Poll: Horror games are scarier in first person

[MysticSlayer]

In general, I find first-person to be much scarier. Having absolutely no clue what is outside your field of vision is just a lot scarier than being able to see Slit McThroatson coming up on you. That isn't to say that third-person horror can't be done, but it seems much harder to do.

However, the problem with a lot of first-person horror is that it is really just an FPS with survival horror elements (ex. BioShock). This generally reduces the fear of the game rather substantially, as the enemies obviously aren't as much of a threat as they would be if you were unarmed. Some games manage to overcome this. For instance, the first F.E.A.R. generally gave you action sections where the FPS elements were prevalent, but then it gave you a horror section where you understood that your weapons were completely pointless, and having that sudden loss of power really did play with my mind. However, most games don't manage to pull off the FPS-with-some-survival-horror game. On the other hand, though, when it is true survival horror like Amnesia, then it truly feels like the pinnacle of horror.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't find horror games to be particularly scary. They don't engage me, regardless of the point of view.

I don't know if I should vote "no," though.

 

[ManInRed]

I don't think first person is scarier because all of the classic great horror games I can think of were not first person. I could start with every Silent Hill minus Shatter Memories and all the Resident Evil games before the series became an action game, continuing in that manner until I reach Lone Survivor. Now sure I cannot overlook Amnesia or Slender, but there is a reason why most horror games are 3rd Person. Atmosphere.

There are two basic ways to scare people with atmosphere, ominous horror and paranoid horror.

Ominous horror is about teaching players to preceptive certain things as warning of things to be frighten about. Then once you expect a thing to bring trouble, you surround the player in these warning signs and force them to approach these omens. Trouble doesn't always come, but being enclosed in these reminders that trouble is coming provides the anxiety to put the player in the proper state to be scared.

Paranoid horror is just the opposite. Teaching the player that trouble comes with no regard to warning signs. So when you look around and there no warning signs to be seen, trouble comes out of no where. That doesn't make sense, maybe you missed something. Stare into the abyss deeper. Make sure you miss nothing. Because trouble comes quick. Faster than you can believe. Don't look away. And don't blink.

Now these two methods can work with first person, after all first person has a lot of control at what the player sees and gives the player the power to look away or have to look around. The issue is first person games limit what you can see, so beyond sound effects a player cannot feel enclosed by the terror surrounding them. It might be counter intuitive, but more information just gives you more to fear. Being able to see behind your own back, will make you check it more often, even when you don't want to see if anything is there. Basically, you can't show people there is something to fear if they aren't looking, and third person lets you make them look in all directions. Making it easier to have more omens and weak assurances to be paranoid about.

The weirdest part about this is third person sometimes gives your directional vision with a flashlight. But the player sees the darkness around them, constantly made aware of that which they can't see. And this reminder makes you feel isolated, small, ignorant, and weak. Really there is little advantage of first person horror games from this style, other than the obvious easy to use first person game engines to build off of that fueled the last generation of games. And it can be done, with darkness and sound. But its not at all surprising third person the preferred method, since its more versicle in the horrors it can bring. And scares are like jokes, more effective if you don't repeat them

 

[Flaery]

It's probably because all third-person horror games have abysmal tank controls, while 1st person games tend to have very fluent controls. It's be a toss-up between an expertly placed fixed camera with bad controls or a claustrophobic first-person view with passable controls. The first-person camera wins out now simply because horror games can not figure out how to make the player feel inhibited without ruining the controls.

 

[synobal]

I would disagree because generally with first person games you tend to be armed in one way or another and you usually can be a crack-shot against whatever is attacking you. But with 3rd person I usually can't be the same dead eye and I feel more vulnerable and less safe.

Also with first person games, they rarely tend to throw anything behind you, because it would be pretty damn hard/unfair. So when you know to expect everything scary to be in front of you, you generally feel a bit safer. But with 3rd person games you do get that partial view behind you so game developers usually see it as fair to throw stuff from any direction which in my opinion makes things a lot more tense.

So poorer controls make you feel more helpless? hmm interesting but there are definitely some first person horror games that you're practically never armed in.


OffTopic:I really love your avatar. I really enjoyed Jack of All trades.

 

[Abomination]

Every 3rd person game that is scary I believe would have been more scary if it was first person.

Imagine Dead Space where your vision is impaired by your helmet and you get to see the necromorphs up REAL close during frantic QTEs.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

When I'm wrestling with the camera controls, I find it hard to be scared by anything. Not too much of a fan of third person, and with First Person making you feel more immersed in the character you are playing as, I thing First Person is scarier.

You confuse "Immersion" with "Projection."

That aside, since Silent Hill 2 is the most frightening game ever, the first-person theory really has no legs to stand on.

I have said this before in these forums, but horror is never about the monsters or the lame jump-out scares, true horror forces the player to face their own internalized fears and bring them to the surface as a form of catharsis. The current misunderstanding of what horror is has lead to many people believing that films like "Human Centipede" are frightening, when in fact, they are little more than childish excursions into sadism.

Oddly, games have traced the path that literature took almost 200 years ago, when two different men both held that Edgar Allen Poe was the greatest writer of all time. H.P. Lovecraft tried to emulate Poe's gothic sensibilities by creating worlds of eldrich beings always trying to break through some threshold or other, and he failed miserably. Charles Baudelaire, on the other hand, took Poe's keen sense of psychology and fused it with the growing existentialist movement, and succeeded in inspiring many of the great writers of the 20th century.

Games are something of the same sort. Silent Hill uses the Baudelaire / Existentialist approach, while the lesser games, even Amnesia: The Dark Descent, take their cues from mere grotesques and jump-out scares.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

I always found Aliens versus Predator (the first game.) be extremely scary as marine, mostly because the aliens often kept on spawning and there was a limited amount of ammo and the crawling on the walls was very adrenaline producing.

 

[lacktheknack]

I'd like to point out that 3rd person controls are usually more clunky than 1st person controls, so even if you see the monster coming up behind you, it's harder to react.

That said, one of the scariest games I've ever played (as well as the grand prize winner for "most violent scare-reaction") was an amateur text adventure. It combines the inability to see anything with difficult controls. I'm not sure why people don't try it anymore.

 

[lacktheknack]

When I'm wrestling with the camera controls, I find it hard to be scared by anything. Not too much of a fan of third person, and with First Person making you feel more immersed in the character you are playing as, I thing First Person is scarier.

You confuse "Immersion" with "Projection."

That aside, since Silent Hill 2 is the most frightening game ever, the first-person theory really has no legs to stand on.

I have said this before in these forums, but horror is never about the monsters or the lame jump-out scares, true horror forces the player to face their own internalized fears and bring them to the surface as a form of catharsis. The current misunderstanding of what horror is has lead to many people believing that films like "Human Centipede" are frightening, when in fact, they are little more than childish excursions into sadism.

Oddly, games have traced the path that literature took almost 200 years ago, when two different men both held that Edgar Allen Poe was the greatest writer of all time. H.P. Lovecraft tried to emulate Poe's gothic sensibilities by creating worlds of eldrich beings always trying to break through some threshold or other, and he failed miserably. Charles Baudelaire, on the other hand, took Poe's keen sense of psychology and fused it with the growing existentialist movement, and succeeded in inspiring many of the great writers of the 20th century.

Games are something of the same sort. Silent Hill uses the Baudelaire / Existentialist approach, while the lesser games, even Amnesia: The Dark Descent, take their cues from mere grotesques and jump-out scares.

You have to be DAMN SURE of your statement that Silent Hill 2 is the most frightening game ever when you post analyses like this. Sadly, it is not. In fact, it is the least scary of the first four Silent Hill games. I can see the argument that it has the most emotional punch (although I'd argue that Silent Hill 4 beats it), but Silent Hill 1 beats it in oppressive atmosphere, Silent Hill 3 beats it in straight-up scares, and Silent Hill 4 beats it in plot and story.

<spoiler=Silent Hill 1-4 spoilers>I never understood why Silent Hill 2 is supposed to be the scariest if "true horror is in bringing out internalized fears". Silent Hill 2 is the least relatable! Silent Hill 1 focuses on kidnapped/runaway children, which is a very relatable fear for a parent, as well as Alessa's assorted fear manifestations of school bullying (I can relate), pain in hospitals (I can relate), and parental betrayal (I can't relate to that, happily). Silent Hill 3 focuses on a teenaged girl's fears of pregnancy and rape, death of her parent, and being lost and alone, and follows a revenge plot that most could see themselves following. Silent Hill 4 manifests the fears of a man who was enormously abused as a child, which probably struck home hard with child abuse victims, and also feeds into any innate fear you may have of being stalked by a serial killer (I don't mean that in the cliche action game way, either, the game's cat-and-mouse element is positively hair-raising by the end), as well as feeding directly into any fear you may have of responsibility (Eileen is doomed without you, and it's very easy to lose her at the end of the game).

Silent Hill 2 is dedicated to a man who's lost his wife. While it does feed that fear very effectively (the multiple deaths of Maria), it doesn't bring a lot of related fears to the surface with it (the only ones that spring to mind are sexual frustration (which isn't scary) and self-blame). I don't relate to it at all. I've never had a girlfriend, I haven't done anything that I blame myself for, etc. So while I can relate to Alessa's childhood fears in Silent Hill 1, Heather's fear of losing her parents and being lost/alone and my own surfaced fear of being responsible for another person's life (I'll be caretaker of my handicapped sister when my parents kick the bucket), I straight up can't relate to Silent Hill 2.

It's a great game and a wonderfully brooding story, but scary? No. I don't see why it's so scary to everyone else, either, unless there's a ton of self-hatred in the gaming community- oh. Oh. Got it.

At any rate, you're foolish to ignore the visceral aspect of horror. You can say that it's not about the monsters, but that didn't stop me from falling out of my chair the first time I met an enemy in Amnesia. You can say that sadism is cheap, but that doesn't change the fact that Silent Hill 3 makes me more terrified to continue than any other game. You can say that Lovecraft failed while Baudelaire succeeded, but that doesn't change the fact that Lovecraft is immeasurably more popular and copied. And most importantly, you can say that horror that doesn't directly rub your face in your own hang-ups is "fake horror", but that doesn't mean that Amnesia isn't more outright terrifying in the moment than the Silent Hill series could ever hope to be.

I'll agree with you on jump scares, though. Jump scares only last a second. I'm interested in fear that lasts longer than a second.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

That aside, since Silent Hill 2 is the most frightening game ever, the first-person theory really has no legs to stand on.

I have said this before in these forums, but horror is never about the monsters or the lame jump-out scares, true horror forces the player to face their own internalized fears and bring them to the surface as a form of catharsis. The current misunderstanding of what horror is has lead to many people believing that films like "Human Centipede" are frightening, when in fact, they are little more than childish excursions into sadism.

Oddly, games have traced the path that literature took almost 200 years ago, when two different men both held that Edgar Allen Poe was the greatest writer of all time. H.P. Lovecraft tried to emulate Poe's gothic sensibilities by creating worlds of eldrich beings always trying to break through some threshold or other, and he failed miserably. Charles Baudelaire, on the other hand, took Poe's keen sense of psychology and fused it with the growing existentialist movement, and succeeded in inspiring many of the great writers of the 20th century.

Games are something of the same sort. Silent Hill uses the Baudelaire / Existentialist approach, while the lesser games, even Amnesia: The Dark Descent, take their cues from mere grotesques and jump-out scares.

You have to be DAMN SURE of your statement that Silent Hill 2 is the most frightening game ever when you post analyses like this. Sadly, it is not. In fact, it is the least scary of the first four Silent Hill games. I can see the argument that it has the most emotional punch (although I'd argue that Silent Hill 4 beats it), but Silent Hill 1 beats it in oppressive atmosphere, Silent Hill 3 beats it in straight-up scares, and Silent Hill 4 beats it in plot and story.

<spoiler=Silent Hill 1-4 spoilers>I never understood why Silent Hill 2 is supposed to be the scariest if "true horror is in bringing out internalized fears". Silent Hill 2 is the least relatable! Silent Hill 1 focuses on kidnapped/runaway children, which is a very relatable fear for a parent, as well as Alessa's assorted fear manifestations of school bullying (I can relate), pain in hospitals (I can relate), and parental betrayal (I can't relate to that, happily). Silent Hill 3 focuses on a teenaged girl's fears of pregnancy and rape, death of her parent, and being lost and alone, and follows a revenge plot that most could see themselves following. Silent Hill 4 manifests the fears of a man who was enormously abused as a child, which probably struck home hard with child abuse victims, and also feeds into any innate fear you may have of being stalked by a serial killer (I don't mean that in the cliche action game way, either, the game's cat-and-mouse element is positively hair-raising by the end), as well as feeding directly into any fear you may have of responsibility (Eileen is doomed without you, and it's very easy to lose her at the end of the game).

Silent Hill 2 is dedicated to a man who's lost his wife. While it does feed that fear very effectively (the multiple deaths of Maria), it doesn't bring a lot of related fears to the surface with it (the only ones that spring to mind are sexual frustration (which isn't scary) and self-blame). I don't relate to it at all. I've never had a girlfriend, I haven't done anything that I blame myself for, etc. So while I can relate to Alessa's childhood fears in Silent Hill 1, Heather's fear of losing her parents and being lost/alone and my own surfaced fear of being responsible for another person's life (I'll be caretaker of my handicapped sister when my parents kick the bucket), I straight up can't relate to Silent Hill 2.

It's a great game and a wonderfully brooding story, but scary? No. I don't see why it's so scary to everyone else, either, unless there's a ton of self-hatred in the gaming community- oh. Oh. Got it.

At any rate, you're foolish to ignore the visceral aspect of horror. You can say that it's not about the monsters, but that didn't stop me from falling out of my chair the first time I met an enemy in Amnesia. You can say that sadism is cheap, but that doesn't change the fact that Silent Hill 3 makes me more terrified to continue than any other game. You can say that Lovecraft failed while Baudelaire succeeded, but that doesn't change the fact that Lovecraft is immeasurably more popular and copied. And most importantly, you can say that horror that doesn't directly rub your face in your own hang-ups is "fake horror", but that doesn't mean that Amnesia isn't more outright terrifying in the moment than the Silent Hill series could ever hope to be.

I'll agree with you on jump scares, though. Jump scares only last a second. I'm interested in fear that lasts longer than a second.

I am not foolish to ignore the visceral aspect of horror because there is no visceral aspect of horror. Look, there is a reason we use three different words: Scare, Fright, and Horror. Amnesia was truly frightening, but it can never be truly horrifying because the main character is simply a vehicle for the player to psychologically project onto or out of at will. This is what I meant when I said people often confuse immersion with projection.

The protagonist from SH4 was terrible, simply because he had no personality, an empty template for the blank projection of the player. This can work in games like Zelda, Half-Life, or Portal, but if you want true horror, you are going to have to face the fact that every human being has the capacity to commit terrible crimes, or be wracked with guilt over things they have done in the past that they subconsciously feel the need to be punished for.

A scare is putting a snake in a cupboard and having it jump out at some point. Fright is being chased by an army of snakes. Horror is being convinced that it is possible that you may very well be a snake.

Also, in popular culture, Lovecraft has a huge advantage in influence. Not so in high literature, Baudelaire vastly overpowers Lovecraft in terms of influence, and over time, this will become his advantage in popular culture as well.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

When I'm wrestling with the camera controls, I find it hard to be scared by anything. Not too much of a fan of third person, and with First Person making you feel more immersed in the character you are playing as, I thing First Person is scarier.

You confuse "Immersion" with "Projection."

That aside, since Silent Hill 2 is the most frightening game ever, the first-person theory really has no legs to stand on.

I have said this before in these forums, but horror is never about the monsters or the lame jump-out scares, true horror forces the player to face their own internalized fears and bring them to the surface as a form of catharsis. The current misunderstanding of what horror is has lead to many people believing that films like "Human Centipede" are frightening, when in fact, they are little more than childish excursions into sadism.

Oddly, games have traced the path that literature took almost 200 years ago, when two different men both held that Edgar Allen Poe was the greatest writer of all time. H.P. Lovecraft tried to emulate Poe's gothic sensibilities by creating worlds of eldrich beings always trying to break through some threshold or other, and he failed miserably. Charles Baudelaire, on the other hand, took Poe's keen sense of psychology and fused it with the growing existentialist movement, and succeeded in inspiring many of the great writers of the 20th century.

Games are something of the same sort. Silent Hill uses the Baudelaire / Existentialist approach, while the lesser games, even Amnesia: The Dark Descent, take their cues from mere grotesques and jump-out scares.

HP Lovecraft failed?

-what-?

Admittedly, I'm not a buff on horror, but I'm reasonably sure a -lot- more people have heard of Lovecraft than have heard of this Baudelaire guy. Maybe Baudelaire made more money, but Lovecraft practically invented a new genre.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

HP Lovecraft failed?

-what-?

Admittedly, I'm not a buff on horror, but I'm reasonably sure a -lot- more people have heard of Lovecraft than have heard of this Baudelaire guy. Maybe Baudelaire made more money, but Lovecraft practically invented a new genre.

An artistic failure. You cannot really judge authors by popularity in their lifetime, Poe, Lovecraft, and Baudelaire all died before their work had much popularity to speak of. Though, Poe was arguably the most successful in his time, but he was constantly screwed over by his publishers and died penniless.

I really do not care about who made how much money, but Lovecraft blindly parroted Poe's more grotesque sensibilities without understanding the psychological implications and moral metaphors Poe used. Thus, he was a failure.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I'm not saying that 1st person isn't scary, but I just haven't played any good examples. I can't even name one.

The closest I can think of is the Fatal Frame series which does both.

Silent Hill, Siren, Kuon, Fatal Frame, etc. are all 3rd person and it works.

How many legit horror films are filmed from 1st person POV? About none of them? There is probably a reason.

I mean Jacob's Ladder would have been pretty weird in first person, but it might have worked.

The trouble with 1st person games in general is that it mostly works if you are playing as YOU. When its a character with predetermined/scripted dialogue and attitudes etc. you are made to be an observer of the bad things happening to them. The field of view, and what you can see of yourself, is limited in games. That zombie biting your shoulder from behind might scare the crap out of you if you can only see directly in front of you, but in 3rd person you get to see the whole thing happen.

Sure you are getting shanked in the back, but if you can't see it and all you see is a red flash on screen then it loses the impact of actually seeing the knife going in etc.

And if your character is scared its helpful to see them freaking out and panicking. Voice acting can do a lot, but body language is infinitely more effective at conveying it.

 

[sb666]

The Silent Hill, Fatal Frame and Forbidden Seires series beg to differ.

 

[Kyrian007]

Effective horror has everything to do with mood, setting, storytelling, pacing, timing... basically a lot of things you can do in any point of view. All of those things I listed > than perspective. First person can be a good platform for horror (Amnesia comes to mind.) It can also fail fairly badly in the horror department (doom 3... just because I can't see doesn't make me afraid... I don't have fear of the dark, and that's really all it went for.) But the same is true for 3rd person. Eternal Darkness was good enough to have me thinking about it after the console is off... an indicator of good horror. Same with a couple of Silent Hills. But in the hey day of resident evil and silent hill knock-offs (ps1-ps2 era) there were plenty of 3rd person games that didn't deliver on the horror. Perspective just isn't that important of a factor.

 

[TheUsername0131]

I have said this before in these forums, but horror is never about the monsters or the lame
jump-out scares, true horror forces the player to face their own internalized fears and bring
them to the surface as a form of catharsis. The current misunderstanding of what horror is has
lead to many people believing that films like "Human Centipede" are frightening, when in fact,
they are little more than childish excursions into sadism.

A scare is putting a snake in a cupboard and having it jump out at some point. Fright is being
chased by an army of snakes. Horror is being convinced that it is possible that you may very
well be a snake.

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering... fearing... doubting..." - Edgar Allan Poe

Waiting? in anticipation, for the jump scare that will never come, and then I read Hughe?s comments. He evoked a overwhelming, paralysing dread in me.


I shall not sleep easy tonight, because of the implication Ryan postulated. The unutterable truth that there is no horror without man. That to find horror I need not look further then within, a place that I regard as the most unfamiliar of destinations.


To revel in that fact would be to betray those fragile, comforting lies we eagerly (perhaps even knowingly) call reality. To renounce everything that allows humankind to survive in uneasy coexistence with his peers. To be free to disregard the thinly-veiled trapping of niceties we call morals, ethics, and humanity. Knowing that anyone of you can become the most depraved and craven beasts of all, acting out you darkest impulses and satisfying your secret appetites.


I have not experienced horror such as this? AND I LIKE IT!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I must give a very lukewarm "Depends". Maybe I've been brainwashed by Resident Evil but I find fixed camera angles incredibly unnerving, and for that you need 3rd person perspective.

 

[lacktheknack]

That aside, since Silent Hill 2 is the most frightening game ever, the first-person theory really has no legs to stand on.

I have said this before in these forums, but horror is never about the monsters or the lame jump-out scares, true horror forces the player to face their own internalized fears and bring them to the surface as a form of catharsis. The current misunderstanding of what horror is has lead to many people believing that films like "Human Centipede" are frightening, when in fact, they are little more than childish excursions into sadism.

Oddly, games have traced the path that literature took almost 200 years ago, when two different men both held that Edgar Allen Poe was the greatest writer of all time. H.P. Lovecraft tried to emulate Poe's gothic sensibilities by creating worlds of eldrich beings always trying to break through some threshold or other, and he failed miserably. Charles Baudelaire, on the other hand, took Poe's keen sense of psychology and fused it with the growing existentialist movement, and succeeded in inspiring many of the great writers of the 20th century.

Games are something of the same sort. Silent Hill uses the Baudelaire / Existentialist approach, while the lesser games, even Amnesia: The Dark Descent, take their cues from mere grotesques and jump-out scares.

You have to be DAMN SURE of your statement that Silent Hill 2 is the most frightening game ever when you post analyses like this. Sadly, it is not. In fact, it is the least scary of the first four Silent Hill games. I can see the argument that it has the most emotional punch (although I'd argue that Silent Hill 4 beats it), but Silent Hill 1 beats it in oppressive atmosphere, Silent Hill 3 beats it in straight-up scares, and Silent Hill 4 beats it in plot and story.

<spoiler=Silent Hill 1-4 spoilers>I never understood why Silent Hill 2 is supposed to be the scariest if "true horror is in bringing out internalized fears". Silent Hill 2 is the least relatable! Silent Hill 1 focuses on kidnapped/runaway children, which is a very relatable fear for a parent, as well as Alessa's assorted fear manifestations of school bullying (I can relate), pain in hospitals (I can relate), and parental betrayal (I can't relate to that, happily). Silent Hill 3 focuses on a teenaged girl's fears of pregnancy and rape, death of her parent, and being lost and alone, and follows a revenge plot that most could see themselves following. Silent Hill 4 manifests the fears of a man who was enormously abused as a child, which probably struck home hard with child abuse victims, and also feeds into any innate fear you may have of being stalked by a serial killer (I don't mean that in the cliche action game way, either, the game's cat-and-mouse element is positively hair-raising by the end), as well as feeding directly into any fear you may have of responsibility (Eileen is doomed without you, and it's very easy to lose her at the end of the game).

Silent Hill 2 is dedicated to a man who's lost his wife. While it does feed that fear very effectively (the multiple deaths of Maria), it doesn't bring a lot of related fears to the surface with it (the only ones that spring to mind are sexual frustration (which isn't scary) and self-blame). I don't relate to it at all. I've never had a girlfriend, I haven't done anything that I blame myself for, etc. So while I can relate to Alessa's childhood fears in Silent Hill 1, Heather's fear of losing her parents and being lost/alone and my own surfaced fear of being responsible for another person's life (I'll be caretaker of my handicapped sister when my parents kick the bucket), I straight up can't relate to Silent Hill 2.

It's a great game and a wonderfully brooding story, but scary? No. I don't see why it's so scary to everyone else, either, unless there's a ton of self-hatred in the gaming community- oh. Oh. Got it.

At any rate, you're foolish to ignore the visceral aspect of horror. You can say that it's not about the monsters, but that didn't stop me from falling out of my chair the first time I met an enemy in Amnesia. You can say that sadism is cheap, but that doesn't change the fact that Silent Hill 3 makes me more terrified to continue than any other game. You can say that Lovecraft failed while Baudelaire succeeded, but that doesn't change the fact that Lovecraft is immeasurably more popular and copied. And most importantly, you can say that horror that doesn't directly rub your face in your own hang-ups is "fake horror", but that doesn't mean that Amnesia isn't more outright terrifying in the moment than the Silent Hill series could ever hope to be.

I'll agree with you on jump scares, though. Jump scares only last a second. I'm interested in fear that lasts longer than a second.

I am not foolish to ignore the visceral aspect of horror because there is no visceral aspect of horror. Look, there is a reason we use three different words: Scare, Fright, and Horror. Amnesia was truly frightening, but it can never be truly horrifying because the main character is simply a vehicle for the player to psychologically project onto or out of at will. This is what I meant when I said people often confuse immersion with projection.

The protagonist from SH4 was terrible, simply because he had no personality, an empty template for the blank projection of the player. This can work in games like Zelda, Half-Life, or Portal, but if you want true horror, you are going to have to face the fact that every human being has the capacity to commit terrible crimes, or be wracked with guilt over things they have done in the past that they subconsciously feel the need to be punished for.

A scare is putting a snake in a cupboard and having it jump out at some point. Fright is being chased by an army of snakes. Horror is being convinced that it is possible that you may very well be a snake.

Also, in popular culture, Lovecraft has a huge advantage in influence. Not so in high literature, Baudelaire vastly overpowers Lovecraft in terms of influence, and over time, this will become his advantage in popular culture as well.

I see what you're getting at, but I don't agree with your key examples here.

Amnesia DID, in fact, cover the "You're probably a monster" aspect (pretty well, in fact). Towards the end of the game, more of less every grotesque happening came with a giant "YOUR FAULT" stamped on it. I'm surprised that this didn't get to you, seeing how you're greatly affected by that. I'll admit it's not what scared me about the game, though. "You might be the snake" is not horror for everyone. It certainly doesn't scare me. I'm not a monster, I will never BE a monster in reality, and so being forced into playing one is only marginally confusing to me, not some grand rising feeling of "Oh God, what have I done".

True horror as far as I am concerned is, in your snake example, "completely lost in a world with snakes in it". This is why Silent Hill 3 and 4 really got to me, particularly 4.

Also, Silent Hill 4 was never about the protagonist. It's about a heavily abused and traumatized serial killer. All the monstrosities and nightmarish situations you find yourself in sprang from the killer's mind. The protagonist was supposed to be you, though, you're right about that. While that isn't useful for your version of horror, it's perfect for mine.

You said yourself that good horror is based in psychology. By the same token, you should realize that horror would be subjective, seeing how we're not all psychological clones.