The best Horror game of all time is not belong to resident evil or silent hills imo but..

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

Spoiler

No other Horror game engaged and addict me like this one. no amnesia, soma or other boring walking simulator or most overrated franchise like resident evil crap. This is the only Horror game that has a Great gameplay mechanics and combat. infact this game still has best combat/shooting in any video game ever. slo mo is so freaking cool it feel like Matrix the video game or Max payne in FPS with horror elements. its sad sequels are terrible compare to this masterpiece.

so do you think FEAR is still best Horror game ever??

Discuss

 

[Bobular]

Yup, 100% agree with you, nothing else needs to be said, FEAR wins it all.

Its just too bad the sequels/expansion packs never lived up to the original. The expansion packs we're alright but didn't get to the same level as FEAR, and the first sequel was good but was more action than horror in my mind.

Time for a third set of games to follow on from FEAR I say!

 

[The Madman]

Huh, now there's a game I haven't thought about in ages. I remember the combat being super good and the visuals, for the time, spectacular.

As for being the best horror game though.... ehhhh, I dunno. I do recall even when I first played the game that it fell into the often predictable trap of action/scary linear bit/action/scary linear bit/repeat. You'd shoot up a bunch of baddies then have to walk down a corridor and the lights would be all weird and GASP, you'd see a shadow or something, then there would be another bunch of guys to fight and so on till the game ended. That kinda ruined any sense of pacing or foreboding and made the game a bit too, well, gamey.

Also it never really stuck with me either. Really good horror, the genuinely horrifying stuff, tends to fester in the back of your mind making you wonder about it days if not weeks or years beyond when you first experienced it. In FEAR I remember there was some... umm... russian mind control guy? I think. And you shoot him in the head. And Alma, the scary girl, was actually like some weird test tube baby or something?

Yeah, it never really stuck with me. But then that's also a highly subjective thing in all fairness.

 

[Hyena200]

It was pretty groundbreaking at the time. Did slow mo shooting in FPS pretty much better than anyone else had... in fact had anyone else done it by that point or was Max Payne the only other shooter with slow mo? and that was 3rd person. I loved F.E.A.R and agree it was a phenomenal game that was quite scary in parts. But the first Condemned did the whole unsettling, tense, shit scary atmosphere even better in my opinion. I think it was made by the same guys using assets from F.E.A.R as well. I remember feeling far more scared and on edge during Condemned than during F.E.A.R (god thats a ballache to type out each time). Play through the abandoned department store level in Condemned and you'll see what I mean. Or at least, you'll never look at mannequins the same way again!

I say scared in relative/videogame terms though. I.e, not ACTUALLY scared.

 

[Blitsie]

Fear has a special place in my heart solely because of it being the first game where I snuck up on enemies with my flashlight on and heard one guy yell "flashlight!" before everyone proceeded to flank the crap out of me and kill me from all directions. Even by today's standards the AI in that game is still something to behold.

 

[Zhukov]

Meh.

It was monotonous shooting with an easy-mode-instant-win-slow-motion button and some jump scares.

My single overriding memory of the FEAR games is repeatedly hitting the slow-mo and languidly headshotting each enemy three times while struggling to keep my eyes open. Over and over again. No other tactics needed.

Oh, and I remember people saying the enemy AI was really good. Can't say I ever noticed as I repeatedly hit the slo-mo button and headshotted each one of them three times while struggling to keep my eyes open.

I think it had a story or something. I don't remember the details. The act of repeatedly hitting the slo-mo button and headshotting each enemy three times while struggling to keep my eyes open probably impaired my memory.

 

[stroopwafel]

FEAR 1 is pretty good. Kick-ass atmosphere and the shoot-outs are still among my favorite in the FPS genre. I agree with Zhukov that it all gets a bit samey espescially since all you do is traverse office complexes and a container terminal(I think, been a while since I last played it).

FEAR 2 is my favorite. Greater variety in environments and the mech sections mixed things up. The FEAR games really nailed the FPS mechanics espescially in making weapons feel weighty and impactful with debris flying from walls and enemies turning into exploding bloodbags. There is a visceral 'oomph' in FEAR that is lacking in almost any other FPS.

I wouldn't really consider FEAR a horror game as the 'horror' is just superfluous window dressing. Also FEAR 3, sorry, F3AR was disappointing. Low on atmosphere, ridiculously short and just felt like a cheap cash grab. Probably b/c it wasn't made by Monolith who are a pretty good developer(they also made the Condemned games and Shadows of Mordor).

 

[RaikuFA]

That's a weird way to spell Rule of Rose.

 

[Zombie Proof]

FEAR is phenomenal. The action is visceral, the environmental damage is dope, and the enemy ai still hasn't been matched to this day. A great game indeed but I can only classify it as a great fps with horror elements. The reason being is that all of the horror is passive. None of it ever hurts you and you never engage it so it presents no danger. In fact when you think about it, every time the horror rears its head in FEAR, the game becomes somewhat of a...

Spoiler

walking simulator

Kinda surprised you're so forgiving of that aspect Bright-Cell.

*edit*
Actually I'm not. The game fits in perfectly with your paramilitary fetish. No surprise that you'd give allowances to FEAR that you wouldn't in games from another genre or different presentation, Biased-Cell

 

[Sonmi]

Ehhhhhhhh...

REmake, Eternal Darkness, Fatal Frame 2, Silent Hill 1, and STALKER are all better in my humble opinion.

 

[Schadrach]

That's a weird way to spell Rule of Rose.

LOL. I actually have a copy of Rule of Rose, and I agree I'd put it over F.E.A.R. any day.

FEAR is phenomenal. The action is visceral, the environmental damage is dope, and the enemy ai still hasn't been matched to this day.

The enemy AI isn't half as sophisticated as it appears to be. It certainly does a good job of appearing to be though. This is in part due to the level design creating situations that are useful to the AI as designed.

 

[Zombie Proof]

Ehhhhhhhh...

REmake, Eternal Darkness, Fatal Frame 2, Silent Hill 1, and STALKER are all better in my humble opinion.

Dat REmake

 

[Mcgeezaks]

FEAR was great but I still think the first Amnesia game is the best horror game out there.

 

[Zombie Proof]

That's a weird way to spell Rule of Rose.

LOL. I actually have a copy of Rule of Rose, and I agree I'd put it over F.E.A.R. any day.

FEAR is phenomenal. The action is visceral, the environmental damage is dope, and the enemy ai still hasn't been matched to this day.

The enemy AI isn't half as sophisticated as it appears to be. It certainly does a good job of appearing to be though. This is in part due to the level design creating situations that are useful to the AI as designed.

I'm aware of that. Never meant to infer that the enemy ai existed in a vacuum. The flipping over of desks, environmental navigation, and reaction to the player are all situations designed to make the ai work.

Still the best.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

I got bored of FEAR. Maybe I'll finish it sometime since I still have the save, but after playing through a bit more than half of it I moved on to something else. Too much of what others have said, clearing out office rooms and corridors, while something meant to be scary occasionally walks by or flashes on screen. The illusion bit was cool, but was trivial when you're blasting everything in slomo. The game would've probably worked better as pure horror if you were more vulnerable.

 

[RaikuFA]

That's a weird way to spell Rule of Rose.

LOL. I actually have a copy of Rule of Rose, and I agree I'd put it over F.E.A.R. any day.

FEAR is phenomenal. The action is visceral, the environmental damage is dope, and the enemy ai still hasn't been matched to this day.

The enemy AI isn't half as sophisticated as it appears to be. It certainly does a good job of appearing to be though. This is in part due to the level design creating situations that are useful to the AI as designed.

I love it but those controls...

 

[Sonmi]

Ehhhhhhhh...

REmake, Eternal Darkness, Fatal Frame 2, Silent Hill 1, and STALKER are all better in my humble opinion.

Dat REmake

Dem pre-rendered backgrounds, man.

Whoof, to kill for!

 

[Poetic Nova]

Nah.

YOu forgot System Shock 2.

Then again. I never found FEAR scary, unlike SS2.

 

[Silence]

You wot?

FEAR was, as a horror game, really disappointing. It had nothing to offer but jumpscares after long stretches of standard, if very good, FPS combat. Horror got even less later on.

Dead Space was more scary. Pretty much all good horror games were more scary, after the first level of FEAR.

 

[DefunctTheory]

FEAR was a good game, but I wouldn't call it the best horror game.

Horror, as others have said, is highly subjective. One man's shit generating freak show is another man's yawn fest, and so on. So for everyone it's different.

Personally, my favorite horror game is Eternal Darkness. It's wasn't particularly scary, but it had an atmosphere that I adored, and the insanity effects were always fun. Except for the blue screen, that one actually got me (Hit the reset button just as the screen was going back to the game).

Too bad Denis Dyack is an insane jackass and Silicon Knights is dead.