Poll: The scariest game?

[Podunk]

Super-duper none of the above...

Silent Hill 3, Fatal Frame, Haunting Ground, Silent Hill 2 (in that order) are the scariest games...

...What exactly is scary about Silent Hill 4? Wide-open environments, bland and goofy enemies, and the horrible, terrifying sound of (gasp!) crickets chirping! It plays and looks more like a really awful third-person shooter than a horror title.

Clock Tower 3 might fit someone in the top of the list, also. I haven't got a chance to play it but I've heard that it's pretty good.

 

[Bocca]

Stalker the scariest game? LOOOL! There was only two or three scary places in it. The apogrom undergound, Death valley (what was it now?) the whole place and the village in army base. The scariest game? I dunno I haven't played any horror games 'cause I don't like them. Stalker was in some points hell'a exciting.

 

[Dajmin]

Clive Barker's Undying. Well scary back in the day. Probably wouldn't be now because the graphics won't have aged well.
But it had some good use of psychological scares - mirrors which turned into monster pictures as you got close, moving objects that you only got brief glimpses of but couldn't catch, things that looked like they were there but actually weren't. Creepy.

 

[Canebrake]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of chernobyl?

I played max difficulty first time.
And i must say that game gets a 5/5 for immersion.
...and HOT DaYUMN those snorks get me every time.


It's entirely believeable,that's the scary part. (not the 6 legged aliens i see in these other titles. The creatures in stalker are.. indescribable,and they are very good at startling you.)


EDIT:if stalker doesn't do it to you,fix your gamma/brightness.

 

[TrevorOfCrete]

Scary for me is the original Silent Hill with all the lights off in the house.

 

[Cahlee]

I played Condemned two nights ago, and it scared the shit out of me!

 

[Fraught]

Condemned, since all of the other games are run-and-gun horror games (maybe except for Silent Hill), Condemned is survival horror. I mean, that game was hard at some parts, and scary.
When the first bum ran in the darkness in the next door, when you got separated from the detective and the police guy, then I was so scared, I couldn't go in that room.

And am I the only one that thinks third-person view totally makes a game less scarier?
Also, I never got it why people think Resident Evil 4 is scary.
I mean, seriously? That game isn't scary one bit, it only got my heart pumping at the places where the sack(head)boy and those two old ladies with the chainsaws approached me.

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Quite frankly, Dead Space is the scariest game I've ever played. Never have I ever experienced such a horrifying game. (Feel free to check out my review of it in the User Reviews section, titled 'Make Us Whole Again- The Oracle Reviews Dead Space'!)

And I've played Bioshock, Condemned 2, and Resident Evil 4.

 

[searanox]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. If you disagree, you haven't played it.

 

[GuerrillaClock]

Um, System Shock 2? How can that not be on the list?

 

[Blair Bennett]

Silent Hill 3, Fatal Frame, Haunting Ground, Silent Hill 2 (in that order) are the scariest games...

...What exactly is scary about Silent Hill 4? Wide-open environments, bland and goofy enemies, and the horrible, terrifying sound of (gasp!) crickets chirping! It plays and looks more like a really awful third-person shooter than a horror title.

I agree with you whole heartedly. Silent Hill 4 was nothing like the other games in the series. There is reason for this, as it is common knowledge that SH 4 was never developed as a game in the Silent Hill series, and in fact, focused more on ghosts and such, but the producers and such and whoever it was that was involved decided that it was not a good investment. So they made a few changes, slapped the name of a thriving series on top, and never looked back, for they would not be able to see through their piles of money. Yes, the bills flew from the back of their vintage, professionally restored automobiles as they fled the area, cries of "what the hell is this bile that has been unjustly christened" ringing in the distance behind them. Silent Hill 4 might have done better (at least in my eyes) if it didn't try to be something it was not. It was not Silent Hill. At least not Silent Hill playing it's A Game. Sure some names were familiar, and perhaps the 21 Sacraments ending had a certain sadistic charm to it, but when the only boss it the game is Walter (and he was damn easy, in my opinion) and you have an inventory limited to like, what was it, 6 spaces? 8 at best? Either way, it simply did not measure up to the other games in the series. So you can't help but being a little confused when "Silent Hill 4" is up there on the poll...list...thing, and the much better, much SCARIER games (Silent Hill 1-3, dunno about Origins or Homecoming, for some reason they just don't seem so isolated), are not.

I was a little startled when I saw this poll, mainly because there are no scary games on the list, simply sequels and imitations. System Shock 2 was, as well all know ( and not just from ZP) pretty damn similar to Bioshock (in the sense that they are almost identical, save for names, locations, and difficulty levels). I'm not saying it's a bad list (as much as I might think so, it's really not), I'm just a little curious as to why there appears to be no love for the older, and more pronounced mentally traumatized venturer of Silent Hill, or the occasional Hacker.

Long live the days of emotion and terrible, overdone voice acting. They were better men than the dolled up whores that we have to deal with now.

 

[Blair Bennett]

Scary for me is the original Silent Hill with all the lights off in the house.

You my friend, are one man I'd love to have a Silent Hill marathon with.

And sorry for the double post, I wanted this guy to get credit for the quote and that doesn't work if I just edit, and copy and paste...I think...still sorta new here.

 

[Zombie Badger]

I have played:
Dead Space
Condemned
Doom 3
Stalker

I have never been scared by a game. I'm also not likely to play Thief, as I don't have the patience for stealth games (except Hitman).

 

[Avatar Roku]

I didn't vote for any of these games because the only one I've actually played is Dead Space. I would say the scariest game I've ever played is Metroid Fusion. You know if I say a GBA game is the scariest game I've ever played then I'm serious. You spend the entire game alone on a space station overrun by monsters. Your only contact is a heartless computer and you run around in the slowly deteriorating ship with the eeriest music I've ever heard trying to avoid the imminent death of running into the unstoppable SA-X. Sometimes you can hear the SA-X's footsteps...then you start to wonder "Oh God! Where is it?!"

I thought I was the only one who thought that was scary.

Where is F.E.A.R.? It has Alma in it, that should be on the list.

Agreed. I especially remember that part at the end, where Old Alma is walking down the hall at you, and you only have a pistol, and you have to shoot a full clip (18 bullets) into her head without missing, because if you miss, you're dead because then you have to reload, which there isn't time for.
That part notwithstanding, F.E.A.R was great at making normalcy seem scary. I distinctly remember, a few minutes after a nightmare, just all of a sudden freezing, staring at a desk, terrified, as the game's oppressive environment chose a very weird moment to impress on me.

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

Luigi's Mansion, obviously, I still get nightmares from that game. But as a runner up Ill have to go with Condemned but by reading this Thread I may need to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R

 

[Snotnarok]

You forgot Eternal Darkness, that game messed with you big time. What's scarier than a game formatting your memory card?!

I never got to play it. Is it good?

Eternal Darnkess is VERY good though by todays standards it might be a bit dated. It runs well and looks okay, but it's the first game to really just mess with the player directly, and it did it well when I played it (when it came out. It REALLY played with you and your mind. I recall having to take a break from it a few times. I'm also one of those people who like the volume up, lights off and no talking while a horror game on so maybe it was the atmosphere helping.

 

[0LunarEclipse0]

none of the above. scariest games were Bioshock for pure erieness; and Silent hill 2.

 

[AuntyEthel]

Haven't been scared by a game since I was a kid. Twas Alone in the Dark (the original). Wouldn't be scary anymore, but was groundbreaking at the time, and freaky when I was 5.

 

[SneakyBawls]

I can't vote for any of them on the list. Had F.E.A.R. been on the list then that would have been mine. That Alma appeared out of no where way too many times. LOL There's a difference between something unexpectedly jumping at you and something that shocked and unnerved you and stayed on your mind the rest of the game. Technically a cat could jump out and scare me but i wouldn't call a cat frightening.

One moment in F.E.A.R. that I remember was walking along a catwalk and coming to a ladder down. I clicked the ladder and my character turned to descend...and there was Alma. I nearly jumped out of my chair. Creeped me out not knowing how long she'd been following me.

 

[Snotnarok]

One moment in F.E.A.R. that I remember was walking along a catwalk and coming to a ladder down. I clicked the ladder and my character turned to descend...and there was Alma. I nearly jumped out of my chair. Creeped me out not knowing how long she'd been following me.

I mention that part often because that part undeniably made my heart stop. I was freakin' ranting after that part. I didn't see it coming at all.