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GAF, what is the scariest game you've ever played?

I haven't played too many horror games, but I didn't think any game could really scare me until P.T. The atmosphere in that game is extremely oppressive; I couldn't finish it (partly due to being stuck, but I have no desire to return to that place to see it through).
 
GoldenSun
I get jumpscares from random encounters
(Disclaimer: Pokemon is not REALLY random as it's obvious where the encounters can happen)
 
I would be Silent Hill 1 where you reach the school at night dat thing really scarry me to be alones with those little fellas chasing me or exploring the whole school.

Fatal Frame IV it was my first and the slow hand pick up really get into my nerves to be scared.
 
nkarafo said:
Guys you need to define what's scary. Is it the atmosphere, the gore, the disturbing content or is it the jump scares?

Jump scares are cheap, its not about fear, its about surprise. They startle you, they don't really scare you. Any game can have a cheap jump scare here and there, its not hard to do, in fact, it may be the easiest thing to do.
Click to expand...

While they are easy to do, and can be cheap, I would argue that not all games employ jump scares in a simple or ineffective way. RE2 for example has probably the best jump scares of any game I've played, because they are almost all cleverly set up, and are used to turn your expectations against you and help build the atmosphere by making the police station seem like a physically menacing place.

The arms bursting out of the boarded up windows for example only occur AFTER you have passed through there. This introduces the concept that even after you have cleared a path of enemies, it doesn't mean your safe. This feeling of dread then persists through every location afterwards because you never know when something in the environment might change, or arms might come through the claustrophobic corridor you are walking through.

Even many seminal horror films employ a couple jump scares. They are only bad if they are used wantonly and at the expense of other methods of fear, and if they only consist of something random jumping out with a loud noise accompanying it. There has to be a method behind their employment, and they are a perfectly viable method of creating unease and a little adrenaline in the viewer/player.
 
I dunno, I'd definitely recommend PT to everyone just as a a singular experience, but it really does trip up on itself thru its intentional obfuscation of gameplay elements. What initially starts out as feeling unnerving quickly becomes a total chore when you're just mindlessly walking about trying to trigger... Well... Anything
 
System Shock 2. At times I would freeze in place cause of the scary noises from round the corner. Any game that can make monkeys and robots scary gets a thumb up.
 
Doom 3. but then i was around 12 years old when it came out for xbox.

and yo, PT isnt scary. fucking nothing happens and you cant even beat the thing unless someone tells you how or if you youtube it.
 
Silent Hill 2 just everything about it gives me the shivers. Then again im not really the type to play very many horror games.

Silent Hills cant come soon enough. My diapers are ready!

Oh yeah, I redownloaded PT but cant even bring myself to finish it. Just nope.
 
P.T.

I reflexively threw my controller (luckily not at the screen, and nothing broke) and ran out of the room in the very end

Was scared shitless throughout

Came back and deleted that shit and never want to see it again
 
The best or worst part of P.T. was
the damn radio that tells you to look behind you and when you turn around boom!

I normally don't get scared easily but this part got me pretty good.
 
TheBigG753 said:
I really need to play PT at some point. For now, I'll say Alien Isolation.
Click to expand...
Same answer.

Alien Isolation, played alone at night with some good headphones on, is terrifying. A game like Amnesia is also terrifying, but if you die, you basically know what to expect when you retry. And in some cases, the monster encounter may even be done with. When you die in Alien Isolation, you can learn something, but the enemy is still on the loose and you are not safe from it and you don't know what will happen when you progress forward. While this can be frustrating, this more random nature does stop any 'ok well I've got it figured out now' mentality that can cool your nerves.
 
nkarafo said:
Guys you need to define what's scary. Is it the atmosphere, the gore, the disturbing content or is it the jump scares?

Jump scares are cheap, its not about fear, its about surprise. They startle you, they don't really scare you. Any game can have a cheap jump scare here and there, its not hard to do, in fact, it may be the easiest thing to do.
Click to expand...
In order to make jump scares work as well as they do in P.T. though, you really have to nail down how stressful the moments before it are. Not only is it visually disturbing, but as many have already said, the sound design is insanely creepy.
 
Duke Nukem 3D, not a scary game by any chance, but I was 8 and after the enemies changed to different things than those pigs and swine mutations, it got quite eh.. unsettling for me.

I never really been scared of games that are supposed to be scary though.
 
Dynamite Ringo Matsuri said:
I dunno, I'd definitely recommend PT to everyone just as a a singular experience, but it really does trip up on itself thru its intentional obfuscation of gameplay elements. What initially starts out as feeling unnerving quickly becomes a total chore when you're just mindlessly walking about trying to trigger... Well... Anything
Click to expand...

To be fair, that was part of the marketing. I think Kojima was hoping it'd take weeks for someone to get to the reveal at the end so it was intentionally obfuscated.
 
Silent Hill 2, easily.

I can't think of another game in my life where I couldn't play more than 30 minutes at a time. And it still holds up amazingly,
at least not the HD collection

Edit: never played PT. Don't own a PS4
 
Dead Space 1.

The atmosphere and overall sense of hopelessness and dread are second to none. Claustrophobic nightmare at times. As much as I enjoyed DS2, most of the suffocating tension was lost in the more open level design and big "epic" setpieces. I'd be all over a remaster.
 
Kinsei said:
There are a couple moments tht aren't just jump scares, but yeah, it's not very good IMO.
Click to expand...

Tempesta di Fuoco said:
P.T. is scary, but people really are overrating how scary it is. Once you realize that there is literally no way to die or fail, it takes away a lot of the terror and suspense. Plus, 99% of the scares in the game are lame BOO moments.
Click to expand...

nkarafo said:
So its just cheap jump scares... that's what horror games should NOT be about.
Click to expand...

P.T. is not about jump scares. Not even close. I can't believe anyone who played it would make that statement.
 
BruceLeeRoy said:
Nothing absolutely nothing tops this and I have played them all.


KrhdC3a.jpg
Click to expand...

FUCK this shit, man and here I thought I would never get chills like that from a videogame.
 
Probably the first Amnesia. Outlast I thought was scary for a while. Resident Evil and Clock Tower both scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.
 
Clock Tower - the [lack of] control you had over your character meant, basically, if you were seen you were murdered. The game oozed tension. Scissorman was coming for you and there wasn't all that much you could do to stop him.
 
Amnesia has absolutely one brilliant sequence
shut the door and the creature is still behind you
but overall I got accustomed to its tricks and I was able to maintain a pretty cool head.

P.T. made me a nervous wreck and I played it with my brother and it still didn't ease the terror.

terrisus said:
Free*

*Just buy this $400 system first
Click to expand...

Ha true.
 
Scary/disturbing - Silent Hill 1. The double nurse legs 'thing' still disturbs even now.
Anxiety inducing/sustained tension - Alien: Isolation

Whilst I've enjoyed Residents 1-3, I didn't find them particularly scary. Probably due to playing all 3 after SH1. The Evil Within, not played, looks to having grotesque creations onscreen rather than inducing them in the imagination.

Will have to track down Amnesia as it was mentioned favourably several times in the Alien: Isolation thread.
 
ViolentP said:
99% boo scares? There are only 3 of them. The fear in the game is derived from the realistic aesthetic, audio, and disturbing imagery. Jump scares are a tiny fraction of this game.



99% boo scares is HIGHLY inaccurate.
Click to expand...

Yep. Everything just feels fucked up and wrong in P.T., even when nothing is happening. Incredibly oppressing atmosphere.
 
Back in the days it was Doom 3 but now I think it's Alien Isolation without doubt.

I still remember the moment I met the xenomorph in the vents, I did not even know he was programmed/animated to crawl through vents ( I thought the bent is a safe heaven ) scared the s*** out of me
 
I started Alien: Isolation last night.

The part after Axel gets killed by the alien and your waiting on that transfer train for what feels like 5 mins all while the alien is making noise in the vents is terrifying.
 
Fancy Clown said:
While they are easy to do, and can be cheap, I would argue that not all games employ jump scares in a simple or ineffective way. RE2 for example has probably the best jump scares of any game I've played, because they are almost all cleverly set up, and are used to turn your expectations against you and help build the atmosphere by making the police station seem like a physically menacing place.

The arms bursting out of the boarded up windows for example only occur AFTER you have passed through there. This introduces the concept that even after you have cleared a path of enemies, it doesn't mean your safe. This feeling of dread then persists through every location afterwards because you never know when something in the environment might change, or arms might come through the claustrophobic corridor you are walking through.

Even many seminal horror films employ a couple jump scares. They are only bad if they are used wantonly and at the expense of other methods of fear, and if they only consist of something random jumping out with a loud noise accompanying it. There has to be a method behind their employment, and they are a perfectly viable method of creating unease and a little adrenaline in the viewer/player.
Click to expand...
You are not wrong, i'm just fed up by this "method". Very few are doing it right if you ask me. I feel that most are cheap. Your RE2 example is good, but personally i found RE1 to be scarier only because of it's setting (the eery mansion). But even RE1 had this infamous dogs smashing through the window moment.

I don't know, i just prefer when a game or movie makes me feel uncomfortable with it's setting and atmosphere. Silent Hill 2 did a great job in this. I was holding my pad tight through most of the game. This is much more satisfying for me when i want my horror fix and it stays longer after you stop playing. A jump scare only affects you for 1 second and then it fades away.

The only good thing about jump scares could be the "wait for it" moments, you know, when you expect a jump scare any time soon but it never comes early enough. But still, i feel its more of an annoyance than real tension. You just want the jump scare to occur so you are done with it and relax for a few minutes.
 
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