There's a lot of criticism about horror in games, yet has there been a standout moment in your gaming experience that actually you though, "Wow, that was actually terrifying," Not an odd jump that you might get from Resident Evil or a slight shock?

How about your thoughts on improving horror in games and what developers can actaully do to intensify the experience and leave you horrified yet loving it?

(I searched to see if this topic has been done before, no results)

:)

Only things I can think of are terribly inhuman things, racism, etc. that would leave most people stunned, except incorporate them for an entire game.

That's a good point, actually focusing on more social side of horror and public fears would create something fresh for the genre, but like you say not actually using it throughout the game as a parade for racism!

Fightgarr:
The horror elements should be integrated rather than added as an afterthought.

Exactly

The horror element should also be present during combat, or interaction. For instance, in Dead Space, usually a player's instinct is to fight. For a true horror game, the player's instinct should be to run away rather than fight, and not have the reason of flight lack of ammunition or low health.

well to be honest, its my oppinion that developers need to stick with what is always known to scare potential players. the classic 'dark scary cave with unknown sounds' theme always seemed to work well, but then again i suppose repeating that constantly throughout ANY franchise will pretty much kill its 'thunder'

To be truly scary, games must do one or both of the following:1)Make a player feel invested in the main character and/or 2)Break the fourth wall.

Project Zero 2 ('Fatal Frame' outside Europe I think)

I'm a big fan of horror games, and have high 'scary' tolerances, but that is the scariest thing I've ever touched. The mere thought of it is making me look over my shoulder in fear...

It is very much like a Japanese horrer movie (Ring etc), and has ghosts rather than your standard zombie / Demon / mutated whatever enemy, with a frightened, unarmed girl as your character rather than a beefy soldier.

One early scene, maybe five minutes in, sees you (the main character) enter a darkened village with your sister, and, frightened, you hold her hand for comfort.
Then she walks past you.
You're still holding the hand.
Oh fuck.

It pulls gently from your grip, and when you turn round, nothing is there... and I wet myself.

See also, Silent Hill 2.

I thought Silent Hill 2 incorporated horror very well into the gameplay experience. Perhaps not so much on a visceral level, though sighting pyramid head would always cause a panic, but on a more psychological level. I have never felt so tense playing a game as I did with that, and there are few games before or since that have provoked as much thinking in terms of the game world as this one.

Perhaps not straight horror, but certainly psychologically brain scrambling was Killer7. That dealt with some very very difficult social issues in a way that was often designed to horrify/sicken the player. The statement more than made up for the mediocre game in my eyes, and I defy anyone to not be in the least bit horrified when...

Both games are superb in their use of atmosphere within their particular game world to demonstrate both psychological or visceral horror, even if they do not always necessarily match up to the stereotype of what is meant to be scary.

In S.T.A.L.K.E.R the overbearing sense of being alone really got to me at times.
Especially when the nasty things who lurk in your basement were about :(

Hellion25:
I thought Silent Hill 2 incorporated horror very well into the gameplay experience. Perhaps not so much on a visceral level, though sighting pyramid head would always cause a panic, but on a more psychological level. I have never felt so tense playing a game as I did with that, and there are few games before or since that have provoked as much thinking in terms of the game world as this one.

There was one room in the Apartment block that, despite having no enemies, would always have me sprint through it in a panic simply due to the 'music' (for lack of a better word) in the room...
That's how you do scary.

The psychological element is brilliant (in certain horrors) at tension building, are they watching you, where are they? etc. it's all about messing with your head

Well, I did reply to a thread like this earlier but it was named funny so I can see how you missed it.

Anyway, I always thought horror games were never scary, ever, unless my immediate surroundings were scary, i.e. a dark room with creaky floorboards and a storm outside.

Don't really see how they could make it much better...

Virtual reality anyone? =p

orannis62:
To be truly scary, games must do one or both of the following:1)Make a player feel invested in the main character and/or 2)Break the fourth wall.

I can fully understand. Examples:
1.James sunderland-silent hill 2
2.Eternal darkness

And why don't more games break the fourth freakin' wall these days?

The real challenge with putting Horror in games, well, putting Horror in ANY storyline that follows one main character, is that you will never feel the true fear that they could die at any moment and the story would not be over. If you die in a "horror" game you understand that you can restart from a save point and attempt to overcome the challenge where you died previously.

The difficulty is tapping into people's fears, things that terrify, is almost as individualistic as fingerprints. There are books devoted to all the phobias that people have: agoraphobia, arachnophobia, claustrophobia, coulrophobia, hydrophobia, and so on. You can't make a story that will truly terrify everyone because different things scare different people.

The best storywriters have come up with is to focus on things that are inherently unnatural, and that really only is unsettling or creepy instead of being genuinely scary. Then they amp up the thrills by having things jump-scare you, which has been overdone so much that it's almost cliche.

There are only a few things that are almost universally scary; the dark/unknown, and things that could/want to kill you.

There's only so much you can do with that.

Goldeneye103X2:

orannis62:
To be truly scary, games must do one or both of the following:1)Make a player feel invested in the main character and/or 2)Break the fourth wall.

I can fully understand. Examples:
1.James sunderland-silent hill 2
2.Eternal darkness

And why don't more games break the fourth freakin' wall these days?

I completly forgot the awesomeness of Eternal Darkness. That one messed with your head on so many levels. One second you character might randomly explode only to reappear as if nothing is wrong, then later on the game might tell you that your memory card data was corrupted. The game didn't just break the fourth wall, it positivly bulldozed it, to very good effect.

fullmetalangel:
Well, I did reply to a thread like this earlier but it was named funny so I can see how you missed it.

Anyway, I always thought horror games were never scary, ever, unless my immediate surroundings were scary, i.e. a dark room with creaky floorboards and a storm outside.

Don't really see how they could make it much better...

Virtual reality anyone? =p

Ha, I did a pretty good search ah well...

Although it was kinda designed to be horrorish, Halo when you first ran through it in the swamp with the false friendly friend or foe tags at the begining and the shapes in the green mist then in the library. You could feel you were alone. There was no background music, the first time you ran through it you wondered where the flood would come from and there was always the Master Cheif's breath just there. Listening to just a guy breathing while waiting on the next wave of enemies to launch themselves at you with thier heads bent at the wrong angle and thier limbs faling off is rather freaky especially when the enemies can run right up to you and die about 6 inches from your face after failing to smash your face in. If they'd done it perfectly right Halo could of been actualy really scary.

Take those elements then add enemies who actually look like thier rotting away and some truely creepy enviroments. You'd have quite a freaky night running the game the first time in the dark at 1am, high on caffine, jumping at the noises that naturally happen in your house.

To me a good horror game keeps you on the edge of your seat, pulse pounding throughout most of the game. I've only experienced this twice:

-the first Silent Hill for PS1 (of course this one could partly be because of my age at the time)
-an old PC game titled The 7th Guest (this one could still freak me out...if I still had it)

I see where you're coming from however there isn't much grounds for a decent argument there, most action games with the odd "scary" bit could be described as "Almost" scary games with some more stuff thrown in.

The Silent Hill games have been the only ones to make me scared, as opposed to just making me jump. Like in Resident Evil 2 with that guy constantly smashing through the walls. That made me shit myself, but after I'd cleaned up and changed my underwear, the fright was gone.

That room in the hospital in Silent Hill 4 with a huge version of Eileen's head in it with messed up eyes made me feel physically sick, frightened and I was reluctant to carry on. THAT'S true horror. Anyone can do cheap scares.

eternal darkness didn't scare me at all, aside from the momentary shock from either a sanity effect or the bathtub scene. mostly because you can kill almost anything by jogging behind it and wailing on it with a sword.

what DID scare me was parasite eve, when you get to the hospital basement and the power goes out.

also: drainpipes in Ravenholm.

I hated every minute of Silent Hill 2 and it's my favourite game of all time.

For me that suggests it was effective.

The thing with horror nowadays is that it is shock horror. In order to be that deep cutting horror you need something else. Its hard to really put your finger on what that is, but its out there.

For me, I feel that a true horror game doesn't need an overabundance of enemies. I mean, Clock Tower had one guy, but it felt like he was everywhere. You were trying to solve the case of him and all the while he's walking around in the same area as you. I remember in the school when he came into the bathroom after me and I hid in a stall. He walked out thinking I went elsewhere. Later, I tried to hide in there again, but he busted down the door and cut me up. It was just one guy, but the tension and suspense amounted to fear in me.

If I have to run and I can only stall the creature in pursuit of me, I'm absolutely terrified.

Really i don't find that many things in horror games are scary only because they take the human aspect out of it. make the bad guy a alien with fourteen limbs makes me think 'oh right this could totally happen' I loose any fear i once might have had.

Mr.Pandah:
*Clock Tower*

Terrifying game. You're talking about the 3D one right? The ORIGINAL Clock Tower was only released in Japan, on the SNES, in 2D, and absolutely heart-stopping. I'm 22, into extreme horror and I actually had to have the sound right down and the light on.

This is through an emulator of course. I probably shouldn't be saying this, but I recommend getting zSnes and a copy of the ROM. Experience it!

harhol:
I hated every minute of Silent Hill 2 and it's my favourite game of all time.

For me that suggests it was effective.

The only game story to make me cry. Fact. The sheer suspense and story make up for the frankly awful combat.

The trouble with most horror games is that monsters aren't scary if you're a superhero.

If you can shoot them dead, cut them down or beat them senseless, the monsters really aren't scary anymore.

The Silent Hill series does a pretty good job of severely limiting the player's ability to fight back without making the protagonist entirely powerless. Weapons like a pocket knife or a busted pipe really make me feel like I'm not prepared to fight monsters. These weapons aren't for taking down the bad guys, they're for survival. Swing and run! Even when you get a pistol ammunition is so scarce that the player is hesitant to use it.

This is where I feel many horror games go wrong, especially the big ones like the RE series. The first RE was hella scary at the start, but once you get to the point where you're carrying more guns and ammo than your local sporting goods store the zombies lose their scare factor.

Clock Tower 3 was pretty good at bringing the fear. You play as a totally helpless character trying to solve mysteries while being chased by seemingly omnipotent murdering monsters. Unfortunately, this is totally ruined by the boss battles that give you a magic bow & arrow. It smacks the immersion upside the head and tosses it out the door.

Fatal Frame was the best horror game series I've ever played. You're in a scary place with spooky things constantly going on all around you... and your only weapon is a camera! When you do have to "fight" with ghosts, you are forced to look through the camera lens... it keeps the player immersed and it's all kinds of scary. I strongly recommend that series to anyone who likes a good scare.

Fightgarr:
Well don't do what FEAR did. In FEAR you would have a standard shooter level in a boring complex and then towards the end the game is like: "But look we're horror too" then flickers the lightswitch and throws a creepy little girl at you for a minute.

The horror elements should be integrated rather than added as an afterthought.

I was disappointed with the "horror" elements in FEAR. Again though, like my post above says, when I'm totally omnipotent I can't be afraid. The bits of the game that threw the player into some kind of alternate reality were pretty freaky, but not to the point that they were actually scary. Even if a player did find it scary, unfortunately the scare factor was almost entirely eliminated once the "ghosts" and "demons" became tangible. Ghouls aren't scary if you can shoot them in the face.

It's kind of like how The Ring was scary as hell because you couldn't see the killer. You knew she existed, but she wasn't real. She was never on camera until the end. The Ring 2 was all kinds of not scary because the killer became tangible. Once she began crawling up walls like spider-man I was beyond disappointed. What's scary about a little girl? She's right there. She's crawling up walls. You could kick her in the teeth. That is not scary.

FEAR was a good tactical shooter, though. I felt like the gameplay was pretty engaging, but it got tiresome after a while. The whole hide, shoot, grenade, hide, shoot, reload, grenade, etc. routine got stale.

Those times when your character won't seem to go fast enough away from something giant and horrible. Like in RE4 when you fight del lago and you fall out of the boat and just seem to barely move at all to get back in.

Shadow Man: Playrooms and the Cathedral of Pain. plus those things with the meat hooks. it was so scary

JokerGrin:

Mr.Pandah:
*Clock Tower*

Terrifying game. You're talking about the 3D one right? The ORIGINAL Clock Tower was only released in Japan, on the SNES, in 2D, and absolutely heart-stopping. I'm 22, into extreme horror and I actually had to have the sound right down and the light on.

This is through an emulator of course. I probably shouldn't be saying this, but I recommend getting zSnes and a copy of the ROM. Experience it!

harhol:
I hated every minute of Silent Hill 2 and it's my favourite game of all time.

For me that suggests it was effective.

The only game story to make me cry. Fact. The sheer suspense and story make up for the frankly awful combat.

Yeah, I was talking about the 3D one on the PS1. I find it intriguing that a 2D game for the SNES was considered "heart-stopping" by someone who considers themselves into extreme horror. What exactly made it so scary?

One thing where I was actually kind of terrified was in Metroid Fusion. I felt really isolated on that space station with something extremely agressive and powerful that is actively hunting me.
I think horror and action are blending togethor too much these days. If you can defend yourself well then you're not really gonna be afraid of the monsters no matter how horrifying they are.
Maybe sort of a sandbox game where you're like in a slasher movie or something. You can use various improvised weapons but you're up against psycho killers, trying to escape from a desolate city or something. Like a combination of Dead Rising and Silent Hill.

The only game that really seemed to capture the true feel of horror was the original Silent Hill. Partially because of the atmosphere and unpredictable shifting from creepy foggy town to fucking insane-o chain-link land, partially because the hero is inept and even stumbled if you tried to run over a drop off, and lastly because you start out the game getting fucking raped to death by psychotic babies.

Dead Space had it going for about the first 30 minutes, but the moment you got your hand on a weapon and saw how easy it was to cut through necromorph limbs, the horror aspect was largely gone, leaving only the tense "can I seriously pull this shit off" moments the rest of the game.

I was terrified for a good portion of the first Silent Hill, although it kind of wore off after the Hospital. Kind of. My memories of Silent Hill 2 are a blur in the back of my head; I have reason to believe that it's a failsafe mechanism in my brain, to spare me from remembering what I experienced there.

How well horror is implemented depends largely on knowing what kind of horror you're supposed to make. If you do zombies, you focus on why exactly zombies are terrifying. The only kind of horror that works on me is the pure mindf***. Do that right and I stand no chance of not screaming like a little girl.