I dont know if im supposed to post this here, but its the Lounge so i guess its the best place. I was wondering if anyone knows of an RPG (singleplayer or multi) that has a lot of ambiance. By ambiance i mean good sound and visual detail not associated with gameplay. For example, your in a dark dungeon. The music playing is scary. You can hear (and see) rats running around looking for food, and water dripping from the ceiling. You enter another room of the dungeon, and some bats fly out the door, and the sound plays accordingly. When you proceed to a "trap" location, lets say a few zombies will pop out from behind a box, warning music plays as you get closer. Just like you hear in the Jaws movie, when the shark is getting close to a swimmer. You know something is about to happen, and the sound puts you in the "frightened" mood. The best game i can think that is like this is Diablo/Diablo 2. It seems like most of the modern day games consist of the same old character classes, skills, and emotionlessly hack'n'slashing the same monsters found in every other rpg. So can anyone please tell me a few modern games that have a detailed ambient setting that will create a, preferably frightened, mood?

Diablo III? It's not out yet (and won't be for a while) [wink].

Quote: Original post by oliii
Diablo III? It's not out yet (and won't be for a while) [wink].

But we all know Diablo 3 is not at all ambient or frightening [wink]

Personally I think Daggerfall excel in this. Despite me being deaf, I always get spooked when exploring dungons (you can easily get lost, which isn't common in games). Other people said the sounds and music are excellent and contributes to the atmosphere.

The low-quality graphics actually contribute to the atmosphere, and makes it feel like I'm exploring a lost world or something.

There's a guy working on DaggerXL, a remake of daggerfall using its resources, but with modern engine. So I don't know if that's modern enough for you or not.

Oblivion?

The Witcher.

My vote goes to Evil Islands and if you like tru oldskool, then Rage Of Mages 2 (ignore the score - everybody is lying!).

Seriously, though - I liked Rage Of Mages 2 to boot.

Hard to think of RPG's that are frightening. I guess Oblivion had the occasional moody part, but on the whole it's pretty tacky so I wouldn't recommend it. The Witcher has much better atmosphere in general but I don't recall it ever trying to be scary.

RPG/Action hybrids are probably your best bet as action games usually invest more into presentation. And in that case:

STALKER is sort of RPGish and has tons of ambiance.
Thief III had a really amazing frightening level later on in the game. Unfortunately, only one.
System Shock II is like the definition of atmosphere.

Quote: Original post by LockePick
Thief III had a really amazing frightening level later on in the game. Unfortunately, only one.

I about wet myself on the asylum level. Not sure that the flickering lights fit with the dark-age theme of the rest of the game, but whatever -- tying the crazy blinking and electric sounds to the movement of the inmates was genius. The sound in the first part of the level was awesome too -- using 3d effects to make a bug fly into your ear (I threw off my headphones the first time I heard this) and the poltergeist knocking when you were going up to the attic -- very impressive. Too bad the rest of the game was kinda weak.

For a more recent RPG with a very good ambience, check out Risen.