Scary Games

[arfur]

What are the games that have had you on the edge of your seat? I'm talking more about survival and stealth games rather than blasters.

To start with, I'm naming Project Zero (Fatal Frame in US) for the PS2. When I bought it, the guy from HMV said it was really scary and it was!

Play this game with the lights off and your headphones on. Every time there's a ghost nearby, your indicator lights up, and it's one of the most unnerving games I've ever played!

[WCC]

I only play PC games, but I've recently started playing exactly this kind. I can certainly say that Amnesia lives up to it's reputation at the start, Scratches is a slow starter but seems to be good, while the Penumbra trilogy is shaping up well as an atmospheric puzzler. The secret of them all is, of course, you are pretty much unarmed, and your only survival technique is to run & hide... Sound effects are also superb in all these.

I was singularly unimpressed by Silent Hill 3 (the only one I've tried). Sure, it looks unsettling and nasty, but in play it's a pretty standard shoot-em-up (except with very low ammo levels, it's more of a beat-em-up).

By the way, anyone with Windows 7 watch it if you buy Scratches - the config file MUST be changed before you play or it'll Blue Screen your PC and reboot! Change RATE=0 to RATE=60.

[Pleasureseeker]

Currently replaying Clive Barker's Undying on t'PC - that has a few chills...

[gaztaylor]

Playing the original Doom was quite eerie, it really had atmosphere, made you feel like you were in the game. The first time something happens in the game really makes you jump.

[WCC]

I had an Aliens (the film) mod for DOOM that was a lot scarier - the texture on some of the Alien sprites was exactly the same as the walls, so you could only see them if the lighting or movement gave them away, or they got real close. Combine with the Aliens sound effects and it worked pretty well, considering the crudity of the images...

[Art Van De Lay]

Quake used to be quite scary back in the day