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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!'"
Want to know what really scares game developers??
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.
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I almost had an heart attack playing Alien Versus Predator with a 4 speaker system. Just remembering those "blips" on the radar gives me chills... System Shock 2 was also very scary: because of the constant respawn of zombies and other not so friendly beings, one never could feel safe, there was no "clear area". Also, the best hard science fiction game I ever played!
All those are fairly scary .. but what truly terrifies them is Working for EA
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Not only did this game have a really good story, but it was damn scary. With positional audio, a mere walk through some woods was reduced to a white knuckled adventure because as you're walking, suddenly you hear a second set of footsteps - which stop the second you quit moving.
Or being in a hotel at night and walking into a room with some... THING... in there, that's covered in rusty metal and dried blood that just turns and tries to kill you mindlessly. Don't even get me started on the nurses.
Anyway, the SH series of games has always been great for scares. They're my favorites.
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DAIKATANA!!! Oh, imagine the nightmare of having that attached to your resume on your way to your next job, being that a flop that big probably cost your current one.
I agree with a lot of other comments... System Shock 2 was scary, as was Resident Evil 4 (the Gamecube Resident Evils in general were quite well made).
I also remember Undying being pretty scary in parts... I thought that game was underrated.
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