Scariest PS2 Game? (Plat Cast Topic)

[ChernobylNinja]

Hey y'all!

As many of you know @Bushido7745785 and myself host a podcast called Plat Cast and every week we ask a topic for discussion here on psnprofiles and we read out your responses on our podcast and our topic this week is:

 

Since it is Halloween at the end of this month and the whole month is full or horror, what is the scariest Ps2 game you have ever played/seen played?

 

Also, join our discord! We talk about anything and everything and is the best way to suggest topics/chat with Zack (he is there he just lurks!) and myself discord.gg/hbTaVvh 

[Angus1343]

Pretty sure the definitive answer is silent hill 2

[Bos10George]

Silent Hill 3.... 

 

Story time. I was playing this game and got stuck. Going between several rooms, one of the rooms was full of Mannequins and their parts. I must have come into this room at least 10 times trying to figure out where to go. Eventually I get frustrated and just AFK in this room searching online for a solution. 5 min later I hear a very loud scream and a crash. I come back to the game and a mannequin fell over and is bleeding...

 

This did not advance the story at all. It served just to scare the hell out of me and creep me out.

[DrakeHellsing]

Fatal Frame... I believe the second one, where you're in the mansion (I tend to get the two mixed up on which is which).  I remember playing it when I was younger, game ended up being too much in the spook compartment and in turn, I just never finished off the game, spooked me far too much it did.

[Kevvik]

While I love the Silent Hill games, I think Fatal Frame wins out for the scariest PS2 game. My sister was staying with us when I was playing it and I don't know how many times she screamed while watching the game...

[kenseizenkai]

Without a doubt Silent Hill 2 & Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly. 

 

When I first played FF2, I remember when you're wondering the village for the first time, the screen will go screwy & in one doorway you'll see a pair of female legs wondering about for a second or so. When I saw that, it left me disturbed. On my second playthrough, I payed attention to that one moment & this time it was funny for some reason.

[Ptirle]

Silent Hill 3 by far, let's be real.

[Spacey_Dweeb]

I never played the notoriously scary ones like Silent Hill. I owned one called Extermination that was kind of a mix of Resident Evil and The Thing. Aside from some bad voice acting, it's definitely a hidden gem. One of my favorite PS2 experiences.

[Lonemankane]

well you have to take your pick from the many people picking the sh games, fatal frame games, clock tower 3 or the spin off  and or resident evil or even something underrated such as the suffering or the thing, the forbidden siren games or something like killer 7. If am to pick any I would go for either sh4, the suffering 1 or maybe alone in the dark new nightmare

 

[Dauersack]

Gonna throw in a lesser known game because I was never too high on Silent Hill and ghosts are highly ineffective against me, making Fatal Frame basically pointless.

The Thing is a ps2 game released in 2002 based on John Carpenters movie The Thing from 1982, which happened to be one of the first horror movies I watched as a kid. The Thing looked dated even back then, but aside from the graphics it was way ahead of its time and touched concepts that have sadly not established themselves since then. You were sent to investigate the arctic station after the events of the movie, you get a team of people having different roles following you and being managed by you. After finding out what happened during the tutorial you are sent in deeper into the norwegian stations to look for survivors.

 

You end up in a life and death struggle against the small and large mutated monsters that have taken over, against the cold of the arctic forcing you to plan your next moves carefully and think about whether you wanna risk walking into that shelter that probably is crawling with enemies or keep trying your luck out in the cold, and against the paranoia of some of your own team members maybe not being human anymore. In gameplay terms, you have shooting weapons for the smaller enemies, fire weapons for the larger ones, medicine to keep you alive, adrenaline and other stuff to keep your morale and that of your team higher, and blood tests as the last resort to keep your teams trust or rule out one of them being potentially infected. You manage your team, you decide who does what, you decide which weapon and ammo, if any, they get, you decide who to heal and who to trust. The fear of nearby enemies and the grim area can get to your team, requiring you giving them a better weapon or more amo to keep them calm by showing them you trust them, giving them adrenaline shots or leaving the area until they calm down. If you make them distrust you by acting suspicious or taking stuff away from them while they are panicking because you think they are infected, they might end up having a mental breakdown and running amok, making you lose allies due to bad decision making in a game that is already pretty tough, some of them can actually be infected and randomly turn on you during the next battle if you don't notice the signs soon enough.

 

What I liked about the game is its different approach. In most horror games you are alone most of the time, and you are alone here at times too, it is supposed to make you feel more vulnerable, but in this game here being alone made me far less tense. The areas are pretty scary, ranging from run down and destroyed research stations having blood and bodies all around it to the outside in the arctic severely limiting your vision and orientation, with the cold limiting your time you can be outside so it turns expeditions into leaps of faith and outside battles into very stressful encounters. You are tight on ammo and flamethrower fuel as well as medical supplies and tests, and having the team that would be a source of comfort in other games around you makes things worse at times. You feel responsible and stressed because you are in charge of managing them and keeping them alive, but you never know if one might be infected and turn on you at the most unfortunate time, there is always this paranoia when you give your back to them during a fight and theres never enough tests to rule them all out, when they get tense in highly stressful areas you get tense too, if they start to distrust you then you instantly become more wary of them. This sense of dread because absolutely everything around you is a potential threat is something I haven't come across too many times, theres very few safe spaces and these can turn dangerous if you aren't careful too, especially if your team is with you.

 

I wish some of these concepts were more established today, the ideas behind them were great if admittedly not too well implemented. The controls were expectedly clunky, which added to the horror for me because I did not feel like a competent fighter, I would miss shots often, sometimes even hitting a teammate making him distrust me from then on and leading to trouble further down the line. I can't say if this game would do too much for people who haven't watched and like The Thing from John Carpenter, but for me it was one of the most memorable horror games for the atmosphere and sense of constant paranoia it inflicted on me.

[Lonemankane]

3 hours ago, Nighcisama said:

 

All you said is true but the problem I will say the thing suffered was three things. First was the fact that either easy, hard and normal just changed what dmg you take and how good you are with aiming at the enemy without standing still and aiming and firing. The second problem was that many of the people you have as team mates never lasted long. I mean the part where you got to escape the underground labs for example, the engineer you heal up and helps you get weapons never gets to live that long, sure he lives for 3 to 4 full levels but he sadly goes after you finally escape. I wish there was a way to keep them all with you, while it might break the game it would reward you for getting them to come with you so far.

 

 

Lastly the final nail for the game was the review that killed the game. because of the reviewer Spoonyone anyone who looks to the game just pass it off as crap and that is the problem as this game is now a relic, forgotten by a lot of people but remembered by few who played it as a good game with good ideas.

I hope they bring back this game as I loved The thing game and it annoys me that no one gave it a fair chance. it was ahead of its time like outbreak file 1 and 2 was. But, due to Spoon's review the game is forgotten to many.

 

Sure I might come off as if am hating a guy but that is well the problem with reviewers, they can kill a game by spreading crap about it if they so choose.

Edited October 11, 2019 by KANERKB

[Dauersack]

1 hour ago, KANERKB said:

Sure I might come off as if am hating a guy but that is well the problem with reviewers, they can kill a game by spreading crap about it if they so choose.

No worries, that guy seems to be an idiot honestly. Never heard of him before, but if you wanna try and make old games look like utter shit by applying todays standards there is not a single one that would come out of that looking even remotely decent. I mean come on, that guy is crying about things like the flamethrowers in this game not setting wooden buildings you are currently in on fire, like really, which game did that kind of thing back in 2002? His original review was from a time when people still trusted game reviewers, by now it is thankfully known that most of them are really shit at their jobs or get bribed to hype up crappy big company games. I have maybe 3-4 reviewers left whos opinions I somewhat respect because even if they bash a game I like, they usually have valid reasons for it.

Anyway yeah it is a shame that the game was not a bigger success, I mean I get that it is an aquired taste especially by todays standards, but considering how little horror games dare to experiment nowadays it still stands out a lot. Most horror games of today seem to be clones from the same few games, especially the Amnesia clones are still appearing a lot even years after the game came out.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Nighcisama

[Lonemankane]

3 hours ago, Nighcisama said:

 

yeah, the thing is the only game that did something like that was freedom fighter, sure it has problems all games do, it is why I think all games are not 10/10

as if they were, it would be boring

[Gisquared09]

It was already stated but without a doubt silent hill 2. I was so tense and uncomfortable when I was playing it that my nose actually started bleeding, and I never experience those. Could have been a coincidence but I was really uncomfortable at one point in the game. The sound design alone is enough to give you the hi be jeebies. 

[MandA60VISE]

I've only played Fatal Frame 1 and 2 so I'm going to say 2 is. Unfortunately I started working early morning shift and therefore have to go to bed early so I'm never awake when it gets completely dark, the only acceptable time to play horror games.

[KaKrackle]

Silent Hill 2 and 3 you fools!!!

[hsn963]

Haunting ground & Rule of Rose are two not very well known games that disturbed me alot.

[ahmedelebiary]

As most people mentioned, Fatal Frame games . 

But also there is this game called Gregory Horror Show.. it shouldn't be that scary but playing this as a kid used to give me nightmares for some reason lol .

[Jamescush147]

Silent Hill 2 easy.

[Bushido7745785]

Great answers as per usual gang! I haven't heard of a TON of these. Might have to fire up the PS2 emulator and check them out! Have a great rest of your week and stay spooky! ?

[Property_Damage]

Siren

[Seasonreaper]

On 12/10/2019 at 3:01 PM, hsn963 said:

Haunting ground & Rule of Rose are two not very well known games that disturbed me alot.

 

Maybe I would say Rule of Rose but it's still the only game banned here in the UK.

 

But yeah, it's pretty much between Fatal Frame 2, Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3.

[Z1MZUM]

Def Silent Hill 2 and 3 which has already been stated numerous times.

[RainyDusk]

Forbidden Siren 2, followed by Project Zero 3. After playing all Sirens multiple times, I still think 2 is the best (and the scariest). Project Zero 3 is basically all about dreams, and I'm an avid lucid dreamer, so 3 hit me the most.

[Y4M1N_B0Y69]

Bit Late, forbidden siren 2