What Makes a Game Scary For You?

[maddawg IAJI]

Well Atmosphere really does it for me. No game has frightened as much as Bioshock has. Thats right. Not F.E.A.R,not Dead Space and certanily not the Resident Evil games, but rather Bioshock. Of course I was only afraid during the begining. You had around nothing to protect say for a Wrench and a pistol with (Most likly) Less then one clip left in it. But as the game goes on and you find your self putting your pistol away in exchange for the Shotgun well.....I just feel safe knowing that I can blow your head off if you get to close.

The only event that has scared me more then Bioshock has was the Killer Croc mission in Batman Arkham Asylum. Mainly becuase out of all the Bosses that one didn't end in about 5 minutes and felt more like a psycholgic even rather then a fight.

 

[Colodomoko]

Mainly the only way to scare someone is by making everything as quiet as possible and then having shit jump outta nowhere while screaming realy loud, other than that nothing eles really scares me.

 

[latenightapplepie]

pacing and moments where you are waiting for something to attack you.

Exactly. I remember one particular part in the original Condemned game that really got me.

Spoiler

During one of the investigation sections, the player follows a trail of some liquid that is only visible under the light of one of your gadgets, requiring you keep the first-person camera down at the ground right, resulting in the player falling right onto a crazy-violent-druggie-scare moment.

That game was superbly suspenseful.

 

[Murlin]

Look at F.E.A.R. , name only makes me cower away in a corner

 

[Delicious Anathema]

What I find scary is what I find enjoyable: the game playing with you.

Sometimes something is really wrong but the game seems to think it's normal or non-existent, or when it triggers certain events when you least expect just to throw you off.

 

[PixelKing]

Playing Fallout 3 at night (In the game and in the real world) walking along,decide to rest for one hour.Wake up.7 Deathclaw all round me,i cound not see them (No HUD) so i fought blind.Not much but i got a fright.

 

[Amarok]

Sounds, atmosphere, pacing, and above all: the unknown is what makes a game scary for me.

That's why I wasn't impressed with Dead Space; EVERY air vent had a Necromorph burst through it and EVERY corpse jumped up when you got near it. It stopped being jumpy and started being a case of "hmmm this room has 6 air vents and one dead body in it, guess I'll be fighting 7 enemies then..."

Silent Hill 2 was spot on with its creepy sound and atmosphere, and even Fallout 3 had its moments of near-terror (thankfully, Galaxy News Radio helped a lot!)

Another thing a game can do is subvert expectations; let's say you're walking down a dark, dank corridor, there's creepy noises and sounds of shufflinf from all around, but no enemies... then you find the fuse box and turn the lights back on... and THEN the monsters show up. Little twists like that can really get you off guard.

 

[Saboonatic]

Boss fights where you can't see the boss like in Resident Evil 4 or Batman Arkham Asylum.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Most games that try to be scary succeed more or less when it comes to setting, atmosphere and art direction. What many "scary" games lack is the feeling of vulnerability. Dead Space didn't fail at being a scary game because of setting or monsters or sound or any of that jazz - it fails because the player has a constant supply of health and is armed with amazingly effective weapons to use against his enemies. Without vulnerability, the best one can accomplish is a mild feeling of unease in a game.

That said, games approach this question of vulnerability differently. In Silent Hill for example, your character is simply poorly armed and has limited combat potential. In Resident Evil the player is forced to stand still if they wish to fire upon their enemies. Often, these mechanisms are simply frustrating more than anything else. In RE 5 For example, the inability to move and the awkward aiming system added little in the way of making the player feel vulnerable as this was offset by the overall cruminess of the enemies in the game and the addition of a second player to the mix.

 

[dennyaaa]

When you're sitting on the chair edge, waiting for that something to pop out and nothing happens... that's really scary

 

[Ozymandiaz]

In God of War 2 after the Collosus lands on top of you, you have to control a broken and beaten Kratos and slowly inch him toward a massive collection of enemies. First time i played through it, i thought we were actually going to have to fight all of them; which would've sucked hardcore considering that kratos couldn't even swing his blades.

 

[Inco]

Running in fear of an instant kill creature. Cause i hate instant kills, it punishes mistakes too severely. Like the bear in Condemned 2. That had me sweating as it sniffed around the general area i was in as i hid only 2 metres from his head.It was good...
too bad it was around that point that the 3rd warning light that yahtzee stated came into effect and the cultists came into play right afterwards and it became very run and gun from there on.

 

[likalaruku]

I grew up on horror, so nothing. Maybe if they used something actually creepy, like cannibal ninja clowns, sports team mascot zombies, posessed dolls, & posessed malfunctioning audio toys, something might actually seem creepy. The sound of small happy childrens' voices with no visable source & the sound of water dripping loudly in an empty cave that isn;t even there would add a spooky mood.

 

[xXRikuXx]

I've been playing horror games for quite some time and the whole getting scared doesn't really affect me but there are definatly some parts in games that get to me....the only one that comes to mind of the bat is in condemned 2 when your in the doll factory....those things are just plain creepy

 

[ShotgunSmoke]

The feeling that you're completely alone and something terrible is watching you.

 

[Slash Dementia]

When things randomly pop up, or I see something really unexpected (ex. walking into a bathroom in Bioshock and I see three bodies in a dancing positions.)
Doom 3 did the pop-up scare really good...it had me paranoid for days.

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

The atmosphere is far more important than the monsters when it comes to being scary. Level design, non-combat challenges etc matter far more than how nasty your sparring partner is.
Making otherwise competant characters look like they're in way over their head works a lot better than a weedy useless character. If the character is theoretically able to fight, but is so blatantly, hopelessly dwarfed by what he/she is up against that it's not worth doing (parts of the Silent Hill and Space Hulk games spring to mind), then it will be far creepier to me than games where your characer just can't do stuff (which just makes me hate the character).
Messing more directly with the player (like in CoCCotE) is often a cool idea.

 

[Jedamethis]

1: Darkness
2: Scary sounds from monsters you currently can't see
3: Low ammount of health and ammo/mana

the same....but it's even more scary when there aren't even sounds.......just knowing that this thing could be anywhere, it could be round the corner....but it's not
OH SHIT IT'S BEHIND ME!!!...but it's not......Shit.......Where is it?!

 

[Ace of Spades]

Being huddled in a corner hoping to god that the twitching zombie doesn't see me.

 

[arc101]

1) an atmosphere that will make you wet yourself if your phone rings
2) An enemy that is both fiendishly clever and disturbing at the same time
3) a feel of hopelessness
4) be like silent hill 2