Doom scared me when I first started playing it. The 1st person view was very immersive. For the first time, you had to anxiously look around, as something could be coming up behind you.
Since then, I''ve seen a few ''horror'' games. My console-using friends swear by Resident Evil. So I watched this, and in all fairness it is a sad children''s game compared to... Realms Of The Haunting. This is perhaps the most underrated game of all time, maybe because it combines so many genres into one that very few players could consider themselves experts at it. Basically, imagine a cross between an FPS and a graphical adventure. The difference is, your weaponry is minimal and the enemies are quite considerable. They also kill you very quickly. The majority of the game sees you exploring in near silence, with quiet atmospheric music to set the mood... and then WHAM! something very unfriendly, is now here and has you in its sights. (This is playing on the ''attuned to consistency'' thing mentioned below.) The friends of mine who were just mildly scared by Resident Evil literally jumped with fright on several occasions. The plot line is also far more immersive and far more scary. If you don''t mind slightly dated graphics, I recommend checking out this game.
Experiences about horror games?
The most resent game that really had me jumping was Theif. Brilliant game...turn of the light and turn up the volume and experience it for yourself. It gives a whole new meaning of heartattack...
/Mr K
/Mr K
First Doom (gave me a few scares), then I played Horrorsoft''s Elvira adventures (not scary, but some places were chilling), hmm then Ultima Underworld (horrified at the amount of freedom I had hehe), System Shock 1 (not too scary, great story tho), Res evil 2 (My 1st Res Evil....nice scare effects, especially the police station..nearly pissed myself when those zombies grabbed me thru a boarded window), Thief 1 & 2 (Can you say the Trickster''s Realm? Freakin Eyeball plants staring at you then you enter a room and about 200 of em follow you around staring) and System shock 2 (for the good athmosphere, though a bit dissapointed by SS2''s story).
My least favs: Res Evil 3 (somehow no scares and too rehashy), Silent Hill (too much reusing of effects, been in one room of a building you''ve seen em all almost)
And to finish my most favorite Horror/Splatter/Comedy of all time: "Braindead" by WingNut films (not the us release called "Braindead", different movie and makers). Man they must''ve spilled so much blood and guts in there, they were prolly ferrying it in by Oil Tanker hehe.
My least favs: Res Evil 3 (somehow no scares and too rehashy), Silent Hill (too much reusing of effects, been in one room of a building you''ve seen em all almost)
And to finish my most favorite Horror/Splatter/Comedy of all time: "Braindead" by WingNut films (not the us release called "Braindead", different movie and makers). Man they must''ve spilled so much blood and guts in there, they were prolly ferrying it in by Oil Tanker hehe.
Hi
I''ve never played a game which really frightened me. Sure some of the games mentioned in the other posts came close. But they wasn''t really scary.
A few days ago I just saw ''Deep Blue Sea'' and that scared me! There was some moment where I just sat waiting for the big sharks to come and eat the poor unsuspecting victim, knowing that it WOULD happend. And some times when I got a mighty shock when a shark suddetly appeared out of nowhere and eaten the caracter about to give a speach to the rest of the team.
I have never seen something quite like this in a game. And I dodn''t think I would enjoy a game to apply this kind of horror effects at all!
My point is that a game is radically different than a movie. In a movie a classic horror trick is building slowly up to a scary situation. The person watching the movie just sits there, knowing that in a few moment a murder will come come and kill the main characters girlfriend or something. A he (the person watching the movie) can do nothing about it, but must just look as the tension rises and rises. That''s why it is so scary.
But this wouldn''t work out in a game. In a game the player should ALWAYS (or at least almost always) have the ability to influence what is happening. Or the player will just become frustrated. Playing a game is about being a Hero. About being ''in control''.
The other classic horror movie effect that I mentioned above is the ''Shock effect'' where something totally unexpected happends. This can also be very scary. But it must be used with very great care, if used at all, in games. If some bad deamon randomly pops up from nowhere and kills the player all the time then the player will be frustrated and not at all fell like a Hero. Or if the player has spend several hours in your game building up his character and then he suddently gets killed from trap he had know way of discovering beforehand then he will also be very frustrated.
In summary I think it will be very hard to design a really scary horror computer game which is still fun to play. In a game the player must always be able to influence the actions in the game and to foresee and prepare for difficult phases in the game. Or else the gameplay will, in my opinion, suffer bad.
Regards
nicba
I''ve never played a game which really frightened me. Sure some of the games mentioned in the other posts came close. But they wasn''t really scary.
A few days ago I just saw ''Deep Blue Sea'' and that scared me! There was some moment where I just sat waiting for the big sharks to come and eat the poor unsuspecting victim, knowing that it WOULD happend. And some times when I got a mighty shock when a shark suddetly appeared out of nowhere and eaten the caracter about to give a speach to the rest of the team.
I have never seen something quite like this in a game. And I dodn''t think I would enjoy a game to apply this kind of horror effects at all!
My point is that a game is radically different than a movie. In a movie a classic horror trick is building slowly up to a scary situation. The person watching the movie just sits there, knowing that in a few moment a murder will come come and kill the main characters girlfriend or something. A he (the person watching the movie) can do nothing about it, but must just look as the tension rises and rises. That''s why it is so scary.
But this wouldn''t work out in a game. In a game the player should ALWAYS (or at least almost always) have the ability to influence what is happening. Or the player will just become frustrated. Playing a game is about being a Hero. About being ''in control''.
The other classic horror movie effect that I mentioned above is the ''Shock effect'' where something totally unexpected happends. This can also be very scary. But it must be used with very great care, if used at all, in games. If some bad deamon randomly pops up from nowhere and kills the player all the time then the player will be frustrated and not at all fell like a Hero. Or if the player has spend several hours in your game building up his character and then he suddently gets killed from trap he had know way of discovering beforehand then he will also be very frustrated.
In summary I think it will be very hard to design a really scary horror computer game which is still fun to play. In a game the player must always be able to influence the actions in the game and to foresee and prepare for difficult phases in the game. Or else the gameplay will, in my opinion, suffer bad.
Regards
nicba
Author
Hey!!!
Realms Of The Haunting IS *A GREAT GAME*!
One of the best "adventure" games... It's 3D-adventure-first-person-shooter mixture, and really good one! If you can find it somewhere, GET IT!
I'm REALLY serious about this!
Realms Of The Haunting got pretty nice numbers on magazines, but it's a flop / underground hit. Graphics are little bit dated, because it uses REALLY MUCH-enchanted Doom engine, so enemies are sprites and so on, but...
The story goes little like this: You are a son of a some rich guy, and you get strange letter from some men in black (Elian or something), and your dad has died, but he is haunting you to come for his mansion and "help him to get free"...
Well, you are brave one, and go over there to mansion, and nice nice... after entering to main hall, the door behind you closes, and won't open again!
OK... so now we are just shooting demons? WRONG!
The engine is Mouse/keyboard combined system, and it lets you to manipulate almost everything that you see. You can look walls, paintings, objects and so on. Pretty soon after entering, you find yourself killing a monster, and soon after that you REALLY start freak out when you find out that type-writer starts writing "you are going to die... hahahahaahaaa" by itself, and so on. Puzzles are btw really great, and obvious but hard enough (with good tips anyway).
Now, the game has REALLY Terrible mood, literally :D
I can still remember how I hate first real puzzle room, where you simply have to light candles... I tried to turn on a gramophone (sorry bad spelling, the thing that playes old vinyl-discs), and you can hear laughter of some devilish sound, and cry of baby and mother... really freaks me out
OK, and whatabout story? The story IS really complicated. First it seems to be obvious to help your father, but later on you find out that there is crazy guy who wants to get powers of hell, there is satan in form of human, and yes, there are other sides too, from angles to devils and neutrals. Game areas REALLY change lots. You might find strange portal, and after activating it you find yourself in beautiful garden, and whow!!! Suddenly whole place turns to eye of storm, and so on... The world is HUGE, but the best thing is that you have an best automapper I have seen for any game...
Anyway, get it if you can. It was published by Gremlin Interactive (?) maybe four/five years ago, and it is game that you would still LOVE TO PLAY! Definetly beats System Shock 2 :D
About Braindead, there also BADTASTE, which probably started this all ;D
It's great movie! "Badtaste"... keep that name in mind
Edited by - paladin on 5/2/00 11:27:54 AM
Realms Of The Haunting IS *A GREAT GAME*!
One of the best "adventure" games... It's 3D-adventure-first-person-shooter mixture, and really good one! If you can find it somewhere, GET IT!
I'm REALLY serious about this!
Realms Of The Haunting got pretty nice numbers on magazines, but it's a flop / underground hit. Graphics are little bit dated, because it uses REALLY MUCH-enchanted Doom engine, so enemies are sprites and so on, but...
The story goes little like this: You are a son of a some rich guy, and you get strange letter from some men in black (Elian or something), and your dad has died, but he is haunting you to come for his mansion and "help him to get free"...
Well, you are brave one, and go over there to mansion, and nice nice... after entering to main hall, the door behind you closes, and won't open again!
OK... so now we are just shooting demons? WRONG!
The engine is Mouse/keyboard combined system, and it lets you to manipulate almost everything that you see. You can look walls, paintings, objects and so on. Pretty soon after entering, you find yourself killing a monster, and soon after that you REALLY start freak out when you find out that type-writer starts writing "you are going to die... hahahahaahaaa" by itself, and so on. Puzzles are btw really great, and obvious but hard enough (with good tips anyway).
Now, the game has REALLY Terrible mood, literally :D
I can still remember how I hate first real puzzle room, where you simply have to light candles... I tried to turn on a gramophone (sorry bad spelling, the thing that playes old vinyl-discs), and you can hear laughter of some devilish sound, and cry of baby and mother... really freaks me out
OK, and whatabout story? The story IS really complicated. First it seems to be obvious to help your father, but later on you find out that there is crazy guy who wants to get powers of hell, there is satan in form of human, and yes, there are other sides too, from angles to devils and neutrals. Game areas REALLY change lots. You might find strange portal, and after activating it you find yourself in beautiful garden, and whow!!! Suddenly whole place turns to eye of storm, and so on... The world is HUGE, but the best thing is that you have an best automapper I have seen for any game...
Anyway, get it if you can. It was published by Gremlin Interactive (?) maybe four/five years ago, and it is game that you would still LOVE TO PLAY! Definetly beats System Shock 2 :D
About Braindead, there also BADTASTE, which probably started this all ;D
It's great movie! "Badtaste"... keep that name in mind
Edited by - paladin on 5/2/00 11:27:54 AM
Nocturne. Top game (although hefty PC required) with some very unnerving bits. And the build up and atmosphere was cool 
Silent Hill was disturbing, rather than "jump-n-shock" (although it did make you jump!) and I think that was more chilling. On a personal level I like to be kept off balance and guessing right up to the end, when you hit ''em with the twist ! Hmmm, we need more "chiller" games on the PC!
Silent Hill was disturbing, rather than "jump-n-shock" (although it did make you jump!) and I think that was more chilling. On a personal level I like to be kept off balance and guessing right up to the end, when you hit ''em with the twist ! Hmmm, we need more "chiller" games on the PC!
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