Horror Games Megathread

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Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

I love horror games, (Even some of the more actiony variety like Dead Space 1 and 2) though a lot of recent ones haven't been doing it for me. (I still need to play Amnesia, I've had that in my backlog for way too long.)

As older horror games I love the classics like RE and Fatal Frame though Silent Hill has always been my favorite (2's the best. Unlike a lot of other fans though I love Shattered Memories and thought Origins was a decent game, namely due to the atmosphere) I also love Rule of Rose. I wouldn't recommend buying it because its like over $100 used online nowadays and its clunky and slow as hell so it really isn't for everyone. But drat that atmosphere and writing, they really make it a unique game that just sticks with you. The game's not really scary, instead its more bleak and sad. It also has one of my favorite last levels in a video game. I would very much recommend at least watching an LP of the game.

Also Right Click, you should add Asylum to the Upcoming Games OP too. It's being made by the creator of Scratches (Which is a really good old horror adventure game) and his team and the demo alone creeped me out. There's no release date but they seem to be just chugging along fine.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 06:42

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:37

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

The best thing about Scratches is that nothing actually happens until the very end of the game. Eternal Darkness was the same way with its main framing location.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 15:08

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

big duck equals goose posted:

Here is one for your op

Star Ocean: THe last hope

It's about these idiots who go into space but end up like fighting for humanity due to earth being a toxic waste dump filled with monsters or something, but it's way scary and more agonizing to sit through then dead space 1-2 or 3.

Forgot to mention this, but this is an unironically good horror game recommendation.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 16:17

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

al-azad posted:

Not just that but you're not even sure anything happened. You basically waved sludge on a stick in front of a mask and I felt incredibly stupid after doing so.

Well there's still the lunatic living in the basement. But that's why I also really love Scratches, there is nothing supernatural happening at all, the mother took bad morning sickness drugs that deformed and mentally disabled her son and the father starting going nuts thinking demons possessed his son and locked his son away in the basement for decades. Also the protagonist has been slowly going nuts himself the whole time so he starts thinking ancient African demons are real too.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jul 5, 2014

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 18:23

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.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 22:46

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Hakkesshu posted:

Nah, sorry, 1-3 and Shattered Memories are really great, and 4 is half-good. The rest of the series can go to hell though.

Origins is a solid game and while I haven't beat Downpour yet, its not bad either (Aside from the combat, which is the worst in the series). The only truly bad game in the series is Homecoming (And even then I don't regret playing it). I'd say 4 is close if it wasn't for the great first half. 4 had some really great ideas but I think it dropped the ball on a lot of them, so I'm not as forgiving of it as other people.

I totally agree with Shattered Memories, it gets unfairly shat on. It can have some really laughably bad writing (Mainly Kauffman) but what it does right it does it quite well.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Jul 12, 2014

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 14:42

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

JordanKai posted:

Origins is an okay game but it's a very bad Silent Hill game.

I don't think so, its got its own unique atmosphere among the games. A major part of this is the soundtrack, it has this cool dream-like feel to it. The motel and theater were also neat areas. I think if Origins wasn't forced to be a prequel it would have been a lot better for it, because I found the stuff dealing with Travis's parents to have potential. (The encounter with his dad is the best part of the game) Considering how much a clusterfuck the development was I think Climax did a good enough job with the little time they were given.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Jul 13, 2014

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 14:52

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Jimbo Jaggins posted:

Nah it's wank mate. The games not hard.

Yeah 2 just gives you ammo like candy. By the end of the my first playthrough I had over 100 handgun and shotgun rounds each and I totally missed getting the steel pipe.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2014 16:19

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

It has its problems, but, unsurprisingly, everyone blew them out of proportion. I think people were more sore about the VAs being changed (despite the fact that the new guys are perfectly fine and you can use the original voices with SH2 if it really disturbs you that much) than anything, but for what it's worth, I've played both games - original and HD - and never found much to complain about.

They screwed up the lighting and fog, utterly ruining the atmosphere. The HD Collection is garbage, don't get it.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2014 16:47

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Mindblast posted:

Doom 3's Hell section comes to mind as well. It was way too short in my opinion.

Doom 64 also really has a stronger horror atmosphere than the other games in the series too.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 19:34

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Just finished Bad Mojo, the game where you play as a dude that gets turned into a cockroach, and it was a cool game. It had its fair share of 90's FMV cheese but man the atmosphere in that game is great. It's just really scummy and dank and having you be a defenseless little roach really makes you start to fear even the most basic of things. The only real flaw is that is some really bad backtracking towards the end of the game if you didn't do something early on. Overall its a really unique game and its nice that Night Dive brought it back.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Aug 4, 2014

# ¿ Aug 4, 2014 21:58

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Cardiovorax posted:

I think Pathologic will suddenly a lot less popular and charming once people can understand what's actually happening. The plot is actually really kind of dumb once you know what it's about.

Nah, I understood it thanks to woodchicken's LP and some other places and it just added to the charm. It's a real meta game that's not obnoxious about it and really takes advantage of being game to get across its themes.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 00:42

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Holy poo poo, I am hyped.

Though looking into it, practically having Norman Reedus as the main character is pretty corny.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Aug 12, 2014

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 23:48

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

I'm just happy that Konami most likely won't screw this game over like they did for almost every game after The Room. Climax and Vatra both had real potential.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Aug 13, 2014

# ¿ Aug 13, 2014 13:08

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

al-azad posted:

If you're itching to play a Resident Evil-like that isn't Resident Evil, track down Rule of the Rose. It's another game that's kind of unfun to play but the story revolves around child abuse and bullying. It's awkward and unsettling all at the same time. Definitely one of those games that's disturbing because of the subject matter but also because how awkwardly things are handled.

Rule of Rose is one of my favorite games, but its really not for everyone. The gameplay is really slow and clunky and it mostly deserves a lot of the criticism it gets. (Though the game is usually pretty easy because enemies are simple to avoid, the boss fights though...) The atmosphere and writing puts most games to shame, though its not perfect. There were probably some cuts here and there so some parts of the story are vaguer than they should be and its really slow paced but the payoff is real good.

I actually wouldn't suggest buying it unless you get real lucky because as I mentioned earlier here, its become real expensive over the past few years, it tends to run over $100 used online. The annoying thing is that Sony actually owns Rule of Rose so they can easily put it up on PSN. RoR's developer's other game, Chulip, has been on PSN for a while now. I'd suggest just emulating it or watching an LP.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 01:07

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Don't play Clock Tower 3 though, just read Dark Id's LP instead, the game is hilariously dumb.

I hear Haunting Ground, the spiritual successor to the series, is good though, if rather skeevy.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 05:35

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

The Suffering is also a cool horror shooter. It's surprisingly a lot more subtle and atmospheric than you would think at first glance and it had some quality writing. (Dr. Killjoy is a fun villain) Stan Winston also did all the monster designs. I thought the sequel was poo poo though and the original works quite well as a standalone game so you can just ignore 2.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 06:27

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Yeah, SOMA.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2014 18:39

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Shattered Memories is worth playing, though its more thriller than horror.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 22:57

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Sharzak posted:

what is pt why on earth do you guys use abbreviations for names in a catchall thread

It's the teaser game for the upcoming Silent Hill that's PS4 exclusive right now and P.T. is literally what it is called. (P.T. probably stands for playable teaser)

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 23:19

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Dead Space 1 and 2 have nice atmosphere too, even though they're not really scary. The Ishimura in 2 was half of a great area.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 02:16

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Oxxidation posted:

Alan Wake had one of the worst, most intrusive HUDs of any game I've played. I will shout this from the rooftops.

You can disable it in the PC version.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 19:35

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

The combat is also pretty bad. I would say that it shouldn't have been a TPS in the first place, but American Nightmare really improved on the combat and it made me look forward to an Alan Wake 2 when I was kind of indifferent when I beat the first game and its DLC.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 01:07

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

3 was actually the first one I played. It really has drat good graphics, they still really hold up ten years later. Heather's the most likable protagonist of the series (But I guess that's not saying too much because every protagonist after her aside from Shattered Memories', have been bland as hell but she's still a fun character.) The atmosphere is pretty great too, its just really hellish and relentless. It was a nice conclusion to 1 and its a shame that most of the series afterwards had to drag up the cult again.

2's still my favorite though. I just love its dank and melancholy atmosphere and it has the strongest storytelling in the series, though I really liked Shattered Memories as well. I also liked 2's version of the town, that's its this mysterious location that people are drawn to out of personal subconcious desire and it could either be their own hell or paradise depending on their state of mind.

cat doter posted:

Also, how does the rating stuff work in SH3? Apparently there's only one possible ending on the first playthrough (which is smart) but I finished the game in 4 hours 51 minutes with a 5 star rating. It didn't feel like I did that well.

You have to really speedrun the game and barely use any health items to get a high rating.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 23:42

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

cat doter posted:

what the gently caress

SH3 Hard Mode does not gently caress around.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 23:49

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Hakkesshu posted:

Edit: Also I loving love that they made a whole game about a character that's only briefly mentioned in a document in Silent Hill 2. God, there's so much squandered potential in this whole series.

They actually expanded two minor documents, the other is in 3 which is about the journalist who lived in Henry's apartment before him. writing about Walter's orphanage.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 12:09

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Cardiovorax posted:

SH2 is supposedly really bad, but then again I only know that from the kind of people who would call anything bad if it came out on PC.

Those people are horribly wrong and you shouldn't be friends with them anymore if you are. :haw:

ayn rand hand job posted:

They should have removed the combat, fixed checkpointing, added a better map, and actually give the player a reward for acing cases.

Ethan Carter should probably end up being mostly want you want.

The founder and some other former members of People Can Fly are working on it. I've been following the game for the past couple of months and it's mostly likely going to be a freakin' great game. Definitely keep an eye on it, comes out September 25 on PC.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 23:50

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Oh I forgot to add Cardiovax, that I agree with SH4 is ultimately rather silly. 4 has a lot of great ideas and atmosphere but it failed to stick the landing on a lot of it. It's my second least favorite game after Homecoming.

Homecoming actually had an entire log pertaining to Walter that got cut that was actually pretty funny. It was him as a kid being interviewed by a shrink and the shrink was showing him a picture of a door and Walter keeps calling it his mother and the psychiatrist is just utterly bewildered.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 00:30

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

HellCopter posted:

My exposure to Shattered Memories was an LP of it, and the player hated it. I ended up feeling pretty negatively about it too. I guess that's not the prevailing opinion? It looked pretty shallow, like it didn't really take advantage of its concepts.

It's not, it gets poo poo on by goons for whatever reason but its not at all a bad game, I'd say its the best post 3 Silent Hill and isn't that far away from them when it comes to quality, though its more psychological thriller than pure horror. It's got some laughably bad writing, but that only pertains to one character. Overall its got great atmosphere and solid writing that actually plays with SH1 in interesting ways. The chase scenes are kind of tedious, but they're still better than the combat in some of the other games so I don't think it really drags it down. It was also ambitious and was kind of precursor to the current crop of adventure games like Walking Dead. The choices you make do actually shape your experience differently even if you don't get different plot points and one of the endings you can get is pretty memorable. It's definitely worth checking out if you have a Wii.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Aug 27, 2014

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 01:33

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

One thing I love about Shattered Memories is that there is absolutely nothing supernatural going on.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 07:01

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Jimbo Jaggins posted:

Shattered Memories is an exploration game with nothing worth exploring. The majority of the game is just wandering around locations that could be stock locations from another game in that'll you're not going to find anything relevant to the plot or themes to look at.

Somebody really wasn't paying attention to the game at all, practically every major area in the game is relevant.

Heavy Lobster posted:

What's the general consensus on Silent Hill 0/rigins? I played the PS2 port and thought it was actually pretty good, definitely not particularly subtle and the Pyramid Head fanfic dude was a bit on-the-nose, but I thought the post-asylum parts of the game were really neat (the theatre was a great setpiece and the apartment complex really hosed with you if you followed all the little plot points). Obviously not the best in the series, but definitely not as terrible as some of the other non-numbered ones.

I thought Origins was solid enough. It would have been so much better if it wasn't forced to be a prequel for 1, but the atmosphere is real nice (The soundtrack really add to it), the combat is better than Homecoming, Downpour, and 4 and its not padded to hell or anything. It's actually pretty short. I played the original PSP version because I always heard that the PS2 version sucks because they hosed up the audio.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Aug 27, 2014

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 13:01

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Jimbo Jaggins posted:

Except they're not? I've played through the game more than once and there's virtually nothing of note. I'd be interested to know what interesting details I missed in the warehouse though.

Most of the game's areas all pertain to Cheryl's past. She was at the party in the woods, she was being ostracized at school, she shanked a security guard in the mall which was one of the major reasons she ended up with Kaufman, etc. There's a lot of unrelated echoes you can find that add to the atmosphere and at first you think they're just other lost souls in Silent Hill, but it ends up more that they're Cheryl's memories of things that she heard about and wasn't directly involved in.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 13:16

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Big Mad Drongo posted:

Shattered Memories is the shaky, amateur proof-of-concept for the best exploration/personal horror game that will never be made.

I pretty much agree with this.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2014 21:46

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

I liked Douglas' too, he sounded like an old man that got completely worn down by life to the point where he barely gives a poo poo anymore.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 06:37

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

The first three are all on PSN now too so you don't have spend that much.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 17:29

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Bossie Lott posted:

Thinking about P.T/Silent Hills it's actually really nice that we'll be getting a new SH game made by a competent team again.

You can like all the SH games after Team Silent all you want but gently caress if they didn't have a whole range of technical problems. Bugs, glitches, framerate suttering, freezing, lovely texture work and overall shoddiness. It's pretty shameful really when the first 3 games are technically and artistically brilliant. I don't how Kojima and Del Toro will handle the story and atmosphere side of things but I do know they care about what they put out and Kojima's team puts stuff out that loving works and never breaks or bugs out on you. Just because of that it's going to be the best SH game since 4 by default.

A lot of that is on Konami's shoulders though. They tended to screw over the Western devs pretty hard, just look at Origins' development for the biggest example.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 18:34

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Yeah, its pretty lame. Malfunctioning animatronics that think you're one of them and are trying to make you whole by shoving you in a wire-filled animatronic suit was more creative and fit the tone better than THE GHOSTS OF MURDERED CHILDREN, SO EDGY!

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Aug 30, 2014

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 21:34

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Cardiovorax posted:

Some people like them a lot, but I never saw the appeal, honestly. The whole sightjacking thing is an interesting gimmick, but aside from that they don't have a lot of gameplay and the constant character switching makes a coherent narrative pretty much impossible. I think they'd work well as a series of novels, but not so much as games.

The first also had Sierra adventure game levels of obtuse as hell ways to progress.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Aug 30, 2014

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 21:43

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Lazy then, that's more apt in retrospect.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 23:08

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:37

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Jimbo Jaggins posted:

I'm playing Rule Of Rose, I just stabbed a child to death with a fork and I have no idea what I'm doing or whats going on.

It'll mostly all make sense in the end. My advice to you is just avoid all the enemies. Running away from enemies is exponentially easier than trying to fight them, the only exception to this rule is the fish imps, they're easier to fight because they'll wreck your poo poo if you try run past them. Also use the pipe in the first half of the game it has the most reach and the third hit will always knock enemies down. (If I remember right it also applies to some later weapons too.)

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 20:41

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