Over the last few years, horror PC and video games have been elevated to a formidable genre. In fact, horror games may have surpassed horror movies in the fear factor category. With Halloween just around the corner, it's time to bobbing for the scariest games of the decade - so far.

Personally, not having played a few of those games, especially the original Silent Hill, I think Silent Hill 2 was the best horror game I've played. I really enjoyed the story and the immersive environment.

HL2 was pretty good...but FEAR was down right evil! Freaked me out man!

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I have to confess, I never got around to playing Silent Hill 2 or any other SH title after the original, which was a damn good game. I should probably get around to that at some point.

Well, I am not sure the entire story of SH, but from what I know, SH2 was better (not to mention the improved creepy visuals on PS2). I have to track down a copy of SH sometime and play it.

3 wasn't as good as two, and I haven't played 4 yet...

Finally, The Thing, gets some credit. I completely agree on this being in fist place. I also agree with avp and fear. Personally however I don't think HL2 was scary, the first was scarier, but neither really qualifies for me. I'd place undying in there, that had a great atmosphere. So my top 5 would be:

1. The Thing
2. Undying
3. Fear
4. AVP2
5. Doom (three in the morning, all the lights out, been playing for hours, get tapped on the shoulder, almost soiled myself!)

Scariest mod was They Hunger.

Clive Barker's Undying is another one I need to try. Personally, I think Clive is one helluva writer. Didn't care for Hellraiser or any of those movies, though.

The Thing was money. I can understand why it wasn't a platinum hit -- it was based on a cult movie from 1982. I guess it just got overlooked and underappreciated, just like the movie. History repeats itself...

BTW, Michaelahess, you avatar pic would probably make my list of top 5 scariest avatars.

AvP 2 is def my scariest game ever, not in the horror sense, but more in the "oh shit there are aliens in here!" sense

I did not find hl2 to be scary, though I guess the "first " time I played through ravenholm I did nearly pee myself.

Undying was good, but I didn't get as into it as the SH series. Though that could be cause I got stuck about 40% into the game and gave up on it.

HL2 was pretty good...but FEAR was down right evil! Freaked me out man!

Yeah those repeated office levels scared me bad! 8O

Alien vs Predator 1 was scarier than AVP2.

fear is the only game i hav ever played in the dark, 50 inch tv with gfx almost max, i almost sh*t myself that first time when fettel mails u with the wood slab(i turned the other way at first)

Take it you lot have never played the Thief 3 level called ‘The Cradle’, it is by far the scariest level I have ever seen in a game…

But The Thing… don’t know about all of you but that game was fairly tame on the scare factor for me. Could see everything coming, almost everyone you ever met was a thing so it kind of became very predictable.

8O 8O 8O

SH4 rocks harder than granite and is scarier than George Bush's decision making skills (well, almost).

There's no Pyramid Head though But you do get to be freaked out by having about 20 crying babies hanging from your apartment wall... not that that is why you would play the game.

Who knows what goes through the mind of the SH development team.

I can't comment on some of these games, but I can say what I do know:

I'm laughing that you find Half-Life 2 scary. Definitely creepy & surely intense (the first time through at least) but it wasn't scary...

FEAR... Heh... Hehe... Hehehe... I think I can throw this in direct comparison with Doom 3, only lower production quality. There's nothing to see here but some cheap attempts at startling you & nothing truly scary beyond the fact that such a cheesy piece of mediocrity could a) recieve such high praise & b) hinder the excellent gameplay hiding underneath its unpolished surface.

Now how about some truly scary games for your list?

Well Alien vs. Predator you've already got on there, that's a good start. How about the big one we're forgetting, eh? Did we forget System Shock 2!?! Yes, I think we did forget to even mention it. How about Metroid Fusion?

...

<_<

>_>

Okay, maybe that's just me & maybe it's mostly just the sound & atmosphere playing with headphones in the dark...

But moving right back along to another serious entry, the early Thief games could become quite terrifying if anybody remembers certain levels that shall go unnamed. From the creepier elements to just the plain old guards sneaking up on you & attacking from behind when you least expect it, I think we forgot another real entry.

The word here is psychological. You generally have to get into someone's mind (most scary games have excellent sound, especially of the ambient nature & that's a trend some of the games on your list didn't follow to perfection) to truly scare them.

Everything else is just a cheap, startling, sudden noise. Though I have to give Doom 3 credit while I'm here:
I really did jump up in my seat when that scientist behind me said "Oh! You startled me.".