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Why do horror games scare us? – Reality Check



This week Cam investigates the ways in which horror games exploit our innate human biology to cause fear.

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47 Comments

  1. So what happens when a jump scare game fails to produce a response in an individual at all? I'm going to die horribly because I didn't run away aren't I?

  2. am I the only one that thought the screams were bland and generic instead of scary? and also horror games aren't as scary as people say? and I might be a robot?

  3. Really, if game devs would just stop using cheap jumpscares in a game, I would probably play horror games in the first place. Ones I would jump into, though, as if I actually WANTED to play them, is if they were to play out like a movie. Great story, great build up, and jumpscares only at one or two points that actually make sense. Also, if the game isn't overly gruesome either. That's a main dealbreaker for me and most games, so eh.

  4. This games………Layers of Fear – Kholat – Soma – Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and soon Allison road i call them Walking simulators..they have NOTHING to offer exept graphics..all you do is walk,open doors,grab items has no use,read fucking notes,and open doors again and run like Forrest Gump..Oh and few jump scares..Same shit recipe in my opinion,this is NOT original horror games that will make you feel the fear! Where is that good days when you was solving puzzles,you was have inventory to collect your items and many other things to make you THINK and keep you bit more busy…now flash light or a mobile it's the only fucking item you have till you finish this shitty games..I enjoy Dead space and also Amnesia: The Dark Descent dead island and few more..Those was worth it to play!!

  5. I'm just gonna keep this playing while I do stuff in other tabs…..cuz yknow, videos on this topic always have a cheap jumpscare, and I don't wanna fall for it :u

  6. yep a bear yeah so scary wow ….fucking moron a normal animal that all people have seen in their lives will scare a person in a horror game wow bears are dangerous but not scary you dumbass

  7. everyone would panic and get scared from knife chain saw or whatever because they are dangerous not scary because of the things that they can do to our body and we don't want it to happen to us that why

  8. I'm trying to play until dawn since it was free on ps4 this month and fuck man I'm in chapter 3 and I don't wanna play it because of how scared I instantly get

  9. the scary games that get are psychological horror and like on the run from a scary object with a time limit and a objective to do

  10. so if you watch a playthrough of a horror game and the person playing it gets super scared your feeling there fear AND the avatars fear plus your own fear?

  11. I agree. Slow build up makes the game scarier, and so does the music. I'm sure it's been mentioned many times before, but Alien Isolation nails all of this. The slow build up before you finally encounter the xenomorph made it pretty tense, and then the game got super tense from there out. However, it did loose it's scariness when you had a flame thrower and had a fighting chance against it. IMO, when you can't fight off the enemy, its makes them that much scarier, but sometimes I get annoyed with it too. I think Resident Evil (0-3,7) and Dead Space (1-2) was the perfect balance of having weapons but yet keeping the game scary. Then like I said, music sets the mood. Alien Isolation, the creepy orchestra music gets louder as the Alien gets closer. Then in Dead Space, it has unsettling music when you're not fighting, but gets super intense when battling necromorphs.

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