But you know what game REALLY does my head in ? Doom 3. I can't do it. I got about 1/3rd through it, and thought fuck this.
See, for me, the reason why Doom 3 failed so badly with its "fear factor" was simply due to the fact that they always made sure it was painfully obvious when danger was to appear. What made games like Silent Hill or System Shock 2 scary was simply the fear of impending danger, not the danger itself.
With Doom 3, virtually every enemy would literally APPEAR on the scene in a very loud fashion. If an imp was about to attack, you always knew this ahead of time. I would often find myself running up to "warping imps" and destroy them before they fully appeared in the world. I loved the game (seriously), but that aspect was extremely disappointing to me and killed any tension. What the hell was the point of the flashlight when most enemies LIT UP the surroundings when they first appeared?! The only enemies that could attack without revealing themselves before they can EVEN attack were the zombies...but they were all so terribly slow that it hardly worked. Even the soldier zombies, who can attack from a distance still have this stupid "radio chatter" sound effect assigned to their activation (so you'd hear this before they appeared on screen). Considering that the AI was simply designed to charge the player head on, you knew there would be an enemy on your ass the second any activation sound effect was played. It was possible for the game to make you jump from time to time with the monster closets, but that is not the type of fear I was hoping for.
Oh, and I want to comment on FEAR and its missed opportunity. They HAD something there, I swear they did. There was a 20 minute section that I found suprisingly intense. It involved enemies completely different from the rest of the game and that entire section brought back memories of System Shock 2. Why the HELL do they focus on those fucking soldiers the rest of the game?! Stupid stupid stupid!
OK, while I'm just discussing random games here...
I want to mention Fatal Frame in more detail. You'd never imagine it, but these games become CONSIDERABLY scarier on the easier difficulty settings (especially part 2). I initially started FF2 on the normal difficulty mode and found that I was not scared in the least. I played for a while assuming it would be like part 1 (which took an hour or two before it became truly terrifying). Well, when the game refused to deliver the scares I was looking for, it suddenly occured to me WHY I was feeling this way. The enemies were simply taking too much time to kill. Even if I were to nail the shots perfectly (and had powered up my camera), their life bars would drag on and on. The first 1/4 of each battle was by far the scariest segment, but during the course of battle, I became used to the image of the creature I was fighting and it no longer had any sort of impact on me. As I rolled into the final quarter of the fight, I was typically tired of fighting them and simply wanted to move on. It's not as if EVERY encounter was like this, but it happened far too often for its own good (and wasn't even particularly challenging). On the easier setting, the ghosts could be destroyed much faster. As a result, you rarely got a good look at them nor did you have time to become used to their appearance. I felt that THIS kept me on edge...especially as I moved further into the game.
I suppose this highlights a potential difference between what people find scary. The unknown scares me more than anything else, though in the case of games, I am required to be in a certain mindset for any of it to work on me. If I don't allow myself to "fall into" the game world, I won't get anything out of the experience. For those that have responded, do you think you could describe what it takes to "scare" you?
