I like games with disturbing imagery. I play on PC. Got any suggestions of what to play? (updated)

[Sytakan]

Dragon Age was fun, but not really what I'm looking for. Thanks though. Those sections WERE freaky though.

Dark Seed 1 and 2 were cheesy and hilarious and terrible and I loved them. Giger's weird work doesn't disturb me so much as confuse me though.

Playing Song of Saya right now. What. The. Fuck. Seriously. This is pretty messed up. I think the fact that I can't wander around and look at the weird shit all over the place kinda makes it even more disturbing, I dunno. It's horrible and I love it. It might even be a little TOO much for me.

In response to a COUPLE PMs I've gotten, I most certainly do not have a gore or guro fetish. I'm not looking for gore, I'm looking for straight up freaky-ass shit. Mindfucks aren't much fun either, since I'm left more confused than anything.

I'm not really sure how to better explain it. Morbid curiousity maybe? There's no perverted interest here, thank god for that. Maybe someone else can explain better than me. I'm terrible with words.

 

[II2]

Throw in with others saying Song of Saya (Saya No Uta) is absolutely worth playing... even as someone who doesn't like visual novels. It's wonderfully bent.

Other suggestions, mostly PC.

- Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason
- STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl and STALKER Call of Pypriat (disregard clear sky, and hit ModDB to get the massive "STALKER COMPLETE" texture + shader + bugfix + modernization mod. Also possibly MISERY for Call of Pypriat).
- The Suffering
- Condemned 1 & 2
- Spec OPs: The Line
- The Forest (2014 early access, but it's really promising)
- Metro Last Light
- LIMBO
- Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines
- PROTOTYPE & Prototype 2
- American McGee's Alice / Alice: Madness Returns
- Lone Survivor
- Dead Space (the series as a whole, though I prefer the 1st, mostly)
- The Darkness
- Plauge Inc.
- DEFCON
- Painkiller
- Fear
- Home
- Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of The Earth
- Outlast
- Slender: The Arrival

Individual mileage may very, but there's a pile.

 

[Harpalyce]

I understand the joy of the macabre, so you're in good company in my book.

Sanitarium is an old point-and-click that's somewhat interesting, though it ran more cheezy to me. If you can stand the sheer 90sness, Phantasmagoria is said to be interesting there as well, though I haven't played it. I just can't get around that 90's hair and the mom jeans. I'm sure that someone on Good Old Games will have put at least one of the two on a list of old horror games that you can browse.

If you ever want to give MMOs a try, even if 'spooky mmo' seems a bit of an oxymoron, I'd recommend The Secret World. Fortunately it's of the type where you pay once then aren't really milked for microtransactions nor have to worry about a monthly fee. There's some good spooky design there, especially of environments (the whole package of sound, music, graphics and the like) I was impressed with. It takes a lot to actually get underneath my skin (I spent the entirety of Amnesia throwing chairs around in glee) and TSW managed to do that in places.

I've had friends recommend OFF by Mortis Ghost to me. It's more basic and heading into mindscrew territory, but has a very distinctive minimalist style that's quite sophisticated in its own way. And hey, if you know French, play it in its original language and flex those mental muscles as well.

These are all pixel games (many RPGmaker games), but this list has been tucked in my Tumblr favourites for quite awhile and may be worth looking through: http://rpgpixelgames.tumblr.com/post/66730286470/new-ultimate-rpg-game-list

Also, it's not quite a game, but as long as you're interested in visual novels... ever tried RubyQuest? It's definitely worth a read. It may come across to you more as like reading a Let's Play because it was at one time done in installments by the author, taking video-game-like prompts and suggestions from the audience. Definitely surreal, definitely interesting, and with minimalist art done in paint there's a lot of room for your own imagination to take over and make stuff really terrible. And, again, it's one of the rare things to actually get under my skin, so I'd definitely recommend it.

 

[jhoroz]

For me, the best example of disturbing imagery is the one that's the most subtle about it (spoilers for ICO):

Spoiler

This is probably one of the most unsettling parts of ICO or any game I've played in general. To have Yorda, a character you've protected and spent so much time with being reduced to such a state and surrounded by what are presumably the shadows of the previous horned boys that were sacrificed, all sends shivers down my spine.

The fact that these shadows are also completely harmless makes it even more disturbing when you're forced to execute each and everyone one of them in order to proceed to the next room makes this the stuff of nightmare fuel

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

For me, the best example of disturbing imagery is the one that's the most subtle about it....

Spoiler

This is probably one of the most unsettling parts of ICO or any game I've played in general. To have Yorda, a character you've protected and spent so much time with being reduced to such a state and surrounded by what are presumably the shadows of the previous horned boys that were sacrificed, all sends shivers down my spine.

The fact that these shadows are also completely harmless makes it even more disturbing when you're forced to execute each and everyone one of them in order to proceed to the next room makes this the stuff of nightmare fuel

That was a slightly horrifying moment in the game for me too. At that part the realization on what had been going slowly dawned on me and the game took a sudden darker turn. I loved it. You might want to mention what game you're talking about on the spoiler though, just so people don't accidentally ruin the reveal for themselves.

OP, if you liked Amnesia and Penumbra, although it isn't out for little while now, you should keep an eye on SOMA. It's made by frictional games and from what I've seen so far it seems like it'll be visually and psychologically disturbing.

Link to the site - http://www.somagame.com/index.html

Under files, look at MOCKINGBIRD, I found that one very creepy

 

[DementedSheep]

Hmmm only game I think of that hasn't already been mentioned is The Void/Turgor largely because of the Brothers (Mantid and Warden in particular).

Example (spoiled to save space)

Spoiler

but a bit of warning with that one. It a strange game, doesn't seem finished (noticeable when fighting a Brother). I think frustrating, confusing and depressing is actually what they were going for. It's basically a resources management game where you used colour to survive in a barren wasteland with weird guys, naked ladies and with you having to figure out a lot of the rules yourself. I can't really recommend it but who know? maybe its your thing.

 

[Sytakan]

I appreciate your pile of games, II2. Sadly, I've played most of them, except for the vampires one. I'll give that one a whirl, thank you!

Harpalyce! I'm playing Sanitarium off and on right now. It crashes a lot, so it's hard to work up motivation to play it. Phantasmagoria was fun, the first one. The second was just.... something.

I used to play TSO a lot, actually, but stopped around Egypt, because the quality seemed to drop around there. Then I picked up Wildstar, and like hell am I gonna play TWO MMOs.

OFF left me confused. It was fun, but I'm still not sure what happened in that game. And I'll check out the pixel games list, I recognize a lot on that list too.

I love Ruby Quest. I was there in the original thread when Weaver was running the game. Well, around halfway into it. Nothing I said made it into the game, sadly, but it's still great. I love Weaver's work. Hell, Divequest makes up most of my desktop wallpapers right now.

EDIT: More posts while I posted!

I haven't played ICO. I should really get it some time. And dig out my PS2. Wherever the hell it is.

SOMA looks fun, I'll definitely keep an eye on that one.

I might check out Turgor, bit on the fence with it given what you've said about it not really being finished. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[The Night Shade]

There's a mod for Doom called Brutal Doom it's basically a bloodbath of guts and gore, especially with metal songs.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

-snip-

The Void might be your sort of thing. Tell me what you think.

In fact, if anybody wants it, just ask and I'll give it to you if I haven't already given it away [currently have a copy in my invo].

 

[Sytakan]

I love brutal Doom. Can't play doom without it now. Could do without the voice acting on the helper soldiers though.


I heard about the Void! I was actually wanting to try that a while ago, but was broke. Then I forgot about it. Hey, if you're giving it away, I'll take it off your hands. My steam name is the same as here.

 

[DementedSheep]

OH! I forgot Limbo.

It's a short simple puzzle-platformer with a nice aesthetic, creepy atmosphere and while its all silhouetted it is still somewhat disturbing just not in the body horror or gore way. Your playing a kid and die in horrific ways and you get puzzles involving using the bodies of other dead children for example.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition is on PC, and if you have a gamepad, then it is a decent fighting game. I'm not sure how good the community on PC is, though.

I also noticed that you have The Witcher but don't say the series, so I'm guessing you haven't played The Witcher 2. That game is probably more "disturbing" than the original, but it's also a lot more forced than the original, but that may not be a turn off for some people.

Also, considering you like the Metro games, you'd probably like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which was made by many of the same people who later worked on the Metro series. It's got plenty of horror sections similar to Metro, albeit more spread out in the world. Still, if that's what you're looking for, then there's plenty of it that's well done.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

The Chaos faction buildings in Warhammer 40k Dawn of War have a rather nice corpse, skin, and teeth motif on them and the first campaign involves a world turning into a blackened demonic hellscape. It is however a RTS game and you spend most of your time zoomed out from the twitching decorations.

 

[Pink Gregory]

There is an HD patch for Pathologic that might solve your problems, I 'unno if you ever wanted to try that.

Smoothed out the gameplay for me anyway, might have solved a few bugs, it seemed to.

http://forum.ice-pick.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=12605

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

If you can find it (and are into that sort of thing) Song of Saya is fucking great. It's literally right up your alley. Also I wouldn't exactly call it disturbing, but Memories of a Broken Dimension is great but freaky as hell. It's the atmosphere.

Here's the link!
http://www.brokendimension.com/

 

[Gankytim]

Disturbing imagery or disturbing concepts? Hell, why not disturbing players?

The Dwarf Fortress community is full of the sickest bastards on the planet? Toady had to modify the value of mermaid bones because he himself was disturbed by a player going out of their way to drain sections of the ocean in order to forcibly breed SENTIENT CREATURES for harvest.

Good haul while it lasted, though.

Let's not forget, the topic on the forums "What's the most evil thing you did in-game?" It got locked because long story short, somebody won.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I don't know if you like to play visual novels, but "Saya No Uta" is one game that has disturbing images, but from what I've heard the story is well worth it.

Also Corpse Party.

 

[Therumancer]

Having just played through Clive Barker's Jericho, I am reminded of my love for games with weird, creepy, and horrific shit to look at. The game kinda sucked, but the story in that game was pretty damn good, and there was a lot of messed up stuff to check out. Now, since I play on PC, I understand that my game choices are limited, but I figured someone out there has some good suggestions for me. The game doesn't have to be scary or anything, by the way.

Let's see, I've played (And have added suggestions I've already played to this list):

The Silent Hill series
Dead Space series
Doom series
Outlast and it's DLC
Fear series
Amnesia
Penumbra
Max Payne seires
Metro Series
The Suffering
The Forest
Killing Floor
Don't Starve
The Binding of Isaac
The Witcher
I have no mouth and I must scream
Call of Cthulhu series
Condemned series
Cat Lady
Harvester
Spec ops: The Line
White Chamber
Bunker 16
Knock Knock
Finger Bones
Pathologic
Downfall
Corpse Party
Dragon Age series
Dark Seed series


Game mods are okay too. Thanks to anyone reading this!

Let's see, you seem to be dipping heavily into my taste in games (finding decent horror/disturbing games is hard), albeit I have more of an appreciation for well done gore when it occurs.

A few suggestions:

Dreadout (though it is short, and the second act has yet to be released).

The "Souls" series (Dark Souls, Demon's Souls) again hardcore, but has some very dark and disturbing content.

Fallen London/Echo Bazaar (free Browser game, very slow, mostly just plain weird)

Cryostasis (though the beginning following the sled dogs annoys me)

Cliver Barker's Undying (dated, but very good, and it actually made it to GOG)

Clive Barker's Jericho (one of the more divisive games out there, almost universally panned but it spawned a pretty long-lasting Jericho RP board on gamefaqs and some fansites that stuck around in the doomed hope for a sequel).

Legacy: Realm Of Terror (very hard to find though, also very old)

Realms Of The Haunting (very dated, but a unique game that I believe inspired many others)

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (beware of bugs, hunting down patches helps big time)


That might help a little, sorry about the quoting if that made things too big.

On other platforms you might look for 999 and it's sequel (9 hours, 9 persons, 9 doors), Soul Sacrifice, the Deception/Trapt series, and of course the Megaten series (both main series and Persona have their moments especially in the mindscrew department).

Sadly we're dealing with a neglected genera so it's difficult to find a constant slew of good horror games. If we're lucky "Evil Within" might turn into another big franchise, but other than that it seems like we're at the mercy of very slow indie development.

I'll also say that while it's not horror at all really (mostly humor) "The Stanly Parable" is by it's very nature a non-stop mind screw, so there is that.