What scared you about SM?

[AwsomeAllison]

What scared me about SM is that Dr. K actually somehow got to be a licensed psychological practitioner. And that he kept/drank alcohol where he held his sessions. LOLWUT.

LOL ya he was so angry, but the chase scenes either got me scared or aggrivated and the woods was a little freaky the first time OH ya and when cheryls little shadow would pop up

[OrlandoEastwood]

It didn't really scare me, but it was eerie as hell. When Harry pulled that ring out of the box below the scope by the bar, it looks almost like the engagement ring I got for my fiancee a few weeks ago.

[simeonalo]

^ Congratulations! I also thought it was as eerie as hell.

[pj]

I don't know if I really find any video game particularly "scary", but the older Silent Hills at least made me feel tense, with a bit of dread for what was coming, maybe a few startling moments here and there, and a haunting feeling that stuck with me even when I wasn't playing it... I guess if that's fear, then I did find the past games to be scary, but Shattered memories gave me none of these things. Easily the least scariest survival horror game I've played.

I don't know if I would consider SH:SM "survival horror," honestly (especially considering the fact that no character's survival is ever even in question)

Among all of the other things that Climax changed with SH:SM, I'd argue that they shifted the genre of the series as well, more towards and Adventure-Psychological Thriller type of game. It became much more David Lynch than Stephen King.

If you were looking for this game to scare you with bloody rooms and hellish creatures and enormous fantastical demonic boogeymen and corpses in strange places...well, it wasn't even trying to present any of that to you. So of course it failed at that.

Now, if you're afraid of things that are more grounded in reality--things like going insane, or losing a loved one, or losing control of your life, or dealing with a crumbling family, or depression, or being completely and totally alone--then SH:SM had a much higher potency for getting under your skin.

I for one am afraid of all of those things, and I was more than happy to throw my expectations for what a Silent Hill game is to the wind (look, after six games of pretty much the same old same old, I needed some change to maintain my interest in this series). Thus, SH:SM had an impact on me that none of the other games ever had, one that was much more powerful and lingering.

It scared the Christ out of me. Did it scare me with giant heads and mannequins and bloody chains and monsters that have knives for forearms? No. It did it with things that have meaning to me as a person, in my actual life, not fantastical things that spook me when I'm reading a ghost story.

[Thanatos]

@pj

Well said. I`m also one of those who think that "real" horror doesn`t manifest in supernatural things and monsters. Instead it lies deap within the realms of the human psyche.

[ImmortalGrey]

I don't know if I really find any video game particularly "scary", but the older Silent Hills at least made me feel tense, with a bit of dread for what was coming, maybe a few startling moments here and there, and a haunting feeling that stuck with me even when I wasn't playing it... I guess if that's fear, then I did find the past games to be scary, but Shattered memories gave me none of these things. Easily the least scariest survival horror game I've played.

Now, if you're afraid of things that are more grounded in reality--things like going insane, or losing a loved one, or losing control of your life, or dealing with a crumbling family, or depression, or being completely and totally alone--then SH:SM had a much higher potency for getting under your skin. .

This.

This was the most beautifully terrifying thing about the game. It reached into the depths of our innermost fears and played it on the characters, bringing ourselves to realize what scares us in real life. After I finished the game, I sat on the couch for a good 10 minutes with all these thoughts and interpretations flying through my head.

It made me realize one of the most terrifying things about life, is that our world, our loved ones, our life, is only what is perceived by our minds. How do we know our loved ones are real and not delusions? How do we know what we see is what others accept as "reality"? What if us posting on a forum and playing games is just a delusion, and we're seeing this because what we're really experiencing is something more terrible than anything we could imagine?

The fact our minds are the ultimate say so in what we do and believe, downright scares me, and this game made me realize that.

[carneeval]

I don't know if there is a discussion occurring but I'd like to state mine. It was moreover the running from the creatures with no protection, I'd actually find myself yelling "Get off" every once and a while when using the Nintendo Wii version, in which if your using another version it is not the same. It was getting hands on with avoiding the creatures and being attacked by them and slowly unraveling the story and being questioned very personally by Dr. K

[EvilDead77]

I just think that the scaries part, as previously stated , is the Nightmare sequences. I found it easy to get lost and i would constantly check over my shoulder for guys chasing me, leading me to start yelling "Run, Harry, Run" over and over at the screen.

[December Man]

Now, if you're afraid of things that are more grounded in reality--things like going insane, or losing a loved one, or losing control of your life, or dealing with a crumbling family, or depression, or being completely and totally alone--then SH:SM had a much higher potency for getting under your skin.

This is probably why it didn't scare me at all. I have most of those things everyday. Yay for my life...

I might make a demotivator: You know your life sucks, when someone makes a horror video game with most of the scary themes being a part of your everyday life.

[ww_andi]

The chase scenes were scary but i remember my face at the high school when they told me i had to take photo's OMG

[AuraTwilight]

Oh my god, tell me about it, Andi. I fucking, like...cried. "No. No, I'm staying here in the safe room forever. Fuck this fetch quest, I'm not doing it."

[carneeval]

Completely agreed, I don't know if I'd ever been as frustrated with a game as I had been at that moment... I did it but was not happy (And completely out of breath) By the end

[SPRINGS02]

Not a damn thing, i got really annoyed during the chase sequences. And the rawshocks looked more like aliens or somethin to me, not scary at all. Also there screams were really annoying. Oddly enough though i actually thought the game wasn't bad, which is sayin something considering that i hold scariness as a top factor in horror games.

[AuraTwilight]

Lol, as if the other monsters in the series didn't look like aliens.

[ww_andi]

i found the part where you are left in the wheelchair crazy i was like o GOd

[Catch22]

Lol, at that part I was like "LOL WTF" and then started whipping around my Wii controllers like a madman. Thank god nobody walked in on me.

[pj]

Yeah, the wheelchair bit was just downright mean. Fantastic and terrifying, but mean.

[angelofROOM302]

The chase parts and that was the only thing that scared me.
And you guys know how much of a scardy cat I am, lol.

[cascade88]

To be honest, basically everything, once I really got into it. It was interesting. I had, as I've said before here, watched a Wii walkthrough. I was never scared while watching that. Playing the game though, is definitely a different story. The music, the footsteps, the static when coming across an echo message, the way the light fell across things--it all made for a very creepy atmosphere.

The times I was most frightened though, were during the initial few chase sequences. I'll be honest, I didn't expect these to scare me a bit. Then I went through the first one. I swear, I glanced upward, and there was a Raw Shock crawling across what I can only assume was pipes. It was freaking above me. I was startled, and then knew that these sequences were definitely scary.

Later on, I came to appreciate the fact that these things morph and change appearances. Arguably, if they kept the generic Raw Shock form all throughout, a player could definitely get used to this as the 'norm', and it would take away from the scare. However, once you get a generic one, and then a slightly different one right behind it, startling you, it manages to keep up the initial fear factor.

But, to go back more to what I said in the first place, I loved the fact that the game was able to freak me out even in parts where I *knew* I couldn't be harmed.

[Des573]

I would've been 10 times scared during the nightmare sequences but I was so obessed with writing a walkthrough, I couldn't get scared. Plus, I had the light on so I could see the keyboard.