2spooky4me

[Juno]

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Since Halloween is coming up, let's take some time to appreciate and discuss the horror sub-genres and creepy moments in games! Are you a fan of horror games in general? Do you prefer psychological horror or survival horror? What are some of your favorite scary games, and why?

What, in your opinion, makes a game scary in the first place? Surely jumpscares and disturbing imagery alone is not enough - are you more creeped out by the story/setting, ambience, music/sounds, etc?

If you're not an avid fan/player of these games, what is it about them you don't like? Were there any moments in a non-horror game that freaked you out?

Just some questions to get the discussion going - feel free to talk about anything else related to horror games here!

 

[Morkula]

I'm not a horror fan at all...I'm really jumpy when it comes to startles and scares, so jump scares are a definite no. I find them to be really cheap anyway, along with using gore for creepy/scare factor.

I would much prefer creepy environments and ambience where I know nothing is going to jump out at me, but it still feels tense. Even then, it's really stressful to play games like that, rather than enjoyable.

 

[Leviathan]

I haven't really dipped my toe into the horror genre in video games compared to books or film. In fact, the only proper horror game I've gotten a taste of is Outlast. I enjoy the suspense it generates though, and the possibility of instant! death! if you screw up.

 

[Sydian]

I'm a bit of a weird case. I do not do horror anything...for the most part. I don't play horror games and I don't watch horror movies. I avoid them like the plague. I do, however, love scary and creepy video game music. I could listen to it all day. I guess I can handle that since I don't have to see anything scary or gross. However, I will watch the hell out of some Five Nights at Freddy's. I guess it's just so bizarre that it doesn't bother me a lot like other horror things do? But I also find all the backstory and such to be very interesting so that's what keeps me invested. FNAF World looks interesting as well!

Scary moments in games for me hmm...so I'm not gonna lie, as a kid playing Rugrat's Scavenger Hunt, Angelica's Temple freaked me out a bit. It still makes me uneasy to play that game (and yes, I still do) and have Angelica in the room. :( It terrifies me lmao. The music is kind of scary too and coupled with the scary models of everyone and the fact I don't want my cookies or statue pieces stolen, it's still a bit unnerving.

Also the first dungeon of Tales of Xillia is ****ing creepy. The music is eerie and there are tubes with dead people in them and UGH GREAT INTRODUCTION TO THE GAME GUYS.

Obligatory Redead from Zelda mention. All of them. Every game they're in. I don't have the time to discuss all the Redead stories I have, but if you've played any Zelda game with them (and there are a lot), you probably already have an idea of how scary those guys can be.

 

[pkmin3033]

I've always loved horror games. I used to stay up late with my friends and play the original Silent Hill in the dark; it was a kind of competition to see who could last the longest, haha. I've become very jaded over the years with the genre - mostly because the "horror" has been replaced by "action" since Resident Evil 4 and now relies almost exclusively on jump-scares to be scary, and jump-scares aren't scary to me - but I will leap on a good horror game immediately.

Music is a big part the reason I love the games so much..or lack thereof. Whilst they're not technically horror games persay, the Souls series and Bloodborne know EXACTLY how to use music to generate an atmosphere: complete silence, and then suddenly you get something like this or this in your ears whilst facing a boss. Excluding Dark Souls II (which had the most uncreative bosses imaginable and was a general letdown when compared to its predecessors) and especially in the case of Bloodborne (which was nightmare fuel) this made boss battles terrifying affairs for me at worst, and nerve-wrackingly tense at best. The best horror games, in my opinion, use music sparingly...or they're very deceptive with it. Corpse Party on PSP used music quite effectively to set the mood, I felt. That said, a good track in any game can make it feel tense. Cold Steel Coffin remains one of the most ominous tracks I've ever heard in a video game, because it made me feel like I was going to plummet to my death at any second. It's a freakin' village theme, for crying out loud!

I'm not sure what scares me the most. I'm not fond of jumpscares though; they're quick, cheap, and very predictable. I prefer an atmosphere of constant tension and suspense, with just a little foreshadowing here and there to keep you on your toes...coupled with a few false leads to make you jump at shadows. Alan Wake in particular excelled at foreshadowing with its tidbit novel segments that could, on occasion, tell you exactly what was coming next. Or leave you out in the cold. Dead Space, whilst it was mostly a jump-scare game, had a very creepy atmosphere as well; I actually had to stop playing to regain my composure after several encounters.

Limited ammunition and disproportionate levels of damage give you a real sense of vulnerability, and I think that is essential for a good horror title: you have to be punished quite painfully for your mistakes, and you need to fight your instincts to just go in all-guns blazing...it'd work, but it'd screw you over later. I had that issue in the Resi remake on the Gamecube. A good horror game requires an almost superhuman level of precision and calm which isn't too difficult under normal circumstances but is something you just aren't capable of at that moment. It's very hard to stay calm when you're being ambushed by invisible alien/predator insectoid hybrid things, or when you're facing down a mutated werewolf thing that's three times your size and can cleave off half your health with a single swipe...or, worse still, when the enemy in question is invulnerable save for one very small area. Or when it's totally invulnerable and you have to run for your life. One of the scariest moments I have ever experienced in a video game was actually running away from the SA-X in Metroid Fusion: it's got all your powers, is immortal, and hits like a truck. It also pursues you very quickly...and doubles back if you hide. DAMN. Some of the areas in the Prime games (Phendrana Drifts when the lights go out and the Metroids start breaking out of their cages) are pretty scary too!

Then, of course, you've got games like Eternal Darkness, which is just Mind****: The Video Game. Games that distort your perceptions and make you doubt what you're actually doing are the pinnacle of the horror genre. Silent Hill 2 was rather good at this as well, although that was mostly because it was so damn foggy you often didn't see enemies until you were right on top of them.

...so, use music sparingly, limited ammunition, made of glass, and a healthy dose of both real and imagined threats. Plus some ****ed up nightmare fuel monsters/bosses that make you want to run in the opposite direction as fast as you can. And no cheap jump scares. In short. xD

 

[Dustmop]

I'm not sure what scares me the most. I'm not fond of jumpscares though; they're quick, cheap, and very predictable. I prefer an atmosphere of constant tension and suspense, with just a little foreshadowing here and there to keep you on your toes...coupled with a few false leads to make you jump at shadows. Alan Wake in particular excelled at foreshadowing with its tidbit novel segments that could, on occasion, tell you exactly what was coming next. Or leave you out in the cold. Dead Space, whilst it was mostly a jump-scare game, had a very creepy atmosphere as well; I actually had to stop playing to regain my composure after several encounters.

Limited ammunition and disproportionate levels of damage give you a real sense of vulnerability, and I think that is essential for a good horror title: you have to be punished quite painfully for your mistakes, and you need to fight your instincts to just go in all-guns blazing...it'd work, but it'd screw you over later. I had that issue in the Resi remake on the Gamecube. A good horror game requires an almost superhuman level of precision and calm which isn't too difficult under normal circumstances but is something you just aren't capable of at that moment.

^ A lot of this stuff. :)

I love the psychological stuff. I love survival horror if it's of the "limited ammunition" variety.
But I haaaaate all of these "lol you don't have any weapons, that's super spooky right?!!" games. No. No it is not. It's frustrating. It's annoying. And it is not any scarier.

I seriously love horror games and horror movies. I go out of my way for the thrills, yet I rarely get any. :( Given that, though, I'm not sure that I could explain what makes a horror game more or less scary for me. There are some really incredible environments, some seriously creepy ambiance, and some really twisted plots. And I enjoy those! -- but they don't have me falling out of my seat like I wish they would, lol.

Further on that note - most of my favorite horror games were because of nostalgia rather than the fear-factor. I love Eternal Darkness: SR, but that's because I played it with my dad when I was 10. Resident Evil 0 is my absolute favorite in the series, but that's because my neighbor gave it to me before she passed away from cancer. They're still good games in their own rights and deserve the praise, but that's not the primary reason I prefer them.
I will admit that Outlast started strong, but about halfway through it was starting to feel more like a gore-fest, riddled with jump-scares, rather than being the genuinely eerie environment I had grown to adore at that point. The DLC looks more promising, but I don't wanna scrap my current playthrough to try it. On the other hand, I'm not even sure I wanna finish it anymore.

And re: thread title: There is no such thing as too spooky! :P
My therapist recently explained to me in laypeople terms that people who experience a significant trauma (so others like me with PTSD) are more likely to seek out adrenaline-rushed thrills because we don't make as much of that chemical as people unaffected by such things do. She believes that's why I've gravitated toward them since my early teens, and why I usually walk away disappointed that the puzzles were too easy/too frustrating rather than disturbed by the game's story or environment, lol.https://www.pokecommunity.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/

 

[Zoroark Cutie]

I am a giant fan of horror video games. They are one of my favorite kind of games to play, and I'll play either psychological or survival. Some of my all time favorite horror games are Zombi, Siren: Blood Curse, Alien: Isolation, F.E.A.R., The Evil Within, Fatal Frame (aka Zero and Project Zero), Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, Fatal Frame III: The Tormented, Resident Evil Remake, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Silent Hill: Downpour, Obscure, Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, and Deadly Premonition.

There's a lot of things in survival horror games that usually draw me into playing them and gets me scared, and it differs for each game. Now out of all the games I did list, Deadly Premonition is the only one that didn't scare me at all simply because it was a comedy horror, it at the most had me on the edge of my seat during times where you have to hope you don't get spotted by the Raincoat Killer. In games where it's more about survival, it's more about not being safe, being limited, being weak, smart AI, and having to manage all your stuff. For example, Alien: Isolation is one that does all these things, most areas in the game aren't safe and the Alien constantly stalks the areas, you can't do anything to it except avoid it or try to scare it off if you have the resources available like a Molotov, the Alien AI doesn't follow a set path, does what it wants, and will immediately go to any area where it can hear noise, you are weak in that you have to rely on stealth, you can't kill the Aliens until a certain part of the game unless it is a Facehugger, the Aliens and Facehuggers will kill you instantly, the Working Joes will quickly counter your melee attacks, and Human AIs will be a lot of times be in groups and sometimes won't be hesitant in shooting you, you are limited in that bullets are found in small quantities and you will have look around for items to craft other items, and you have to manage your items and save them as much as possible for tricky situation. Another thing are consequences. An example would be Zombi, where if your character dies you lose all items on that character and if you want to get them back then you have to go all the way back to where they were killed and possibly kill them if they were turned into a zombie to get your stuff back and if you die before then then you lose those items for good, or better yet the survival mode where enemies are tougher and you only got one life to beat the game. Games like Outlast and the Amnesia games where you can't fight back at all, and instead you have to run away, and try to keep enemies off of you and hide to survive is one thing that does get to me and scares me since you got no way of fighting back. In games like F.E.A.R., it's the smart AI and messing with your head that gets to me, with the AI soldiers noticing stuff like your flashlight and or gunfire and they immediately start taking cover and trying to flank you, and moments in the game where Alma will just show up for a jumpscare or makes you see stuff that aren't really there.

I can literally go on forever about horror games because I do love them that much.

 

[Klippy]

I played Amnesia for a good two hours on livestream and I've never been able to play since. I'm TOO afraid. :P

 

[Talon]

Horror movie are about the only movies I'll watch, so naturally, I love horror games.
Dead Space is one of my favorite games of all time.

 

[Lexatom]

Yes, I'm a FNAF fanboy. Yes, I agree the rest of the fanbase can make people like me look bad. I can handle opinions about FNAF, as long as they have a reason and make sense, instead of just bashing the game just for the fun of it. And yes, I will confess that the FNAF series is my favorite horror games of all time, my favorite of the bunch being FNAF 4. However, I do play other horror games. One that recently came out, and was amazing, was Until Dawn for the PS4. Oh my gosh, I adore this game. The story is perfect, depending on how you play it. There's other horror games I like such as Outlast, but these are some of my all-time favorites.

 

[Lunalie]

Horror games rarely get me, I know what I'm getting into and I'm able to emotionally able to prepare, because of this I find games like FNaF very boring.

Now, Non horror games that suddenly decide to get creepy, that gets me. Most notably is the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim when you find the first Tome that sucks you into it. I was in no way shape or form prepared for that and I ended up mostly running through most of it in a panic.

 

[Nolafus]

Despite horror being my favorite movie genre, I haven't played a lot of horror games. I don't play too many video games now, I don't have the time, and my parents banned everything remotely bloody when I lived with them, so I never got the chance.

However, I did play a bit of Bioshock when my friend let me borrow it for a couple days, and I really liked it. The suspense was really good, and the entire game worked very well together. I've considered playing FNAF, but I don't consider jumpscares actual horror. You can create anything popping in front of the camera, attach a loud sound to it, and call it horror. Same thing goes for movies, but we're sticking to video games for now. I'll admit that the suspense FNAF does create is very well done, but the jumpscares have me turning the other way in favor of something with a little more horror to it. Although I do enjoy following the lore.

Also, I'm going to be attempting to stream Outlast near halloween. I'll have a facecam, and it'll be my first time playing it, so should be fun.

 

[Sir Codin]

The big problem with horror games (and horror movies too) is that many of them just simply rely on "BOO!" type scares, when the truly memorable scares are media that does a good job at making you feel paranoid. There also needs to be a sense of tension and fear of the unknown. The less you see, the scarier it seems, because your imagination is running wild and making you think just how horrible it could really be.

I remember a real sense of fear and tension when I came across the flooded basements in Amnesia. The first creature you run into in the game...and it's one you can't even see...plus, dip your toes in the water and it will find you.

 

[Austin]

Psychological horror > jumpscares

Games that rely on jumpscares or gore to be scary aren't incredibly appealing to me. Games like Amnesia and Silent Hill (and PT omg), however, I find terrifying. I appreciate a game that can fill me with such a sense of dread that I have to stop playing for a bit.

 

[Early]

I haven't bothered with horror games in the slightest, aside from a few. I'll admit I'm a pretty jumpy person as it is, and I don't like thriller games or movies unless there's something about them that makes the horror tolerable (such as when they're hilariously bad, cheesy, etc., like the movie Unfriended). I've tried looking into Yume Nikki a few times, and actually wound up being unable to sleep at night.

The only reason Five Nights at Freddy's has been an exception for me is because of the cheap jumpscares being easy to overlook after a while; the [almost] bloodless carnage and the animatronics themselves actually interest me, and the mystery-based (but seemingly endless) story made me want to keep going. And the attempts to make the robots look scarier in each game are pretty amusing now... The series feels more like a comedy than horror.

 

[Juno]

To echo a lot of the responses, I also prefer psychological horror to survival horror - some games are a great combination of both, and one example of such for me would be Siren: Blood Curse, which did not rely solely on jumpscares to be scary. The atmosphere was tense and creepy for all the right reasons, and I liked that it scared you and put you on edge without eventually annoying you, which is something I find very common in a lot of horror games I've seen lately, lol. FNAF, for example - no disrespect to FNAF fans, but you have to admit that at a certain point, the jumpscares stop being scary and are just kind of obstacles that keep you from finishing the game. In every playthrough I watch, they quickly go from "oh, that made me jump in my seat" to "FFS not again, now I have to start the night over".

All that said, I'm honestly not the biggest fan of horror games in general - I don't really like being scared. :P I can definitely appreciate what makes one a good horror game but it's not really my kind of adrenaline rush and not my first choice when picking a new game. Siren: Blood Curse was a rare one for me, and I think it's because I'm always such a sucker for games with good stories - I found the plot really interesting and that kept me hooked, but the gameplay was also enjoyable enough that I didn't feel like I was dragging through and forcing myself to play just to see more story (like Rule of Rose).

 

[Aether★]

I found Outlast insanely good, I've beat it two times with Whistleblower DLC and the latter is even better.

For me a good horror game is a game with creepy ambient sounds, rare but strong jumpscares, lots of blood and gore, decent story and barely visible surroundings. That's why I've chosen Outlast to be my best horror game.