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What Scares Game Developers?
John Callaham writes "Gamecloud has a new feature this Halloween asking game developers from id, Epic, Gearbox (among others) about what games scared them and why." From the article: "Todd Hollenshead - id Software: 'DOOM 3! Of course.' John Romero - former id and Ion Storm designer: 'My personal second scariest game was probably the Ravenholm section of Half Life 2. Man, when those screaming, galloping zombies are tearing around on top of a building and coming at you or clawing their way up a drainpipe - it's INSANE!'"
...of his own game! That's scary! :)
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I can't believe nobody mentioned System Shock 2. Not for the "Holy Bajeezus" startle-the-crap-outta-you kind of scare, but for the unnerving, menacing, heebie-jeebies kind of scare that you get when a blood-covered guy with a parasite going out of his chest and onto his head runs at you with a steel pipe, saying, "I'm sooorrrrrrrryyyyy...." Or when a protocol droid steps gingerly toward you, saying, "That's the Tri-Optimum way," and you know you've got to beat feet before it explodes in your face. The game robs you of human* contact, constantly holding the possibility of finding someone else still alive on the ship just out of reach.
(*Yeah, I know "human" contact is something of a stretch, since it's just a game, but I couldn't help thinking throughout the game that there's safety in numbers.)
To a limited extent. The two most recent frightening experiences were the "We don't go to Ravenholm" level in Half-Life 2 and Resident Evil 4. Doom 3, not so much scary, I mean, it's doom, monster-in-a-closet is old hat, and it's cheap.
Going back further though, we have System Shock 1&2, which were both excellent.
System Shock 2 had me sitting wide-eyed the whole time.
So, I'll have to go with System Shock 2.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Anyone that has played Thief sure remember the haunts mumbling "Flames, nothing but flames, burning my flesh..." in the cathedral level. Not only that, when you disturbed them, they started shouting "Join us!! Join us now!!!".
Try to stand calm in a corner of a room with four of those haunts in "search-mode". Eric Brosius, the sound designer, did a fantastic job with Thief and System Shock 2, other of my favourites. Also very scary.
Those two, Thief and System Shock 2, should definitely be topping the list of the scariest games ever made. Weird none of those designers even mention them.
The craddle level in Thief 3 was "good" too...
Just my two cents.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" - Albert Einstein.
Play the Ocean House part with headphones and the lights turned off. IF YOU DARE!
My favorite part was when you fall into the basement laundry room and read a newspaper article about the decapitated child that was found there years ago. Then suddenly the washing machine turns on. THUNK-THUNK, THUNK-THUNK
"He's right behind you!"
Doom 3 was pretty scary, but it was mostly just jump/shit-your-pants tactics such as stuff jumping out at you from the dark... Not to mention that that game was dark the entire time and that kind of ruined it.
Half-Life 2 had its moments as well, as was mentioned in the story, Ravenholm was scary. I don't really remember many other parts of HL2 that were incredibly scary though.
F.E.A.R. was just downright creepy from the start, and it just gets creepier as you go.
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I have to agree with you on this one. Another thing scary about Deus Ex was the amazing level of detail put into the game environment... sitting all night with headphones on, lights out, and reading about how the world is crumbling in newspapers or public terminals.. the plague victims/zyme addicts made the atmosphere complete. Spooky. Not jump out of your seat scary, but complete immersion.
Amen absolutely. The Aliens TC for DOOM was scarier than DOOM itself, for exactly that reason: The level designers could afford to make the first level suspensful, because with DOOM, if the first level of the shareware version had NO MONSTERS, people wouldn't have bought the game.
Sometimes the scariest parts of games are the parts where you're left alone, wondering when the hammer will fall. I also liked the Aliens TC for the novel approach to door monsters... they'd have partially transparent walls, so you'd walk in, and you could see the monsters, and hear them, and you knew that at any moment, they'd pop out and gnaw you.
Man. Suspense is always scary.
Though, for me, the "Hell" level in DOOM 3 was pretty good. Not Aliens TC good, but scary as... er... hell.
The zombie grungily walking towards you is now "that model made by Kenneth Scott with the grunting made by that voice actor (we had some pretty fun times creating those grunting loops !) that gets triggered once you walk past that cabinet".
I think it's lame to call Doom 3 the scariest game : Not even because he is (partly) the creator of it himself, but because it just... wasn't.