But what is a good scary game?
As I can remember is Doom 3 pretty scary with a 32" screen and the speaker volume at high.

A second good horror game but less scary is Fahrenheit. Really good story and much fun!

But for horror... I would prefer a good movie!

What about 28 Weeks Later? I thought this movie totally outstripped is predecessor. The cinematography in the follow up was simply breath-taking...

Hey Krisboro,
I did like 28 Weeks Later, actually. I don't think it's as good as the original, but damn, it was a good sequel. The opening scene is GREAT, and the story took a lot of turns that I didn't expect. Still, 28 Days Later is still the best, IMO.

I disagree with your assessment of Saw. I believe that this series is the only original horror series in the past 10-20 years. The gruesome methods in which "jigsaw" forces his victims to decide via death and something possibly worse gives me more chills than any game has to this date, including Bioshock. It's the only movie where the sequels actually build on the previous, either being just as good or better.

I did however get creeped out by Bioshock and agree with your theory that games are indeed becoming more frightening than movies.

Imagine what it will be like when we have realistic VR gear for games... where you can feel the environment and interact with it as you would in real life. *shivers*

What about the PC/x360 game Condemned? One of the more underrated horror/thriller games in the past few years! Anybody remember System Shock 2? I honestly can't remember the last time I was scared by a movie...but I can remember countless times with games!

I think it's not that simple to answer the question of the article, mainly because games are experienced from a different angle compared to a movies. Movies are much less interactive which gives the advantage to the opposite camp here - I think, well directed game may very well blow you away. However, I'd say, such game is yet to be seen.

For me, most remarkable game in the aspect of scares was F.E.A.R. Probably it's because I was playing it the right way (mostly at night, without any interruptions, etc).
Anyway, the game is really intense - whenever you're not high on adrenaline blasting enemies, you get chills by that sneaky little girl appearing in all the right places at all the right moments.

Was a good read, and was looking forward to that second list...

Hoping to see Clive Barkers Undying, Doom 3, System Shock2, Bioshock and the original Doom, to name a few!

Now, roll on that second list!

Hey kevin, you missed one of the E for all items showing. A pnumatic vest that allowed you to "feel" impacts across your chest, shoulders, back, stomach etc. ;)

In regards to movies vs. games its a fundamentally different delivery.

In movies you have to be able to identify with the characters and situation, in some form or another you have to "buy into" the picture presented. If the person on screen is a blithering twit (jeepers creepers, skeleton key) you may be annoyed with them enough to be rooting for thier demise.

If things that happen make no sense (pulling down a hilocopter by a rope and somehow having magical sticky glue to root them to he ground to do it seems an overly common way to show how "strong" some person/creature is. The reality is that, unless said person/creature can dynamically gain a few hundred or in some cases with large choppers a few thousand pounds, they would just climb the rope REALLY fast. Is it too much to ask to show them brace themselves or grab onto something to anchor themselves etc?

Even better I love it when writers tell us how increadibly smart a character is "ohh high IQ" etc. and then proceed to have them do and say moronic things.

The point is that in a horror flick, if you see something that you simply don't "buy into" or the flow of the narrative gets too choppy with poor explanation, your identification with the characters and immersion breaks and its pretty hard to get genuinely frightened at that point. It be "cool" and flashy etc. but you aren't genuenly scared.

Its a more difficult balance to strike in modern days with high populations, more technophiles, more advanced medicine and science, and less practical mystery and magic. Which is probably why horror scripts that take advantage of such things (28 days later etc.) do well. We can see that happeneing.

Chainsaw masacre in modern times? No way, his parade would end lighting quick. Especially given the setting (friggin everyone has a gun in texas). Chainsaw...vs. Shotgun...do the math. All of us know the boomstick wins (army of darkness, every videogame with zombies).

The problem quickly becomes the intelligence of the writer and realizing where their limits end. If they stick to magic and myth. Its not terribly tricky because you don't have to obey physics, but then you have a harder task of making your main characters easy for people to get wrapped around, we don't personally know what its like to channel magical powers etc.

If you go the "ohh this isn't magic...its really science...no really...honestly!..." route you have to cross your "t"s and dot your "i"s because a lot more people have generic understandings of physics, math, biology, even chemisty and genetics. But then you get the advantage of being able to use more "realistic" characters and settings that a person can quickly identify with and immerse. We all know what its like to be confidently dependant on a peice of equipment only for it to fail us at a critical moment etc.

So its more a fault of the audience in many ways I feel. We're quite litterally harder to scare, we see atrocities on the news, blood and gore doesn't phase many of us, we believe in tech, we live in crowded places...go figure. Its very tough to convince us to go along with many truely terrifying scenarios.

Games have a different route, namely balancing frustration with fear. You still have to identify with your main character granted, but your immersion tends to come more significantly from how smooth the game play is and how you are presented to the environment. If the controls feel natural, and the environment is clear and understandable you can suddenly loose track of time and truelly launch yourself head first into the developer's nightmare.

Historically silent hill has done an extremely good job with this. Your "hero" is typically someone not in increadible shape, no martial skills, so its your wits and reflexes that keep you alive etc. You're also not excessively manuverable. So a bunch of freaks in your way can be a duanting situation especially if you are low on ammo. Silent hill "The Room" however overbalanced the frustration side of things. Particularly in introducing an "unkillable" enemy that you have to plant a dagger to hold them down...and then retrieve it...and then plant it...and then...you get the idea. Instead of adding to the fear, it completely destroyed immersion from sheer annoyance.

The first two resident evil games did pretty well with balance also. The fourth resident evil however tipped the play control balance too far, you were now a highly trained and very manuverable character with excellent weapon options. After a certain point, nothing is scaring you much as you can safely mow down any opponent in your way scores of them even. Without question it IS one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played, but I was not frightened through the majority of it.

In PC releases? Doom 3 did have some scary moments...(bathroom mirror anyone?) but after a bit it wears off and its another fps like any other. In this regard HL2 went miles further...(ravenhurst?). You had solid control, the environment was easily identifiable, and the "Oh crap!" meter would often hit the limit. You were rarely severly overpowered for the situations thus causing a relatively consistant level of tension.

So in a nutshell, making opponents who carry a true threat of killing you but are not frustratingly annoying, making play control and weapons that feels smooth but doesn't make you overpowered. And making an environment that is clear and identifiable are key things, and striking a balance is the art of it all.

Granted there are a lot of other details in the mix, the mistake of throwing "cut scenes" in the middle of an action sequence, creating a level of mystery while still keeping a feeling of purpose, etc.

But all of that falls apart in a game if you can't get sucked into the play style and environement. Sounds go so very very far here. (footsteps behind you in silent hill 2, ambiance of bioshock, grieg's end in EQ's luclen).

...and I've spent far too much time writing this. Later :)

I have to agree with this, I haven't seen a good horror movie for ages, (not that I'm a nutter fan, give me freddy got fingered or harold and kumar go to whitecastle anyday) but SAW 1 was Ok, but then it got too gross, and same with hostel, who can watch that stuff? But then you have to define what is truly scary in your opinion, in my view, sudden images and loud noises aren't scary, it's just your reflexes reacting as they would to any loud noise or bright flash etc, I think scary is where you feel threatened, and after you watch the movie you can't stop thinking about that dark patch in your lounge room. And it is here where games win over movies bigtime, becuase your immersed in a fictional world, interacting with NPC's and the environments, and control a character, along with the increasingly hostile environments you are placed in, even though I thought the techniques used in Doom3 to achieve scariness were dumb (No duct tape on mars? please, and an accidental shipment of chainsaws, convenient) it would make you think twice about turning the lights off and sound up, Same goes with FEAR, although I think FEAR gets more into your head type (haven't used a bathroom with white tiles since) The fact that you are responsible for you characters saftey and the fact that all enemy attacks are directed to you makes the horror video game, much more intense. - if only the devs could write good stories all the time eh?

Silent Hill series is probably the scariest video game series, it actually messes with your head weeks after and makes you lose sleep. Thats when you know you played a scary game, not this predictable jump out scares that you forget about 5 minutes later.

Video game are more immersive than movies and thats already a major factor in making something truly scary. Doom 3 was not scary, it didnt make me lose sleep. You havent seen scary until you play Silent Hill at night

Anyone remember Event Horizon? I'll put it against any Saw any day of the week.

Silent Hill series! and Games alike... I've played 1&2, but never finished any of the series cuz it was nerve wrecking haha.

It's especially scarier when you don't have super weapons and amours at hand and pace slows down, and the your scouting areas with long silence and hidden "surprises".

Would be really cool if they make use of the Internet and silently update parts of the games to give different users different scares and surprises.

Anybody remember a movie for Event Horizon? It was so bad, it was good. The one thing I remember about is the special fx and sound. You need to have great sound to give you that unexpected "jump".

The movie that scared me the most to date was John Carpenter's "The Thing." I think it was a combination of my youthful imagination and the fact that I could reconcile it's ability to happen in my mind. Could there be aliens? If there are, could they do that?

I had hoped that the game would capture and allow me to relive the terror I felt then, giving me sleepless nights and extremely frightening trips to the bathroom at the end of my hallway. Sadly, it failed to do so in every way.

The movie inspired a very strong fear of the unknown; certainly a deep rooted fear. Games fail to give this fear strictly out of repetition. Your first encounter with any enemy is always the most frightening. You don't know anything about it. Your second encounter, you know how tough it is. By the third, you know whether you have enough ammunition to kill it, how it attacks, and how to defend.

I want a game where you never see the same monster twice (except maybe in groups, like the chameleon suit level in FEAR), you're never really sure you can count on normally dependable things (or friends), and answers about your enemy aren't laid out for you via any means other than your own powers of observation, reason and deduction; and maybe a little communication. I think we can rise to that level in modern gaming. Of course, I would never object to a few jump out of your seat scares like monsters coming from unexpected places... But most of all, I want to believe that the things transpiring are possible.

The most obvious flaw in the question is a video game or movie scary is the fact that it is opinion...

I for one find movies scarier, only because you are taken into a situation that is out of your control, where usually the "smart" people keep going back for more punishment or just are unable to escape.

In a video game (most at least), you have the power to fight back. Penumbra is the only game i remember where you really don't have a single conventional weapon (the environment is used as a weapon). But otherwise, most games that are Horror oriented give you the power to fight back which makes it a lil less scary.

Then again, that's my opinion

I have to agree with zzz, The silent hill series is one of the scariest that i have played. Being able to hear all sorts of freaky things as you wander the town, but not being able to see said freaky things is far scarier then cheap scare games that use sudden enemy appearances to freak you out..

i was playing the crysis demo and yesterday i installed and played a while Silet Hill 4, and i got to this idea: what if a good japanese company as Konami licenses Cryengine2 and make Silent Hill 5 for PC...
that would be the scariest game ever..... in part because japanese game-companies usually try to make their ames in a "cinematographicaly" way... i think.

I just remember the original Half Life scaring the shit out of me during some parts. I think games are a better horror/scarier experience than watching a movie. You get more immersed and then something pops out at you and it gets you.

What was wrong with Wolf Creek?

That movie was terrifying. Maybe not scary in the full sense of the word, but definately had its moments. Like Saw it put you in a position you can't walk away from.