Horror games as good as Amnesia?

[Narcoleptic]

Not post very often.. but well.. here is a piece of my mind

Silent Hill Series: Menacing atmosphere and music, nice story with lots of metaphorical content.. Excellent games. Almost no innovation on gameplay, but most probably that was to exacerbate the horror ambient. My favorite one is SH2 and for what i noticed about this franchise, the first game you play will be the best of the series, probably, one as a player, gets used to the SH effect. Regarding SH games developed by other companies (SH: Homecoming, Origins, Shattered Memories and Downpour) aren't bad games, but no much to do with the originals... just a matter of opinion and knowledge about the franchise.

btw.. check out the new SH: Book of Memories...
watching this ... I do not hold any grudge against other SH not developed by team Silent.
"Survive the horrendous gameplay"

Fatal Frame Series: (Just played Fatal Frame 2) Excellent too in ambient matters and survival horror mechanics, this last being refreshing concept in Survival Horror games, requiring some skill by the player to win. Music of the game was fine for the scenario but not much rememberable, except the more "folklorish" ones.

Siren 1: If you have a PS2, give it a chance, personally not much scary but its fun and requires a lot of real life puzzle-solving and exploration skills to complete.

Call of Chutulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth: I haven't finished yet, but seems promising

Off-topic: Someone knows some text or essay about Horror in videogames or something like it??,,

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There are some "Extra Punctuation" texts about horror in games in case you don't know them already. They're from the guy who does the Zero Punctuation video series on the Escapist. (Which btw includes a very funny review of Amnesia ^^) They're not really "scientific" material, they mostly reflect the personal opinion of the author, but I found them quite interesting to read nonetheless.
Wait - is it allowed to post links here? I hope it is...

The Common Mistakes of Horror Games

Big Studios Can't Produce Good Horror Games

Sanity Meters

Survival Horror on a Cruise Ship

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

On topic, I've just started playing Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth as well. I quite like it, but it's not very scary yet (and it keeps crashing every 10 minutes -.-)... but we'll see. Amnesia started pretty peaceful as well

[patchesthedrow]

The first playthrough of the We Don't Go the Ravenholm level of Half-Life 2 comes to mind. Doom 3 was legitimately scary for quite a length of the game. The darkness was more annoying than anything else for sure, the sound and environmental effects were killer.
I really feel that the game lost its potency the moment you started walking around with a rocket launcher. They were trying to go for a shoot 'em up and a horror game at the same time. If they just focused on one more than the other, I think the game would have been much better.
But seriously...the darkness really was annoying.

[Prelauncher]

[Googolplex]

Amnesia and Penumbra are actually the best horror games.
So, you can't find any better game, so you should accept this.
But there are some other horror games even good and scary.

I started playing the Silent Hill series. The puzzles are even harder than Penumbra, the atmosphere is same creepie as the Frictional universe, and the story is really interesting.
But the only thing what is breaking the horror is that you have to fight your enemies.
And the gameplay (controls and camera etc.) is a bit complicated, but you will learn it very soon.

At all, I think, Silent Hill is a fantastic horror game. It is scary and has brilliant puzzles.
The atmosphere, the sounds, the effects, that all is a master-class!

[HateSolstice]

Amnesia and Penumbra are actually the best horror games.
So, you can't find any better game, so you should accept this.
But there are some other horror games even good and scary.

I started playing the Silent Hill series. The puzzles are even harder than Penumbra, the atmosphere is same creepie as the Frictional universe, and the story is really interesting.
But the only thing what is breaking the horror is that you have to fight your enemies.
And the gameplay (controls and camera etc.) is a bit complicated, but you will learn it very soon.

At all, I think, Silent Hill is a fantastic horror game. It is scary and has brilliant puzzles.
The atmosphere, the sounds, the effects, that all is a master-class!

With the exception of very specific events, you never HAVE to fight your enemies in Silent Hill.

As for the topic at hand, are we discussing purely horror games that make you jump out of your chair/skin? Or are we going with creep-factor and atmosphere as well? If so, I have a few extras to add.

Phantasmagoria: Yes, it's a point 'n click adventure game. Yes, it has really bad acting in it. Yes, the story is pretty terrible. However, it was still a pretty decent game overall, and there was enough creep and bizarre stuff in the game to put it on my list.

7th Guest/11th Hour: Purely puzzle-oriented, but still had a nice atmosphere to it.

F.E.A.R.: FPS with horror elements. I personally enjoy it.

Hello Kitty Online Adventures: If this doesn't give you nightmares, nothing will.

[RawkBandMan]

Hello Kitty Online Adventures: If this doesn't give you nightmares, nothing will.

Never mention that game in front of me... NEVER! ;_;

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Ok so I played through Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth in the meantime. It's riddled with bugs to the point where some missions are only beatable by following very specific instructions in youtube videos (I mean how else do you beat a level that includes hitting three tiny targets with a ship-mounted gun, when half the level - including the targets - is INVISIBLE? ). But let's put that aside, it's not part of the game
First half of the game is a good, creepy and very atmospheric adventure. It takes very long until you even get your first weapon and it captures the spirit of the source material quite well. It's not really fear-inducing though - more slightly creepy. There's some very intense chase scenes, but they suffer from the fact that you have to start them over when you fail and you WILL fail. Quite often. Or at least I did. And when I ran from those crazy Innsmouthians for the tenth time in a row it was a lot less scary than the first time
Unfortunately the second half of the game turns more and more into a shooter. At the end they basically give you the Lovecraft equivalent of the BFG 9000 and by that time there's not much horror left.
Still it's a good game all in all and I'd recommend it. But it's not as extremely scary as I was told. Or maybe that's just because it's pretty old?

Edit: Hold it right there, I almost forgot! There ARE terrifying parts in CoCCotE ! The parts were you turn insane and wander through the hallways of your own twisted mind (or something like that). Those parts were pretty damn horrifying. They were quite rare though.

[Bridge]

Ok so I played through Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth in the meantime. It's riddled with bugs to the point where some missions are only beatable by following very specific instructions in youtube videos (I mean how else do you beat a level that includes hitting three tiny targets with a ship-mounted gun, when half the level - including the targets - is INVISIBLE? ). But let's put that aside, it's not part of the game
First half of the game is a good, creepy and very atmospheric adventure. It takes very long until you even get your first weapon and it captures the spirit of the source material quite well. It's not really fear-inducing though - more slightly creepy. There's some very intense chase scenes, but they suffer from the fact that you have to start them over when you fail and you WILL fail. Quite often. Or at least I did. And when I ran from those crazy Innsmouthians for the tenth time in a row it was a lot less scary than the first time
Unfortunately the second half of the game turns more and more into a shooter. At the end they basically give you the Lovecraft equivalent of the BFG 9000 and by that time there's not much horror left.
Still it's a good game all in all and I'd recommend it. But it's not as extremely scary as I was told. Or maybe that's just because it's pretty old?

Edit: Hold it right there, I almost forgot! There ARE terrifying parts in CoCCotE ! The parts were you turn insane and wander through the hallways of your own twisted mind (or something like that). Those parts were pretty damn horrifying. They were quite rare though.

1. This is a common problem that occurs in machines with onboard graphics. I had to use a save state when I was playing it on a laptop but I just replayed it earlier this year with a proper GPU and had no problems.

2. It is a problem but it is unavoidable. Chase scenes can't be tense if there is no threat but I do agree it is a little too difficult and you need to be very precise to get through it.

3. Don't know if you've read "The Shadow Out of Time" but that "Lovecraftian BFG" was a weapon built by the Yithians to fight the "flying polyps" (those half-material squid-looking wind-bending dudes) because lightning seems to be the only thing that can repel them (Lovecraft never said they could be killed but a few liberties are acceptable). So it wasn't just made up to please shooter fans. I agree the game could have done without the excessive shooting but don't tell me you didn't find the game at least mildly disturbing. I think saying it's "a little creepy" is a great injustice. I guess it varies from person to person, but it has a lot of shocking scenes and scares outside of the shooting.

[HateSolstice]

I nearly forgot about that game. I got up to the part right past the first chase scene at the inn, then had to reformat my computer and never bothered to go back to it. While quite fun at times, the game also was very clearly running on an outdated engine.