I’ve gathered a list of the nine scariest games I am reluctant to play based on fear issues. Sequels will not be mentioned, but let us assume they are just as scary as the originals shall we? I have witnessed most of these games being played by other people (determining that they are scary from a spectator’s position). I’ve also formed a general consensus from my family, friends and subscribers. All are well made in their own right and I highly recommend them to you, if you are braver than I (which isn’t difficult).
Amnesia: The Dark Descent – In the year 1839, a young man named Daniel awakens in the halls of a castle with little to no memory about himself or his past. All he can remember is his name and that something is hunting him. Shortly after awakening Daniel discovers a note written by himself, from it he learns that he has deliberately erased his own memory, and that he needs to descend into the Inner Sanctum of the castle to kill the Baron, Alexander.
The player must navigate Daniel through the castle, avoiding monsters and preserving his sanity. Daniel’s sanity is dependent on how long he is exposed to darkness and if he looks directly at a monster for too long. There are a limited number of tinder boxes available (which can be used to light your lantern or candles) so you must be careful and choose the right moments to use light. In regards to the monsters, there are no weapons and no means to fight back, the only way to escape is to run away and hide…Good luck!
Bioshock – Set in 1960, a passenger plane goes down in the Atlantic Ocean, leaving the player-character Jack as the only survivor. Jack makes his way to a nearby lighthouse that houses a bathyscaphe terminal that transports him to the underwater city of Rapture. Rapture is an art deco themed city that was planned and constructed in the 1940s by objectivist business magnate Andrew Ryan who wanted to create a utopia for society's elite to flourish outside of government control. Scientific progress greatly expanded within the city, including the discovery of the plasmid ADAM. ADAM allowed the citizens of Rapture to alter their DNA, granting them super-human powers like telekinesis, pyro kinesis and more. But the price of such powers has cost many of its users their sanity and humanity. When Jack arrives in Rapture it is evident that he will have to fight his way out of the now twisted city. With the help of a man named Atlas, the player must navigate Jack to safety and away from the violent and twisted citizens of Rapture, known as Splicers. Atlas requests Jack's help in stopping Ryan, whom he believes has started all of the madness within Rapture.
Essential to the story are the Little Sisters and their protectors the Big Daddies. Little Sisters are small girls that have been symbiotically linked to the sources of ADAM, sea slugs native to the ocean floor. When Jack encounters a wandering Little Sister and its Big Daddy, Atlas urges Jack to kill the Big Daddy and kill the Little Sister to harvest her ADAM for himself; Dr. Tenenbaum overhears this and intercepts Jack before he harms the Little Sister, urging him to spare the child, providing him with a plasmid that would force the sea slug out of her body. How you treat each Little Sister decides the ending of your story, but before you can do anything you must defeat her Big Daddy.
Dead Space – When interstellar mining ship, the USG Ishimura, sends out a distress signal during an operation on the planet Aegis VII, the Concordance Extraction Corporation (CEC) dispatches the USG Kellion to investigate. After a guidance system malfunction crashes the Kellion into the Ishimura dock, the crew tries to seek another means of transport. As they explore what appears to be an abandoned ship, a group grotesque monsters attack the crew, killing off all but ship system engineer (and player-character) Isaac Clarke, commander Zach Hammond, and computer specialist Kendra Daniels. Hammond notices that many of the ship's systems are failing; he and Kendra direct and assist Isaac in fixing them, so as to keep them all alive for rescue. With the help of Hammond and Kendra, Isaac must fight his way through the ship infested with mutilated, reanimated human corpses.
Doom - The player assumes the role of an unnamed space marine who has been posted on Mars after assaulting his commanding officer (who ordered his unit to fire upon civilians, I might add). The Martian space marine base acts as security for the Union Aerospace Corporation, which is performing secret teleportation experiments by creating gateways between the two moons of Mars; Phobos and Deimos. Inevitably computer systems on Phobos malfunction, Deimos disappears entirely, and evil begins pouring out of the gateway, killing or possessing all UAC personnel.
Responding to a frantic distress call from the overrun scientists, the Martian marine unit is quickly sent to Phobos to investigate, where the player character is left to guard the hangar with only a pistol while the rest of the group proceeds inside. Over the course of the next couple of hours, the marine hears assorted garbled radio messages, gunfire, and screams, followed by silence. As the last man standing, the player character's mission is to fight through the entire onslaught of demonic enemies by himself in order to keep them from attacking Earth. In order for the game to be completed, the marine must fight through Phobos, Deimos, and then Hell itself, each presented as an episode containing eight distinct levels, along with an optional ninth hidden level for each one.
The footage below is from DOOM 3 as I haven't been able to find footage of the original DOOM.
Fatal Frame – Fatal Frame revolves around the female protagonist, Miku Hinasaki and her progression through four chapters (or "Nights") within a haunted residence. Miku must explore the entire mansion and its grounds, and must obtain certain objects and solve puzzles in order to progress through the chapters of the game. During this time, Miku will encounter different types of spirits, either random or mandatory. Some spirits are friendly and will not attack Miku, but most are hostile.
Miku's only weapon is the Camera Obscura, an antique camera passed down from her mother, which has the ability to damage and capture spirits. However, the camera also relies on "ammunition" - films, which prepare a certain amount of shots for the character. There are different types of films scattered throughout the mansion, and each type of film possesses a different strength. The camera also contains several special abilities, which must be unlocked using spirit points, which can be gained by capturing ghosts. These abilities, such as Paralyze and See, can aid Miku in fighting spirits that have different attacking patterns to the standard ghosts.
Fear – When the game begins, the player witnesses a man, Paxton Fettel, taking command of a battalion of telepathically controlled clone super soldiers, seizing control of Armacham Technology Corporation (ATC) headquarters, and killing all its occupants. F.E.A.R. (an acronym for First Encounter Assault Recon)—a fictional Special Forces team—is called to contain the problem. The player assumes the role of F.E.A.R.'s Point Man, who possesses superhuman reflexes, and must uncover the secrets of a paranormal menace in the form of psychic cannibal Paxton Fettel and a mysterious little girl.
Resident Evil - The original Resident Evil begins around a series of cannibalistic homicides that occur in a region north of the fictional Raccoon City in 1998. The local police's Special Tactics And Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) are commissioned to investigate the sources of these murders. When S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team, the initial team deployed to the area, fails to report back, S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team is sent on a rescue mission to find them. The Alpha team is led to what appears to be an abandoned mansion, where the player, who can choose to play as either Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield, encounters Zombies and other creatures, leading them to discover the remains of most of their comrades in the house. The objective of the game is to uncover the mystery of the mansion and ultimately escape alive.
Silent Hill – Silent Hill is set in a multiverse consisting of reality and an alternate dimension whose form is based on the series' eponymous fictitious American town. The series is heavily influenced by the literary genre of psychological horror, with its player characters, being mostly "everymen", in contrast to action-oriented survival horror video game series featuring combat-trained player characters, such as Resident Evil, which is widely regarded as Silent Hill's strongest "rival”.
The original Silent Hill follows Harry Mason, as he searches for his missing adopted daughter in series’ multiverse. He stumbles upon a cult conducting a ritual to revive a deity they worship and discovers his daughter’s true identity.
The Suffering – The player controls Torque, a man convicted and sentenced to death for murdering his ex-wife and two children (although he claims to have blacked out and cannot remember what happened). a man who has been sent to Abbott State Penitentiary on Carnate Island, Maryland. The night Torque arrives at the Abbot State Penitentiary on Carnate Island in Maryland, there is a powerful earthquake, which releases an army of monsters upon the facility. Torque's cell door breaks and he is freed from captivity. Starting from his cell, Torque traverses the prison in an attempt to escape Carnate Island alive.
During the journey, Torque finds that the monsters set loose personify the many forms of execution the island has played host to. In addition, he also runs into a few ghosts of the penitentiary’s most famous residents. The player is presented with several opportunities to test their morality, usually in the form of a person who is trying to survive the horrors of the island. In most cases the player is presented with three options: help the person (good), harm them (bad) or remain indifferent (neutral). The ending of the game is dependent on the morality level of Torgue at the end of the game. I watched my friend play this when I was in college and it scared me so bad (just watching) that I had to turn on every light in the house when I got home.
I've played most of these games I've never thought of myself as a scary game is easiest but I guess I am in retrospect :)
ReplyDeleteHey! You're back! And you're far braver than I!
DeleteKinda makes me want to try some of these games knowing this.
ReplyDeleteI want to play them too! But I know I wouldn't finish because I'd get to something that would ultimately freak me out and make me stop. Oi, I'm disappointed in myself, lol.
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