I’ve always been a big fan of spooky games. I used to watch horror movies with my dad when i was like six. I think the first actual “horror game” i ever played was the original Resident Evil for the PS1, which certainly isn’t exactly “scary” by today’s terms but i always thought the tank controls made you feel very claustrophobic and vulnerable, which is obviously exactly how you should feel in a scary game.
One game that always freaked me the heck out when i was little though was Alien: Trilogy also for the PS1. It’s basically a DOOM rip-off rendition of the first three Alien movies. Everything including the enemies is sprite based and for whatever reason the weird 2 frame moving animation cycles for the aliens just made me want to turn off the game when i was younger. That game gave me a multitude of nightmares when i was a wee lad. The music is phenomenal and for a game far more focused on being a shooter the atmosphere is really good, not to mention it’s an absolute blast to play.
Speaking of which yeah i’m one of those people who find older graphics and stuff like physical puppets a lot scarier than “realistic” CGI. I suppose it just lends more to the imagination. Prime example is The Thing, i find the puppeteered monster from the original movie way freakier than the CGI one from the remake.
I think that’s why i think the game that still creeps me out more than any other one is Lone Survivor.
It’s basically sidescrolling Silent Hill with SNES graphics. I’ve never seen any game nail the absolute mind-mess of an atmosphere a real scary game needs as well as this one. There are absolutely zero jumpscares, just a lot of being very on edge. Getting spotted by a monster is nerve wracking and holy ever living hecc the final fight with The Mother was a good one, if light on the action side.
(the final boss just shows up out of nowhere with zero build up so not really a spoiler but eh)
Gets a huge fat recommend from me, you can pick it up for 15 bucks on Steam and black friday’s right around the corner so if you can’t find a good game to buy with your last fiver this one’s a doozy. There’s a lot to the game including drug overdose, death by rotten food and a real surreal story, but IMO it’s way better to just experience yourself. It’s one of those stories where you’ll come out with a lot more questions than answers.
While I am not a huge fan of scary games, I find myself getting roped in with games that have a creepy atmosphere.
One of the most recent ones I have played was “The Last Door.” A psychological horror game that uses a simplistic pixel art style but still manages to lay the atmosphere on.
The 1st season is free and available on Armor games but the 2nd one is $10 on Steam and is worth every penny. The soundtrack is also really special and I also highly recommend listening to it.
I even made GHJ in it's art style lol
Concerning other games, Stalker is one that comes to mind. It’s intense atmosphere can amplify any encounter, not to mention it’s underground laboratories being a staple of the game. I like how it gives you the tools to face your threats instead of just hiding in a locker somewhere.
There are several types of fear, for example, screamers do not scare me, but terribly annoy me, I want to hit the developer when they are constantly trying to add them to the game. So the game that scared me and fascinated me at the same time as a child Dead space. I consider it the standard of the scary game of that year.
Dead Space never really scared me too much, although i am a big fan of the first two and found them wildly fun to play especially on uber-hard mode. I found it to handle jumpscares better than any other game i’ve probably ever played, rather than things jumping out at your face it was stuff suddenly scurrying or breaking open vents or a loud female scream in the distance. And the jump at the very, very, end got me really good.
I find the scariest moment in any game is being at the end of a hall out of ammo and low health with some massive monster barreling towards you. Dead Space’s Regenerators gave me that feeling multiple times.
I recently beat 1 and 2 but just couldn’t stand the new ammo system in 3 so i just gave up on that one.
I don’t play too much horror games, but in 2012 when minecraft and the creepypastas was winning famous i play slender, in that night i was too scare so my imagination makes me hear interference in the talking, that was an everending night.
the P.T demo was pretty god damn scary. There is some ominous stuff in that game that the player even isn’t aware of. For example: At one point in the game you get a flashlight, and one hacker bloke was able to free-cam and found out that the ghost in the game is constantly behind you after you pick up the flashlight, it’s impossible to see it behind you in normal gameplay. This kinda level of fuckiness just adds to the scariness of that game.
