The emotion of fear is one thing that videogames can instill extremely well. Whereas movies rely on emotional attachment to characters and loud noises to scare us, games can also use our self-preservation instinct (and more loud noises). Despite not really enjoying – in the strictest sense of the word – horror games, I still find myself playing them, braving the scares out of some morbid curiosity.
It’s Halloween in the land of Walmart and Barrack Obama, time for all things scary, so here’s a list of my favourite fear-inducing, terrifying virtual experiences. Please note I’ve only included one game per series.
Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 2 is all about atmosphere. Playing as James Sunderland, you’ve come to the town of Silent Hill to investigate a letter from your supposedly-dead wife, only to find it desolate and deserted… filled with thick choking fog, hisses of radio static, grimy environments, warped characters and some damned unsettling enemies. One of its great strengths is that nothing is explained until late in the game, making you feel blind, claustrophobic, and trapped; the game has a dread-filled weight to it. And there’s Pyramid Head, a creature so depraved that it sexually assaults the other monsters. It’s one of the few truly uncomfortable games out there – and absolutely brilliant.
FEAR
FEAR successfully balances intense, Matrix-like combat with Japanese spirit horror, which is no mean feat. It’s amazing how often the developers can shock you with a creepy little ghost-girl, suddenly appearing beside you in an elevator, or staring at you malevolently from a raised walkway before dissolving into ash. Throw in some creepy ninjas and bucketloads of gore, and you have yourself a strangely intense experience. It’s one of those games that makes you lean closer and closer to the screen, gripping the mouse tightly, when you walk past a vent and something leaps out at you from the darkneAAAH! Shoot wildly! Jump!
Resident Evil 4
I have a confession to make: I haven’t played any of the earlier Resident Evil games, which are more ‘traditionally scary’. Resident Evil 4 is is definitely a horror game, but it doesn’t contain many dark environments, or sudden jumps like the others in the series. In a word, it’s… stressful. It’s the sensation of being constantly outnumbered and outgunned, on the verge of death, running low on ammunition. At no point in the game did I feel relaxed; I was always fighting for survival. And it doesn’t completely forget about the creepy-factor either – another spindly, slimy boss monster or the distant sound of a chainsaw are just around the corner…
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia is one of most chilling games I’ve played. Waking up in some ancient castle with no memory except your name, you find a letter telling you to kill ‘Alexander’. And so begins your descent into madness, disguised as a first-person exploration game. It’s got a heap of interesting game mechanics: your character begins to go insane in darkness, so you have to manage light sources; the physics system allows you manipulate the world directly, by dragging the mouse to pull open doors or throw boxes; and you’re given no weapons. You’re forced to flee from monsters, stumbling through rooms, slamming doors shut. Even looking at enemies depletes sanity, so you’re hiding in a dark room, staring at the floor, hearing the footsteps come closer.
Dead Space
Dead Space is one of those games that feels perfectly paced – it’s got subtle horror, jump scares and really tickles that self-preservation instinct. The location is an oppressively huge, labyrinthine spaceship filled with mutated, disgustingly-detailed “Necromorphs” and mysterious artifacts. From the level where all the monsters suddenly move five times as fast, becoming jittering horrors that you can barely aim at, to the sight of an insane crewman slowly thumping his head against the wall, or those few long seconds where the lights go out and the world is completely black… Dead Space is a great, modern horror title.
Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly
Basically the antithesis to Amnesia, in this game, you’re forced to look at the ghosts. You play as a little girl in a haunted mansion, looking for your sister – and you’re only armed with a camera. It’s a special camera, with the power to destroy ghosts, but still… Dead children lurk in dark and forgotten corners, sometimes laughing, sometimes crawling towards you with broken necks, and all you can do is frantically back into a corner and take pictures with your camera. Being ghosts, they’re hard to escape from, and playing as a vulnerable, exposed character keeps the panic level extremely high. The only safe place is the pause screen.
Condemned
Condemned has you pursuing a serial killer through a city’s underbelly, reminiscent of movies like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs. The dirty, abandoned urban environments are filled with drug-crazed addicts, and the game’s focus on melee combat forces you to get up close and personal. The gruesome kills are complemented by some neat supernatural horror; you’ll be walking past a row of department store mannequins, before a noise makes you turn around. The mannequins are closer. You turn around again and there’s one RIGHT THERE, and you’re suddenly afraid to move any further.
Honourable Mentions
Before Dead Space and Bioshock, there was System Shock 2. It’s widely regarded as one of the greatest survival horror games, with an extremely good villain… but I’ve only played the first half-hour or so. If you can get past the 1999-era graphics, install some mods and give it a shot. And trust me, it’s a true struggle to survive.
Eternal Darkness – Sanity’s Requiem is a Gamecube exclusive inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, which features an interlocking tale of multiple characters, lots of psychological horror, demon hunting, and a ‘sanity meter’ for each character. Apparently it’s very, very good, but I never owned a Gamecube. It was, interestingly, the first M-rated game to be published directly by Nintendo
Alien vs. Predator 2 offers three campaigns – one each for Alien, Predator, and Marine – but the Marine campaign provides all the scares. Fighting against the wall-climbing, fast-moving Aliens is as scary as the movies, and the motion tracker is extremely well used to warn you of incoming enemies… sometimes. That rising beep could be a door opening, or a flapping bug, or a chestbursting monster.
Call of Cthulhu – Dark Corners of The Earth and The Suffering are games I also haven’t played, but are apparently pretty good. Included on that list are Clock Tower, Alone in the Dark, Siren, Clive Barker’s Undying. There’s lots of great horror games out there, if you’re willing to look for them.
Most of STALKER – Shadow of Chernobyl isn’t that scary. But the bits that are, are REALLY scary. Set around the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear reactor, the wonderfully-bleak game world is filled with mutants and bandits hunting for valuable artifacts. Just wait until you’re exploring the dark tunnels under a research facility and you’re attacked by an invisible, bloodsucking monster. Or maybe you’ll be hunted by the weird, flaming poltergeist. The sequel, Call of Pripyat, is also worth a look.
Doom 3 is the very definition of a monster closet. It’s filled with jump scares and a healthy dose of oppressive darkness. I’ve only played the first hour or so, but I can definitely vouch for its horror credentials.
What’s clear is that the horror genre is certainly well-represented in gaming, with a wide variety of playstyles. There’s more cerebral adventures, thrilling action, survival horror, first-person shooters, and much more. Even old-school adventures are represented, with amazing stories like Anchorhead or 7th Guest. There’s a weird adrenalin rush to be gained from creeping through darkened corridors and uncovering sinister mysteries, that can only be provided by videogames – and hopefully one of these titles will give you a night to remember…
How about Kinectimals? That tiger is scarier than anything in any of these games…
Although this probably goes more under underrated classics more than classic horror, I really have a soft spot for Gregory Horror Show: a game where you steal souls from bizarre characters – the first being a pink lizard nurse with a giant syringe – who look like they're from a children's show gone horribly wrong – because they are, the game's based on a near unknown anime series – was one of the games I played where I thought "this is actually thought provoking and the juxtaposition of the cute and the disturbing" In the game your sanity was your health and constantly fell even while doing nothing, getting caught by someone who you’d stolen from, well, let’s say that syringe was put to “good” use and your sanity suffered.
Oh and you had no weapons – save a banana skin – and where only safe in two places, your room, which you kept locked, and the sole save room. You had to spy on everyone and work out their real-time routines, and learn their weaknesses and exploit them to your advantage.
Trust the Japanese to come up with the creepy stuff. A weird, stealth-based monster hunting game definitely sounds interesting…
One of my favourite Horror games of all time was Forbidden Siren. I recently found out that Forbidden Siren 2 was banned from being sold in the UK due to being judged too scary for British Gamers.
It had one of the best twists I had seen in a zombie survival game enabling you to see from the view of the zombies but only when your character is stood still. A tool that was incredibly useful to survive but often found me being eaten by a zombie I didn't know was there
That would be my own mistake. It was released In Europe but never made it to North America.