Video games scarier than movies?

huaxiong90

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huaxiong90 on 30 January 2011

SvennoJ said:

The experience of horror games still doesn't come close to movies like Alien, Silence of the lambs and The shining. (neither do modern horror films unfortunately)

My wife still gets the creeps when she sees Anthony Hopkins on tv and just mentioning "Here's Johny" freaks her out. What video game has that kind of effect?

Isn't Silence of the Lambs more of a gory film than a scary one?

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IMU1808 on 30 January 2011

They have the potential to be as they're the more immersive media (or at least supposed to be). At the moment, most games that try to be scary just aren't. Most of them just go for jumps and jitters, completely forgetting about tension, suspense and atmosphere. As for Dead Space, I only played a decent portion of the first game and World 3 in Demon's Souls was a much scarier experience.

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SvennoJ on 30 January 2011

pezus said:

SvennoJ said:

The experience of horror games still doesn't come close to movies like Alien, Silence of the lambs and The shining. (neither do modern horror films unfortunately)

My wife still gets the creeps when she sees Anthony Hopkins on tv and just mentioning "Here's Johny" freaks her out. What video game has that kind of effect?

The power of a good horror movie is that you have no other control then to close your eyes, which doesn't help since your imagination and the sound keep going. You still want to know what happens against better judgement. In a video game you can go the other way, fight back, die and reload etc.

The scariest parts in Silent hill 2 for me were not the chases or things creeping in the dark but when the game asks you if you want to stick your hand through a hole to try to retrieve something. Hell no. But need to do it to continue. The scariest part in Siren for me was when you're playing the little girl who can't fight back and when you see one of the zombies closing in on your hiding spot in sight jack mode. Finding a way to cut off your own finger in Heavy rain is a very immersive sequence as well. Just imagining what would hurt less, pliers or a knife, yuck.

All of the movies you mentioned are very good but I don't find any one of them scary. It just seems so much scarier to me when you are in control of the character because then it feels more like the scary events are happening to you rather than just some actor in a movie.

It is the opposite for me. In games I'm too curious to be scared, I like to explore and try out different things. The first time something comes at me I take a close look, see what happens, not caring at all what happens to my character. I don't have that option in a movie. MMO's are more effective that way without the option to reload. First time running from Qeynos to Freeport at lvl 10 during the night was one of my scariest video game experiences. Friggin Nektulos forest.

Anyway humans are far more scary then zombies or monsters. The opening sequence of Inglorious basterds is a true nail biter and the tension in There will be blood was just killing me.