October is my favorite month of the year, if only because it becomes more acceptable to watch a horror movie every night of the week -- or so I tell myself, anyway. You would also be spot-on guessing that most horror video games cross my desk, too, even the bad ones. Just like the movies, there aren't many good horror video games, with most relying on cheap tactics like loud noises and windows smashing. There's no subtley and little attempt to get your skin crawling.
It's pretty common for folks to quickly point towards the Silent Hill series for genuine scares, but if you haven't played the download-only PlayStation Network episodic horror series Siren: Blood Curse, you've been missing out. Siren: Blood Curse produced the only time I actually turned a video game off because the tension became so physically exhausting it became too much. I snapped.
What happens on the screen in a horror movie or game is certainly important, but audio is such a hidden, typically ignored facet of the experience. Siren: Blood Curse features some of the best sound work in a horror game that every time I paused to head to the bathroom, my apartment's squeaky boards, the yell of a stumbling crackhead from the street below or the tiny, usually insignificant movement of a hallway door caused by the wind had me reaching to switch the lights on.
Eventually, I'd had enough. There was no specific moment that pushed me over the edge in Siren: Blood Curse. Everything about the game is unnerving. You should experience it yourself.
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Comments
Displaying 1–20 of 81
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deathsdelivery
That Happened to me,
and I don't scare easliy.
Siren is on a new level.
ChocoChip8
I call the "horror" movies that fail in being horrific, but rely on excessive blood and gore, "Torture Porn".
Whatever the hell is on that THING's head is really bothering me.
askanison
I love horror games also and even just playing the demo of Siren: Blood Curse was unnerving. I had to download it twice just to get through it. I've been anxious to play the full game ever since, but I've been foolishly waiting for the price to drop to $20. It's taken longer than expected, if it was a disc based game I could've bought it at a low price months ago, come on!!
lgvamos3
kinda off-topic... is paranormal activity actually as scary as everybody says it is?
DreamingDarklyRobin
Condemned was probably the most "surprising and scary" game I've played.
Japanese horror isn't all that scary unless its Takashi Miike directing.
bigboss_777
lol evn bioshock scared me a lil i dnt think i can handle siren series
bigboss_777
lol evn bioshock scared me a lil i dnt think i can handle siren series
Lalo666
doom 3 had some creepy moments but nothing extreme where i would turn off the game
doodle_billy
silent hill 2 and 4 scare the piss out of me, but there is a level in condemned 2 where i turned my 360 off and had to go watch finding nemo. its the level where your in the house with the bare, i dont know why that scared me so bad.
samiam0605
I get scared by games pretty easily. There are two games that I did have to turn off because I was too afraid to play. One was Silent Hill 2 and the other was Resident Evil 4. Oh and I didn't turn off my game but the Ghoul building in Fallout 3 was pretty freaky.
NickAnguiano
I think the only time I ever had to walk away from the TV and go smoke to calm my nerves because I was so surprised and frightened was the last 5 seconds of the game "Dead Space." I won't even say what happens, if you beat Dead Space you know exactly what I am referring. Hands down scariest crap I have seen in a video game. Primarily because you do not expect it at all.
sdc10
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. The haunted hotel scared the s@#% of out me. I had to play it with the sound off.
ctlaltdel
There were several moments in Condemned where I was pretty freaked out. Also fighting Pigsy on Manhunt had me very on edge when I first played it.
Jeffrey Kanjanapangka
The original Clock Tower. It was cheesy as hell but when the camera switches to first person from the side-scrolling view as "Scissor Man" is running towards you while you wait in terror for the elevator doors to close.
Yep. Turned off my PS1.
airtoki
There was a moment i got scared in bioshock, didn't turn the game off. But it was a part where a guy was humming and I couldn't find him, I got so scared I felt like a total vag
Disco_Von_Doom
Eternal Darkness on the Gamecube was a total mindf#%*! The game messed with you in game and in real life. It's a shame no one played it because it was on the lamecube.
vanapes
i know i really got freaked by it
dethleprechaun
I'm gonna have to check this out it sounds interesting.
EKG
I didn't think Siren was scary in the least. I actually hated it. Mostly because of the dreadful controls. There is a reason why people always talk about Silent Hill as the most frightening game ever made, and that reason is because it is the most frightening game ever made.
Both Silent Hill 1 and 2 were so absolutely terrifying that I was never able to play it for more than a few minutes at a time. I refused to ever play the game in the daytime, and I would only play it at night with all the lights off and a pair of headphones. After all, if you are going to try and scare yourself, you might as well do it right.
I never though ANY of the Resident Evil games were in the least scary. Neither are ANY of the Fatal Frame Games. It makes me laugh when people tell me that Dead Space was scary. While the game was great, it was far from scary.
JimDanD
I actually got pretty freaked way back when i played Ocarina of Time and all the Redeads show up. They really creeped me out when so many of them appeared. I stopped playing and told myself i should take a break for a few days, then played again a few hours later. Bioshock had plenty of scary moments too.
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