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Scariest moment in a game

Lol I have to chime in with a little Bioshock hatred and laugh at you Zips. At no point did I feel any tension in Bioshock. AT ALL. I can't believe how badly that game failed in that regard. It just didn't have that magic spark, way too generic. Even after patch with the vita chambers disabled, what can I say, the Disneyland ride never managed to achieve that crucial suspension of disbelief with me. The primitive emotional response portion of my brain always knew I was playing a GAME.

This is probably the major failing of Bioshock. It's definitely not a survival-horror game, and it's not a pure corridor shooter like Doom, so what is it supposed to be? A bad science fiction novel that somehow got made into a game?

In fact I would like to put forward Red Orchestra as one of the scariest games I've ever played. I can think of several instances of having to match wits playing cat and mouse with a lone enemy that left my heart racing and breathing a little faster.
 
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Lol I have to chime in with a little Bioshock hatred and laugh at you Zips. At no point did I feel any tension in Bioshock. AT ALL. I can't believe how badly that game failed in that regard. It just didn't have that magic spark, way too generic. Even after patch with the vita chambers disabled, what can I say, the Disneyland ride never managed to achieve that crucial suspension of disbelief with me. The primitive emotional response portion of my brain always knew I was playing a GAME.

Generally I agree with this. Mostly I think it's because of a few things. The cartoonish nature of some of the splicers. The unrealistic blood effects. The fact that a good portion of the games textures looked like someone had run the "Plastic Wrap" filter on them in Photoshop. The forced mechanics that were imported from System Shock 2, which made perfect sense in a futuristic setting but became ridiculous when put into the 1960's.

However, there were two points where that game really hit me. I'll put it in dark font as a spoiler, just in case:
1.) When you FIRST arrive in Rapture, and you're stuck in the Bathosphere with no weapons as the spider splicer starts to cut it's way into the sub.
2.) The when you finally meet Ryan. While not scary, it was very convincing and powerful.


Other than that, it was kind of a let down in the terror department. SS2 had it beat, which is hard because that's such an older game, ha.

EDIT: Oh, and the dancing plaster statues in that flooded "basement" room in Fort Frolic. I don't know how they coded the AI for those things but it was amazing.
 
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Yeah, Call of Chtulhu was pretty good and scary, that's for sure. But the fact that it was a straight console port really dragged it down for me. It could've been so much better if a more talented developer made it. At one point I couldn't get any further in the game... not because I sucked, but because the game handled so illogical and consoley. Someone should make a proper remake of that game.

Lol I have to chime in with a little Bioshock hatred and laugh at you Zips. At no point did I feel any tension in Bioshock. AT ALL. I can't believe how badly that game failed in that regard. It just didn't have that magic spark, way too generic. Even after patch with the vita chambers disabled, what can I say, the Disneyland ride never managed to achieve that crucial suspension of disbelief with me. The primitive emotional response portion of my brain always knew I was playing a GAME.

This is probably the major failing of Bioshock. It's definitely not a survival-horror game, and it's not a pure corridor shooter like Doom, so what is it supposed to be? A bad science fiction novel that somehow got made into a game?

In fact I would like to put forward Red Orchestra as one of the scariest games I've ever played. I can think of several instances of having to match wits playing cat and mouse with a lone enemy that left my heart racing and breathing a little faster.

/Elitism
 
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Lol I have to chime in with a little Bioshock hatred and laugh at you Zips. At no point did I feel any tension in Bioshock. AT ALL. I can't believe how badly that game failed in that regard. It just didn't have that magic spark, way too generic. Even after patch with the vita chambers disabled, what can I say, the Disneyland ride never managed to achieve that crucial suspension of disbelief with me. The primitive emotional response portion of my brain always knew I was playing a GAME.

The thing is, I never said the entire game was like this. I picked out one moment from a game, as per the OP and intent of this thread.
 
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Yeah, Call of Chtulhu was pretty good and scary, that's for sure. But the fact that it was a straight console port really dragged it down for me. It could've been so much better if a more talented developer made it. At one point I couldn't get any further in the game... not because I sucked, but because the game handled so illogical and consoley. Someone should make a proper remake of that game.

Can you elaborate? Aside from the small levels and somewhat subpar gfx I didnt feel anything consolish.

I think that the CoC team was talented enough and the thing I really admire about them is how they didnt compromise their vision of the game- no hud, no crosshairs, weapon swaying, sanity/vertigo effects, the few nice npcs youll meet will all die, even your protagonist will die in the end.
It takes balls to make such an unforgiving title and sadly they paid the price and went out of business.
I have nothing but respect for that team and their love child.
 
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Can you elaborate? Aside from the small levels and somewhat subpar gfx I didnt feel anything consolish.

I think that the CoC team was talented enough and the thing I really admire about them is how they didnt compromise their vision of the game- no hud, no crosshairs, weapon swaying, sanity/vertigo effects, the few nice npcs youll meet will all die, even your protagonist will die in the end.
It takes balls to make such an unforgiving title and sadly they paid the price and went out of business.
I have nothing but respect for that team and their love child.

It was a good game, but if you looked at the technical details, the execution was quite poor.

IIRC I stopped playing at this point:

Spoiler!
 
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I can see how you can get that impression but as far as I could tell (I cant back it up with hard facts though) crouching does give you cover but because the way the truck moves, the winding path and how the enemies are located- someone will almost always have a line of sight to the back of the truck, where you are totaly exposed. Plus- they are hard to spot (blanding in the browny background) so I can understand how you got the impression that you are shot at while under cover but imo it is not so.

There are no respawns (you are always moving and they have ambushes all along the road)- only clones.

It took me a while but I passed- it wasnt just sheer luck but a combination of skill, repetition and well.. a li'l bit o' luck.

I guess all Im saying is that it will be pity if you bail out so early on this game because of the wrong assumption that it is "cheating"- you are missing a lot. there are superbly crafted levels ahead. (esp. the marsh refinery and the boat )
 
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I'm not easily scared, but one moment that really shocked me in a game was that one part in Resident Evil 2, when you're walking out of the interrogation room and the licker jumps through the one-way mirror and starts trying to kill you. I was probably about 12 or 13 years old the first time I played that game, and the first time I saw that I dropped my controller, went "Oh ****" , scrambled to pick the controller back up, and then emptied my shotgun at the damn thing, even after the second round killed it.
 
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Vampire: Bloodlines



When you have to go to that old ruined hotel & pick up some sort of item..


Seriously it was so ****ing scary, and all those newspapers and drawings you found lying around, with the backround story for the hotel, which was even more eerie :eek:


Anyways I managed to save teh girl from her ghostlyness

Oh yeah, that was REALLY creepy.
 
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Remembered a good scary moment from the game Sin: Episode Emergence. When you get to the construction yard and have to fight some escaped mutant. Thing took a bit of punishment before going down. It didn't matter where you were, it could get to you. Even if you thought you could hide behind a 3 foot thick concrete wall, it would just smash through it and start attacking you. Seems like the only thing that would give it a pause is the rail gun function on that large calibre pistol.
 
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The nightmare chapters in the first Max Payne. Back then I just ran in some direction and had no idea where I was going. I always got lost in them. And then the damn baby started crying :|

Maybe not the scariest, but the most depressing and confusing one.

I think you confused "scary" with "stupidly frustrating gameplay" :p
God I hated the pixel-jumping on those blood-rail things. Although the hallway sequences were pretty neat.
 
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