Saturday, 31 October 2009

• What Are the Scariest Games Ever?

  Halloween is upon us, so what better to write about than a round-up of the scariest games in existence. This top five roundup of the spookiest games in the land are my personal choices, but that by no means settles the debate. 
  

  5. Thief: The Dark Project
  
  

  
  

  Thief isn't a horror game. Nor does it try to tell you with spooks, monsters or anything of the like. However, the game's fright factor lies within the position it puts you in; you're a career Thief that works under contract for a shadowy employer that has to stick to the shadows and avoid any and all confrontation. This made for some of the most unbelievably tense gaming experiences I've ever come across, as if Hitchcock had made a game. Thief takes place in a medieval setting so many of your enemies wield swords and the like. Ducking enemy patrols will have you sticking to the shadows and treading lightly, which is a brilliant game design idea when you consider that the First Person genre consisted of shooters like Quake II at the time of Thief's release.
  

  4. F.E.A.R
  

  
  

  While I didn't agree with all the of Game of the Year awards that F.E.A.R got following its release in 2005, I really liked the game for what I perceived it to be; a really good action game that combines a spooky story and tense atmosphere into a wonderful package. The game's premise is akin to many Asian horror movies; a megacorporation was performing experiments on a little girl, and her spirit has risen from the dead to take vengeance on a world that tortured her. The game's supernatural element made me shudder many a time, and the soundtrack also added great tensions to the gameplay.
  

  3. DOOM
  
  

  
  

  
  I don't mean the modern update; I'm referring to the original. The Union Aerospace Corporation is conducting experiments with portals on Mars' moons; Phobos and Deimos. Somehow the scientists unknowingly open a portal to Hell, and the underworld's denizens come pouring forth, laying waste to all your platoon buddies. You're the last marine standing, faced against legions of daemons. I first played this when I was 8 years old, and I remember having to sneak onto my computer late at night because my parents feared playing "violent video games" would warp my mind. Oh how wrong they were... ::twitch::
  

  2. System Shock 2
  
  

  
  

  
  Put yourself in this position; its about 150 years in the future. You awaken from a deep cryosleep on board a massive, derelict spacecraft. You have no memories of how you got to where you are. As you explore your surroundings, you find that the bodies of the crew are mutilated and strewn all over the decks of the craft. Cryptic messages are written in blood on the ship's walls, warning of the danger that lurks within the vessel's dark corridors. The surviving crew have been mutated by aliens looking to take over the ship, and have developed homicidal tendencies. An insane artificial intelligence known as SHODAN has taken over the ship, and seeks to destroy you.
  
  System Shock 2 featured amazing atmosphere, creepy sound, brilliant music and amazing storytelling. It's Bioshock's big brother. For all of the people waxing poetic on Bioshock, its excellence is largely due to the release of System Shock 2. Do yourself a favor and play this classic.
  

  1. Deus Ex

  
  

                                     
  Deus Ex itself wasn't made as a horror game. However, Warren Spector, the game's lead designer, sought to incorporate a lot of real-world elements into its story. Before Deus Ex went under development, he conducted extensive research on the state of the world and incorporated what his vision of the future would be into Deus Ex's story. Consider this:
  
  Deus Ex was released in 2000. The game starts you off in New York, following a terrorist attack in Lower Manhattan.
  
  Your character is outfitted with cybernetic implants, which Spector saw as an inevitable development in our own world. Well, you can now have your credit card information placed onto a chip and implanted into your hand for easy shopping, and you can place electronic chips into your pets to locate them. More implants are on the way in the coming years.
  
  In Deus Ex, some of the characters were created in test tubes. Well, as of a couple of days ago, scientists made this a reality. If you don't believe me, check out this article.
  
  In Deus Ex, the world is in a state of mass depression, and many societies have turned into surveillance states. Well, with the passing of the Patriot Act and the installing of thousands of cameras in public areas, that has become more of a reality as well.
  
  So, while Deus Ex wasn't a horror game per sé, nothing is scarier than a game's story coming true in real life. Deus Ex is the closest thing that the video game industry has released in terms of an equivalent to George Orwell's masterpiece, "1984". The more time passes, the more these two pieces of media become less like stories, and more like prophecies.
  
  Now that's scary.

  So what do you think are the scariest games ever? Do you agree or disagree with the above list?

  Sound off.
  

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