'Pathways Into Darkness', the ancient Mac-only Bungie game. Between the darkness, the creepy-looking monsters, their much more creepy sound effects, chronic ammo shortages, and then the stuff the dead people say...

Haha, yeah. A certain scene revolving around a school locker nearly made me jump up out of my chair, even though I totally saw it coming. And I'm not easily scared.

Some of my favorites...

Silent Hill - Cliché, I know, but the first time I heard that siren and the alleyway goes dark at the beginning... It still sends chills up my spine, to this day.

Really, all the SH games. SH2 & 3 both had their great moments (the funhouse in SH3), and as weak as the overall game was, SH4 nearly gave me a heart attack. I actually shut my Xbox off because I felt my chest tighten after a particular scare.

Fatal Frame is the same way. I'm on the edge of my seat nearly every second of those games.

Clive Barker's Undying is brilliant, though I agree it loses a little focus later on. But still, all the howlers in the mansion that jump out of complete darkness. Gets me every time.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent always keeps me on edge. It feels even more Lovecraftian than Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, which I also enjoyed.

Resident Evil 2. The interrogation room with the lickers. You KNEW it was coming, yet you STILL jumped.

Alone in the Dark. The dog-thing that jumps through the attic window, and one of the first rooms you explore has a door that automatically closes, and when you open it again a zombie is suddenly standing there. Cheap "gotcha!" scare, but effective.

Lastly, Veil of Darkness. The whole game is atmospheric, but the backwards speech at the game's intro always makes my skin crawl. It just sounds so evil.

Fatal Frame 1 and 2, Silent Hill 1-3 (the later games had their moments, too), Haunting Ground (Clock Tower-esqu game for the PS2; got mediocre reviews, but I liked it), Clock Tower (for the SNES, fan-translated, and the first PSX one--Spirits Within was really bad, and the PS2 one was goofy as hell), and Amnesia: the Dark Descent. There might be others, but those are the ones that come to mind.

The last two "horror" games I played, Dead Space and Clive Barker's Jericho, weren't scary at all. Jericho was actually kind of adorable, it was trying *so hard*, I wanted to pat it on the head and offer encouragement. I'm going to start Alan Wake tonight, and hope for better things.

I am so glad to know I'm not alone on Dead Space. I REALLY enjoyed both games, but I don't get all the people who call them the scariest games they've ever played. They're way too predictable. Doom 3 did monster closets way better, frankly. Every time you complete an objective in DS, you can expect a bunch of necromorphs to bust through some vents and attack.

I like the overall atmosphere, and I think DS2 offers a few legitimate scares (it also has some of the most superb sound design I've ever heard in a game), but the original, while fun, didn't scare me in the slightest.

The shopping mall in Condemned, on the other hand...

Oh boy. "Scary game". Probably Thief 1 and the Zombies. Ho-ly fsck, was I scared back then.

The only game that truly scared me was the 1999 Aliens vs Predator game for the PC when you play as a marine. The gameplay is pretty fast and before you know it the aliens will come charging at you extremely fast with barely enough time to react. It is the intensity of not knowing when they will come next and having the time to react quick enough is what makes me scared of those things.

The Jolly Roger bay level of Mario 64 always scared the crap out of me. I blame that damn eel. Dead Space was scary for a few hours, but I eventually toughened up. Scarecrow in Arkham Asylum freaks me out, but Harley and Ivy keep me going.

Silent Hill 4.

I know most people say it's the least scary one, but no. First of all, it touches all the right buttons for me - ghosts, freaking two headed giants with baby heads? Immortal bosses hunting you down? Your own home, the only place where you can save turning into a FREAKING HELL ON EARTH?

THIS piece of shit? http://lparchive.org/Silent-Hill-4/Update%252012/12-011.jpg

This was the only game in my entire life that caused nightmares afterwards. Yeah, I dreamed about my room being haunted, by freaking ghosts in the mirror, in everywhere.

Gosh... Yeah... It still lives in me.

There were also gameplay factors that took great part in scarying me. Limited inventory caused that for the first time in Silent Hill game, lack of ammo was a real issue, so running from the enemies was the common strategy.

I finished the game, and it was the best Silent Hill game for me when it comes to scary parts. The best story is in Silent Hill 2 but it's not scary at all.

http://horrorstory.blox.pl/resource/silent_hill_4_the_room_.jpg

Silent Hill 1 is freaking scary too, mostly because of the soundtrack, but for me it wasn't that scary, because I had shitload of ammo to unload on all those freaks.

I don't understand why people mention F.E.A.R. so often. After a while it was obvious that you can't die in any Alma encounters, so I was rather like "Oh, fine, another boo moment, yawn"

Penumbra Black Plague is another scary game that has immortal enemies that you can't even look at, so you don't really know where they are, and you're crawling in the corner, your character is breathing deeply, loosing his mind... Yeah, that was a good one. Amnesia, of course, too. So scary, I haven't even finish it yet :P
Yeah, it was GENIUS how they made it.

First, your room is the only safe place for you. A place of normality, you're peeping (hehe) to your neighbour's room, or through your window, and see that life's normal, everything is fine. You even heal your wounds in your room.

But then, everything becomes to start fucking up, you start to LOOSE life in your room instead of restore it, ghosts are coming from your walls, you just run fast to make a save, grab some ammo and GTFO from your own apartament.

Brilliant, just freaking brilliant. Of course it gets better when you find the candles, but yeah, letting your room to become a hell on earth was the scariest part, so I didn't use them.

Games that were scary all the time or just games that managed to scare me:


The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time - Wait don't laugh... one of the scariest things I've ever encountered in a game. Re-Dead.. back when I originally played this game these things really creeped me the hell out.
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Turok the Dinosaur Hunter: One of the first 3D games I played and I'd often freak out when a Raptor would come leaping out of the games fog.

Resident Evil 3 - The jump scares would get me, dog suddenly busting through a window, zombie around the corner.. Nemesis scared me to all hell.

--From this point on I would play games in the dark along with the lights off surround sound or headphones -

Eternal Darkness - Bathtub scene.... if you play you will know what i mean.

The Suffering - Oh man great times of great scare the crap out of me moments.

Doom 3 - jump scares.. unknown stuff in the darkness.

Penumbra - enough said

Amnesia - That damn invisible water monster...

Bioshock - it caught me off guard a few times.

Yeah, it was great! And I think the only game with "screamers" in it. You know, that violent screens flashes with a loud noise all of a sudden...

For me Vampire bloodlines, the haunted manor.

I remember playing this part of the game in a dark room with headphones, right when you enter the manor you can see that guy with the axe which then disapears in when lights break out.

Then in the basement I went to investigate a door that opened by it self and when I went back to the previous room that guy with his axe was here ... I almost shat myself ...

of course Amnesia dark descent scared the shit out of me but hey, those guys are pros at making horror games ...

The sound from those egg monsters/aliens hatching in Duke Nukem 3D.

I was 12 at the time of playing Duke Nukem 3D in 1996, so yeah I was scared. :P