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[jc6036]

Recently I've been getting into such great games as Penumbra and Amnesia, and it really seems to me that the genre is lacking. I've tried the new SCP game, which was pretty nice and kept me constantly guessing. I've also hunted down a couple more great games, like Cry of Fear, which is a total conversion mod for Half life. But all in all, it seems like such a great genre rarely gets any good releases.

So I'm wondering; what good survival horror games do my fellow Bay 12ers know of that they would like to share? What I'm mainly looking for is very good immersion, and moments that make you forget that you're playing a game and give you mortal fear.

Current Known Game List With Linkies

• Penumbra (great ambiance and immersion)
• Amnesia (great ambiance and immersion)
• SCP: Containment Breach (involves the living statue SCP)
• Cry of Fear (source engine mod)
• Lone Survivor (Youtube Trailer)
• Silent Hill (A real mindfuck of a series)
• Resident Evil (a staple of survival horror. Classic inventory management/puzzle stuff/zombie and monster survival)
• Dead Space (strategic combat, challenging situations, great ambiance)
• The Suffering (Very frantic game)
• Korsakovia (Source engine mod)
• Undying (more horror based FPS, but still.)
• Ao Oni (about blue japanese demons. Frantic, intense, and really fucking weird)
• Ju-On The Grudge (Can get very intense at times)
• Fatal Frame (can get very surreal at times)
• Pathologic (Russian. The English translation can be rather bad at times.)
• Yume Nikki (some really cracked surreal horror)
• ObsCure (Has coop, but also bad voice acting, campy writing, and generic scares)
• Siren (good stuff. Influenced by one of the directors of Silent Hill.)
• Siren: Blood Curse (sort of like a successor to Siren.)
• Legacy: Realm of Terror (survival horror RPG! Old though, and needs DOSbox or similar)

I'm also feeling obligated to add a link to PewDiePie's channel on youtube. He does excellent let's plays, and I found out about many new games through this channel.

[nenjin]

Lone Survivor
Silent Hills also kind of define the genre.

[jc6036]

Lone Survivor
Silent Hills also kind of define the genre.

Ooh, nice. I checked around and found a youtube video. It has a nice feel of desperation to it, I see, which is always a plus.

[freeformschooler]

Resident Evil and Silent Hill are staples. Both are terrifying in multiple ways.

[jc6036]

Resident Evil and Silent Hill are staples. Both are terrifying in multiple ways.

*Facepalm*

I don't even know how I forgot about Silent Hill, though I've heard that the series has really decayed as of recently. And I've already been through all sorts of Resident Evil stuff. RE2 was the only thing I played when I was little and had my N64.

Adding both to the list.

[ConscriptFive]

While definitely showing its age, and not a strong recommendation, "The Suffering" series tends to get forgotten in the history.  A PC Game ported from PS2/XBOX, it played like one of the more action-y Resident Evil games.

Maybe also the "Dead Space" series?  Very action-y and very AAA production values.

Like you said, it's a small genre, so I'm kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

[Cicero]

I recommend the source-mod Korsakovia. I played it a while ago and it was terrifying.

[jc6036]

While definitely showing its age, and not a strong recommendation, "The Suffering" series tends to get forgotten in the history.  A PC Game ported from PS2/XBOX, it played like one of the more action-y Resident Evil games.

Maybe also the "Dead Space" series?  Very action-y and very AAA production values.

Like you said, it's a small genre, so I'm kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

I played through the second Suffering game. It has some pretty twisted, frantic stuff. I also played through the first Dead Space on 360, and it was fucking amazing, but I doubt my laptop could handle it. Both are being added to the list regardless

I recommend the source-mod Korsakovia. I played it a while ago and it was terrifying.

I'll check it out, and add it to the list.

EDIT: Fixed some stuff, and checked out Korsakovia.

[nenjin]

The Suffering 1 was pretty good. The Suffering 2 I legitimately had a hard time getting through, because of how the autosave worked. Kind of like how Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox would save you into an unwinnable position, the Suffering 2 would as well.

Also Clive Barker's Undying, although it's a little more Horror FPS than Survival Horror.

[jc6036]

The Suffering 1 was pretty good. The Suffering 2 I legitimately had a hard time getting through, because of how the autosave worked. Kind of like how Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox would save you into an unwindable position, the Suffering 2 would as well.

Also Clive Barker's Undying, although it's a little more Horror FPS than Survival Horror.

Added.

[jc6036]

Double Post.

I just added about 4-5 games to the list. These things are going to keep on piling up.

[sluissa]

Pathologic, Russian(With bad english translation) game by another name. It's definitely survival + horror, but other than that, I couldn't tell you what was going on in it except some people don't take kindly to being asked for directions.

[Astral]

I tried playing Pathologic... it was freaky, and I didn't get too far, but I think it had a very good start.

[mikefictiti0us]

There's also Obscure 1 & 2, which are coop. That is a rare feature as far as survival horror games go, which is why it's a shame that both games are pretty awful. Watch this at around the 4:20 mark and try not to laugh at the horrid voice acting and generic scares.

[casserol]

As a big fan of survival horror myself I warmly recommend you try Cataclysm, a survival horror roguelike :
 http://whalesdev.com/forums/index.php

It's ASCII or tileset for some versions, so don't expect scary visuals, there's no sound and no real scenarization (just clues dropped here and there as to what may have happened).

The tension comes all from the survival, the gameplay itself gives a harshness and grimness I've rarely seen in any other game.

You are dropped in a huge randomly generated wolrd, beginning close to a city, and you'll start looting around for basic supplies (aim the sports goods shop for a backpack and baseball bat, the grocery for some food and drink, break into a house, cut some cloth downs to rags, then go to the gas station and fill empty plastic bottles with gasoline to make petrol bombs with the rags, hit a pharmacy for some stimulants or the much-needed thorazine if you've picked the "schizophrenic" traits for extra character points.....).
Then various zombies will start appearing here and there and things go funny. Some of the craziest desperate fights and narrow escapes I've ever played.

That's really the basics, later on you may find yourself building a cabin deep in the forest or gearing up to raid underground laboratories and bunkers for some high-tech stuff.

You'll find the forums shares a good part of it's community with bay12, they got a "what's going on in your zombie apocalypse" thread that is a good showcase for the game.

Really can't miss this one!

edit: eh, just noticed cataclysm got his own thread on the first page.