Support NeoGAF

[therapist]

Remake / Re2.
Silent hill 1/2/3
Siren Blood Curse - quite good imo
Amnesia
Fatal Frame games , aside from part 1 which isn't that great.
Dead Space 1/2

I may be missing a few...but they've mostly turned into action games.

Amnesia and silent hill's are the only actual scary games imo , without the pop out bullshit "scare factor" most horror movies have now a days.
Also fatal frame 2 is pretty gd creepy at parts...great game.

 

[Atomski]

Amnesia for sure...

Also I hardly felt like RE4 was a survivor horror. Its pretty much when the series went more action over scares.

 

[plagiarize]

Quite honestly it's the scariest game ever made. Nothing out there even comes close.

there is no such thing. fear is too subjective. it's the scariest game ever if you're afraid of the dark and not being able to look at your attackers.

but, it didn't remotely scare me because there was practically no penalty for death. when a horrible looking monster catches you it just knocks you out, drag you to a nearby room and then leaves the area so you don't have to try and get past them a second time.

for me that completely diffuses any fear or tension the game might have had.

RE2 is probably the least 'survival horror' of the classic REs too. i love it, but its much more actiony than any of the others (well, any of the othered numbered games. CVX is about the same) and it's much more generous with weapons, ammo and health items.

 

[Parakeetman]

Clock Tower series was pretty crazy too. 1 & 2 were on the PS1. 3 is on the PS2.

Rule of Rose

Haunting Ground

 

[quartet4]

Condemned: Criminal Origins & Silent Hill 2

 

[Ebris]

Amnesia. There's definitely some AWESOME classic horror games like Silent Hill 2, Fatal Frame 2, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth and so on, but Amnesia...

Your pants will never be the same.

 

[Ebris]

there is no such thing. fear is too subjective. it's the scariest game ever if you're afraid of the dark and not being able to look at your attackers.

but, it didn't remotely scare me because there was practically no penalty for death. when a horrible looking monster catches you it just knocks you out, drag you to a nearby room and then leaves the area so you don't have to try and get past them a second time.

for me that completely diffuses any fear or tension the game might have had.

What?

That was a single scene, towards the end of the game, to advance the plot. Every other time they tore you to shreds. The death penalty is no less different than ANY horror game out there. Lol, did you play Amnesia or just watch part of a Let's Play, because anyone who actually played it would know this.

Edit: Boogy brings up a good point. I can definitely see tension in typical survivor horror games due to lack of items/resources, but beyond that, death is still the same in Amnesia and every other game. Getting killed over and over by Pyramid Head or one of the abominations in Amnesia will still have the same numbing effect after a while.

 

[olimpia84]

REmake is the best survival horror game ever made. Still looks good today too.

 

[Sorcerer]

D and Enemy Zero on the Saturn.

D2 on the Dreamcast.

Please Kenji Eno, bring back Laura Parton.

 

[Jay Sosa]

RE 4 isn't a survival horror game

 

[anotherVegan]

Eternal Darkness on the Gamecube.

Spoiler

May the rats eat your eyes!

 

[artorias the abysswalker]

REmake

love it to pieces.

 

[PsihoPerihelion]

REmake for Gamecube is still the best.

Also, was RE4 really Survival Horror game? I've played that game for probably 200 hours on many different consoles and I can't consider it as one.

 

[Dascu]

What?

That was a single scene, towards the end of the game, to advance the plot. Every other time they tore you to shreds. The death penalty is no less different than ANY horror game out there. Lol, did you play Amnesia or just watch part of a Let's Play, because anyone who actually played it would know this.

No, his point is correct. The penalty for dying in Amnesia is very very low, at least compared to most other horror games where you lose all your progress since the last save point.

That said, I still thought it was a very frightening game. The low penalty was a conscious decision: Otherwise you're too worried about save points and whatnot instead of getting immersed into the game.

 

[Famassu]

REmake >>>>> RE4, as far as survival horror goes.

 

[KageMaru]

I still consider REmake one of the best survival horror games to date. Never has a game remake been done so well IMO.

I'd also throw up Silent Hill 2 as well, that is another forever classic IMO.

Most will say RE4 is survival-action not survival-horror.

Yup, RE hasn't been a horror game since RE4. Can't think of anything in that game that genuinely creeped me out.

 

[bigace33]

Yes it does, Silent Hill (earlier titles) and RE2. If you haven't played RE2, go play it.

The only thing horrible about RE2 is the awful, awful tank controls. I loved the premise, but I could never get around those janky RE controls.RE4 improved a lot about the controls, but it is still super overrated in my honest opinion. I prefer the Dead Space games. I can't even force myself to play through amnesia. I quit before my first monster encounter every time. That game genuinely scares me.

 

[panda21]

Siren original PS2 version, or Amensia dark descent

 

[Sinatar]

System Shock 2 is the absolute best. Amnesia the Dark Descent is a close second.

 

[plagiarize]

What?

That was a single scene, towards the end of the game, to advance the plot. Every other time they tore you to shreds. The death penalty is no less different than ANY horror game out there. Lol, did you play Amnesia or just watch part of a Let's Play, because anyone who actually played it would know this.

Edit: Boogy brings up a good point. I can definitely see tension in typical survivor horror games due to lack of items/resources, but beyond that, death is still the same in Amnesia and every other game. Getting killed over and over by Pyramid Head or one of the abominations in Amnesia will still have the same numbing effect after a while.

death is not the same in Amnesia. there is no loss of progress. anything you had collected and achieved in the game will remain collected and achieved even if it was only done a split second before death. occasionally the 'nearest' safe room you wake back up in will be closer to your objective than you were when you died... and then removing the enemy that caught you from the game is a huge difference.

when pyramid head kills you, you go back to your nearest save. any enemies you killed, or puzzles you solved will have to be repeated, and when you reach pyramid head, you still have to beat pyramid head.

he hasn't just left.

Even ignoring that, though, I'm not sure why player penalty = horror in people's minds. Amnesia puts you in a deeply fucked up world that is just drenched in morbidity. That's what's horror about it. Not your heart racing because you might get killed. I can get that in a game of Arma 2 and nobody's calling that horror.

horror is subjective. it's what scares me. different things scare me to you. i don't get scared when there isn't a penalty. i can't make myself get scared of that. it just doesn't happen for me.

trust me, i wish amnesia scared the crap out of me, because i love having the crap scared out of me. i'm not nitpicking it to say it doesn't scare me... i'm just explaining why it doesn't scare ME, and trying to point out that what we consider scary is very subjective. probably more subjective than what constitutes good graphics or good gameplay.

I had no complaints at all about Justine, the add on for Amnesia. that scared the crap out of me.

 

[Ebris]

@ Boogy: 100% agreed, man. The sheer DREAD of that game just got me. And it wasn't just the monsters, but the story later on...dear God.

@ Dascu: Sorry if I didn't clarify, my main point was that the monsters didn't drag you into a cell every time. That happened one time in the game. The numbing thing is something that can happen, but it can happen with other games too - I got completely numb with the Necromorphs from Dead Space 1 because I kept dying and was all "okay". Limited resources is definitely a penalty, though, so I agree there. I personally think Amnesia is just fine without them, though, but they do work great for traditional horror games.

 

[BeEatNU]

Honestly this is the first time I'm hearing of Amnesia. That good, eh?

yeah, its pretty scary.

Silent Hill 2 is pretty good also, but you already know that

 

[Westraid]

Silent Hill 2 and Amnesia for me, but the scariest part in any game was the Shalebridge Cradle in Thief: Deadly Shadows; I've never been so afraid while playing a videogame.

My friend who lives nextdoor has been playing Slender lately. By the terrified screams I hear in the dead of night, that game is pretty scary, too.

 

[zroid]

Pac-Man

 

[Teknoman]

Fatal Frame 2 might take the prize. If a game can scare you even if you leave the controller alone as soon as you start the game, it's scary.

 

[patapuf]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl, especially moded, can be quite scary in the night. Much like the DAY Z mod for ArmA it focuses on survival in the wild which can be just as scary as the more confined experience in the classic japanese horror games.

 

[ekim]

No love for SHownpour? Shame on you gaf !

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

I'd say with the village segments, Resident Evil 4 is a horror game. The chainsaw guys, the switch from day to night, the zombie dogs, the bosses, the surprise bear traps, the last stand in the cabin - they're obviously trying to scare you. It becomes less and less a horror game as you go on though (by the time you've reached the island, it's almost entirely blockbuster shooter game).

Anyway, to go with my earlier claim about Siren 2 being the best horror game ever, one of the big advantages that series has over most series is that you play as so many different characters that you never know who is going to survive and who isn't. It's especially neat later on when you run into a shibito that used to be a playable character.

 

[Ebris]

@ Sinatar: Oh man, forgot about SS2. That one is definitely terrifying, though I need to play more of it. Played only a bit of it when it came out but was too scared, haha.

@ Plagiarize: Yeah, I addressed that in one of my earlier points. I guess you were just being hyperbolic in regards to the monster just dragging the player back to their save point with everything - I thought you were referring to a specific point later on. No, I agree, the game would have been a LOT more hard and unnerving if you lost actual progress if you died. I still found it pants-shittingly horrifying, but there is no PERFECT horror game out there - every one of them has room for improvement in some small area, even the best ones.

 

[patapuf]

I only played a bit of SS2 on a netcafe PC back when it came out, never since. I really really wish a proper GOG version that runs easily on modern machines would come out. I never got to really spend time with it.

Anybody know if the graphics patches are worth it or are they not tastefully done? I might just get it running with fan mods, since it seems like there's no word on getting a DD version of it anytime soon.

some kind of law firm owns the rights to SS2 so it's unlikely that it will come out anytime soon.

there are various texture mods for the game that are well done, it's down to taste which is the best.

 

[Field]

Resident Evil Remake.

 

[plagiarize]

@ Plagiarize: Yeah, I addressed that in one of my earlier points. I guess you were just being hyperbolic in regards to the monster just dragging the player back to their save point with everything - I thought you were referring to a specific point later on. No, I agree, the game would have been a LOT more hard and unnerving if you lost actual progress if you died. I still found it pants-shittingly horrifying, but there is no PERFECT horror game out there - every one of them has room for improvement in some small area, even the best ones.

i was yes. that's essentially what happens, even if it isn't implicitly what happens. i know the monster has supposedly killed you, but the effect of that death is if they'd just knocked you unconcious and put you in a nearby room.

like i say, Justine scared me, and that was essentially the same exact gameplay with a kick in the balls penalty for dying.

That's totally fair. You can definitely prefer horror games with consequences. I'm just pointing out that the genre can be horror without death penalties, or even death happening at all. And it can still be scary. In film terms, it's like the different between jumps scare movies and atmospheric mindfucks like Suspiria. They're both horror and both very scary.

And yeah if that adrenaline rush of protecting yourself is what you like, looking into non-horror games will probably get you more games like that. Arma 2/DayZ, anything in or inspired by the roguelike genre, anything with a permadeath option, etc.

i never said Amnesia wasn't horror. i would argue against it being survival horror if i was feeling really nitpicky, but today is not that day. but see, for me, once i realise a game has no penalty for death it completely short circuits the tension. i was scared playing Amnesia and Bioshock up to the point i died for the first time... but from that point on neither of them scared me again. i know lots of people found Amnesia scary, but i don't think there's anything which is scary to everyone. i just think trying to pick a 'scariest game ever' is even harder than picking a 'best looking game ever' or 'most fun gameplay ever'. that's all i was trying to get at.

 

[Sorcerer]

The only thing horrible about RE2 is the awful, awful tank controls. I loved the premise, but I could never get around those janky RE controls.RE4 improved a lot about the controls, but it is still super overrated in my honest opinion. I prefer the Dead Space games. I can't even force myself to play through amnesia. I quit before my first monster encounter every time. That game genuinely scares me.

No one likes the RE2 controls, but I loved and played the game so much they felt like second nature to me.

On speed runs, I would just zoom by zombies I could not be bothered to fight.

I played the first Resident Evil afterwards, and the mastering of the controls in 2 carried over.

 

[Sinatar]

Anybody know if the graphics patches are worth it or are they not tastefully done? I might just get it running with fan mods, since it seems like there's no word on getting a DD version of it anytime soon.

It's a bit of a mixed bag, some things look better, some don't.

 

[boiled goose]

Re4 and dead space are action games with horror elements.

 

[Galactic Fork]

I'm glad somebody else mentioned Rule of Rose. Had a great atmosphere.

Siren's mission structure ruined any sense of atmoshere for me. Nothing kills the mood like a big red MISSION ACCOMPLISHED every time you do something.

For me the best is Fatal Frame 2.

Oh and survival horror isn't all horror games. If your character has special ops training and a working knowledge of all weaponry, it's not survival horror. Action horror is about killing enemies, survival horror is more about surviving. That's why I'd put deadspace more in action, because the focus is getting all these cool "tools" to slice and dice monsters.

I wish I could play Amnesia, but I doubt my PC could handle it.

 

[Ebris]

I'm too afraid to play Justine, haha. NOT MANREH ENOUGH YET. Heard there were some really scary mods for it, too.

I need to try out Siren 2, though - the fact that there's multiple protagonists and they can die really intrigues me. Also gotta try Slender because that just sounds scary as hell too.

 

[Grisby]

Eh, RE4 really isn't survival horror to me, way more of an action game.

 

[DyTonic]

Eternal Darkness

 

[EloquentM]

Add RE1, RE2, and RE3 to the left side. In fact, I would label RE4 as a survival action game instead of a survival horror game. It does have a lot of gory death scenes but that's the only "scary" thing going for it.

what? no!

 

[Dascu]

when pyramid head kills you, you go back to your nearest save. any enemies you killed, or puzzles you solved will have to be repeated, and when you reach pyramid head, you still have to beat pyramid head.

My problem with this is that you have to repeat it. Enemies didn't change, room layout didn't change, everything is exactly the same. Not only is it not fun or enjoyable to repeat the exact same puzzle or fight the exact same enemy (with those horrid controls), it also diminishes any fear you have on the second way through since it's all very predictable, "been there, done that".

It's like watching a horror film, and suddenly one section is stuck on repeat. It loses its scare real fast.

Not to say that player death can't or shouldn't have ramifications on the player's progression, but when this leads to repetition, it becomes a bore.

No love for SHownpour? Shame on you gaf !

It's not the best of anything.

 

[Nibel]

For me, nothing on earth can compare to the perfection that is RE4.

But: I understand that many people define survival horror as slow, atmospheric and limited gameplay (not many items, ammo etc.). I think REmake was fantastic and it really felt like a survival game.

I still haven't played Amnesia; got it in my library already. And I think it will be a really good experience based on posts I read here on GAF.

 

[EloquentM]

Re4 and dead space are action games with horror elements.

why not just call them horror games with action elements?

see, I can argue semantics too. the argument was never about which games where scarier than the other, it was about whether these types of games can be considered horror or not. at the simplest metric, if the game includes a tense and foreboding atmosphere it should qualify as a horror game. the majority of resi 4 and deadspace contains that.

 

[Dascu]

Cool that Siren 2 works that way, I didn't know that. Sounds like a throwback to Sweet Home, which is amazing. I'd love to have a straight up modern version of that.

All of the Siren games work like that. It's got a very cool and original episodic structure to it.

why not just call them horror games with action elements?

see, I can argue semantics too. the argument was never about which games where scarier than the other, it was about whether these types of games can be considered horror or not. if the game includes a tense and foreboding atmosphere it should qualify as a horror game. the majority of resi 4 and deadspace contains that.

My view:
- Horror denotes the genre in the sense of atmosphere, visual style, story, etc. If it has ghosts or monsters and it tries to scare you, then it's horror.
- Action and survival denote the game play style. Same goes for a horror RPG or horror Adventure. Are there any horror Puzzle games? Maybe Catherine I guess.

 

[AkuMifune]

REmake is the best, though you can't go wrong with any SH (yes, Downpour is good GAF!), Siren or maybe Dead Space, though that's more survival action like RE4 is. Also...Condemned, the first. Avoid the second.

Amnesia is good, though maybe more horror survival than survival horror.

 

[Flek]

Siren Blood Curse

hell yeha!

 

[Canis lupus]

Siren Blood curse.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

Regardless of whether or not you agree with me on Siren 2 being the best, I think it has by far the most gameplay variety of any horror game including...

Stages where you play as a defenseless child.
Stages where you play as a heavily armed soldier.
Stages where you play as a blind man and have to sightjack your dog & enemies to make your way through the area.
Stages where you play as someone who can control enemies for a short period of time.
Stages where you can use vehicles to solve puzzles and run over enemies.
Stages where you have an ally who will actually pick up weapons and help you out.

And so on.

 

[EloquentM]

REmake for Gamecube is still the best.

Also, was RE4 really Survival Horror game? I've played that game for probably 200 hours on many different consoles and I can't consider it as one.

did you ever stop to think that it's maybe not scary to you because you've played it for 200 hours? lol, I've played amnesia multiple times so it must not be survival horror.

 

[AkuMifune]

why not just call them horror games with action elements?

see, I can argue semantics too. the argument was never about which games where scarier than the other, it was about whether these types of games can be considered horror or not. at the simplest metric, if the game includes a tense and foreboding atmosphere it should qualify as a horror game. the majority of resi 4 and deadspace contains that.

Not when there's enough camp to fill yellowstone. Kinda invalidates the horror. Anything RE4 does to be included as survival horror is ruined by salazar.