Just went from Eternal Darkness to Fatal Frame 2. I’ve gotten sick of all those zombie games. Zombies just aren’t scary anymore. So a game that sends shivers up my spine time and again is a rarity indeed. Eternal Darkness was unique, indeed, and it had characters that you could connect with, but the novelty of the sanity effects wore off after a time. Fatal Frame 2 has characters you can connect with, and what makes this game so utterly terrifying again and again is the way it feels cinematic in the style of old Japanese horror movies(i.e. grainy black and white visuals, harsh, eerie music, brief encounters with spectres that appear at the edge of your vision) Not to mention that ghosts can appear out of thin air at a moment’s notice and can walk through walls. Anticipation of the unknown, fear of the dark and the shadows and the graveyards, and the knowledge that all you have to protect yourself is an aging camera adds to the terror. I’m often reminded of the movie Ringu playing this game. It’s so terrifying that I often question why I keep playing and put my lungs at risk of hyperventilating.
I am a fiend for psychological thriller/horror movies. I grew up on slasher flicks (my dad loved 'em), so they hardly have any effect on me anymore. So, I love it when a movie like Jacob’s Ladder or The Ring comes out and really plays with your head.
That being said, I haven’t played Fatal Frame 2, so I can’t vouch for that, but the Silent Hill series (heavily inspired by the above-mentioned Jacob’s Ladder), really, really rocks in this category. There are very few movies/games/etc. that make me uneasy playing alone in the dark, and the Silent Hill series is one of them 
To this day I still have to understand why people like horror.Am I the only one who doens’t like beeing scared?
I loved Eternal Darkness… So freaking awesome ^^. But if that is scarier… I might want to try it ^^.
It’s one of the inbuilt flaws in civilised society. Since we invented things like guns, we have less occassions where our body pumps out huge amounts of adrenaline, giving us the “fight or flight” feeling. Horror movies give you that feeling…if they’re done well.
Plus we like blood. Tee hee. Muwa hahahahaha BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!
Nah, I don’t like horror that much either.
But my dad does have a couple of Japanese horror games, y’know, the really authentic, just-plain-freakishly scary Saturn games that some Japanese companies are famous for…
[quote=“Arcie”]It’s one of the inbuilt flaws in civilised society. Since we invented things like guns, we have less occassions where our body pumps out huge amounts of adrenaline, giving us the “fight or flight” feeling. Horror movies give you that feeling…if they’re done well.
Plus we like blood. Tee hee. Muwa hahahahaha BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!![/quote]
I like the second reason better ^_^. loves the bathtub scene in ED
Yep! The good old bathtub scene from Eternal Darkness is the only moment from a video game that made me scream out loud. I guess part of the reason why I love Eternal Darkness is how it feels very Edgar Allen Poe-esque. The way the tales of all these unrelated tragic heroes unfolds as they encounter the book is sheer brilliance. It’s not so much the way it tries to scare you or mess with your mind that makes it a great game but the way it makes you connect with the characters and then plunge you into horror as you realize your favorites are doomed and falling apart at the seams.
I’ve yet to play Silent Hill. I’ve heard it’s not about creepy like Fatal Frame nor about gore like Resident Evil but about throwing out utterly surreal and horrifying situations out at you. I think I’ll pick it up.
After recently completing Silent Hill 2 and 3 I can safely say that I’m hooked. The dark blood encrusted/pulsating locales of Silent Hill 3 with no end of horrifying monsters lurking in the darkness and not enough ammunition to kill them all disturbed me the most. Of course, I enjoyed hunting them all down one by one as soon as I acquired the katana…
Neither game was as good as Resident Evil Code: Veronica in my opinion, but I love the supernatural theme of the Silent Hill games more.
My big problem with Eternal Darkness is that it feels so “game-y.” Particularly the Insanity Meter. I don’t want to know when I’m going insane. You don’t need to have anything flash green whenever my Insanity Meter goes up. And don’t show me what my Insanity Level is at. If I know that I’m bonkers, all those neat little effects you throw into the game are useless.
Make it hidden. THEN mess with the player’s head. That’ll get some reactions out of ya 
That was a bit of a problem and did take away a bit from believing it. But some effects were just ingenius ^_^.
I’m torn between really liking Eternal Darkness and being very, very critical of it… I thought the game excelled in some things it was trying to do but it seemed to have some really fundamental gameplay flaws, too. For example, I thought the atmosphere the game conjured up was brilliant: the aesthetics and presentation seemed absolutely top-notch throughout. The Lovecraftian background story was a nice departure from most modern horror games too, and the storyline unfolded really well as you progressed through the different characters’ episodes.
But then certain aspects of the gameplay really seemed to fall flat. The way that your magic meter refilled when you simply walked around - combined with the regain health / regain sanity spell you learned about a third of the way through the game - just made your character invincible, as you’d only ever have to survive a single room before you could top up everything. (Including your sanity meter: the fact that you never had to go insane again after that stage seemed a little silly.)
The game’s puzzles weren’t too bad in themselves, but they really seemed dumbed-down compared to the puzzles in other horror games, almost like I’d imagine “junior edition” Resident Evil to be. The differences between the three routes through the game seemed to be very superficial and minor too, and it’s surprising that Silicon Knights didn’t put more effort into that aspect. So yeah, I loved some aspects of the game but I couldn’t help feeling let down by others.
By the way, what did everyone think of the E3 trailer for Resident Evil 4? It looked like quite a departure from the previous games, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out…
Resident Evil 4 has piqued my interest because while I didn’t like the earlier games, the gameplay seems to have been changed. Since I hate getting scared though, I don’t know if I’ll actually play it. I prefer my undead dying by the hordes a la House of the Dead. Don’t ever let me run out of ammunition because I’ll use everything I’ve got.
I got scared playing Koudelka and that was a turn-based horror RPG. =P It got to the point I could barely haul myself to a location two rooms away.
certainly not the scariest game ever, but theif III is really damn creepy.
you kinda have to play in first person to be able to get into it. i just got passed this part with some zombies and the sound effects really up the tension level. the zombies always make this sound like heavy breathing/snoring/crying and it really starts to get to you. and when they find you and come after you, sometimes they scream things that sound like whatever humanity left in them is still trying to formulate words.
then there was this part where there was a ghost, and it just appeared as a glowing ball of light, but when i looked closer i noticed that it was somehow casting a shadow of a little girl on the walls O_O
then there was this part where i fell into a little valley/creek (teach me to try to sneak across on a thin piece of wood) and there was this large… tree-monster(?) wandering around in it. i ended up falling not too far behind the creature and i noticed my splash. i quickly crawled under a little overhang in the side of the wall as the beast turned around. i could hear the heavy footsteps getting louder and louder and the thing got within a breath’s distance of me but kept going. the hole time “holy crap holy crap holy crap holy crap” was going through my head. then when i ran for the ladder it saw me and let out a monstrous cry. it’s really fast when it chases after you.
Thief III is for PC, right? Maybe I’ll have to get it ^_^.
Download the demo first Mumei, it’s a good game but the engine is very rough (Somewhat better than the version seen in Deus Ex: Invisible War, however not better enough imo) and to me that broke the game in a lot of cases so I’m not buying it in the end even tho I was looking forward to it.
Why did they take away the rope arrows and the ability to block hits anyway 
<3 Thief II
I’m the opposite. I loved Resident Evil 1, because the difficulty level was just right, but Resi 2,3 and ESPECIALLY Veronica were rock-hard, just for the sake of it.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]Download the demo first Mumei, it’s a good game but the engine is very rough (Somewhat better than the version seen in Deus Ex: Invisible War, however not better enough imo) and to me that broke the game in a lot of cases so I’m not buying it in the end even tho I was looking forward to it.
Why did they take away the rope arrows and the ability to block hits anyway
<3 Thief II[/quote]
I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t know where to download the demo… Could you - or someone else - tell me where to get it?
[quote=“Arcie”]
I’m the opposite. I loved Resident Evil 1, because the difficulty level was just right, but Resi 2,3 and ESPECIALLY Veronica were rock-hard, just for the sake of it.[/quote]
Part of my problem was that I never really got into “driving” my character. The controls seemed kinda weird to me and I never really got the hang of them, so the game was difficult, but for the wrong reasons. Granted I didn’t play very long since it wasn’t my game, but I really didn’t like the control scheme. I wish I’d had a chance to play RE4 while I was at E3 to see if it was different for more reasons than the visuals, but that was one of the more crowded displays. Since my gaming skills suck I need really intuitive controls and combat that can be accomplished by button mashing.
I hated RE’s control scheme >_<. I’ve never understood Capcom’s stubbornness regarding this =/.