Why the scariest games are the ones where the monsters need glasses.
Now I don’t know how the rest of you dream, but when I have a nightmare I’m not the hero. I don’t have a weapon (or if I do it’s painfully ineffectual) and I’m certainly not stomping all over anything. In fact I’m usually cowering in some corner/behind a chest-high wall (yeah, cheers cover-based shooters) whilst some impossibly deadly behemoth is searching for a victim, knowing that at any moment I will be exposed and, inevitably, killed.
And that’s why the scariest game I ever played was Thief: The Dark Project.
It’s by no means one of the scariest games ever made, an award which I might tentatively throw in the direction of Amnesia: The Dark Descent because I haven’t played Silent Hill 2. It’s not even meant to be ‘a scary game’ – but that didn’t prevent me from sweating through every encounter and squealing like a little girl when I first fired up the demo.
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I decided to write this piece because of Dead Space 2, and as much as I love that franchise and its narrative world I’m not sure I would class it as scary.
Okay, yes I would.
It’s gory and disturbing, dripping with atmosphere, but the thrill comes from desperately trying to reload whilst enemies advance relentlessly. Frustration is the driving mechanic- spawning enemies behind you that instantly know where you are, it keeps you on the back foot, never letting you prepare- it’s about panic rather than a slow, creeping fear.
And I like my fear slow and creeping. I like designing strategies that must be executed perfectly, and one wrong move spells a return to the last checkpoint. But to do that you need to see the monsters. There’s a saying in other mediums that what you can’t see is the most terrifying but I’m not sure that’s as true in games. Watching something that could tear you apart in one hit go slowly about its business whilst you desperately hope it doesn’t turn in your direction is what gets my pulse pounding: Breaking from a shadowy haven to creep up behind a guard in Thief, praying he won’t turn around. Stepping aside to let a groaning Big Daddy pass in Bioshock- knowing that sometime soon you’ll have to take it on armed only with a pistol and a limp fire plasmid. And what about those security robots in System Shock 2 eh? Blimey.
Monsters that you can see but can’t see you, that’s the key, because it changes your perspective as a player. In this scenario you’re nothing, you’re not a hero because you’re not the focus of attention- you don’t worry these monsters and psychologically that’s terrifying. When everything exists purely to attack you you’re empowered, even if you’re not prepared, because it makes you feel like a big deal.
Prepare for a face-full of boot.
Sequels to scary games often fall victim to the need for escalation for the player, removing what made the game so spine-tingling in the first place. A Little Sister in Bioshock 2 is not half as scary as a Big Daddy in Bioshock 1 because I’ve stopped being just another pesky splicer- I’m the centre of her world; no longer hiding from the playground bully, instead I’m having my hair pulled by the girl who only does it because she fancies me.
It’s not that any of the above games are bad, in fact Bioshock 2 and Dead Space are personal favourites of mine, but it seems these days that the torch bearers of ‘stealth scares’ are becoming few and far between. And I miss them.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go hide from skeletons in my Minecraft hole for the sake of nostalgia.
