What horror game marked a before and after in your life?

[Dim Sum]

Do disgusting games count as horror?

There is one bad ending in Discipline: Record of the Crusade that made me feel this way.

It helped that I was played it blind and did not even know what type of H-genre VN I was playing so all the twist and thumps caught me off guard.

When I unlocked it, I felt so discomforting that it was the first VN I played simply to get another ending to wash over the other instead of being a completionist or for curiosity's sake.

Unfortunately the best ending turned out to be silly and I never touched that game ever again.

Without spoiling anything, it's like a hentai version of 1 Silent Hill bad ending where it was a dream but mixed in with that dread when Scissor Man caught up to you. It's so hard to explain. It's more psychological than anything else. I don't know if others playing blind would even feel the same. It's just one of those [BLAM!] sentence [BLAM!] ...this is the world your character is left with because of your bad decision...and it's not even like a bad ending just because you made the wrong choices. It really made me feel like those were true consequences and the choices I made...well it's not just that I made the wrong choice but "I" willingly made the wrong choice knowing the risks. It also helps that said bad ending has some similarity to Netorare and the choices were truly great choices if you weren't spoiled towards what each of those choices meant.

There is also another game that also isn't horror but when you were given that original choice to kill someone with no choice, it seemed gimmicky but even years later reading that sentence of that dying man sends chills down my bones. It's like you killed him and you know he's going to be brainwashed but that one last sentence that's a combination of waking up ("Where?") the player name ("You?") and the dawning of a person leaving you with ("Why?") that really sends chills down my bones. It's more dread than horror though but even today many of that dread psychology is what scares me to the max. The SRPG was called Vandal Hearts 2 and believe me you don't want to play it blind because of the bad ending.

Then there's this: http://vimeo.com/27712110

Too bad the site appears to be dead. It's less of a mark because of the horror but because of how many interactive elements were put in it. I don't remember any game that has ever successfully inserted so many unique quirks into the site. Real phone calls, photos of your face, actual time line. The youtube videos don't really do it justice.

It would probably have even been way better if they actually had a movie booth to it. Even with the lights on, the thing that really made the site scary was the audio and I don't have surround sound or anything. Believe it or not, the Doritoes ad in the beginning actually made it feel even more scarier especially whenever you replay the site.

[Ishikatsu]

Ha! I'm not going to be very original here. My first survival horror was Resident Evil. I played it when I was seven years old but it didn't give me any nightmares. It was to be expected; I could barely read at that age, let alone understand English text. Whole game felt just like ordinary shooter with funny looking enemies to me.
Breaking point came few years later with Silent Hill series; that's how I was introduced into wonderful world of psychological horror. Unbeatable atmosphere, extraordinary story, compelling characters. I still remember angsting over Silent Hill 2. My parents didn't have any internet connection at that time, which means I miraculously managed to avoid all spoilers regarding the ending. Boy, was I in for a surprise.
"JAAAAMEEEES, WHYYYY?!" It even made me cry. This is coming from the girl who is said to have pretty inappropriate sense of humor and actually laughed at Titanic, so... yeah

[tigerkidde]

I think Silent Hill 1 did it for me. Having played RE2 and Veronica, co-piloting SH2, playing SH4 which had some disturbing times THEN after all that, playing SH1 for the first time.

Condemned 1, until the final moments, had me weirded out and on edge.

Though not categorized as a horror game, Heavy Rain marked a before and after. Most stressed out I think I've ever been in a game.

[DeeKay]

Try Clock Tower 1 and 2. In both game, you can only run or hide. To make things worse, the enemies are persistent, invincible, and you can only use most hiding spot/weapons (that can only be used to distract the boggy-man) ONCE.

Or for more modern incarnation, try Haunting Ground. Though in this game, the enemies are more distracting than horrifying.

Haunting Ground huh...
The psychos are more disturbing than horrifying for sure. That and... well... My gosh, why did the devs have to make Fiona so pretty ?? Hnnggghhh ! I wanna hug her !
Wait no ! I'm turning into a psycho myself, let's stop ! '_'

Like some people here, there was a before and after Silent Hill for me. For some reason, I can't stand horror games anymore. Maybe it's because they're more action packed now or I feel weird playing games toying with your sanity ^^'

[CaseyLoufek]

Doom. Yeah I know not what people think but I never played many pure horror games and Doom really had this ambiance of desolation and uncertainty. It was the first FPS with light levels and they really got the most out of it. There was a lot of incentive to explore too, so you had this experience of trying unlock the secrets of an overrun base and never being quite certain you didn't miss one of those damn demons and it's not behind you right now.

Eternal Darkness is fun and has a lot of mind trick stuff going but the effect is more one of confusion and doubt than fright. Possibly because the rest of the game play is rather standard and save points are common. Or because that characters change so much. You feel like you're watching somebody go crazy and it's interesting but you don't have a real sense of personal stake.