I really hate being scared. Every year, for his birthday, one of my oldest friends always asks that I sit through horror movie with him. He clearly gets enjoyment from watching me get a heart attack, so Happy Birthday, jerk. I clearly make friends with terrible people, but all anecdotes aside, I really like horror games. Being in charge as an active player changes the horror in games from the kind you get in movies to something way more interesting.

But what makes for good horror in games?

From the setup to the end of the game, F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon) barely manages to startle you. You start out as a highly trained special operative with the ability to kick somebody so hard they die and the ability to slow down time. In fact, there is no threat that you can’t shoot or kick to death. F.E.A.R is basically like one of those plastic overlays people put on Atari 2600 games, but with spookiness instead of color.

F.E.A.R might not be the best horror game, but it's a stellar FPS with A.I that stands up to this day. — *F.E.A.R* might not be the best horror game, but it's a stellar FPS with A.I that stands up to this day.

While the mechanics rate a firm one on the scream-o-meter, F.E.A.R’s atmosphere and set pieces rank higher. You walk through dimly lit hospitals, abandoned buildings, and scientific facilities. Every hallway light flickers just before you round a corner. Every time you can’t see into a room, the spooky Ring-like girl who haunts you throughout the game is this close to jump-scare-ing the hell out of you. Horror takes a lot of work to pull off right and though F.E.A.R made admirable strides, it fell a few feet short.

Fun fact! The horror you feel is inversely propositional to the amount of machine guns and superpowers that main character has.

If F.E.A.R was a covered overlay, Amnesia: The Dark Decent is your worst nightmare come to life. Where F.E.A.R gave you superhuman abilities and lots of guns, Amnesia gives you a crippling phobia of the darkness and a lamp that’s always running out of fuel. You wake up in a dark hallway, deliriously trying to remember your name, and stumble through what appears to be a medieval castle as your vision blurs then finally fades out. You spend the remainder of the game just trying to figure out who you are, why you’re here, and how to get the hell out of dodge.

Uh, you know what? You can go first. I'll just hang here. Near the torch. Where it's not superscarydark.

The mechanics of Amnesia are built around horror. You fight back against any of the monsters in the game, your main source of light has little fuel, and the click-and-hold mechanic you use to move objects around is tailor made for hiding in a closet with the door cracked. You go insane if you hang around in the dark too much or if you look directly at the enemies, leaving their appearance a mystery. You will always invent something scarier than any designer can create; the best horror movies don’t show the monster right away, after all.

Let me put it this way: this thing here is the friendliest face you're going to find in this whole damn castle. — Let me put it this way: this *thing* here is the friendliest face you're going to find in this whole damn castle.

I have no idea where I am, I'm terrified to move, and my lamp is almost out of fuel. Everything is awful.

The game is quiet, but never silent. You can hear the castle creak, the wind howl outside the windows, and things moving in the distance. When you turn your back, you can swear you hear something stepping behind you, only pausing when you do. The unsettling labyrinthine level design is full of twists, turns, and secret passages; you get lost easily, leaving you unsettled and your comfort zone in the far distance. The mechanics, the controls, and the way the world looks makes you really feel as helpless as your character is supposed to feel.

It’s clear that combining action and horror is difficult but if we look at System Shock 2, we can see that it’s possible. Like in Amnesia, you’ll hear plenty of ominous moans and groans as you wander around twisted corridors of the Von Bruan starship and you’ll pick up terror-stricken audio recordings which document the collapse of the ship and its inhabitants. The more you learn the more you realize just how monumental the enemy you face is and how impossible your task seems.

You won't be finding a lot of allies on the Von Braun, so you best settle into to facing your enemies alone.

System Shock 2 handles controls awkwardly at best; you don’t feel helpless but you certainly don’t feel like Rambo either. You start out as a soldier but you can’t handle weapons well. You even swing your wrench unbearably slowly, which means you need consideration and planning to fight enemies. As you move through the game, you increase your skills with weapons, hacking, or telekinetic powers to bludgeon, shoot or magic enemies to death. By impairing your abilities, System Shock 2 combines action and horror. You would panic too when half of your shots miss the shambling thing coming right at you.

Yeah, just try to tell me you could see this thing in your face and not totally freak the hell out.

Horror in games must have been a hard concept for game devs and writers to wrap their heads around. How can you scare a player who can miss your jump scares by facing the wrong direction? How can you make a player feel helpless when most games are a power fantasy? With a lot of hard work (and some not-so-scary games), developers and writers managed to come up with a whole new kind of horror. So sit back, put on your headphones, and give you heart a start or two with a spooky game.

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P.S. the original System Shock is getting a remake! You can download the demo on GOG for free!. Go do it! There's also a kickstarter if you're into that kind of thing.