Scarey Games / Spooky Games

[bippym]

What are the scariest games you have played?

Mine are (In reverse order)

5) Resident Evil (PSX) - Wasn't as scary as people made out, a good couple of surprises tho!

4) Resident Evil 2 (PSX) - As above but bigger

3) Clive Barkers Undying (PC) - Quite a chilling game, with some atmospheric music etc (Which sets the scene perfectly)

2) Silent Hill (PSX) - What can I say, whenever I play this (Widescreen TV, Prologic Surround Sound) the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention, especially when outside in that fog and those pteradactyl type things are hovering..

1) Savage (Amiga) - Strange one for a number 1 this, but for sheer scare the living crap outta me it wins. Why? Well when I first got it and booted it up my Amiga was running through my mums stereo (A few yrs back now) and the stereo unbeknown to me was extremely loud. Anyway I was chatting to a friend and suddenly there was this horrendous loud growl type scream type thing (SAAAAAAVVVVAAAAAGGGGEEEE) well not loading the game before and the stereo being SO LOUD , I looked around in absolute terror for this person!! :o

Seems stupid now, but I'd never been so scared in my entire life!

[§ane]

"Project Firestart" (C64) and "Darkseed" on the Amiga :)

Resident Evil was a great game.

[bippym]

I Never played Darkseed for mare than about 15 minutes, I couldn't handle the laced gfx, gave me violent headaches :(

Obviously the newer games of today and the past 3-4 years are more atmospheric because of the 3D technology and power of gfx chipsets and the sound (stereo/surround/pro-logic) etc..

But personally I think it's the SFX that make a game atmospheric and scary, if you mute the sound in any fright 'em up :D it won't have the same effect!

[Drake1009]

I'd have to add Alone in the dark 1 to that list. That game really scared me when I first played it.

[CPC464]

I have to say that Alone in the Dark and Darkseed were the scariest games I have played.

They were really good games

[Shatterhand]

What about Space Hulk? That is rather scary too

[Drake1009]

Yeah Space Hulk was somewhat scarey. I only barely made it past the training missions in that *Hangs head in shame* It's too fast, and you don't have unlimited time to freeze the game in.

I only played Darkseed once on the PC and the sound was either messed up or had some very annoying music. So I never got far playing that.

[Uukrul]

Thanatos for the CPC (I hate spiders :) and of course Alone in the Dark

[Akira]

Maniac Mansion on the C64... First time Edna chased us at the kitchen, my sister and me freaked the hell out :D

I think the king of all scary games is Alien vs Predator on the Atari Jaguar... fuck man, that games knows what ambience is. Perhaps the only FPS game I really, really like

[Drake1009]

Aliens vs Predator on the Jaguar as a FPS game? Is that a bit like the PC game?

And you're right about Maniac mansion. You actually made it out of the kitchen the first time you met Edna? I was caught the first couple of times before thinking of going out of the kitchen.

[Muzkat]

I have to nominate the original Alone in the Dark too...

But I remember when I was just a little whippersnapper, Ballistix on Amiga always frightened the shit out of me. It had all that gothic, ghoulish, almost satanic artwork. And the monster who announced the start of play by saying

LET THE GAME...COMMENCE

scared me too.

The intro music, with all the monks chanting, frightened me as well.

It's funny though...now I kinda like all that dark artwork (eg: H.R Gieger etc.), whereas years ago it scared me.

As for newer games, the original Quake didn't really scare me, but it is a scary game IMHO, with all that gothic architecture, and I loved it. It's particularly scary on Nightmare difficulty, where monsters simply appear out of thin air all around you...always keeps you on the edge. ;)

BTW, I wish I could play Undying, but my computer can't run it.

[birdy-scc]

Take magic mushrooms and play Doom or Heretic for a few hours - then you'll know what fear is!


The blue paint on the faces of the Scottish fighters in Braveheart was originally derived from the dye that is in the very same mushrooms. And if you've ever read Asterix, you will know all about Getafix's magic potion. They are part of my Celtic culture - wahey!

I know this probably sounds a bit outrageous, but I am bored -and sober.

[Drake1009]

Who says you need magic mushrooms to have a strange game of Doom? If you're tired enough doom can seem very strange indeed. I remember at a LAN party where I was playing with some other guy in Doom. I hadn't had sleep for a loong time but we played regardless. It was really apparent I was in serious need of sleep. I could see suddently something would be coming at me and I'd just be shooting with whatever weapon I was holding. When running around the mazes I couldn't find my way, I remember running around in circles without being able to find my way out of the room.

If you talk about more than the scarey effect you could talk about shock effect. Some games really do manage to shock you quite a bit. Here again I'd like to pull out Alone in the dark (1). If you had an old SB soundcard and the disk version of the game then you could always hear when something was attacking you. You'd be walking around wearily almost dead hoping to avoid confrontation, and then suddently you'd hear that sound, I think the closest to it would be a thing which I only know as an orchestral blast whereafter the music would start playing. This did give me quite a shock or 3 or 5 while playing. The CD version on the other hand had all music on CD and the effect there is gone:(

Another game with a shock effect (at least for me, I'm easily shocked) is Half-life. I remember more than one time when I got shocked as a headcrab suddently would jump at me, or those things in the ceiling would snag me. And many of the effects around you. If any of you ever played the game that far you'll know about some very large thing, first time you encounter it is at the rail split where you see it finishing off a couple of soldiers with ease. You end up killing it by running down a hallway with your life as stake while it thunder down the hallway after you, just hope you turn on the power soon enough so it'll get caught and die. And those thingies on rods, the first time you encounter those. You walk into a room and you notice a scientist looking at the window screaming "no no no". Look at the window just in time to see something large bust through the window.

There are many other games with good shock effects, and I found 3D games actually have a plus there because things can sneak up on you without you knowing it before you get attacked.

[Steve]

I'm a huge fan of the PC game Trespasser. The official Jurassic Park first person game that everyone slagged off. If anyone here has played it very far you'll know this can be a pretty scary game. You run into an old building with 3 raptors closing in on you and you can here them outside. You've run out of ammo and realise all you can do is run out the back door and find a weapon. Even scarier when a T-Rex is chasing after you and you're running for the cover of a building. Or when one of those raptor buggers jump at you from behind a wall or bush. Truly scary stuff. I think Dungeon Master was scary the first time I played it. I was playing it with a friend and I remember we dropped down a pit. All we could hear were these huge strange footsteps we hadn't heard before. They were getting closer and closer. We suddenly turned around to be confronted by a huge dragon who then unleashed a mammoth fireball in our faces. We screamed. I mean really screamed. It was so shocking. Hahaha. Aaaah, they were the days. Also if anyone has played the 3D sections of Jurassic Park AGA on the Amiga you'll know what scary really is. It's the music that makes it so tense. You jut know there's a raptor in that dark room and your just waiting for it to jump out at you. Don't play this game if you have heart problems. Very Scary.

[Unregistered]

When I first saw resident evil, I was petrified with horror, trying to comprehend how a computer game could suck that badly. :p

[oldpx]

the above post was mine.

1-It's 3:21 AM
2-my power supply killed my hd
3-I'm sick

I'm sorry but I've got three good reasons for forgetting to log in.

[Shatterhand]

I agree, I dislike Resident Evil a lot..

The original System Shock on PC is rather scary too, it builds a nice "fear" atmosphere, and throws you shock situations from time to time.

Can't tell about the sequel , I only played the demo of it

[7-Zark-7]

Scary games? Well, in no particular order....

Friday the 13th (C64)-A classic, particularly when the bodies start to pile up & the fright-o-meter starts climbing. A rare game where the bugs (like losing your weapon if you change to another), enhanced things with random events! Why doesn't someone do a modern-day 3D version-I'm sure the concept would work well for that B-grade atmosphere.

Ghettoblaster (C64)-Although not exactly "frightening", towards the end of the game with numerous baddies running around, the flickscreen scrolling would lead to some interesting finishes!!

Resident Evil's 1-3(PSX)-Brilliant. In all three games I'm sure most people must've encountered portions of each game that you didn't expect to happen.

Final Fantasy VII(PSX)-Again, not something you might be scared at every second of gameplay, but for the major set-piece monster battles at major parts of the game I enjoyed (in hindsight!), having to take on the major boss fights & wonder how long it'd take to defeat some of those monsters. (eg:Ruby/Emerald weapons).

I only ever played a demo of Darkseed, but well recall the "headache interlace GFX syndrome". Was always curious about seeing more but that problem must've been a nightmare to try & play thru-maybe it was supposed to be an unadvertised "interactive" feature for the headache suffering in the game!!:p

[Amigaboy]

I finished Darkseed :D

[Drake1009]

Originally posted by Shatterhand
I agree, I dislike Resident Evil a lot..

The original System Shock on PC is rather scary too, it builds a nice "fear" atmosphere, and throws you shock situations from time to time.

Can't tell about the sequel , I only played the demo of it

I liked System shock 1 too. Had some really good ideas for FPS games. The second one though while the graphics are better it's still not as good as the first. It looks a bit like some other FPS only that you usually run out of ammo, it's really easy to die even on easy and a lot of the good features (such as cyberspace and drug effects) have been removed. It still has a few frightening effects (Mostly caused by the zombies respawning and then sneaking up on you)

[Tim Janssen]

I haven't play many scary games, but here are a few:
- Another World (Amiga): Really love this game on Amiga. The atmosphere because many sprites in this game are nothing more than silhouettes.
- Fade to Black (PC): The aliens in this game have the habit to morph to you and suddenly appear in front of your face. The music also gets very bombastic in these moments.
- Sword of Sodan (Amiga): Once you enter the castle you can fall in spiked traps. The cry the main heroine makes sends shivers down my spine.

[Drake1009]

Tim : - Fade to Black (PC): The aliens in this game have the habit to morph to you and suddenly appear in front of your face. The music also gets very bombastic in these moments.

That wasn't the worst thing I thought about this. The worst thing with the morphs weren't apparing, it was more that some preferred to attack you while in that blob form, if you step on those you die, and they generally try to jump on you and you can't shoot it when they're like that. I just kept thinking, aaaergh get it away, get it away.

[oldpx]

I've just started playing sanitarium. It's "the" scary game for me from now on.

[MethodGit]

Originally posted by Amigaboy
I finished Darkseed :D

What, you mean recently, or ages ago?

[Fred the Fop]

Uninvited and Shadowgate scared the heck out of me when I played them on the NES.

[MethodGit]

In certain aspects, that is. Let me explain:

Super Mario 64 - Those tall ball worm things on the desert level look utterly freaky to me. Thanks to the fact that they're completely two-dimensional, their glowing eyes and sinister smile follow you all the time and make me churn my stomach sometimes. It's been a long time since I last played the desert level seriously (as in actually get on with finding the stars), because I don't feel I can look at those horrible things again. :(
But it's not just that. You know that stage where you can choose to be small or big? When you're small, I get very worried when I'm in any water areas because there's this big fish (who wears glasses I might add) who looks alright at first because you think it's just show-off material that can't harm you, that is until you see the terrible, scary and surprising moment where it actually swallows you whole :eek without warning if you get near its mouth and kills you off no matter how much health you have. When I saw this moment for the first time and heard Mario's moan afterwards, I nearly shat myself and almost shedded a tear as if to cry.
Also, minor things like the neverending staircase (leading to the final encounter with Bowser, and neverending that is if you have less than 70 stars), the snow level picture visible in the big mirror but not in the real area, and the big/small level room where the path magically becomes longer and longer (without you knowing) when you approach the right-hand mushroom picture make me feel very uneasy and shivery. It just... it just doesn't seem logical and calm.

Sonic Adventure - Generally, like the N64, looking at some graphics close-up makes them look fake and makes me feel screwed over. But seriously, one bit in Sonic's Labyrinth level (later in the game) makes me feel "WTF?! I'm shivering now". In the first part of the level, taken with the fact that most bottomless pits look obvious, you actually come across this bottomless pit in two rooms which looks like a floor, therefore fooling newcomers into thinking they're safe havens when in fact it makes them lose a life easily. The first time I saw them, I thought they were just that, floors. Plus the way the brick "floor" is drawn makes me feel queasy.

Witchaven 2 - Okay, so this is game is kind of horror-related anyway. But I remember playing a demo of this a few years ago, and some moments seemed to scare me up real good, like the hidden spike pit at the entrance to a certain room (the platform's just total fake, it doesn't open like a trap door or anything, you just fall right through it!). The slight colour enhancement gives the pit's whereabouts anyway, but still it's pretty nasty to encounter.
But what truly scared me the most is the fact that, during completely random times in the game, all of a sudden this ghastly blue ghost thing would materialise right in front of your face, make a ghoulish sound, and disappear again!!!! :eek :eek I had no fricking idea why it appeared, and I still don't know why it appears randomly to this day. I didn't really play it again afterwards, because the game was, IMO, f*cking off its mind. :rolleyes

Quake - I hate the way the player reacts to green slime, whether god mode is enabled or not. This is bad because in some mods you can't tell which liquids are bad harmful liquids or not. Plus, those big fiends who jump at you with such force and speed that when you try to run away from them you retreat like you're panicking and going "Mommy! Mooooomyyyy!! Get the horrible monster away from me! Wah, Gah, Eek etc.". :p

Quake II - Similarly, the green slime reaction and the brain-sucking tongue aliens (who run around fast and manically in a similar way to the first Quake's peach demons) just make me feel uneasy. Also, one of the levels (I can't remember which) has this small cylinder room to your left at the start, and if you enter it (as in to explore it), it seems empty and normal, except a few seconds later you suddenly find yourself crushed by some huge falling debris and end up being "a bit dead". ;) What a surprise moment that was.

Doom - I detest it when a demon (those pink guys) sneaks up behind you and you suddenly inflict damage and hear the demon's grunt behind your back. Especially if they're one of those cloaked versions of the fiends.
Also, in earlier beta versions of the game, the Doom guy pulled this horrible gasping face when you stepped on green waste. I'm so, so very glad that id pulled it out of the final version, because I don't think I would've been able to play it as much as I usually do now (when I'm in the mood). I do remember though that in one of the demos in some of the early shareware versions, the face cropped up once during E1M3.

Duke Nukem 3D - I just don't like the way the screen fadely flashes green when you step on slime/toxic waste/acid/whatever. Or even the way the screen fadely flashes red when you get damaged anyway.

Redneck Rampage - I just hate, hate, HATE those bloody mosquitoes!!! They're fast, they follow you round most places, and they look faceless to me. I never want to run into a room or area with a shitload of those things.

Blood - Ditto with those small rats that are tricky to kill and invade the floor like horrible things indeed. :p

Hexen - In one of the early levels, there's this scene where there are three lowered platforms, and a light sword image points at one of them. The one that the sword is pointing at is the one you're meant to use in order to teleport to another place, but when you try to see what happens when you step on the wrong platform, the way it pushes you up towards the ceiling and squashing you just looks mad and nastaaaaaaay! :p

Rebel Assault 1 & 2 - Not really scary, but I just don't like the horrible music that comes on when you die, and/or during certain cutscenes. But this piece of music has been known to appear in other situations in some other Star Wars games as well.

Space Gun - In some of the levels, some hostages suddenly morph into aliens upon close examination, thus making me feel nervous about certain hostages on certain levels!

Elf (Ocean) - Not very scary at all, but the chilling title music combined with the red-tinted game over screen hidden behind the highscores makes me shiver a bit. Plus back then I rarely ever wanted to watch the execution animation that would come on after game over (that is if it was enabled). Thank god Ocean gave you an option to disable it at least.

BC Kid - I was playing a demo of this not long ago, and noticed how sometimes some of those jelly plant like things suddenly turn into these FREAKY black/yellow-outline things which jumped around and hurt you if you touched them in their path. They would morph if you jumped on them a certain way or head-butted them (can't remember which way it was, really).

That's all I can think of for now, I might think of some more later. ;)

[Drake1009]

About Blood Marz. How about the hands? Those were way worse than any rats (Which I don't remember)

I forgot to mention wheel of time, also a FPS which managed to have ounces of atmosphere. Especially in the ways (Another world you use between gates far apart) where there's a sort of being there which if it catches you you're told (background story in game) that it'll drain your soul. The world is broken completely dark and when that thing comes close to you you hear a sort of wind mixed with whispering voices. If you look at it it'll look like a lot of faces churning between each other in a ball which chases you. That's actually a fact why I don't play the game over again when it had a nasty bug in one of the (I think) last levels where you never get the enemies you need to kill. I just got goosebumps thinking of going through that thing again. The haunted city, though also scarey especially with that mist creature and the quick creatures which dodge your offence, wasn't all that bad.

[Amigaboy]

Originally posted by MarzAttakz


What, you mean recently, or ages ago?

Both

[Big-Byte]

Fantastic mod for Doom.. Playing it one night round my mates house with all the lights out... and his cat decides to grab my leg!! You had to scrape me off the ceiling!!

[Drake1009]

Nice touch of the cat though to add to the atmosphere. Very considerate I'd say.

One game which I really think was scarey was Daikatana. But not scarey because of the game itself. More how they could market and hype the game so much and still turn out such a piece of **** which people actually bought. That's really scarey.

[Akira]

Originally posted by Drake1009
Aliens vs Predator on the Jaguar as a FPS game? Is that a bit like the PC game?

I think so, but the PC conversion has suffered a bit, the Jaguar game is better.

Marz, man, you are a pussy.. Mario 64? Sonic Adventure??? You poop your pants when you see Postman Pat? :D :D :D

[Drake1009]

No please don't bring postman pat into this. He's too scarey, just like barney the dinosaur *Trembles in fear* (J/K):D

[MethodGit]

Originally posted by bippym
I Never played Darkseed for mare than about 15 minutes, I couldn't handle the laced gfx, gave me violent headaches :(

That's kinda funny, since the character in Darkseed starts off with a violent headache as well.... :D Perhaps he got it from playing Darkseed also?

[MethodGit]

Originally posted by s4murai
- Maniac Mansion (turn the telescope into the wrong direction, you'll see a deserted planet... after 2 seconds suddenly an alien appears with a scary sound)

What version of the game was you playing at that time? Is the 'scary sound' the same on the other versions?

[Mort]

Imagine the scene,1996, a few drinks,dark ambiance, the sound of aliens on the rampage from Big Bytes headphones connected to my P75 Pc as I sit next to him using X-Copy Pro on my trusty old Amiga 1500(which I still use).There is a creek from my bedroom door. I take no notice as I know its my cat Rusty. Rusty see`s a new person to prod with his paw and AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH. Big Byte turns into a Jump Jet. Happy times indeedy ha ha ha.

The most scarey game I have ever played would be Beyond the Forbidden Forest at the stage where you would run whilst avoiding the Worms which would eat you from the ground up. Just like the Film Tremors on the 64!

Sorry Big Byte and Rip my m8 Rusty, you will always be remembered old pal.

[MethodGit]

Oh, sorry to hear about your cat's passing...

[CodyJarrett]

Realms Of The Haunting was a scary PC game. It was written by Tony Crowther of Captive, Liberation and erm.. Captain Planet fame.

[Drake1009]

Yeah realms of the haunting is quite ambience setting and had good graphics for the time too. Actually the slightly grainy graphics make for better atmosphere I think. 4 CDs for what some people would just declare a 3D shooter because you had a gun of sorts and could shoot things. I got sort of stuck after having travelled to hell (or whatever it was, at any rate you were outside the house) and then back again. There was some creatures which didn't mind you shooting them, the only way to avoid their wrath was stay out of the room or stand on the pentagrams. Couldn't get further from there.

How about undying though? It's a fairly new game. I haven't tried it. Is it up to par gameplay wise as well or only atmosphere wise?

[Warlock99]

Old but scary Lucasart game originating from the Atari xl and c64. When the alien appears and starts beating the glass of your spaceship it scare the living shit out of ya!

Nice fractal generated graphics on this game, especially for the time. I wonder if a remake will ever appear.

[CPC464]

Without a doubt I would have to say the following were scary games:

1. Alone in the Dark
2. Darkseed

Not only scary but classics and superb to play

[bgbennyboy]

System Shock 2, playing the demo at midnight with the light off in the loft bedroom of my old house, on my own.
Zombies......noises........crappy spanner.........wont kill them..........noises............zombies...........scream like a girl............brown pants time.

I suppose the first time I was chased by the T-Rex in Tomb Raider and THAT music came on, that was scary at first.

[Shatterhand]

Hey, how much it costs an original copy of Fade 2 Black ?
I just can't find it anywhere here in Brazil, and I don't want to play the warez version, as it doesn't have the cut-scenes (Is Fade to Black a sequel or prequel to Flashback? If it's a sequel, I really want to know HOW THE HELL Conrad got away of that ship)

[Drake1009]

F2B is FB2 in a way and not pre-FB. You wake up after having been asleep some years back in the care of the Morphs.

I'm not even sure if you can find F2B anymore. I got it on a re-release collection.

[ethylene]

The scariest game I've ever played is Temple of Apshai on Commodore 64. The original from Epyx, not the remade Trilogy from Westwood.

You'd be wandering through a dungeon so dark, you can only see blackness and grey walls, and only the objects in the part of the room you're standing in.

The only sounds are your own footsteps and, much quieter, an eerie filter-swept bass note that would slowly ascend and descend in odd scales. Then, suddenly and without warning:

"EEEAAWWW-WEAAAAAaaaaanaanaanaaa!"

The most horrible cacophony you've ever heard in your short six years scares the living bejezus out of you! A terrifying monster is about to attack you! The music starts pounding out loud and strong:

"Dun-dun-DUN-dun..."

[Dastardly]

The scariest game Ive ever played is SILENT HILL 2 on the PS2.
Alone in the house, lights off and with headphones on. :shudder:
This game is scarier than any film Ive watched. (especially the old prison section)
Also in a strange way Tomb raider used to give me the creeps. Walking through dark areas with only a flare was creepy.

On the Amiga it would have to be SPACE HULK. VERY scary for its time.

[Nian]

Hrm the three most scary games I have played would be
Eye of the beholder, the creeping noises of monsters are frightening

Resident Evil series, Somethimes you jump like a sissy playing that game.

ALiens V's Predator 2, Damn thats one scary game when your in the dark tunnels just waiting for an alien or something to attack. the old scanner pulsing makes the scare even worse. Blip Blip Blip De De De Slash Arrrr.... every step is a fright.

[Drake1009]

I only played AVP 1 and the AVP2 demo, but the demo had lost a lot of atmosphere compared to the first in my opinion. Sure it was dark and everything but still.

[cosmiq]

scary'st game?
Well.. on PC it's definately ALICE in Wonderland! But on Amiga I played Ghouls 'n' Ghosts alot.. It was very scary since I was only 10 years old.

[ToTalXS]

The first scary game I ever played was Space Invaders(atari)....help they wont stop coming....help....they just get closer and closer they wont stop!!!!!!!!.......hehehe
For real now I would have to say Hired Guns(Amiga) was the first game that scared the heck outta me.......first fps style game I ever played....is that considered a fps anyway?.......

[Enverex]

Flashback was amazing, F2B was total arse.

anyway, scarey games, would have to be resident evils....

Also Nightbreed for the amiga.

AVP for the JAG ran a little slow, mate just bought one.

[Andrew]

Hired guns used to scare me too ToTalXS. Especially those goat things that used to jump out at you!

[Shatterhand]

Hired guns ins't a FPS , but an RPG, like Dungeon Master , Ishar or Eye of the Beholder. But instead of be in the medieval times, with wizards, knights, kingdoms and stuff, it's set on future, with killing weapons, droids and stuff.

[ToTalXS]

so silly of me.......of course it is a role playing style game........thanks.......peace

[Drake1009]

And you were 4 people, so it would be 4th person shooter as well.

[Matt D`Wrecker]

Hi everyone! Matt D`Wrecker ere! :D Just finding my way round this place!

Hmm! Don`t know about being scared directly by a game. A genuinely scary thing to me is the realisation, when you have spent good money on a game, and valuable time playing it, to find out it is UTTER CRAP! The horrible realisation that you have wasted an hour or two of your life playing some third rate dross, when you could have been doing something worthwhile...like watching paint dry or sticking my CD's in chronological order :banghead :spin (no offence to anyone who genuinely digs that stuff)

Example: let's see...Total Carnage! Anyone played that? If you have... UNLUCKY! :sad What's scary about it is that someone somewhere spent time making it :shocked :confused :shocked What's worse is I spent time playing it :eek :shocked Anyone else out there suffered a similar experence?

[Shatterhand]

Total Carnage... The One previwed it as "The Conversion Of The Decade" ... It was one of the most stupid things The One ever did (and they've done lots of stupid thing)

Total Carnage wasn't good even on arcade.

@Drake

4th person shooter?

1st person : Me
2nd person : You
3rd person : He/She/It

What's the 4th person???? :) :) :)

[Drake1009]

Them

[7-Zark-7]

@Shatterhand. To be fair to The One, they did give it a lousy score when it was reviewed & it featured amongst "pants games" later on.
Happened to see the packaging for Soldier of Fortune II the other day, the basic specs of 1.3Gig space for game install was enought to frighten me!

[Shatterhand]

1.3 gigs??? damn! Those guys are getting crazy..

Yeah. I know they gave a low score for it , and then later featured it in a article about the worse amiga games ever or something like that, but why the hell state it was the "Conversion of Decade" if the obviously didn't know anything about it?

Geez, like I said, not even the original arcade game is good!

Them shouldn't be the 4th person, but 3rd person on plural.

Oohh.. whatever, english is different of portuguese :)

[Muzkat]

Bloodfest is...bloody scary!!!:eek

[Devious]

Those Blair witch games on the pc scared the hell outta me. I dunno why but they was just some kind of atmosphere to them that freaked me out....Especially when i thought that the blair witch was real and not faked lol.

[cray]

I remember playing "It came from the desert" the first time on my amiga...
This thing really scared me. Especially the music in this one, i never again played a game in which music created such a tense atmosphere. When you looked at the map-screen - there was always the feeling of "something lurking out there"...
And these occasional encounters with the giant ants (on the farm eg), the ultra-hard escape from the hospital (i always thought this one would cause my first heart-attack) and the general feeling that you alone knew of those monsters...

This one was the scariest Amiga game for me!

[Drake1009]

I really ought to get back to playing that. I remember once sitting down to play whereafter it crashed on my A1200 :( And I've always been the kind of person who either gets along without save, or forgets to save.

[Marcuz]

well... when i was a kiddo: Eye of the beholder, when i was jumping on the chair everytime i heard the chirp of the spider just at my back in that white level...
And Elvira - Mistress of the dark, standing in every place for minutes trying to pospone death!
(in the sequel too)
Perihelion had some very spine-frozing twist too
But i think that the most fearsome was...
Anchorhead, a text adventure i played on winfrotz a couple of years ago, very well written with a Lovecraft paranoid cosmic sense.
I'm sure i'm missing something from the past that was far too horrible to remember. i'll get some time to recollect ideas...

[Daz]

System Shock 2 Shits me up more out of all of the games I've played that you all have mentioned...omg!

JOIN US......... erk...Pants..Wet.....Help..... :scream

[Drake1009]

Your song is not ours.

I still liked System shock 1 better than system shock 2. They removed a darn lot of the interface when making sys shock 2. Made it annoying that you couldn't use all weapons and you had to ration space. In return they removed the alternate world which cyberspace was, and in exchange for the better 3D graphics they exchanged bucket loads of atmosphere. The small corridors of system shock 1 really added to the sense of claustrophobia while the corridors were too wide in sys shock 2.

Good things about system shock 2 was that it was more apparent what each area had been used for. And there were no mutated invisible things stalking you around darkened corridors. (what I got from the review, never made it that far)

[Konrad]

First that scared me was Elvira 1 - the jaws of cerberus. Ok, I was much younger back then. Later then Darkseed.

Today it's Aliens VS Predator 1. I darken my room, turn up the stereo and then I lsten to the sounds of the motion tracker.
Can't play longer than 1 hour though. Too much adrenaline... :D

[Marcuz]

up there in this thread i said that i was needing time to collect ideas... it was 23 june 2002! bah... almost 2 years to correct Konrad about Elvira... wich one 1 or 2?

i've just tought of Houd of Shadow... that was scarey! i played it a couple of years ago with the solutions in hands and not finished nevertheless.

it's curious that 2 title i've pointd at are textual adventures. this one and Anchorhead. ah the thaumaturgic power of the words...

there is also a 1980 or 81 game you can find at Underdogs, the game that start the whole first person dungeon crawling. the name is (if i remember right) Dungeon of the Wizard. likely some like that...
terribly hard and with the delicious feature of the heart beat rythm goin up and down causing you faint, passes out, prematurely death by collapse! even real 3d wireframed world! there are also some port of it for modern systems. check it out!

[Drake1009]

There were other games in the same series as hound of shadow. Apparently you could import characters from the other games. I'm curious what other games that were though.

[Marcuz]

after a quick search on hol i can state with neither the littlest hint of fear of being wrong that they are Projectyle and Under Pressure, by Eldritch The Cat :)


on Mobygames i've found:
"Where this game really shined, though, was in its character generation. It was an ambitious project that was meant to carry over to a game series called "Timeline" which alas never took off. You had to guide the character's career through WWI, professions, as he or she gets skill points to distribute. Not many games had skills at all, let alone the plethora of skills to choose from in this game. The graphics in this part were pretty cool."

and

"They tried again in the mid -90s with similar ideas in Daughter of Serpents. This game had similar character generation (which by then the idea of skill points was not new anymore)."

[andyr]

Alien Breed 3D is pretty scary. Especially the audio of the aliens - you can hear them but where the f**k are they.

Alien Breed 3D 2 is also scary - for different reasons (especially the bit where the system requirements are listed!)

Atmosphere wise, Clive Barkers Undying really does set the scene well. Very atmospheric but otherwise dull to play.

Couldn't get into resident evil - my m8 things it's the best thing ever but me, well I have my doubts. House of the dead 3 on xbox is pretty scary with things jumping out at you and the camera swinging round all the time. Good game though.

Lets' face it - we're all a bunch of wusses!

[manicx]

I only played AVP 1 and the AVP2 demo, but the demo had lost a lot of atmosphere compared to the first in my opinion. Sure it was dark and everything but still.

No f*cking way! AvP2 is a hell lot better than AvP in terms of atmospere. In AvP, the no of sprites that you have to face is very limited. On the other hand, AvP2 is just like Aliens; you are in Hell. Although AvP2 is nothing special in terms of a FPS, the atmospere makes it one of the best games for me. Just put the volume up and enjoy.

Anyway, my list of scariest games ever has as follows:

-Sillent Hill 1, 2, 3
-AvP2
-WaxWorks (the level in the mine is unbelievable)
-Clive Barker's The Undying
-It came from the Desert

[Drake1009]

I never got what was so scarey about silent hill 2. I've been playing it for about an hour and saw nothing scarey.

Undying was to me mostly another FPS game set in a trying to be scarey game.

[Dastardly]

I never got what was so scarey about silent hill 2. I've been playing it for about an hour and saw nothing scarey.



If you finish it and still feel the same then you are indeed well 'ard!

BTW I play it in the dark with headphones on, try that. :evilgrin

[manicx]

I agree Dastardly. SH2 is a very scary game. It's not so scary in the beginning but it is horrible after an hour or two. BTW, I think that SH3 is even scarier! Although, SH2 lets you enjoy some peaceful moments in the beginning, SH3 comes back to the SH1 horror and gets you dirrectly into dark rooms. Got some excellent connection to the the original story too. Now that I think of it, SH3 is just pure class. The levels where the walls are covered in fire are unique and very sick! SH4 will be out later this year... :)

[BenniP]

Tim : - Fade to Black (PC): The aliens in this game have the habit to morph to you and suddenly appear in front of your face. The music also gets very bombastic in these moments.
Is "Fade to Black" the sequel to Flashback?

[Enverex]

Yep

[Marcuz]

there is also a 1980 or 81 game you can find at Underdogs, the game that start the whole first person dungeon crawling. the name is (if i remember right) Dungeon of the Wizard. likely some like that...
terribly hard and with the delicious feature of the heart beat rythm goin up and down causing you faint, passes out, prematurely death by collapse! even real 3d wireframed world! there are also some port of it for modern systems. check it out!

Dungeons of Daggorath, 1983
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=3660

[IFW]

Silent Hill 2 storywise is genius, shame about the repetitive gameplay, some poor game mechanics, and short lifespan.
It is not really scary as a horror, apart from a few scenes most people are so used to real and movie violence, that it does not really matter.
On the other hand saying that it is a survival horror or comparing to Resident Evil and the like is just scratching the surface.
The game works on different layers of perception, the most obvious one is the genre, but it gets way much deeper than that.
Every scene, situation, monster and act is a reference to something deeper; the game is a rollercoaster ride of self-exploration.
Many of the things referenced are too subtle to notice while playing and only make sense when the game is finished. Also many players will only ever realise that they kill monsters, something to do to make it acceptable as a game for the mainstream, the story is way beyond what most games or gamers dare to enter, including one of the possible endings.
Quite possibly one of the finest piece of mystery, horror thriller ever seen in a game, just as carefully crafted as movies like Angel Heart, Flatliners or The Sixth Sense.
Actually a book or movie maybe a better medium right now for the story itself.

Despite its faults as a game, I am glad that I bought it for the surreal experience it gave.

For some explanation of the references used in the game:
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/silent_hill_3_plot.txt
Only recommended after finishing the game, as it contains major spoilers.

[manicx]

Totally agree with the above. This site doesn't like to be linked from other sources. Just go to the site, make a search for Silent Hill 3 and find the line that has to do with the Silent Hill Plot... :)

[Dastardly]

Good explanation IFW!

A film and/or book of SH2 would be brilliant.

BTW have you see the making of?

http://movie.silenthillforum.co.uk/video/video.exe

Well worth a look :)

[7-Zark-7]

Since my original posting I'd still add Resident Evil Code Veronica which definitely had some "twisted" plot elements.
But some great moments to be had, acessing a computer only to be rudely interrupted, Or the return of Wesker, Claire's love interest mutating & ready to butcher you, great action all the way.

Still a great shame that Resident Evil 4 will only be for the 5 people out there who own Gamecubes! :rolleyes :bash =Capcom!

[Muzkat]

System Shock 2 was pretty scary, especially when you saw "ghosts" of past happenings. And the music was creepy as.

[Shatterhand]

Heh, lost thread revival :)

Just for the record, I did manage to find a copy of Fade to Black for the PSX

and it sucks. It sucks badly.

One of the biggest dissapointments of my gaming life, as I consider Flashback to be one of the greatest games of all time.

[wakeupbomb]

Hope I haven't replied to this thread before...
Just started playing The Undying on the PC and that scares the crap out of me.
On the Amiga Death Mask freaked me out for some reason, I remember it being very scary. I'll have to boot it up and see if it still is (probably not).
Alien Trilogy and Resident Evil 1 on the PSX...
and erm Manic Mansion when you go in the Kitchen and that old woman chases after you. I was a nervous wreck after that...

[Drake1009]

I really can't see what's so scarey about undying. Yeah maniac mansion did have some good moments.

As for Fade to black. It might not be flashback, but if you get into the gameplay and forget that it's supposed to be flashback then it's actually somewhat enjoyable.

[Enverex]

Doom 3 is about as scarey as a FPS can be, lots of Resident Evil'esqe scenes to it but without the annoying RE camera angles :)

[tokalash]

First game that scared me must have been Barbarian (c64) at a friend's place.
And then, the mummy on the first level of Dungeon Master. Walking around for a while and everything is calm and silent. Then you open that door and a hissing mummy comes out right before your eyes. Easy scared I was.

[hype]

Scary games? Well, in no particular order....

Friday the 13th (C64)-A classic, particularly when the bodies start to pile up & the fright-o-meter starts climbing. A rare game where the bugs (like losing your weapon if you change to another), enhanced things with random events! Why doesn't someone do a modern-day 3D version-I'm sure the concept would work well for that B-grade atmosphere.


Yeah! I want that...

Horror Games (PC) (http://www.the-underdogs.org/theme.php?name=Horror) try Flesh Feast works also in multiplayer! :bash


The Freddy Vs. Jason's License Fight Is On!
One of the more interesting and potentially gory licenses that's in the midst of a bidding competition right now is that for Freddy Vs. Jason. You know what the potential game could be like, gory, bloody, brutal, and filled with potentially cheesy and funny situations. Who's bidding for it? The companies we know of are Midway, Eidos, and Electronic Arts. Expect to hear a license announcement by the bidding war winner sometime later this year Look here! (http://ps2.ign.com/articles/496/496908p1.html?fromint=1)

[7-Zark-7]

Nice one, though I'd rather see random hapless idiotic camper try to survive through the different Friday "chapters" as opposed to Freddy vs Jason, there's enough potential on its own for it.

Heck, whilst I'm at it, would love to see a remade Predator too, the C64 version was quite nice with the sudden laser sight aim/pop up. :D

[Peanutuk]

As it is the day for it what are your favourite spooky games?

To start I nominate:

Ghosts 'n' Goblins (C64) - great graveyard antics. I recommend the C64 version for the "woooooo" music.

Resident Evil - more fun to think about than play perhaps, due to the fiddly control system (zombie walks into room, player proceeds to repeatedly run into the opposite wall shooting the ceiling), but atmospheric enough to produce many willies.

[Dastardly]

Hired Guns. Loads of atmosphere and jumpy bits :)

But if you want a REALLY scary game, Silent Hill 2 and especially the old prison section :(

[Peanutuk]

Never played any Silent Hill. Is it going cheap now?

[Dastardly]

I recently picked up the directors cut of SH2 (after stupidly selling my old one) for about 10-15 quid.

The controls arent great and the combat is a bit goony but the very intelligent story and the nerv shredding atmosphere alone make this essential imo.

It has to be played in the dark with headphones on for full effect.

Its one sick puppy :)

[Parsec]

Surely something from id games deserves a mention :) There's been times where I've wandered into a room in Doom and had the feeling there's evil at work!


Also, I remember playing a game years ago (about 1993 I think) on my PC, which had you wandering down a corridor as some sort of space mercenary, and aliens burst through the walls. That had me jumping out of my skin

[Peanutuk]

I had in mind games involving members of the undead (not woody) in a more traditional horror-fest type mode.

Was Ocean's 'Universal Monsters' ever released? I don't think it was.

[Marcuz]

there is already a thread for scary games, i think.

anyway, for the sake of scaryness, current one of mine is:

Silent Hill 4 (never seen any of the serie apart the jap localized one on GBA; i've played it the first time yesterday at my friend place, i cannot unplug from it for 6 hours! GREAT)


the usual ones are:
Perihelion
Eye of the Beholder 1 and 2
(Hired Guns is ok too)

oh yeah, if you are in the gothic kind of novel, the best ever horror game i've played is Anchorhead

[Peanutuk]

there is already a thread for scary games, i think.


URL?


oh yeah, if you are in the gothic kind of novel, the best ever horror game i've played is Anchorhead

What platform is that on? And what is it?

Ofcourse I forgot about Darkseed, a truely frightening experience.

[Eny-]

WaxWorks!

[Marcuz]

aww you lazy ass...
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=2316&highlight=scarey+games
:)
Anchorhead is a textual adv playable through interpreter, winfrotz

Eny: oh yeah!
and Elvira 1 too, the pressure you felt by the music was great, think about the catacombs and the garden + maze!

edit: i just realize that i've posted the same stuff in 2002 on that thread, they should really be merged, please mod

[oldpx]

What happened to the thread name? I don't see one.

[jmmijo]

What happened to the thread name? I don't see one.
Yeah, I don't see one either :crazy

[Marcuz]

it appears that upon the merging the thread name, scarey games, was deleted

[Peanutuk]

Spooky!!

[adamst85]

Darkseed 1 & 2 (1 I completed)
I Have No Mouth and Must Scream - great adventure - Try It
Alone in the Dark 1,2,3, New Nightmare
Alien vs Predator (heh Alien on radar but where the hell is it....groarrr;)
and
Maxwell Manor - 8 bit atari - arcade / adventure with great climate
Ecstatica was great too - werewolf is coming !!

[Hillsy_]

Scary games try these:

Alien Vs Predator 1 + 2 (PC)
Project Zero (PS2/XBOX)
Silent Hill 2 (PS2/XBOX)
Elvira(Amiga) - First sight killing the vampire with the stake. Very memorable.
Alien Vs Predator (Jaguar) - Best game on Jag. Play as the Marine.
The Thing (XBOX/PC)
Resident Evil 3 - Not really scary, but good use of the Nemesis to keep the tension up.

I would probably go with the first three. Ah! damn their all good. Always remember killing the vampire in Elvira...watching as she twists and turns as she dies. Impressive even for the Amiga.

[7-Zark-7]

Still a great shame that Resident Evil 4 will only be for the 5 people out there who own Gamecubes! :rolleyes :bash =Capcom!

And victory for common sense with the wonderful news that Resident Evil 4 will finally be going multi-format which is what should've happened in the first place. :cool
Their work is going to be cut out to regain the survival horror throne, but screenshots to date & hints at change in direction,(ie:not set in raccoon city ala Outbreak & co.), are steps in the right direction. :cool

[Tolismlf]

most scary games/spooky i ever played:

Clive Barker's Undying PC
Dark Seed Amiga
Shadow of the Comet PC
Parasite eve 2 PSX
Resident evil 3 PSX
Silent hill PSX

[Marcuz]

ghostbusters! when you go down the well, you can really feel alone in the red bwels of the town

[mintsauce82]

For me, Nightbreed is by far the scariest game on any format. I know that everyone's thinking that there are far scarier games than that, but when i first played Nightbreed i was about 10 years old and it somehow scarred me for life. The visuals, sound effects and general storyline still freak me out like nothing else, my heart pounds and i start shaking whenever i see it.

[bippym]

There are some intersting games in this thread now, maybe it's time to go check some out :D

[Muzkat]

Doom 3 is pretty scarey - it got to me a few times. My friend refuses to play it because it makes me so uncomfortable. Manhunt is scarey, as is System Shock 2, a wonderful game that is destroyed by its flawed ending. Parts of Thief 2 are scarey too, as are parts of Painkiller.

On Amiga, my scarey games are Waxworks, Personal Nightmare, Ooze, and the Elvira adventures.

My god, this thread brings back the memories.

[7-Zark-7]

Nice one Muzkat. Even parts of Thief 1 had the odd moment or two-esp. towards the very end of the game-areas you did NOT want to waste time in!

[WallacetheBruce]

What adult on this planet gets scared of games? Dear o dear o..... :)

[amigaade]

I don't thing you really needed todays graphics capabilities to scare people, I remember laughing at mates playing 3D DEATHCHASE on the humble Spectrum. Watching them jerking from side to side to avoid the trees, as if they were real. Unknowingly doing the same myself!!!
Or, ducking down when they hit a 6 on a cricket game, when the ball came towards the screen. However playing DOOM on PSX with a very atmospheric soundtrack was a bit chilling and playing HALO when the 'invisible' covenant would appear in front of you caused quite a bit of 'clenching'.

[petza]

Hi everyone! Matt D`Wrecker ere! :D Just finding my way round this place!

Hmm! Don`t know about being scared directly by a game. A genuinely scary thing to me is the realisation, when you have spent good money on a game, and valuable time playing it, to find out it is UTTER CRAP! The horrible realisation that you have wasted an hour or two of your life playing some third rate dross, when you could have been doing something worthwhile...like watching paint dry or sticking my CD's in chronological order :banghead :spin (no offence to anyone who genuinely digs that stuff)

Example: let's see...Total Carnage! Anyone played that? If you have... UNLUCKY! :sad What's scary about it is that someone somewhere spent time making it :shocked :confused :shocked What's worse is I spent time playing it :eek :shocked Anyone else out there suffered a similar experence?


total carnage was cool

I don't thing you really needed todays graphics capabilities to scare people, I remember laughing at mates playing 3D DEATHCHASE on the humble Spectrum. Watching them jerking from side to side to avoid the trees, as if they were real. Unknowingly doing the same myself!!!
Or, ducking down when they hit a 6 on a cricket game, when the ball came towards the screen. However playing DOOM on PSX with a very atmospheric soundtrack was a bit chilling and playing HALO when the 'invisible' covenant would appear in front of you caused quite a bit of 'clenching'.

your right me and my m8's used to swing side to side when we were playing afterburner on the spec it went warp speed 5

the ps1 had the best version of doom
it was pitch black and there were faint babys crying,u could hear the bast monsters but never see them the darkness made it scary,if u turn out the lights and play at night and crankup the volume it makes it awesome.
i was too scared to go into the dark areas

the scareist game ive ever played is the thing on the xbox
huge monsters just rip the doors of the hinges and charge towards u
theres no where to hide they hunt u down,theres blood everywhere its up the walls.
the end of game boss is biggest boss i ever seen in the past 30 years hes friggen HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!

CHECK OUT THESE SCREEN SHOTS
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/thing/screens.html?page=47

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/thing/screens.html?page=43

[wanderer]

I remember playing "It came from the desert" the first time on my amiga...
This thing really scared me. Especially the music in this one, i never again played a game in which music created such a tense atmosphere. When you looked at the map-screen - there was always the feeling of "something lurking out there"...
And these occasional encounters with the giant ants (on the farm eg), the ultra-hard escape from the hospital (i always thought this one would cause my first heart-attack) and the general feeling that you alone knew of those monsters...

This one was the scariest Amiga game for me!:shocked OMG I totally agree with this post from the past, hi cray ! Also Alien Breed 2. Another game that scared me quite a lot was one I was really expecting to be released. I got so disappointed when it came out it was scary. The game was Outrun. (the Amiga version...)

[Shrub]

Metroid Prime. The game oozes freakiness, it especially shocked me when going into the labs in the ice zone. Metroid III was quite freaky too, but mostly because you feel so claustrophobic in there.

Maniac Mansion. I thought I was the only one scared of this game. When I first went into the Kitchen too soon and found Edna (or was it the young one?) routing in the fridge.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was the first 3D adventure game I had played which probably added to the fear effect, but the Forest Temple dungeon as fully grown Link was freaky, as well as exploring the King's Tomb and Ganon's Hyrule City. Who new zombies could be scary. Amazing game that despite the camp elements.

[Relo Kick]

Sorry to revive an old thread but I was going to start a new one with exactly the same topic so I thought it made sense to reply here.

I had a few games that scared the shit outta me on the Amiga, I was about 8when I played these titles too! Games didn't have age ratings on back then, kinda wrong really considering some of the graphic gore in the games. The games that stand out are:

Personal Nightmare (The whole atmosphere in this game was terrifying, the fact that if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time you would get killed without warning was unsettling. The Screens that followed your death were also some of the goriest images I ever saw on the Amiga)

Weird Dreams (Another seriously twisted game, it wasn't so much the gore that was scary, more the storyline itself and the sheer weirdness of each screen. Also the sound effects, music and surgeon screens when you died were quite haunting)

It Came From The Desert (MUSIC!! That was what made this game scary! The storyline was more sci-fi than horror I guess but the atmosphere was intense due to the in game music and sound effects. Trust me, play this one with the lights off!)

There the ones I remember off the top of my head.

[bippym]

Hey revive these old babies ;) (esp this as it's one of my first threads)

I love scarey games and I though F.E.A.R built the tension nicely!

[macce2]

How about Amiga's Fright Night ?

[Zetr0]

I never understood what a 500 rate cyclic rounds per minute machine gun would do to a ghost... but I have to say it ooodles atmosphere!!!!

I was finnishing some work in my Office at home while a friend was over trying out Fear for the first time....

I still have the dent in my roof!!!!

awsome scairy game!!!!! awsome scairy!!!!

[s2325]

Waxworks [cemetery]
Elvira II
Astaroth [music, graphics style]
Fright Night [title screen + laugh + music]
Battle Ghost [walking legs :) ]
Myth [game over screen + laugh + music]

[bippym]

I never understood what a 500 rate cyclic rounds per minute machine gun would do to a ghost... but I have to say it ooodles atmosphere!!!!

I was finnishing some work in my Office at home while a friend was over trying out Fear for the first time....

I still have the dent in my roof!!!!

awsome scairy game!!!!! awsome scairy!!!!

I'd swear I had a twin in another town!

[Zetr0]

I'd swear I had a twin in another town!

Scairy game

Scairy thread

Scairy thoughts


imma gonna go ask my momma!

*heheh*

[bippym]

lol.. I'm a good few months younger (unless someone's been lying!! :lol)

[Marcuz]

you. both. scary... :spin

[spajdr]

For me it was Elvira (my first amiga game with alot of blood)
and then maybe It comes from the Desert (creepy sound and music)
Waxworks also
Also in some games you seen skeleton arm then its skull and it says insert disc two and laugh .. nearly pooped :)

[Muzkat]

Sounds like Barbarian II. That gave me a fright when I first saw it too!

[Marcuz]

For me it was Elvira (my first amiga game with alot of blood)
and then maybe It comes from the Desert (creepy sound and music)
Waxworks also
Also in some games you seen skeleton arm then its skull and it says insert disc two and laugh .. nearly pooped :)
all the three were great. almost any dungeon crawl made me jump on the chair tough, at times...

[Ironclaw]

I got the urge for some scareness..... so gonna play through Darkseed again, will not take long... then brush my teeth and go to bed... wish there were more games like this on the Amiga.

[Marcuz]

I got the urge for some scareness..... so gonna play through Darkseed again, will not take long... then brush my teeth and go to bed... wish there were more games like this on the Amiga.
don't forget to take your headache pills!!!

[Antiriad]

Sounds like Barbarian II. That gave me a fright when I first saw it too!

Yes.... cheeky old Richard Joseph :)

[onkelarie]

As for bumping this thread up, here are my scariest games I've played:

1) F.E.A.R. (PC)
I actually didn't have the nerves to go past that next corner, on several occasions... Great atmosphere, mostly due to the lighting and the excellent use of sound and music (or better, the absence on many occasions).

2) Doom I and II (PC)
I had countless scares during gameplay. Especially those chilling imps with their scratching sound....

3) Personal nightmare (Amiga)
As mentioned before, this game has some gory imagery in there...

[rsn8887]

Scariest "game" I ever played:
Using Disksalv on my Amiga HD ;)

But honestly -
Above all: Eternal Darkness GC
Next in line: Resident Evil 1 PSX (Sound effects were creepy as hell, played it solely with headphones in complete darkness!)

[Muzkat]

I don't want to clutter up this thread with non Amiga games (not that that is bad, though) but I just wanted to add that I found Condemned: Criminal origins to be quite a scary thrill ride. One scene in a school level made me wet my pants.

Highly recommended. The game not my pants.

[Dizzy]

Highly recommended. The game not my pants.

Well fred loves your pants ;) :laughing

[s2325]

I remember title screen from Gnome Ranger, similiar to Chucky from 'Child's Play'
http://hol.abime.net/2746

[Coagulus]

I used to get freaked out by Maziacs on the speccy and Alien. Er, newer ones.... um, yeah Nightbreed was freaky. I used to play Gloom on the Amiga always with the volume too loud and some of the SFX made me junp same as Doom did! Later, Alien Trilogy, Alien vs Predator, Sanitarium. Doom 3 had it's moments too! Also, the "on drugs" level of Max Payne was freaky!

[Zetr0]

Recently I have found an intense nail bitting game..

Tomb Raider Legends

even made my palms sweaty anf i was just watchin my wife play the game jumping from ledge to ledge!

[Muzkat]

This week, I endured my scariest gaming experience ever.

As soon as the level started, I wanted out. But I couldn't turn back. The long, dank, misery filled level assaulted my senses, never letting me feel comfortable, and I found myself praying that this level would end. I had trouble sleeping this week, and even had a nightmare about this level.

I have read about other people's experiences with this level - for some people it took months, or over a year, to finish this one single level, and others have stopped playing the game completely because they can't take anymore of this brilliant setpiece.

Once you have been through Shalebridge Cradle in Thief: Deadly Shadows, all other horror games feel like Disneyland. And you feel scarred for life. I know I do.

[_Steve_]

So far, only one person has mentioned probably the scariest game I have ever played on any computer/console - and that would be Project Zero (PS2). I believe the game was known as something else in the US as well as on the XBox, but it singularly beats all other "horror" type games I had ever played.

Prior to this, Silent Hill (PS1) would have been my next choice, and as some have mentioned "Friday the 13th" on the good old C64.

Darkseed I didn't find overly scary, just a little surreal, not unlike another title mentioned - Weird Dreams.

[Zetr0]

this got me thinking a smidge about more scairy amiga games...

well i have to admit there are a few out there that really put the wheels in motion when were talking atmosphere!!

Scairy Games that one must play

Perhellion
Awsome atmosphere and a few levels where the atmosphere gets really thick. there is one level where you are rushing through a toxic mine (EOB style) and each step kills you, there are traps too, and it swtiches you arround as well!!! man that bit has your heart racing!!!)

Elite
Docking without docking computers its..... lets say... relieves one constipation, not to mention getting into a fight and realising you forgot to save it!

Xenomorph
I first remember playing this on the Atari ST (yes i was one of THOSE kids that had both) to begin with you might think it a little slow, and it is.... untill you get down to level 2 and meet ya first Xenomorph... it might be because it was the first game of its type that i hade played (not counting bards tale) that had the atmosphere... especially in the dark!

Drakkhen
Here is another game I played first on the ST, some how the Amiga version was poor im comparrison!... but there was lots of atmosphere, especially when the sun went down and all manner of nasty thing came at you... especially when your walking your part from town to town etc...

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
This has some great atmospheric graphics that draw you into the game.. well worthy of play... this would of been a much better game if at time it wasn`t sooo anoying!

Prey: An Alien Encounter
This game has the taste of something REALLY tasty... it has all the ingredients.... if only it was alloud to bake a little longer... it has its moments though... its a little cheeky!



Scairy Games I am yet to play

Trapped 2
This looks quite engrossing, it does have a high graphic detail that oozes atmosphere, I am just hoping it is playable on an 060 with a gfx card :D




i will add more later methinks.

[humble worm]

Most scary game I played was S.O.T.B 2...
Perspective of getting killed (or stuck), reloading the game and undergoing the same ordeal once more just to be killed (or stuck) again in the same place was scary enough to prevent me from playing the game ;)

[demoniac]

Elvira - Mistress of the Dark (Amiga)
Sanitarium (PC)

Are the best atmospheric games that I have played.

[EmuChicken]

Fatal Frame!!!! - PS2

It Came From the Desert! - Amiga!

Maniac Mansion - Amiga / C64

nuff said!

All the people stating Doom as scary is an idiot... this isnt scary - its just a gore fest... action... etc etc

[Ironclaw]

Scariest game on Amiga MUST be Darkseed (which I think I've mentioned before in this thread :)). It's pretty atmospheric aswell.

http://www.tumbaabierta.com/cripta/img/darkseed.jpg

[Marcuz]

just finished Obscure 2, i've gotta say it's a very nice game.

easier than Silent Hill 4, more b-list sci-fi and less scary (thankfully).

very interesting characters some of which will not go far in the game, alas!
very well done visuals and great control/camera. great sound too.
i have not played the first game, some comments/reviews on www say the first chapter is better than the second, even.

[DDNI]

Since reading this thread, I have tried most of the suggestions....

Maybe it is my age now, but none have made me jump like that ghost bitch did in Uninvited

[s2325]

Yes, now it's hard to scare by Fright Night game.

[gimbal]

1. Silent Hill 1
2. Silent Hill 3
3. Darkseed
4. Alien VS Predator 2 (not really scary, but it still gives a nasty feeling in the pit of your stomach because of the intense atmosphere that is always present)
5. the 7th Guest

These are the games that freaked me out the most over the years :)

[Twobears]

I'll add a couple of games I haven't seen in this fun thread :)

One of, if not the first amiga game I witnessed was Moonstone. The swamp monster appears from out of the mud, accompanied by a loud shrieking sound, horrible arms spread out high ... then takes its victim (you) down under.

I refused to play that game for quite a while.

Another scary one for me was UFO: Enemy Unknown (UFO Defense in the US). Hearing it, but not knowing where the body snatching chryssalid is ... then seeing it round a corner just when you thought you were safe!

On the PC I got a few scary moments playing Lands of Lore. I'm not sure which version, but it was 3d, didn't have great graphics, and it was nicely dark and atmospheric. At one point, you walk down a dark corridor as it bends to the right. The screen turns black as your way is suddenly blocked, and a spooky voice whispers in warning: "BEHIND YOU!". I turned as fast as I could (still felt agonizingly slow... turn around, turn around!! aah!) and sure enough, some ghostly creature was walking toward me, already too close for comfort ... :shocked I didn't see that kind of (scripted but effective) scariness until System Shock 2 and Half-Life.

[Marcuz]

I'll add a couple of games I haven't seen in this fun thread :)

One of, if not the first amiga game I witnessed was Moonstone. The swamp monster appears from out of the mud, accompanied by a loud shrieking sound, horrible arms spread out high ... then takes its victim (you) down under.


yay, that was indeed a great jump from the chair, i remember that vividly

[aldo]

Fear perseus mandate is even scarier than the first one, I am playing through it at the moment, the sound effects are well spooky!

[seuden]

Time this bad boy got bumped, there's been just over a year since the last post has there been any other games that have made you soil your underwear?

I can't believe no one has mentioned The Suffering, that game was friggin scary, lights out and on surround sound, bloody creatures with blades as legs coming after you, lol.

New one, Dead Space, quite scary.

[DamienD]

New one, Dead Space, quite scary.
I know what you mean :scream

Played / finished it back in December (http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=489916&postcount=1079). Shite myself quite a few times :lol

[CongealedWallrs]

Old games: I found 'Weird Dreams' for the Atari very unnerving in the pure confusion of the different scenarios. It makes you feel very uneasy and confused rather than making you jump. It has frightening sounds also.

New(er) games: I don't think anyone mentioned 'System Shock II', might be wrong though. It is still bloomin scary and atmospheric if you are into that type of game. I only got so far before I had to stop and take a sanity break!

[seuden]

I've never played System SHock but Bioshock was quite jumpy in places, that game has an awesome atmosphere.

I know what you mean

Played / finished it back in December. Shite myself quite a few times
Hehe I've only recently bought it for the 360 and I've not got that far yet (as I'm playing Street Fighter 4 and Resident Evil 5 also) but it's still managed to make me jump in a few places.

[Muzkat]

Dead Space was a wonderfully scary game. I enjoyed every second of it.

[Old Fool]

It is incredibly hard to make a scary video game. Too bad...

Only a few games have succeed to give me a scary feeling. Darkseed on Amiga was a chilling adventure and almost the same kind of story was seen in 3D 1st person view on a PC: Realms of the Haunting. Highly recommended!

[s2325]

How about:

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/433/atari2600holy.jpg

I'm sure some kid had nightmares after seeing these covers.

[Monsterland]

I remember being very scared of only just watching Frankie Goes to Hollywood on the c64 eventhough I never really knew what the hell was going on in that weird little game. Also, Scarabeus on the same 64. The sound of closing in monsters while wandering though ancient lairs made everything very atmospheric. The only modern game that really got on my nerves is F.E.A.R., especially those sudden flashbacks spring to mind.

[s2325]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO1M3N58M50

[Phantom]

Waxworks and nothing more. :D

[s2325]

Rolling preview of Alien Breed 3D: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EORtwaAzxjo I think it have better atmosphere, closer to 2D Alien Breeds.

[cncfreak]

Old but scary Lucasart game originating from the Atari xl and c64. When the alien appears and starts beating the glass of your spaceship it scare the living shit out of ya!

Nice fractal generated graphics on this game, especially for the time. I wonder if a remake will ever appear.

Abso-friggin-lutely...

I would always jump when the aliens jumped up and started beating on the window.

Another game of recent that i get the same feeling from is Minecraft. I love to go spelunking in the deep dark caves looking for ore, coal and diamonds and there is always those damned creepers that sneak up and explode on you. I always have to take my time and lay out torches where ever i go.

A game that to this day my buddy can't play is Stonekeep. He would jump every time one of the goblins would jump out.

[s2325]

Music in Droids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk40HICeKeY I'm happy that I had not this as small kid.

[Catflap]

Earliest scary game for me was 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81 - lots of suspense there when you were told Rex was hunting you.

Next one would be the bit where the alien pops up on you and bangs on the screen in Rescue on Fractalus on the C64 - remember playing that in a darkened room the first time I saw it.

Agree with earlier post on It Came from the Desert to throw an Amiga game in.

[s2325]

I downloaded today old disturbing adventure game Cosmology of Kyoto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ_vdawxXzs It's game for Windows but desktop should be set to 256 colors.

http://blog-imgs-31-origin.fc2.com/k/a/t/katan100/ckyoto12s.jpg

[diablothe2nd]

I haven't read the whole thread, but if someone hasn't yet mentioned Amnesia: Dark Descent, then you guys should totally try it... with the lights off, and a good pair of headphones as it suggests.

I still to this day cannot play that game long after my first scare (which doesn't take long) and seeing the first shadowy type thing out of the corner of your eye just freaks the sh!t out of me :P

[rampartsagain]

well frankie goes to hollywood was never a compreended game was about a computer caracter that wants to be a 100 per cent real person and for that has to deal with feelings and real things that were pasing back in the 80´s, also loved amiga night hunter very adictive, and favourite of oldies pc 7th guest and 12th hour,post times soul reaver and bloodomen for ps1 and ps2 :)

about the game elvira i loved the chick always in my sleep dreams :) and darkseed was i think the some of the scaryest of those times but unfortunatly never played maybe now i will :)

[lee t]

AVP on the atari Jaguar was so scary. To hear the Predator now and then made you shit your pantslol. As it wisperd Come on.......Any time.great stuff and gripping remember playing until silly hours of the morning for weeks. Silent hill on the PSX made you feel you were in the nightmare great games as well. Res evil were pretty good but not that scary

[delshay]

Doom 3 is about as scarey as a FPS can be, lots of Resident Evil'esqe scenes to it but without the annoying RE camera angles :)

Agree DOOM 3

Last two levels before hell & hell itself which I could never defeat that insane creature.

[N-Ed]

Dead Space on the PS3 is the last scary game I've played, this game combined with [Large screen + 7.1 + Dark livingroom] always sent my heart raceing :great

Elvira on the miggy was the first scary game that I can remember playing.

[s2325]

Adventure game Plague of the Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoI-mpg2fFU Should be released also for Amiga.

This is a rare, very hard to find adventure game. The Shareware version (which is what I play here and appearantly sucked at) has nag screens, censored gore, little to no music and sound effects. The registered version (which is ultra rare) supposedly has a lot more features (including sound, music, full gore and no nag screens). You play Alucarda, daughter of a Witch who was burned at the stake. Your mother comes to you as a ghost and asks you to avenger her death, thus setting the story in motion. I probably would have played it more if I knew what I was doing back in the day. Overall it seems like a fairly good game considering it was made by just one person. A real labour of love.

This game scared me when I was a nine-year-old or so. I remember waiting until my parents weren't home to play this (along with other, better games, like Doom and Heretic). I seem to misremember it as having significantly better graphics than this...

[fishyfish]

Ive always had a taste for dark book/movies/games, so find the lack of good ones n the amiga a little disappointning. There's a few (already mentioned by other people), but not enough for my tastes. Something inbetween Alone In The Dark and Resident Evil should be doable on a moderately upgraded a1200 (or equiv. aga machine), not to mention '060/ppc + 3d gfx card users.
This isnt to say Id only like a Res. Evil style game as far as this theme goes, but it is something Ive always wanted to see.

Sanitarium (pc game from '98) is a fantastic games too in my opinion, and has a nice creepy atmosphere.

[DDNI]

Slender is quite spooky.

[Fragger]

For me:

On Amiga:

- Mortville Manor
- Elvira 2
- It came from the desert (the atmosphere was really hard to deal with)
- Drakkhen (some hard monsters)
- Indiana Jones 3 (when you choose the wrong Holy Grail)
- Persian Gulf Inferno (more scary than spooky. ...just walking into the next screen, hearing the aggressive arab voices)
- The Colonels Bequest


On PC:

- Sanitarium

[Lord Aga]

Something inbetween Alone In The Dark and Resident Evil should be doable on a moderately upgraded a1200 (or equiv. aga machine), not to mention '060/ppc + 3d gfx card users.


True. RE1-like game should be doable on a 030 A1200. Even if it is with a slightly reduced screen. Some artistic frame, and stat bar and voila :)


Sanitarium (pc game from '98) is a fantastic games too in my opinion, and has a nice creepy atmosphere.


Sanitarium is a terrific game. I have it installed still :) Thinking of playing it again from the beginning.
It has no extraordinary demanding graphics or effects. Should be doable on a fast RAM expanded A1200 just for the sheer ingame material (graphics and sound). Also fast RAM adds a significant speed boost.

Also it would have been great to see more horror adventures like Dark Seed.

Coulda woulda shoulda...

[DaveMB]

Never played a gamed a game yet that i would consider scary.
Played a few that have made me jump a bit EG: Slender/RE2 etc but don't consider this as a scare moment...Rather it's just a sudden loud sound/screen change thats designed to make you jump..It's a shock, not a fright.

The only game that came close for me was F.E.A.R but thats because i have a (possibly) irrational fear of freaky little wierd girls, In the same way that the only horror film that ever freaked me out (and trust me i've been watching horror films my whole life) was The Ring/2 same reason as F.E.A.R.

[s2325]

I think if you watch horror films it's not easy to scare you in game.

[Lord Aga]

Well, it's not about running away and screaming "mommy" or sitting in the corner crying. No one gets that scared :)
It's about enjoying the spooky atmosphere, the twisted story, and gruesome characters :) If your heart gets to skip a few beats, well... that's the extra bonus :)