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Fingerless Gloves
May 21, 2011

... aaand also go away and don't come back
Scratches was one the the most atmospheric games I've played, especially the scene where the mask moves in the nightmare - I was expecting something horrible to happen, and even though it's basically nothing, it still scared the gently caress out of me.

A horror game I regret playing is Doorways. If you haven't played it, the storyline is something along the lines of you are a detective who can enter people's minds to understand their crimes or something along those lines. It's basically an first person adventure that takes lots of inspiration from Amnesia, but without their skill.

Their idea of a scare is to spawn a crying woman on a bridge that grabs you when you walk past and gets all up in your grill being all angry at you. The bridge isn't wide enough to go around her. What do you do? Just jump on a plank and go around her. Ah, I hear, but what then! She tries her luck at blocking you again a little while later, and you.. do the same as the first time.

Or maybe I'm just too harsh on it and other people might like it, but I wouldn't recommend it.

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RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


It's probably worth mentioning that if you get Scratches: Director's Cut, which is what's on Steam, don't expect too much out of "The Last Visit", which is an extra "chapter" that was added. It's only a few minutes long and has a dumb ending. You might as well check it out if you have it, since it won't waste much of your time, but it doesn't add much.

al-azad posted:

Now let me tell you about my other favorite game, Scratches.
Also, thanks for the writeup on this! If anyone else has a game to recommend and wants to put together something like this, I'll quote it in the OP.

Psychedelicatessen
Feb 17, 2012

How do you feel about Alan Wake? I finished it a few weeks ago and while it requires a ton of immersion (play at night in a dark room), I felt that it was a rather good game. Mainly because it kept doing the thing where something is there and then it is gone. I'm thinking about the first abandoned hut, right after you meet barry. The shadowman walking past the window made me skip the next hut. The creepy dark one with the broken windows.

It's a pretty light horror game compared to stuff like Fatal Frame and Silent Hills, but I think it accomplished what it tried to do and never overstayed its welcome. You should totally buy it 75-85% off on Steam.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



I felt Alan Wake was a missed opportunity. It drags on a bit too long and combat gets repetitive but I enjoyed the mash up Twilight Zone/Twin Peaks writing. Really conflicting opinions about the game and the way it ended.

What's interesting is that it was originally going to be open world but they scrapped the idea when they couldn't get it to work. And you can see elements of it in the semi-open environments and clunky vehicle sections. I imagine Deadly Premonition is what Alan Wake would have turned into if they kept in that direction.

Firstborn posted:

Remember Overblood? A weird little game that had touches of Resident Evil and System Shock. Dude is alone on the planet with aliens and I think the most he had was a handgun. It was fun in a time on PSX where anything could get published, no matter how weird or obscure.

This is one of the first Playstation games I played and I remember being incredibly confused by everything. But really the only thing I remember from it is Pipo and when Adventure Time came out the character BMO brought back those dark memories.

al-azad fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jul 5, 2014

An Actual Princess
Dec 23, 2006

Palpek posted:

I've heard some really good things about The Forest. It's in Early Access on Steam now but apparently it's already very promising:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08s__Fg8d3A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2p_fwvOKKA

Yeah, super promising.

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


To be fair, it looks like it's still in the very early stages of Early Access so I bet a lot of things can be broken. But still that game looks really ambitious, and I don't see how they can create much of a horror experience and still have all these big ideas about crafting and exploring these big spaces. There seem to be a lot of developers jumping on the open world bandwagon, I'd prefer they just write a good, tightly scripted story and focus on getting it polished to a shine, especially if you're just a small indie studio.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



Open world and horror can and should go hand in hand, they just need to get their priorities straight. They need to stress that you're super vulnerable, that fighting enemies is a bad idea, and stress the importance of having secure shelter to keep out the raging hordes of locals. Abandoning your camp and running should be a viable and encouraged option.

I've seen some videos where the actual player is a little freaked out because the enemies would be standing in their periphery or stalking them through the forest instead of attacking. Unpredictable enemies is an element of horror games (and games in general) you don't ever see but it's an effective tool to scare the player.

I found Sir, You Are Being Hunted to be a pretty intense game. It's not scary but hearing the buzzing and whirring of a hunting party behind you or the ominous sound of an approaching balloon is enough to get my heartbeat racing.

Tracula
Mar 26, 2010

PLEASE LEAVE

Mustang posted:

Yeah Eternal Darkness was awesome, definitely go in blind if you end up playing it. Would be cool if it was remade or rereleased on steam or something.

There was that kickstarter for a sequel that went pear shaped and apparently the guy who was going to be doing it was kind of lovely. I want to say they were planning on cutting it down a bit and releasing it episodically which usually turns me off but if any game could actually be really, really good with episodic content it's an Eternal Darkness sequel. With a bit of googling though it looks like that died back in 2013 :( Oh well.

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord

Tracula posted:

There was that kickstarter for a sequel that went pear shaped and apparently the guy who was going to be doing it was kind of lovely. I want to say they were planning on cutting it down a bit and releasing it episodically which usually turns me off but if any game could actually be really, really good with episodic content it's an Eternal Darkness sequel. With a bit of googling though it looks like that died back in 2013 :( Oh well.
Nintendo was one of the major reasons Eternal Darkness ended up so good. Dennis Dyack and Silicon Knights were pretty bad devs otherwise and anybody good in SK who helped make Eternal Darkness are long gone and had nothing to do with Dyack's Kickstarter campaign. Nintendo still owns the rights though and I would loving love if they got Retro to make a sequel.

Tracula
Mar 26, 2010

PLEASE LEAVE
Oh yeah, it's all coming back to me about Dyack and the dumb poo poo behind Silicon Knights. There's part of me that just wants Retro to do literally every Nintendo game ever now because they have never once broken my faith in making good, or at least solid, games.

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


Fingerless Gloves posted:

A horror game I regret playing is Doorways. If you haven't played it, the storyline is something along the lines of you are a detective who can enter people's minds to understand their crimes or something along those lines. It's basically an first person adventure that takes lots of inspiration from Amnesia, but without their skill.

Their idea of a scare is to spawn a crying woman on a bridge that grabs you when you walk past and gets all up in your grill being all angry at you. The bridge isn't wide enough to go around her. What do you do? Just jump on a plank and go around her. Ah, I hear, but what then! She tries her luck at blocking you again a little while later, and you.. do the same as the first time.

Or maybe I'm just too harsh on it and other people might like it, but I wouldn't recommend it.
I picked this up on impulse during the Steam summer sale, and just played through the first chapter. The scares are pretty much all those cheap jump scares you mentioned. It feels like they're padding it out a lot too, that bridge sequence goes on way too long and is basically a platforming segment where you have to get across this series of wooden planks without falling off. Then you end up in a castle where you backtrack like 3 times and repeat the same type of pictogram puzzle over and over to get past the same traps. I'd skip this one unless you're really hard up for a cheap horror game. At least the narrator's voice work is pretty good.

e: finished Chapter 2, it's not the worst thing I've spent $3.50 on, but it's pretty dull. There is a lot of backtracking and jumping puzzles. The other puzzles aren't too bad and are mostly intuitive, but they like to hide things in weird places for a few of them.

RightClickSaveAs fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Jul 6, 2014

Fingerless Gloves
May 21, 2011

... aaand also go away and don't come back
The puzzle with the statues and spears was a pretty good idea, but really random at times. I'm sure I dashed past ones which caught me on other runs.

The voice actor is Daniel from Amnesia isn't it?

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


Fingerless Gloves posted:

The puzzle with the statues and spears was a pretty good idea, but really random at times. I'm sure I dashed past ones which caught me on other runs.

The voice actor is Daniel from Amnesia isn't it?
It looks like he is, I didn't know that. He's not credited for this game on IMdb, but they list him on the game's website.

The statues were a pretty good idea in general, but I could have done without walking through that same corridor full of them 4 times. Changing the move speed on you throughout the game is one way to control the pacing I guess, but takes control away from the player more than I like to see.

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


Outlast and the DLC are on sale for $5 and $4.50 on GamersGate: http://www.gamersgate.com/games?prio=relevance&q=outlastpromo
That's about the price it was during the Steam flash/daily sales.

Kite Pride Worldwide
Apr 20, 2009


Anyone know some good (preferably jump-scare free) stealth/chasing games ala RE3 or Amnesia? I love games where you have to elude and run from monsters, but most games are either blatantly scripted or it's too easy to dispatch the monster.

JordanKai
Aug 19, 2011

Get high and think of me.


Alabaster White posted:

Anyone know some good (preferably jump-scare free) stealth/chasing games ala RE3 or Amnesia? I love games where you have to elude and run from monsters, but most games are either blatantly scripted or it's too easy to dispatch the monster.

Miasmata sounds like it would be right up your alley.

Thundercracker
Jun 25, 2004

Proudly serving the Ruinous Powers since as a veteran of the long war.
College Slice

al-azad posted:

Open world and horror can and should go hand in hand, they just need to get their priorities straight. They need to stress that you're super vulnerable, that fighting enemies is a bad idea, and stress the importance of having secure shelter to keep out the raging hordes of locals. Abandoning your camp and running should be a viable and encouraged option.

I've seen some videos where the actual player is a little freaked out because the enemies would be standing in their periphery or stalking them through the forest instead of attacking. Unpredictable enemies is an element of horror games (and games in general) you don't ever see but it's an effective tool to scare the player.

I found Sir, You Are Being Hunted to be a pretty intense game. It's not scary but hearing the buzzing and whirring of a hunting party behind you or the ominous sound of an approaching balloon is enough to get my heartbeat racing.


I totally agree with you that when guns are in a horror game you absolutely need to be properly stalked/hunted to actually feel fear. Like Dead Space isn't any masterpiece, but having just played the 3rd one thats exactly where they fell down hard. They absolutely refused to build any tension into the game in terms of the enemy. Everything just popped out and ran at you like an Ork

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


The Dead Space series in general dropped the ball early by making you such a killing machine so quickly, which ruins most of the tension and turns it into an action game. Which is fine if it's an action game, but they tried to sell it as a horror game, which it is not in this reviewer's eyes.
|
:spergin:

JordanKai posted:

Miasmata sounds like it would be right up your alley.
Did this end up being any good? I thought I remembered hearing bad things about it, unless I'm mixing it up with another title.

Lord Windy
Mar 26, 2010
I loved Miasmata. It has some wonky physics, but was an excellent game.

Brackhar
Aug 26, 2006

I'll give you a definite maybe.

RightClickSaveAs posted:

Did this end up being any good? I thought I remembered hearing bad things about it, unless I'm mixing it up with another title.

It's a mixed game. The visual execution ranges from average to poor, but the cartography system is really, really cool and worth playing just to see.

Anyone here play DreadOut? It looks a good bit like Fatal Frame and I heard it actually tried to do the atmospheric horror approach.

Hellburger99
Jan 24, 2006

"I don't like that mooch...
or her pooch!
"

Brackhar posted:

It's a mixed game. The visual execution ranges from average to poor, but the cartography system is really, really cool and worth playing just to see.

Anyone here play DreadOut? It looks a good bit like Fatal Frame and I heard it actually tried to do the atmospheric horror approach.

I watched a goon stream of it and everyone seemed really impressed with it. I'll probably pick it up myself sooner or later. It's an indie game, to be sure, but it does some surprisingly interesting things with the genre.

Kortel
Jan 7, 2008

Nothing to see here.

Brackhar posted:

It's a mixed game. The visual execution ranges from average to poor, but the cartography system is really, really cool and worth playing just to see.

Anyone here play DreadOut? It looks a good bit like Fatal Frame and I heard it actually tried to do the atmospheric horror approach.

It's about an hour or so long and incomplete. A second chapter is coming but really falls flat as there is very little actually happening. I'd hold off until part 2 comes out. Found it boring but the ambient noise is awesome.

catlord
Mar 22, 2009

What's on your mind, Axa?

Brackhar posted:

Anyone here play DreadOut? It looks a good bit like Fatal Frame and I heard it actually tried to do the atmospheric horror approach.

One downside? To respawn, you have to run to a light. The distance gets longer and longer the more you die. I am having trouble with a boss, so against this one enemy, the distance I have to run has increased dramatically.

I'm liking the game though, even if I'm really near the end (and the second half isn't out yet).

Tracula
Mar 26, 2010

PLEASE LEAVE

RightClickSaveAs posted:

The Dead Space series in general dropped the ball early by making you such a killing machine so quickly, which ruins most of the tension and turns it into an action game. Which is fine if it's an action game, but they tried to sell it as a horror game, which it is not in this reviewer's eyes.


All the Dead Space games are the best Resident Evil games since RE4. I have my issues with DS3 but 1 and 2 are fantastic all around if you take them as straight-up action titles. One thing that helps the DS games immensely is to play them on the hardest difficulty right out of the box since that definitely makes them immensely more about survival and resource management.

Kaboom Dragoon
May 7, 2010

The greatest of feasts

And turn the music off, since there's an annoying orchestral sting whenever an enemy shows up. It improves the game tremendously when you're having to survive by less obvious sound cues.

Brackhar
Aug 26, 2006

I'll give you a definite maybe.

Tracula posted:

All the Dead Space games are the best Resident Evil games since RE4. I have my issues with DS3 but 1 and 2 are fantastic all around if you take them as straight-up action titles. One thing that helps the DS games immensely is to play them on the hardest difficulty right out of the box since that definitely makes them immensely more about survival and resource management.

Dunno if I'd recommend the hardest difficulty out of the gate, but definitely hard for sure.

HaroldofTheRock
Jun 3, 2003

Pillbug

Alabaster White posted:

Anyone know some good (preferably jump-scare free) stealth/chasing games ala RE3 or Amnesia? I love games where you have to elude and run from monsters, but most games are either blatantly scripted or it's too easy to dispatch the monster.

There's no combat in Silent Hill Shattered Memories, you have to run from every monster. The game's not perfect but I found it engrossing and the end was touching, judge me however you want :mad:

Zidago
Sep 8, 2012

I've never been in a fight before, yet why do I always think I can probably take everyone else down.
Kodoku looked to be interesting until I saw the actual game screens. Can't help comparing it to a flash game now.

http://www.carnivorestudio.com/kodoku/

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


I'm a really big horror game fan, meaning I actually hate the majority of horror games because I'm also picky as hell.

I started off with the first four silent hill titles and my introduction into horror games, followed by Eternal Darkness and Fatal Frames 2 and 3.

I've been desperately trying to find other horror games that manage to scratch the same itch for a long time. The descent of the silent hill series since # 4 is tragic but for some reason I just can't stop checking to see if the next game is going to save it. I haven't bought any since Shattered Memories though (which bitterly disappointed me since it had given me very high hopes).

The only game I've played since then that's come close is Amnesia, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I also really liked Deadly Premonition, but not because it was scary at all I just liked the weird Lynchian vibe and characters.

I recently picked up a couple of the pixel-horror games on Steam, only played Lone Survivor so far. I wouldn't really rate it as solidly scary but much like Deadly Premonition it's got a weird/surreal atmosphere that I quite enjoy. My wife swears by the Corpse Party series for PSP, but I haven't gotten around to playing it myself yet.

Still trying to recapture that perfect *something* that the first Silent Hill games had. Still elusive.

Industrial
May 31, 2001

Everyone here wishes I would ragequit my life
I'm still not convinced anything will ever top the Fatal Frame series. The sense of dread, terror, and just overall wrongness I get from playing these games is not something I have experienced in any other form of media, ever. I always try to find videos to prove my point but watching it on youtube just doesn't have the same impact. This, however, might be my favorite reaction video of all time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXc7lYosiSc

And probably my favorite "ghost music"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGoutoPSshw

Industrial fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Jul 9, 2014

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:
SH1 is so drat good. I don't think there's anything quite like it. It's mega-linear and gets action towards the end but you might like Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (PC/XBox). I'd very strongly recommend Thief 1 if you haven't played it yet also. It's not technically a horror game but it definitely goes there more than you'd expect and I am extremely tense.

Oh Fatal Frame is so loving good. Is 4 as bad as people say? I still need to actually play it.

It's not as scary but I like Kuon a lot. The From Software game that's Resident Evil 2 but in feudal Japan.

Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Jul 9, 2014

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


I did play dark corners of the earth, it was definitely good although the beginning was definitely much creepier overall. Once you were running around machine-gunning deep ones under the ocean the sense of dread kind of faded.

SH1 was definitely a terrific experience. Overall I liked silent hill 2 better but I actually consider silent hill 1 to be the superior game just because it took stuff that looked like this:



and was still really, really scary. I think my favorite monsters were those tiny, wobbly little shadow kids that showed up from time to time in the later areas. For some reason I found the fact that they made a sound I can only describe as being like a dog-toy oddly terrifying, probably just because of how wrong that noise felt in a place like the rotting otherworld school or amusement park.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:
The opening in general of that game when you get gutted by the little kids is still one of the best openings for any horror game. The build up is incredible for the time.

The best thing about those shadowy toddlers is how they don't interact with or hurt you at all throughout the game, EXCEPT AT THE END so it's a huge shock even though they're not particularly threatening.

Thief is such a weird game, I mean it's an amazing game, one of my favorites ever but I'm surprised it even got made the way it did. My favorite levels in it are the ones where you're sneaking around crypts and this really awesome one where you have to slink around an abandoned chunk of the city avoiding monsters with tons of different hidden places and paths through the level. Except everything in the game can kill you in like two hits and you're weak as hell so it gets really awesome.

The lockpicking happens in real time so there's a lot of points where you're looking behind you while picking something hoping the lock pops before some slow moving thing catches up with you. It's more of a noir game than anything but it really feels like Silent Hill: Extremely Lethal Edition at times with it's droning soundtrack and where the story goes.

Also the sound the zombies make in that game. I mean I had to be hospitalized once because of something with my lungs and man, if you told me they actually punctured someone's lung and recorded the person dying for the decaying zombie sound effects I'd believe it.

Golden Goat
Aug 2, 2012

Zidago posted:

Kodoku looked to be interesting until I saw the actual game screens. Can't help comparing it to a flash game now.



Is that anime Johnny Five Aces?

folgore
Jun 30, 2006

nice tut
I see Scratches was mentioned. I finally got around to playing that game a couple weeks ago and was not impressed. The atmosphere is admittedly well done, but what most fans of Scratches fail to mention is that the game suffers from some seriously archaic and lovely puzzle design. I found actually playing the game to be an utter chore and lost interest in finishing it. If you can put up with bad puzzles or don't mind using a walkthrough to experience the spooky atmosphere then go crazy.

Brackhar
Aug 26, 2006

I'll give you a definite maybe.

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


Not as good as that picture, but I'm pretty pleased by it



I started a contest in the PGS Steam gifting thread to give away a Steam key for Neverending Nightmares (alpha access now, beta access and the full game when it comes out this fall), if anyone is interested: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3513572&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=696#post431988541

Tracula
Mar 26, 2010

PLEASE LEAVE

oriongates posted:


SH1 was definitely a terrific experience. Overall I liked silent hill 2 better but I actually consider silent hill 1 to be the superior game just because it took stuff that looked like this:




Part of the reason Silent Hill works is because the graphics are crap. Things are so vaguely defined that it makes your brain work overtime to fill in the blanks or imagine things which in turn makes them scarier.


Alien Isolation is up for Pre-order on Steam now if anyone is interested: http://store.steampowered.com/app/214490/

al-azad
May 28, 2009



For me, Silent Hill's biggest weakness was how powerful it made you. Melee weapons are still the best way to take out the slow, plodding enemies and you can avoid the flying guys by running in a zigzag pattern.

The atmosphere was top notch. I really hated the sewers with the lizards hanging on the ceiling and eventually the invisible monsters. Not the teddy bears, though, they're the cutest of Silent Hill's monsters.

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Brackhar
Aug 26, 2006

I'll give you a definite maybe.

Tracula posted:

Part of the reason Silent Hill works is because the graphics are crap. Things are so vaguely defined that it makes your brain work overtime to fill in the blanks or imagine things which in turn makes them scarier.


Alien Isolation is up for Pre-order on Steam now if anyone is interested: http://store.steampowered.com/app/214490/

Yeah. Try playing SH1 on HD and a lot of the fear goes away.

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