10. Outlast
Outlast as a whole was a spooky and unsettling experience (in a great way of course.) The thing is there is not one specific moment where the game scares you, there are just too many of them. There are dead, mutilated bodies everywhere. Some of them have been cut to bits, others just have surgical tools lodged in them. While this isn’t necessarily a new thing in gaming, what makes this particular game so different from the others is the way they are executed, the timing and moment is all perfect. Coupled with an excellent background music, Outlast is one hell of a spooky experience.
Afterthoughts:
There are so many little bits of pieces in gaming that stick out in a gamer’s mind. One of the most powerful for many is fear. It gets the blood pumping and the adrenaline going. It motivates players and can really round-out a fantastic gaming experience. Especially when the thing that causes fear is in an unsuspecting place in a game. It’s subtle and a powerful tool that many developers use, some of them too much.
Games that are frightening all the time, or give you that feeling of being constantly alert or on guard seem to miss their mark more often than not. This is because it’s a state of mind the gamer gets into, they are prepared for just about anything. A good example of this is the Dead Space titles, while for the most part they are some great games they seemed to miss their mark. The developers were trying way too hard to scare people at every turn in a lot of cases. As a result you end up with a game that has a great atmosphere, wonderfully disturbing visuals, but in the end is not a very scary game.
Fear has to be used in the moments, it has to be in places where it works and makes sense for not only the story but the gamer’s state-of-mind. Most importantly though, if you’re trying to spook your players you cannot be beating them over the head with it all the time, they ultimately get used to it. Crafting the perfect scary moments for games is a difficult process and incredibly impressive when it’s been done correctly.
