Monsters, and Why They Aren't Scary.

[naturon]

A lot of good points in this thread. Here's my take on it:

I had been watching a video on YouTube of "the top 10 scariest games" I believe; just hoping I would find something new to play, as I had basically played all of these so-called scary games that were pretty much action games in disguise. So I noticed this video called "Penumbra tech demo" in the related videos and the name intrigued me so I clicked it. I got to see the very impressive physics and lighting and noticed a comment saying this was one of the scariest games ever made because of how you can't really kill anything. I decided to buy the entire Penumbra collection during the Steam holiday sale and started up "Penumbra Overture" on Christmas "day" (here in Iceland dawn breaks around 12am and it gets dark around 5pm in the winter). I watched the intro movie and played around with stuff on the boat, got off and then descended into that dark abandoned mine. I remember getting really afraid by that point because I didn't know what to expect. I played the game as usual until I stepped out of the living quarters and heard the howl of that dog and felt as if my nerves were made of rubber. I slowly built up the courage to move on, and hid behind a box, I peaked outside of my safe hiding place and saw those terrible glowing eyes and that hideous growling. I stayed there for at least a minute and waited as the dog was coming back and I was somehow courageous enough to follow it... I took a different route and decided to consult the map and that's when I realized something. I have no idea where the dog is... it could be anywhere... oh god I can hear its growling, is it coming near me? As the growling faded away I crept as swiftly as I could to the office and "saved the game" (didn't actually know those were save points then). I was absolutely shivering and I decided to close the game immediately then. This remains one of the most vividly terrifying video game moments I have ever experienced.

Why was it scary? Helplessness, confusion, mystery and terror are all words that one could use to describe this first encounter. In hindsight, it's really quite simple. Basic patrol route for an AI that reacts to sound and movement, brilliant lighting and sound (and seriously, that music fit the mood absolutely perfectly) and a sense of inferiority. Given my pretense that enemies could not be killed I was absolutely not going to go anywhere near any of them. Needless to say, I didn't play the game again until a few days later and I moved on. The game kept quite a steady atmosphere for that first mine part. I was afraid to move, absolutely terrified of whether or not I would meet a dog. It was later that I was sneaking around the place with the storage room that I noticed a dog gazing right at me and I absolutely froze in place. I saw it twitch and prepare itself for attack and it ran at me. I got really desperate and started clobbering it with the hammer. Took a few hits, but I noticed that beating it just as it stands up causes it to fall back to the ground. It was then that I realized that enemies could quite easily be killed, and I made the TNT stuff and blew my way out of the mine, unfortunately encountering the other dog, which wasn't as big a fright. All of the subsequent areas were all very well detailed but I soon realized that I had nothing to fear from those dogs. That was until I reached the spider caves. I won't say I'm arachnophobic, but I am pretty afraid of spiders and so as I got up into those caves and had the only exit cave in, I went into the first sub-cave in the area and watched those spider eggs. They hatched and then I noticed the spiders run all over me as I tried in vain to escape. Very terrifying moment and indeed a breath of fresh air, because the spiders can't be killed as easily because they're always in larger numbers. The other spider cave in the game was nothing short of scary either. Why were these caves scarier than the rest of the game? The feeling of claustrophobia, of fear and of nakedness.

Towards the end, I began systematically stalking and massacring all of the dogs. Very easy to do and the game lost all of its scare factor there, but even so the feeling of loneliness made the game scary in itself. No one there but you and your fears...

I would go into detail on Black Plague but all I need to say is that game never let up with its scariness and even though I knew quite well that the areas were absolutely empty, I was still being very careful. The hallways at the end are some of the most scariest moments in gaming for me and I really don't understand how anyone can say they are not scary. Yes the infected are easy to outrun and it's relatively easy to hide from them. But what if... What if they corner you? No way to defend yourself. Of course cornering you is not a problem as they are easy to avoid but you are still left defenseless, which is a lot scarier than being able to kill easily. They are still there... wandering...

I'm sorry for this incredibly long post, here's a concise and condensed version of this:

Penumbra is scary as hell.