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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Games that mess with your head

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

14:36 / 24.04.06

So yes, Silent Hill comes to mind (See opening post of the Silent Hill thread in Film, TV and Theater).

There was a time when I was playing a lot of first person shooters, and we had a LAN group which met up in an unused corner of an industrial warehouse. After 3-6 hours of intense sniper chasing walking through the dark warehouse to the restroom was always good for at least one jump at shadows.

More recently the Gamecube game eternal darkness had an interesting feature. It was a fairly simple survival horror type game but it had an insanity bar, which would go up the more crazy shit you encountered, and could be lowered with items you found in the game. What the manual failed to mention is that the insanity permeated all levels of the game. At one point a friend was playing and was nearly maxed out insane and we had to leave, so he went to save it, and after the "Are you sure you want to save" confirmation is gave us the "Deleting save game files" message, complete with a progress bar. At other times with the insanity going to hight if you walked through a dor you would be on the ceiling, or the game would continually flash a message saying "Game has paused because the controller has been removed" leading to hours of fucking with the cords until we realized that the game was mocking us.

So, what have you played that made your head melt?

15:12 / 24.04.06

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STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:04 / 24.04.06

Call of Cthulhu- Dark Corners Of The Earth also has a sanity mechanism, though it doesn't play with the game's mechanics, rather than the character's perception. And it's been known to scare the shit out of me, too.

16:22 / 24.04.06

Ah, which of us doesn't remember cowing in the dark of our bedrooms, our tense faces illuminated only by the eerie glow of the monitor and our lips twitching uncontrollably as our crude speakers issued forth those terrible words: "The Many sings to us..."

Dated as it is, I have to say System Shock 2 was astoundingly effective at generating fear.
I think part of it was that the game world had simply been designed so well, by people who had actually applied some thought to the setting and how it should look, and why.

This was coupled with the fragments of crew logs you would find as you made your way through the ship, which not only fleshed out the characters of the absent crewmen, giving them real lives which caused you to empathise with their fate, but which also gave you an increasing sense of foreboding as you slowly pieced together the fate that had befallen the VonBraun.

Wonderful, gorgeous, classic sci-fi/horror. And downloadable in its entirety for free from here. Oh, and be sure to patch it to the latest version, then apply the Hi-Res Texture Pack, and the Hi-Res model pack.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

17:06 / 24.04.06

Tez -

How could I forget SS2?

That game is one of the coolest bits of interactive fiction in the history of time. I was using VonBraun and Delacroix as user names for years after playing it.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:56 / 25.04.06

Oh yes indeed. "Your songs... are not our songs..."

brr

16:38 / 25.04.06

"Are we joined...?"

Sorry. Must stop doing that.

power vacuums & pure moments

20:57 / 25.04.06

Doom 3 alone, stoned and in a darkened room. It was mainly the level design i think...the pulsating flesh that grows througout the mars base like a tumor..truly disgusting when the resolution is set high. The way that enemies sometimes spawn behind you and smash out of hidden places also caused me to jump out of my seat and panic fire like a rookie on more than one occassion.

Half-life 2 also has its moments of terror. I had more than one nightmare that featured the 'man-hack' drones....

Phex: Dorset Doom

00:20 / 26.04.06

Thief 3. The Cradle. Asking somebody who went through it to describe it is like asking the same of a Vietnam veteran. You just had to be there. Just look what it did to Biznuth (above). Semper Fi man.

07:37 / 26.04.06

You see, I was a little disappointed with The Cradle, to be honest, perhaps because I'd read things beforehand which gave it such a build-up that the end result was a little anti-climatic.
For me, The Cradle was like sitting through a bad (as if there's any other kind) Hollywood horror film, by turns dull and formulaic...

...which I think neatly underlines the personal nature of horror.

For me, a lot of horror from games is generated by a sense of the insidious; a kind of creeping inexorability, rather than by a few kooky sound effects and the odd creature leaping out of the shadows. Combine that with the classic "what-the-hell-happened-here?" puzzle element, and you have a pretty good foundation on which to build.

System Shock 2 is a prime example. You find yourself on a strange starship, with minimal information as to what has happened there. Sure, there are creatures running around, but the crux of the story (and here's an important point; it's a story before it's a game) is to piece together what has occurred to the ship and its crew. Throughout, you are urged forward by an advocate you are not entirely convinced is trustworthy, but who remains, regardless, your only ally. There are just so many elements that System Shock 2 got right.

In presenting horror as a genre, the Japanese are streets ahead of us, and this trend seems to carry over to some of their games. I admittedly have never played any other than the first, but Silent Hill I utterly loved for it's atmosphere and presentation (which was a pleasant surprise after playing the dross that was Resident Evil).

To shift game for a moment, how - assuming you've all played it - did people find F.E.A.R.? I loved it as a very accomplished FPS, but wasn't especially impressed with it as a means of frightening the gamer. It seemed to start well enough, but, for me, soon succumbed to that god-awful Hollywood idea of packing as many cheap scares in as possible, which just devalues the whole thing.

What I'm curious about, and what I'd like to see the thread touch on, isn't so much a list of which game frightened you, but a nailing down of the elements of horror in computer games. I guess the question should not be "What?" so much as "Why?".

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:35 / 26.04.06

A couple of scenes in F.E.A.R. spooked the bejeezus out of me...

SPOILERS

The scene where you're escorting the scientist guy's daughter in the lift. The lift breaks down, of course you have to go and find the power switch. The switch is located in an office with a glass window facing the lift. As you turn the power on, the lifts doors begin to close and you see the girl appear, walking menacingly towards the woman you're escorting...

A minor detail, this one- in the urban devastation sequence, there's a TV on the floor, which, if you go to investigate, flickers on, and shows guess who?

END SPOILERS

I haven't reached The Cradle yet, and have avoided reading much about it as so many people have told me it'll make me shit my pants.

Elements that make games scary? The sound is probably the most important one to me. No matter how good graphics are, they're never gonna make me completely forget that I'm sat in my room in front of a monitor (though it can get damn close). Decent sound, especially through headphones, can be totally immersive. Again, in F.E.A.R. headphones totally enhance the experience- those whispering voices? Yes, they actually ARE whispering right in your ears, or right behind you.

Crux Is This City's Protector.

16:03 / 26.04.06

I think the distinction being drawn here is the classic one between horror and terror; the scary in games is much like the scary in movies, in that it plays on a knowledge of the (to steal phrases from above) inexorable, the unseen (but known). Most times a monster jumps out at you from the shadows it is merely shocking. If the graphics are appealing and the character design well-done it can be very fun indeed to be shocked and then to purge the shock and fear by blowing the offender into little pieces, absolutely. But not so scary.

That was actually how I felt about Doom 3. In the beginning parts, I was on the edge of my seat; I knew things were not as they should be -- hell, having seen advertisements I even knew what was going to start happening -- but I had no idea, as I turned every dark red corner, with confused instructions in my ear, whether I was going to come face to face with something terrible. More often than not -- a key point, I think -- I didn't. Then, when the situation was established, and it turned into your classic point-A-to-B shoot 'em up, the effect was greatly diminished when the scares were being delivered almost exclusively by the same groaning zombies, stumbling out of very similar pitch-black corners dozens of a times.

Jake, Colossus of Clout

03:03 / 27.04.06

Hey, Tezcat, I tried to download System Shock 2 from your link, but it was a no-go. Any alternatives?

The Return Of Rothkoid

05:23 / 27.04.06

I found that Siren (or Forbidden Siren, depending on where you are), along with some of the Fatal Frame (Project Zero) games were pretty messing-up-my-head in nature. However, I think - like Silent Hill, which is still the best headfuck I can remember, particularly the first 2 instalments) - that's a different type of headfuck than the jitterblast sort of nervousness induced by FPSers.

05:27 / 27.04.06

The Underdogs has been a little twitchy over the last few weeks. Their main site is down, so I think a lot of the file access might be spotty at best.

You could try a peer to peer program (I advise eMule), or hunt around for a BitTorrent.

Jake, Colossus of Clout

06:04 / 27.04.06

My experience with BitTorrent is that it fills my computer to the brim with spyware and other weird shit. Peer to Peer is something I have no experience with, so, of course, I fear it. I suppose my best bet is to wait for The Underdogs to get their shit together.

06:08 / 27.04.06

I suppose my best bet is to wait for The Underdogs to get their shit together.

Actually, I'd say your best bet is to acquire a copy of Skype, set yourself up, PM me your screen name, then for us to arrange a meeting when I will transfer the zipped game to you.

Incidentally, since the game is now in the public domain, that offer goes for any of you who would like a copy and can't be arsed to wait for the Underdogs to get their shit together.

Sorry for the slight thread rot.

16:54 / 16.05.06

Actually, the problem was the URL, use this one and all will be well (well... it worked for me). HOTU wasn't happy about you using the IP in the URL. That said, you'll probably get a better speed from the direct download than from the torrent.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:02 / 18.05.06

THERE'S A F.E.A.R. EXPANSION COMING OUT!!!

I'm scared again already.

All Acting Regiment

15:38 / 18.05.06

F.E.A.R. is very good, and, to me, very scary. I found the only way I could get through the scary bits was by gritting my teeth and saying it's one of the scary bits, okay in my mind. In other words, it scared me so much I had to mentally hide behind the sofa.

What's the expansion all about?

All Acting Regiment

15:48 / 18.05.06

Oo- SPOILERS, SPOILERS

SPOILERS

YUP

SPOILERS

I liked the storyline of FEAR- the special paranormal detective agency idea- made me think of Moorcock, The Fall, the Private Asshole from Cities of the Red Night...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:12 / 18.05.06

Apparently the expansion picks up JUST WHERE F.E.A.R. finishes...

...anyone who's finished the game will know this is gonna be a great place to start again.

22:19 / 19.05.06

Silent hill got me going for one primary reason - no explanation as to why this was all happening. You would think you were making progress and bang the fucker wakes up again and you are back to square one. During some stoned sessions playing the game, you got the feeling that the protagonist is in a coma after the car crash and this is just the hallucinations of a failing mind - very Jacobs ladder.
I would sometimes have trouble falling asleep, thinking that maybe that was what was happening to me. Great stuff.