Happy 40th Akira Yamaoka!

Zane wrote:

I would also recommend the Fatal Frame series, although they also require some patience. I think FF1 can be beaten in 5 hours or so, and that's well worth your (as in everyone's) time.

I love the Fatal Frame series as well (or "Project Zero", as they're called over here), have played through all three of them countless times. The reason I didn't mention them is that, scary and phenomenal as they are, they're not really psychological horror. Their backbone is basically monster (=ghost) hunting/fighting and mansion exploring, like most survival horror games, the fear is external. This is not necessarily a knock, though: I love them to death, and unlike SH, that series hasn't gone bad yet, I still look forward to new games in it (in fact, the third one was my favourite so far, love the "dreary" feeling of it).

What I mean are that SH1, SH2, and Rule of Rose are the only games I can think of that I would unequivocally call "psychological horror", where there is strong doubt over what is actually happening through large sections of the story and what's in the protagonist's confused mind. In these games, the personality and back story of the characters played a significant role in the actual story, while in most other games its usually interesting filler that could have been omitted/altered without much difficulty. As scary as the Fatal Frames were, I wouldn't really call them psychological horror - most of the characters and their psychology took a backseat to more external factors (with some exceptions).

The reason I mentioned Eternal Darkness is because its a borderline case. Its mostly about occult and mythological stuff, but a lot of the punch in the experience also comes from psychological effects. Thanks for the correction also, it is indeed an awesome game. Very heavy on the Lovecraftian influences for people who enjoy that kind of stuff.

Please note: All games mentioned in this post are great experiences, and recommended to anyone looking for a good horror game.

I'd say that the very first encounter of Silent Hill says a lot about how it differs from Silent Hill 2.  The way that everything is constructed so as to be like a slow descent into madness rather than just having the lights go out and seeing a monster appear.  Judging by my experience with the early parts of Silent Hill 3, that subtlety seems to have been lost, as it hurls you into a nightmare scenario from the getgo.  Any game can throw you into a crazy set of circumstances, but the first Silent Hill constantly left you guessing as you teetered between one world and the other.  Starting with Silent Hill 2, the sense of buildup and focus surrounding 'the change' seemed to diminish, as emphasis was placed on character melodrama.  In SH1, you'd slowly see the world changing and often hear a siren before things became freaky.  Add to that the way that things seemed to get worse and worse before the environment returned to a more normal state, like when you're trying to escape the sewers and there's a building sense of panic with the music getting louder and more monsters coming out of the woodwork.

There was a real craftsmanship to the roller coaster of madness that was Silent Hill, and that's what made it feel more than random and more than a 'blank slate'.  It gave you enough to keep you intrigued in terms of the players but it also kept you on the edge of your seat with its unpredictability.  Silent Hill 2 relied heavily on Pyramid Head, whose appearance you came to expect, and on cramped environments with events that felt very scripted.  The almost organic dynamism of the world of Silent Hill was definitely toned down in favor of a more linear, character-driven experience in the second game.  If the second game is more polished in terms of how it develops its characters, it's because it's less ambitious and more deliberately structured than what the original game went for, so it's probably just preference that causes a person to favor one approach over the other.

Since it was brought up, I also enjoyed Eternal Darkness a great deal.  It's a shame that it didn't sell very well.

Last edited by Megavolt (Feb 07, 2008)