Scariest game for PC you can think of?

[Graves]

Hey peeps, as you may have guessed by the title, I am looking for something that will give me nightmares. Everything is all the same these days.. I want to play a game that will genuinely scare me for once. Any ideas?

[Alyzarin]

I used to get nightmares as a little kid from playing Doom with my dad. I don't know about these days though....

[LonelyTurtle]

Amnesia- The Dark Decent. Awesome game, easily the scariest out there, has some good puzzles as well.

[slayer]

The Penumbra series as well as Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

[Graves]

Penumbra and Amnesia are on my list. Played the demo for Amnesia a while back and thought it was ace, and I'm currently downloading the demo for Penumbra. Are there any others though? Blood and gore doesn't phase me - I prefer psychological games.

[khh]

Amnesia - The Dark Decent. There is no question about it. Other than that I'm somewhat of a whimp, so even Tomb Raider scares me. But I've heard nice stuff about Silent Hill 2.

[Arra]

I used to get nightmares as a little kid from playing Doom with my dad. I don't know about these days though.... I think that's pretty common to have played Doom with your dad when you're young, for a certain age group. Two other people I've told about it have said they did the same thing. I always assumed it was just me. I guess a lot of dads were told to play Doom with their kids? lol I remember my brother and I running under a table when he got to a scary part. It's pointless to mention it because everyone else already has, but Amnesia was pretty scary. And the thing about Amnesia is, it keeps getting scarier. It starts out being the scary-noises kind of scary. Doors randomly slamming shut and things like that. Then it becomes the ghost type of scary, where you see some weird looking figure in the distance that starts walking toward you with terrifying music and you have to run and hide and dread what will happen if it gets to you. It really invokes the running prey instinct. The thing is, there aren't really that many monsters. Often you'll expect one but there won't be one. There aren't enough for you to get used to them, so encounters remain terrifying, and you're constantly dreading them. Then, after a while there is a huge section that takes place in an extremely dark dungeon, with pitch black corridors that you hear terrifying noises emanating from that make you think "am I expected to go down there...?" You're expected to solve puzzles through the terror. And it gets even worse. Near the end you experience a different type of horror that is far worse in a way. I won't spoil anything else here. The game is kind of short though. I think after I beat it, my total gameplay time was only 16 hours. The Tomb Raider - Reborn game-play video seemed kind of scary. It might be a good candidate, except it's probably only like that for the first level, then it probably becomes less scary. Also, Lara is out of breath and frightened and breathing heavily, which makes her sound like she's having orgasms, and that might diminish any experience of fear for males.

[Alyzarin]

I think that's pretty common to have played Doom with your dad when you're young, for a certain age group. Two other people I've told about it have said they did the same thing. I always assumed it was just me. I guess a lot of dads were told to play Doom with their kids? lol I remember my brother and I running under a table when he got to a scary part. That's funny! I always just assumed it was just me, too. Well geez, I guess Amnesia is just the big winner, huh? I may have to try this game out lol.

[mooseantlers]

Video games don't scare me. But I have to admit its sort of a scary feeling driving around the country side at night in a thunder storm in GTA san andreas. Especially between Los Santos and San Fierro.

[Graves]

It's pointless to mention it because everyone else already has, but Amnesia was pretty scary. And the thing about Amnesia is, it keeps getting scarier. It starts out being the scary-noises kind of scary. Doors randomly slamming shut and things like that. Then it becomes the ghost type of scary, where you see some weird looking figure in the distance that starts walking toward you with terrifying music and you have to run and hide and dread what will happen if it gets to you. Downloaded the full game yesterday. I haven't felt fear like this in quite a while.

[LonelyTurtle]

You know what would be amazing? If they rigged a game like amnesia with that whole 'running for your life as prey' game play style; but rigged it so you get some pain if you die, like getting a quick shock or getting shot with a paintball or airsoft gun. I'd love to play something like that, with actual real life incentive as to not die, that would definitely invoke fear.

[Stirred]

Not exactly a "game", but Saya no Uta still gives me nightmares.

[Sesquipedalian]

Not exactly scary, but creepy, is the Myst series. Especially the first game. There isn't any violence or even any other people, but that is what makes it creepy. Everything is left as though everybody disappeared suddenly; traps still set, objects scattered about, sometimes, objects fall just by you walking up to them. If you really think about it, it is creepy.

[Arra]

Has anyone played the Dead Space games? I only played the beginning of the first one and it was terrifying. So terrifying I could not continue playing it. Actually I forced myself to return to it and got stuck, then never came back. I have no idea how scary the rest of the game is, but if the whole thing was as scary as this and you somehow never got used to it, it might beat Amnesia. (This is right after they land on an abandoned ship).

[mooseantlers]

Not exactly scary, but creepy, is the Myst series. I had a game called Alida which i have heard is quite similar

[slayer]

Has anyone played the Dead Space games? I only played the beginning of the first one and it was terrifying. So terrifying I could not continue playing it. Actually I forced myself to return to it and got stuck, then never came back. I have no idea how scary the rest of the game is, but if the whole thing was as scary as this and you somehow never got used to it, it might beat Amnesia. (This is right after they land on an abandoned ship). I never found Dead Space to be "scary". The game was very atmospheric though, and that's what did it for me.

[Graves]

Has anyone played the Dead Space games? I only played the beginning of the first one and it was terrifying. So terrifying I could not continue playing it. Actually I forced myself to return to it and got stuck, then never came back. I have no idea how scary the rest of the game is, but if the whole thing was as scary as this and you somehow never got used to it, it might beat Amnesia. (This is right after they land on an abandoned ship). I don't class this as a ''scary'' or ''horror-orientated'' game. For one, it's 3rd person - you don't play it as if you were actually there. Also, this is the completely wrong way to go about trying to scare somebody. It focuses on shock factors; on what you visually take in - which is easily adjusted to. This is not how you go about trying to properly induce a state of terror. Fear is a produce of the brain; of psychological elements. If you want somebody to experience fear, you must first understand how to get into somebody's head. What do 99.9% of people fear most? The unknown. What you can't see, what you hear and experience without real knowledge of what's happening - that kind of thing. Obviously, visual elements can help enhance this, however, the main focus of these ''scary'' games shouldn't be the gamer's eyes, but their minds.

[Arra]

That one part terrified me, that's all I'm saying. I barely got farther than that, and I'm guessing that you'd get used to it eventually so it would stop being scary. I agree with most of what you said, that's why I didn't bring it up at all in my first post.

[Original Poster]

amnesia- the dark decent. Awesome game, easily the scariest out there, has some good puzzles as well. HOLY JESUS CHRIST WHERE THE F IS YOUR GUN yay

[Arra]

No gun, and that makes it scarier. You can only run and hide!

[ThePreserver]

It's not for PC, but Fatal Frame and Fatal Frame 2 are horribly scary to me. Involving ghost and spirit pictures... some of the entities can only be seen when you take a picture, and when they attack you... >.<

[Marvo]

I can only echo Amnesia The Dark Descent. Anything else made by Frictional Games will also leave you very scared. STALKER and Metro 2033 should be decent games too for scary stuff, I'd imagine.

[tommo]

The Tomb Raider - Reborn game-play video seemed kind of scary. It might be a good candidate, except it's probably only like that for the first level, then it probably becomes less scary. Also, Lara is out of breath and frightened and breathing heavily, which makes her sound like she's having orgasms, and that might diminish any experience of fear for males. That looks absolutely awesome! Used to love the old Tomb Raider. So glad you posted that. Also, I found Doom 3 pretty scary. As long as you don't turn the brightness up so you can see everything lol And also one of the Bioshocks, but I can't remember which one. And it was more creepy than scary. Silent Hill is/was supposed to be pretty scary. Another old game is Pitfall. It was for the computer, not the very first one, which was for Atari I think. Although the computer version had a tribute to that when you fell in the pits. Damn good game, scary as hell when you come across leopards etc. It was Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure

[Finlander]

Just saying, should'nt this be in the entertaiment part of DV. Doom 3 is propably the scariest game i've played. Though when I was little Half-Life 2, the ravenholm level was pretty scary. Haven't even played Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and it already sounds scary. Edit:fixed a typo

[Graves]

Just saying, should'nt this be in the entertaiment part of DV. I don't think so. I was under the impression that ''Topics unrelated to dreaming can be discussed here'' included this.