Top 5 Horror Video Games

FullSailBlog: Video game designers have been using horror themes to engage players since early Atari classics like Haunted House, which while built on primitive graphics and gameplay, still tapped into the essential elements of what scares us – the unknown.

Technology has given developers greater possibilities in immersing us in the macabre, and we recently spoke with horror fan and instructor Keyvan Acosta for his selections of the Top 5 Horror Video Games. Keyvan teaches the foundations of story and design as the course director for our Game Design I class, and has a deep appreciation for video games as a unique vehicle for horror.

Turn the lights off, crank the volume up, and try your hand at one of these classics of interactive terror.

[ifritAlkhemyst]

Really? Deadly Premonition? I thought you losers loved this game because it was plain awful, in the same way some people find enjoyment from terrible films. Top 5 Horror game my arse. Any one of those trash 3DO "horror" games would be more deserving than DP.

[Picnic]

Silent Hill 3 is really scary in parts, mainly because you are just so confined with these horrors. You know that it's never good to spend ages in a haunted hospital but you're given no choice in the matter.

The Resident Evil remake on the Gamecube has its scary parts (although it's never Silent Hill 3 type scary).

And the original Bioshock when you can't see what's around you and splicers attack you.

The Ravenholme level of Half Life 2. It's not as good as people say it is - it's pretty linear - but it adds such atmosphere to the game that it works well in that context.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

That's the point of a horror, to feel confined when touring a building or empty and alone when traversing an open area, unexpected attacks...etc. How would Resident Evil play if you could just up and leave the mansion? Not much of a horror if you have too much freedom unless it Dead Premonition which it makes up in obscurity and straight up nonsense. XD

I would love to hear what is your favourite horror game if you even like the genre?

[Picnic]

I hope you're not implying (especially by "if you even like the genre") that I didn't know that confinement is a common tool in horror. ALL of my choices there have relatively confined situations. (I could mention Dead Rising as a rare example where the confinement comes more from the sheer volume of zombies around).

I don't go in for the poltergeist type of horror - - mirrors and books flying everywhere. Who finds that scary? People who can't stand a messy house?

Resident Evil 4 was memorable for its boss battles but as a horror it's just a bit too cheesy in parts to be right up there.

The Last Of Us is pretty fine in places as a horror, for the clicker death animation.

Eternal Darkness had a clever story but, bath scene aside, it tries but it's not quite up there with the very scariest.

As a genre with is roots mostly in the point and click adventure game genre (Alone in the dark) I think that I have often come to the realisation that it was the puzzle solving that I liked the most with the horror just a side order. I mean, there's more lasting horror in Max Payne than some horror games (death of your family, hallucinations, degradation) but people don't tend to call it a horror game.

I think Silent Hill 3 is the scariest game that I have played (haven't played SH4: The Room or Condemned unfortunately) but it's a different kind of scary than Bioshock or even Resident Evil. Silent Hill is much more constantly oppressive.

[McScroggz]

I love the terrible Resident Evil/Silent Hill type sounds from the PSOne era in Deadly Premonition. Those creaking doors and echoing footsteps always creeped me out as a kid.

[Khajiit86]

Play Last Of Us on the hardest difficulty. Its really frightening.

[MadLad]

Condemned and Silent Hill 4:The Room take it for me.
Some elements of the Stalker series can be unnerving as well, but it is not largely a horror game.
Still have yet to try Outlast.

[Pozzle]

It's nice to see some Silent Hill 4 love! :D