You want scary... play Fatal Frame 2 or The Suffering.

Did you see the new commercial for ManHunt. That looks a little freaky. I think Silent Hill 2 Restless Dreams was the best I played. Go out to the lawn in the jail by the thing where they hang people and all you hear is something running around you... Or (I think this was the first one) where you go to the amusement park and all of a sudden the road turns to a rusty freddy type fence or grill. I love those games though.

-UltimaX-
Ariel Productions
|Designing A Screen Shot System|

"You wished for a white christmas... Now go shovel your wishes!"

UltimaX - the word you were searching for (''thing where you hang people'') is ''gibbet''.

I''ve thought for a while it would be good to make a horror game deliberately non-realistic. Something along the lines of a nightmare, where the walls actually *are* breathing, graphics are a sort of surrealistic pencil-sketch rendering, something big with many teeth really is chasing you.

A device I thought of (sure it''s been done before) is to do things like removing a player''s faculties. Say you''re running away from some slow-but-deadly evil zombie things, which you know are OK as long as they don''t get within arms'' reach of you. You''re not scared. What if suddenly hands reach out of the floor and grab you, and you can''t move? You''ve got to escape before the zombies catch you... you can see them coming...

Or seeing something come into the room, then the lights go out. You can hear where it is (gotta have good 3D sound) but you can''t see it... I guess that one is kinda old though.

I haven''t played any really scary games... anyone care to recommend ones? Been planning to play the Resident Evil and Slient Hill series'' for a while. Maybe it''s finally time to get that PS2...

Does anybody realize that this is a necroed thread?

*slaps the AP*

There, happy?
Necromancing a thread is bad, I understand, but once it''s little heart has started beating again and there''s a decent conversation, why shouldn''t it continue? Call it a recovered coma patient, or something.

c''mon, alnite, what''s a game that scared your socks off recently?

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Original post by fractoid
c''mon, alnite, what''s a game that scared your socks off recently?

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The last game that freaked me out was Conker''s Bad Fur Day in the vampire stage. It played that freaky music in the background and some zombies are popping out right in front of you with a surprising loud sound effects. The zombies are then grabbing your head and eating your brain while you are screaming and screaming and finally die.

The only real game to be at all scary was System Shock 2. The use of sound was class, you would hear monsters but not know where they wud come from. And whats more, you knew that when you found the monster you couldnt simply blast its ass off and be done with it. There was that constant worry that your weapon would jam or run out of ammo, etc and that you would have to run away as fast as possible It had this slow/lumbering pace to it that was great.

The only other game that came close was the Aliens vs Pred series. Admittedly I only played the demos but wot I got from that was I spent most of the level on the edge of my seat so full of anxiety wonderin where the aliens where and when they would come that it kinda lost some of the enjoyment. I suppose the point would be, you cant rely solely on letting the player''s imagination do the work, you have to feed that anxiety at some point...

One game that was disapointingly not scary was The Thing. I got it on budget and for the price it was, it was worth it but it wasnt as scary as I would have hoped. I think it had soemthing to do with the viewpoint...

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Original post by fractoid
graphics are a sort of surrealistic pencil-sketch rendering,

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Yes, I''d love a game that used *claymation* / sketching / cel-shading for the graphics, it would probably be a great way to allow the player to suspend their disbelief. (rather than trying to have ''realistic'' graphics which obviously aren''t real.

Like Celebrity Deathmatch tv series.

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Original post by fractoid
UltimaX - the word you were searching for (''thing where you hang people'') is ''gibbet''.

...

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Thanks

-UltimaX-
Ariel Productions
|Designing A Screen Shot System|

"You wished for a white christmas... Now go shovel your wishes!"

It seems to me that both Resident Evil and Silent Hill often relied on tension and suspense to create ''fear''. They would have long periods with very few monsters thus trying to create the worry of being ambushed, (and the fear of the unknown).

Whilst this works for these games it can be a bit dull as much of the time there isn''t much immediate ''danger''.

Stealth horror games such as manhunt and Forbidden Siren have enemies that you have to get by (or kill) without being spotted. This way, there is more of an immediate potential threat. The player has to avoid making a mistake that will alert the enemy.

Could these styles of game be combined? (Ie. Sudden unpredicable attacks, and constant threat?). Because if you had many unpredictable enemies jumping out on the player in a conventional stealth game it would tend to alert the other enemies and spoil the player''s efforts.

Whatever. Just have fun.