don't really think of it when I think of horror games, even though the overtly horror themed sections are really well done and can be genuinely tense. Same with Bioshock, one of my favourite games but it's kind of borderline horror to me, though then again so is RE4 arguably.
I still need to properly play Fatal Frame 2, the Siren games (played parts of all 3 but not that far into any of them) and a few others that would probably be contenders. I played most of the first Fatal Frame and liked it quite a lot but really don't find it anywhere near as scary as Silent Hill or even something like Condemned. I've only played a bit of the second one and it does seem a little bit scarier so far but still not on the level of a few other horror games to me. I thought maybe it's just ghosts don't really scare me that much, but I actually find the ghosts in Silent Hill 4 very unnerving and creepy, moreso than the ones in the Fatal Frame games...
So anything that has a gothic environment or use mainly dark colors is to be considered horror?
That's beyond stupid in my opinion.
I mean TLoU is Uncharted with mushroom zombies and it has to be considered horror?
revolverjgw
Member
Fuck yes, The Druck loves Manhunt. I hope he fires everybody that doesn't.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
Props to Ted Price for picking Dead Rising 3, but that's not a horror game.
Melchiah
Member
The same thing applies to all the Resident Evil and Silent Hill games as well. When the game progresses you'll eventually have a plenty of arsenal to take care of anything that comes along. So, I don't see how that would only apply to TLOU. Playing all the aforementioned on harder modes naturally changes things, particularly with TLOU. I think there's a fine line between the encounters being intimidating or a shooting range, that you just breeze by. It certainly diminishes the horror, if you don't feel a sense of dread when facing the enemy. In that sense, SH2 could have been better, although the disturbing nature of the enemies compensated their lack of challenge.
Yes. Just ask yourself the question: If this game was a film, would this be out of the place in the horror section of your video rental store? Horror is a theme, not a gameplay genre. You can have horror point-n-click adventure games, horror platformers, horror action games and shooters, survival-horror adventure games, etc. Just like how you have films with realistic or minimal horror, or scifi/horror, or horror comedies, etc.
Look at horror like you would at science-fiction.
Melchiah
Member
By that logic, Fatal Frame is Pokemon Snap with ghosts. It's the theme, content, and atmosphere that define what's horror.
FloweryMarston
Member
lmao
Tidus_Great
Banned
glad to see some love for Siren. but the ps3 remake Siren Blood Curse is superior in every way so people should play that instead of the dated ps2 version imo.
WhirlwindMonk
Banned
Never played RE or SH, so I can't comment on those. But my point wasn't how hard things are too kill, or how many guns you have. My point is that the very possibility of guns and crowbars and the like being solutions to the problem puts a severe damper on it having horror as a central theme, at least for me. Maybe with the right atmosphere, the right portrayal of enemies, and the right types and distribution of enemies and ammo, you could make a true horror central game with guns. I hope you can, and I hope it's been done. But TLOU I just can't consider as being a horror game at it's core. Not when I jab a pair of scissors in one zombie's throat, then do it to another that was nearby but somehow didn't notice my kill or my partner standing in plain view right in front of it, then turn around and blow the head off another with a rifle. Horror elements? Absolutely. Horror at its core? Nah, it's just can't awaken that more primal fear in me. Plus, instant kill effects suck. Clickers are more annoying than scary.
My list would be
1 Silent Hill 3
2 Endless Ocean: Blue World
3 Clock Tower
4 The Typing of the Dead
5 999
I think that SH3 is the best SH game and that 2 is overrated. I can understand why people rank it highly, but I wonder if they have played it recently.
Endless Ocean is a horror game. Especially the level called The Abyss.
1 Silent Hill 3
2 Endless Ocean: Blue World
3 Clock Tower
4 The Typing of the Dead
5 999
I think that SH3 is the best SH game and that 2 is overrated. I can understand why people rank it highly, but I wonder if they have played it recently.
Endless Ocean is a horror game. Especially the level called The Abyss.
ForsakenLotus
Member
So you're telling me you haven't played The Last of Us then?
People have such a weird expectation of horror games. It's like people who insist horror films aren't good unless they're scary. Plenty of movies like Creepshow, Romero's Dawn of the Dead, and countless slashers aren't even remotely scary anymore but people wouldn't bat an eyelash if they showed up on a "best horror" list. There's more to horror than just being scared and it's always been that way across mediums.
Melchiah
Member
Well, I found Outlast's run & hide gameplay mechanic, and the repetition it lead to, frustrating, but it definitely doesn't mean it would be any less of a horror game. It could also be said, that if you can just run and hide from the enemies, or capture them with your camera in Fatal Frame's case, there's no real horror either. It's not defined by the gameplay mechanics alone, or the player's preference regarding them.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
Seriously. So many cool weird ideas in there (one of the playable characters is blind for goodness sake) and it's much less frustrating than the first game. Big tech improvement as well considering it's on the same system - the graphics are better and the stages are much bigger. Also has more variety than most horror games since in one stage, you might be playing a helpless little kid and in other stage, you're playing a military guy with a semi-automatic.
Nah. I like Blood Curse and it's a good game, but the original is better IMO - more interesting story & much, much longer (really felt like with Blood Curse, they had a much smaller budget). On the plus side, Blood Curse is by far the easiest & most accessible game in the series, and it has the best graphics so it's a good entry point for new players. And for veterans, it's fun to see how they changed things around.
Main downside to the original Siren is that it's quite possibly the hardest horror game of all time. Anyone who manages to beat it without using a FAQ at least once has my sincere respect.
Maybe to diehard horror fans, but to most people, RE4 is plenty terrifying. That village scene in the beginning still gets me.
bob_arctor
Tough_Smooth
Fatal Frame 2 still scares the crap out of me. I just started a replay late last night to kick off month long Halloween vibes, and even knowing the game so well does nothing to ease the unsettling atmosphere. It is #1 on my list for sure.
JigglesBunny
Banned
Randy Pitchford
Gearbox Software President and CEO
Best Known For: Borderlands, Battleborn
1. Doom
2. BioShock
3. Resident Evil 4
4. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
5. Splatterhouse (1988)
Gearbox Software President and CEO
Best Known For: Borderlands, Battleborn
1. Doom
2. BioShock
3. Resident Evil 4
4. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
5. Splatterhouse (1988)
6. Aliens: Colonial Marines