Clive Thompson on scary video games

Wired writer Clive Thompson appears on ABC News to explain why he thinks horror video games are scarier than horror movies. He says having a bit of control over the outcome makes the experience more frightening. Link

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Brett Burton

I threw the controller several times when playing the first Resident Evil with the lights out. When the dogs broke through the windows in that first hallway. Holy crap.
Enochrewt

#6: GADFLY: I know exactly the moment you’re talking about, and holy hell is it scary.
polychrome

#12: Fatal Frame was absolutely one of the scariest things I have ever interacted with, ever. I certainly couldn’t finish it.
anthropomorphictoast

Eeeehhh, Bioshock wasn’t that scary. Save for that one part that Gadfly mentioned. That part actually made me jump back about two feet. While still seated. >.>

Now, the first game that really creeped me out from the beginning was Silent Hill 2. Just walking down that mist-shrouded path at the beginning with weird and freaky noises lingering about made me want to turn around and go home (but in the game that’s quite impossible.)
MonsterMan

Come November 4th, I’m hoping Valve’s zombie co-op shooter, LEFT 4 DEAD, will be jumping to the very top of my all-time scariest game list! :)

That aside, probably one of the scariest moments I’ve ever experienced, was in the original DOOM, the first time I ran around a corner and right into a “Baron of Hell”, with his loud(!), totally freaked-out wail cry thing he did when he saw you! To this day those things haunt me. Mostly due to that horrifyingly genius sound effect (Alert sound: DSBRSSIT)!
celerysword

For me there’s nothing scarier than Clive Barker’s Undying. It was a 2001 game that didn’t get a lot of press, but holy bejeebus it was scary! I’m 34 years old and I still wouldn’t play it again.
LogrusZed

Resident Evil = Scariest game I’ve ever played.
Eternal Darkness = Second scariest, and twice as fun as #1.

Oregon Trail = Third scariest.
RJ

System Shock 2 remains my favorite horror game, even today. It’s all about suspense; legions of the undead would be horrifying in reality, but not in a game.

In a game, you have to string the player along. You have to psyche them out as much as possible, so that when they do face an enemy, their fingers really are shaking with adrenaline when they try to point the gun or swing the wrench.

It isn’t that the game has to be really hard to beat. Indeed, you can make a horror game mechanically easy. The difficulty should always come from the player’s own mind. Just as they get used to facing one kind of baddie, they progress far enough along that they now have to face something worse. Or they have to operate in an alien environment. That’s where the fear comes from.
bluesunshine

Doom 3, System Shock, and Clock Tower need the nod for some of the scariest games as well. I’m just hoping that this doesn’t lead to a “OH NOES! THESE GAMES ARE TOO INTENSE FOR OUR CHILDRENS!!!!1″ movement that will cause censorship issues.
Hanglyman

It’s great to finally see a news report lauding video games as a genuine art form, rather than the usual fearmongering and ignorant contempt for the medium. I think some people haven’t played a video game since the days of the Atari 2600 (if at all), and don’t realize that modern video games are just as capable of delivering genuine emotion as a movie.
twig

Rule of Rose and, creep factor 11+ – Silent Hill 2.
Foolster41

#1: DYSENTERY! OoOoOoOH!

I remember playing Quake with the lights down low and jumping when the knights jumped out at me in level 1. Now, it’s pretty ho-hum because I’ve played through it quite a lot. The one problem with scary things is they get less and less scary.
Rob Cockerham

Silent Hill was probably not as scary as Quake, but it was really unexpectedly creepy. I’ll never forget that almost overwhelming sense of dread as I walked through.
Anonymous

Fatal Frame is one of my all time favorite ‘horror’ games. I barely finished it, and refused to play it with the lights off. And F.E.A.R., great googly moogly, stay out of the ducts!
gadfly

You know that one moment in Bioshock when you’re in that room with the flooded floor, and you search the drawers, and the lights flicker out for a second, and you turn around and OHSHITHOWDIDTHATGUYGETTHERE?!?!?!

Yeah… but aside from that moment and a smattering of others, I generally find movies scarier. Maybe it’s easier for me to suspend disbelief because it looks more real than a game? I don’t know. But there are many things to be said for the virtues of gaming, even if this particular argument isn’t universal.
Agent 86

My favorite horror game is Call of Cthulhu, which does a perfect job of simulating you turning insane.
Enochrewt

I couldn’t even finish playing the original Condemned, a game has never gotten to me like that. Very,very scary.
ahaman85

I disagree…to a certain extent.

As far as jump out of your skin moments go video games, of course, are tops.

But as far a dread and sublime terror go (something that is going to haunt me for days), you seem to need some form of narrative storytelling.

IMHO
jimkirk

The Lurking Horror. Scariest game I ever played. Text based Infocom game based on H. P. Lovecraft novel. It had sound effects. Not much, creaking doors and ambient noise. Played it all night with a friend years ago ’cause we were terrified to stop in the middle without resolving it. Graphics in games these days are impressive, and some of them use it to great effect and have excellent writing, but imagination is still better than the best graphic card.
Anonymous

I think the scariest games I’ve played thus far are

1) Fatal Frame
2) Silent Hill 2
3) Condemned 2: Bloodshot
4) Siren : Blood Curse

play it with the lights off – love it when things go bump in the dead of night
Trvth

I can believe no has mentioned F.E.A.R. That game has lots of shock moments, with things jumping out at you, but the scariest moments were down right “6th Sense” scary. That little girl was absolutely creepy.
MHotel

Eternal Darkness is a game I will never finish because every time I tell myself I can sit down and get through it, I always freak out.

Don’t know why. I’m not that jumpy at horror movies or Twilight Zone/HP Lovecraft stuff. I revel in Dario Argento and Fulci movies. I find the ‘survival horror’ genre as a whole to be generally tepid. Maybe it’s that Eternal Darkness screws with your mind so actively.

A good point made in this piece is that, while horror cinema has largely traded suspense for gore, horror video games have often used environment to not only show off their technology but to create a great sense of dread, mystery, and shock.
cosmicautumn

I remember the man with a chainsaw in Resident Evil 4 being terrifying when I first played it. That whole game is just tense.
LogrusZed

MHOTEL:

I think the Eternal Darkness creepy factor, as you mentioned, has a lot to do with the fact that the game interacts with the player in unexpected and often subtle ways. Particularly the audio of crying infants that can start out really subtle and become incredibly pervasive.

I had similar issues with Shadow Man on the Dreamcast, there was one level that had constant infant screaming and crying and went on for ever. I really had to mute my system during parts of it because it became so disturbing.

p.s. I actually got a good injury from Eternal Darkness. Over the course of a few hours the screen had been tilting gradually more and more until it was a good 15+ deg off axis; I didn’t really notice it because it was so gradual so my head just tilted with it. I never noticed it until everything snapped back to normal. I had a really sore neck for a day or two after this.
adonai

Agree with #2 – while Doom 3 was nowhere near as fun as the original two games, playing it in the dark with the speakers turned up is…harrowing. Yes, you know things are going to jump out at you, but only being able to hold your torch or your gun at one time just keeps you nervously agitated…and then a demon or zombie comes out of nowhere. (Probably why they didn’t let you strap the torch onto the gun.)
davechua

Have to give props to Fatal Frame; one of the scariest, most atmospheric games there is. And no gun to blow things away with. Just an antique camera.
nerdkiller

Maniac Mansion
himmi

I remember playing F.E.A.R and Condemned, those were scary. But I can’t say the same about Doom 3, I just always knew where the evil things were going to show up
Anonymous

I had been playing the original Resident Evil on the PS1 for a few hours, with no-one else home. It had gotten dark in that time. I hadn’t yet consciously noticed that the game played creepy horror movie music before something scary jumped out at me and learned to use that as a warning.

Anyway it had started doing the creepy music thing and had kept it up longer than normal without something jumping out at me – and then the cat jumped on my back.

I screamed like a little girl.
Doug Nelson

Back in the early 80s I played a text-based dungeon game. Your only choices for confronting monsters were F (fight), A (avoid) and E (enchant). At least I think those were the choices, but there was only 3. Scared the pants off me playing at 3am.

But a video game hasn’t scared me since. Actually, movies don’t usually either, but occasionally I’ll come across one that will. But overall I find movies much more immersive than any game. Not a judgement call, just my own personal wiring.