Sort of similar, but who remembers the first time they ever logged on to a game server full of random strangers? Not scary exactly, but still a big deal. Suddenly the 'game' becomes SERIOUS BUSINESS because you don't want to look stupid.

Phantasmagoria was a bit scary when I first played it. It was the first time I’ve ever seen any sort of violence in FMV in a computer game so it was more the shock factor at the time I guess.

Actual horror isn't really my thing, mostly because I hate jump scares and I'd rather see clearly than stumble around in darkness. But there has been a few games with awesome thick atmosphere that I've enjoyed, most of them been mentioned already:

- Aliens vs Predator 2, marine campaign. Those air ducts...
- System Shock 2, just when you thought you were alone and could stop and listen an audio log... JOIN US!
- Resident Evil 1 & 2, my first "playthough" of RE1 was watching my brother play, my own attempt came to a abrupt stop when that damn dog jumped through the window in the beginning. I was 11 or so.
- Thief 1 had some unnerving levels, still haven't played Thief 3 but I'll fix that sometime in the future
- Original Tomb Raider games can actually be surprisingly scary. Well, maybe scary is a bit strong word but I do find them pretty atmospheric

Battlecruiser 3000ad I was terrified it would crash 😉

Davros wrote:

Battlecruiser 3000ad I was terrified it would crash 😉

🤣

Remember, don't ever mention his name three times in a row, or he will show up here! *shudder* 😲

Crank9000 wrote:

- Thief 1 had some unnerving levels, still haven't played Thief 3 but I'll fix that sometime in the future

You really should play Thief 3. It's generally regarded as being the worst of the three original Thief games, and I agree, but that's still a very high bar, and T3 is a great game. It's just that it used an engine that was less than ideal for the purpose, and so lost some of the features like swimming and rope arrows, and what it gained (realistic shadows, and moveable light sources, basically) wasn't enough to justify the engine change, in many people's eyes. Well, the writing wasn't as clever as in the first two games, and the open world (a very limited open world) city felt too small and the loading zones broke the immersion somewhat.

Still well worth playing, though. I must have played through it half a dozen times, and will do again. But to me, the best Thief games are:

Thief 2 > Thief 1 > Thief 3 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Thief 2014

Thief 2014 is bad all around. There's nothing good about it at all. Even from the beginning of the first level, it shouts out how it doesn't even try to build on what made the first three games so great. You start off running across the roofs, just because. Even though in the first three games you never ran unless you had to, as running is noisy plus it doesn't allow you to silently stake out the area for threats. And in 2014 you have a one-key-does-everything button for jumping/climbing, running, etc. So the player doesn't get confused, presumably. And lots of things that realistically you'd be able to climb up or over or under can't be traversed because jump/climb/run key (or button, if you're using a joypad) isn't set to respond when facing that item/way.

The atmosphere and lore of the first three games is gone, the charm and aesthetics are absent too, and every nth word from an NPC is "f*ck" or "p*ss" or other real life swear word (the proper words, I mean, I've just put the asteriskes in to get past any swear filter on this forum), instead of the original Thief's inoffensive, idiosyncratic style of made up expletives like "You utter taffer". For example, Thief 2014 has dialogue like "You stink of sh*te, p*ss off". Utterly charming.

In a couple of cutscenes, Garrett moves like Spider-man, as he runs of a roof at full speed, twists in mid-air, fires his grappling hook (yes, grappling hook) at the roof, and swings safely through a window into a room. As soon as you pick up any item (jewellery, golden hairbrush, etc) is somehow magically turns into money that you can spend freely. The game feels far too linear, and can kill you if you try to go out of bounds into an area or spot that should, judging by it's looks, be safe. There's little feeling of exploration or freedom. The plot is boring and forgettable (appropriate really, since it starts off with one of the oldest gaming tropes of all, you have amnesia and can't remember the events of the last year).

I could go on and on, but if you're curious just google and read any of the fan-written reviews, diatribes, and complaint-filled posts about the game. It is almost impressive how Thief 2014 manages to abandon almost everything good about the first three games. To make it even worse, the Thief fan-base is one of the most hardcore and vocal on the 'net, so Thief 2014's makers had almost unlimited opportunity to speak to hardcore Thief fans and find out what they wanted in the new game. But no, instead the makers choice to dumb it down, to make it 'adult' by throwing endless real-life swear words and a couple of pathetic sex scenes, to remove the lore and feel of the original games, to make the game un-ghostable by having all-but-unavoidable detection systems (i.e. dogs in cages who bark when you come near) or by having the enemy in too tight patterns near light sources that you can't put out. And many other problems that I can't recall after all this time. Basically, it's a very weak rip-off of the original games by a team who evidently didn't know what was so good about the originals.

Worst of all, the game's not great sales, and it's disastrous reception, probably killed off any chance of any more sequels. Like we needed anothe reason to hate Thief 2014...

Still, Dishonoured, and Dishonoured 2 are great games, and very Thief like. Dishonoured 2 is especially good. I'd recommend both Dishonoured games to any Thief fan (I haven't yet played Dishnoured 2.5, Death of the Outsider yet, though). Also, the fan-made game The Dark Mod (http://www.thedarkmod.com/main/) is a free and reputedly excellent Thief style game, which I've been meaning to play for years but somehow have never gotten around to. But since there's little on the video-gaming horizon to attract my attention at the moment (aside from the looking-to-be-excellent Cyberpunk 2077) I might give The Dark Mod a try.

cyclone3d wrote:

Alone In The Dark

Clocktower - only ever played this on PS1, but it was also released for pc.

Ever play alone in the dark the new nightmare? I've seen playthrough of it and it would have absolutely frightened me as a kid. But as far as scariest game I've ever played ( or attempted to play ) on the PC? Either Phantasmagoria 1 or Return to Castle Wolfenstein. To this day, I still feel a slight sense of dread when playing the Crypt levels in the first act of the game.

Also want to make an honorable mention to Realms of the Haunting.

St1llMatt3R wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

Alone In The Dark

Clocktower - only ever played this on PS1, but it was also released for pc.

Ever play alone in the dark the new nightmare? I've seen playthrough of it and it would have absolutely frightened me as a kid. But as far as scariest game I've ever played ( or attempted to play ) on the PC? Either Phantasmagoria 1 or Return to Castle Wolfenstein. To this day, I still feel a slight sense of dread when playing the Crypt levels in the first act of the game.

Also want to make an honorable mention to Realms of the Haunting.

You're right about RTCW. I remember playing it and getting the creeps in those crypts. I've played the game so many times over the years that they quickly went from scary to annoying (since you have to shoot them so many times), but I do recall being freaked out the first time around.

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

I haven't really played PC games for a good 20 years or so, but the scariest one I played was "The Legacy" by Microprose.
It's probably not scary at all by today's standards.

Never played any scary games in the recent past, well, apart from demos of some survival horror genre Games (Metro 2033 & Bioshock), played last year. Of course there is the old classic, Half-life 1, with its head-grab-crabs, played few years back. Maybe, someday, I would make up my mind to play System Shock and possibly F.E.A.R & Thief series too...just for their rave reviews and uniqueness. Most of these scary games are just jump-scare types...triggering an automatic response from us, one which cannot possibly be overcome, due to millions of years of evolutionary survival instincts i.e. unless one gets ‘lost’ in some other thoughts while playing a so-called scary game(rarity, but still....).

However the more important thing would be if, someone, after playing some intense/immersive horror game in the midnight...had to cross some graveyard or haunted area and...let us also throw in some abnormal sounds...how a grown adult would react in such a situation?

I would be, most likely, thinking about the possibility of encounters with nefarious elements of our own species and maybe hungry wild animals in such a situation...rather than ghosts, monsters, spirits & such things.

I played Project Zomboid when it was still alpha.. the game played this violin stab sound when a zombie unexpectedly showed up in close proximity, and, holy smokes, if it wasn't the mother of all jump scares. For an isometric game it also did very well in creating a forboding and brooding atmosphere that was already spooky, even just walking around scavenging in full daylight. But come nightime, when you're all locked up in your safehouse, and you realize that one zombie you sneaked past on your way home did actually see you.. and follow you home.. and he brought all his pals. That sinking feeling of hopelessness -- the game really got that across perfectly.

And then they turned it into a farming simulator.

Kerr Avon are you aware of TX2 - Shadows of the Metal Age ?

Amnesia was genuinely horrifying.

Dead Space.

Clive Barkers Undying.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter had its moments.

I dont know if it was the stiffness of the controls, the narrow space claustrophobic or the overwhelming morbid genestealer but Space Hulk for msdos always had me having sweaty palms and nearly heart attack as a kid. I wish I had the nerves to play that game as it was very well done.

Colonel's Bequest in all its gloriest goriest 16-color EGA

Errius wrote:

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Yes. I think I remember being slightly creeped out when I first read that as a 12 yr old. Nothing scarier than what your own imagine can conjure up!

StSam wrote:

Colonel's Bequest in all its gloriest goriest 16-color EGA

The scariest thing there is the colour palette.