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[Neonivek]

So, I was thinking back to the SNES Clocktower and in it when a shotgun finally comes into play it is a complete game changer. It becomes frieghtening because of how overwhelmingly deadly it is and how it breaks all the previous rules set up by the game.

No longer does your enemy need to walk up to you, no longer can you dodge them, in fact you can be shot from off screen if your not careful enough.

It was honestly pretty scary and completely changes the dynamic of the game.

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Yet when I think about all the horror games I've seen... Guns tend to be part of a de-escalation of horror rather than a escalation.

It is like when a humanoid opponent turns into a giant monster, what you see should mean things are getting worse... but instead it seems to improve your chances of survival.

Are there any games where guns are actually scary?

[Sinistar]

My strongest experience with guns, and to an extent, death in general being scary when it comes to video games, was when I played Operation Flashpoint: Cold war crisis for the first time.

Did the training course, we get called up for a mission, oh yeah, I get off the chopper and oh my, I have to follow a grup formation from the very beginning, how exciting! Then, suddenly, all hell breaks loose. People shouting commands, distant-but-oh-so-close sound of gunfire and explosions, and worst of all, the enemy can be hardly seen. We crawl, we run, we frantically scan the environment, on the lookout for that faint signs of movement in the far distance. We shoot our guns, not knowing what we will even hit. And then I run around the corner and get non-dramatically shot in the neck, dieing instantly. I spent several moments just silently contemplating what just happened, awed and slightly terrified.

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Probably not exactly what you were looking for, but for me, this game made me realize for the first time how really deadly a realistic modern gun warfare really is. So yeah, kinda made guns scary, to me.

[Salmeuk]

Not a video game, but the call of cthulu tabletop RPG represents guns in a terribly realistic way.

I was DMing this one time, and one of my newer players decided to open a particular door - inside, he found some unhappy occupants and soon he was face to face with a polished handgun. The player had a long rifle slung over his back, and told me that he wanted to unsling it and attempt to shoot.

After about five back-and-forths of "Are you sure?" and "Yeah. I am.", I relented and played it out.

He was immediately shot and thrown backwards, however he wasn't instantly killed. That happened when another player failed a first aid roll and crushed his ribcage.

The guns in that game are absurd and even a handgun can mortally wound most characters, given the right circumstances.

It makes the game manual's weapon list even more absurd: along with your rifles and pistols, it lists things like landmines and tank guns, even ship cannons! Something absurd like twelve d10s.

[gimli]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's gonna leave a mark!

[Mech#4]

Not so much as scary as the ante being raised and things becoming really serious; the game "Sleeping Dogs" has most of the combat being hand-to-hand with the occasional knife, bat or tire-iron. Guns do get introduced but in quite the "gentlemen's rules being dropped" kind of way. Even after that guns aren't as common as melee fighting.

It's not a horror game though, firmly an action one but it's a nice shift in focus.

I can't think of any other horror games like what your describing in "Clocktower", sorry.

[Sinistar]

Oh wait, we are talking about guns in HORROR games? Whoopsie, my bad. Can't think of any game that would meet this criteria from the top of my head, then.

[TempAcc]

Not sure if cataclysm counts as a horror game, but facing a armed NPC, even if your PC is able to take on zombie hulks in melee, is quite a humbling experience. One turn of direct gunfire will obliterate your character most of the time. Shotguns also do absurd damage in close range, depending on what kind of ammo is used.

Anyway, there was a weird indie survival game that I saw on this forum a while back, one in which you played a human wandering in what seemed to be victorian england, while being hunted by anglo-robots. Being found by a robot carrying a rifle meant death, most of the time. I forgot the name of that game. This made gun totting enemies quite scary, because they can kill you at any time with minimal effort, if they see you, that is.

[Krevsin]

Anyway, there was a weird indie survival game that I saw on this forum a while back, one in which you played a human wandering in what seemed to be victorian england, while being hunted by anglo-robots. Being found by a robot carrying a rifle meant death, most of the time. I forgot the name of that game. This made gun totting enemies quite scary, because they can kill you at any time with minimal effort, if they see you, that is.

Sir, You are being Hunted sounds like what you're describing.

[TempAcc]

Anyway, there was a weird indie survival game that I saw on this forum a while back, one in which you played a human wandering in what seemed to be victorian england, while being hunted by anglo-robots. Being found by a robot carrying a rifle meant death, most of the time. I forgot the name of that game. This made gun totting enemies quite scary, because they can kill you at any time with minimal effort, if they see you, that is.

Sir, You are being Hunted sounds like what you're describing.

Thats the thing, altough I saw a review recently and I think they may have changed how guns work. I played in the early access thingy and I remember being 1/2 shotted by a robot with a rifle, but the review points out that your health regenerates fast enough that you can take multiple shots and still soldier through objectives with ease. So that game may not be a good example of "scary guns" anymore.

[Girlinhat]

Shadowrun has proven fun with guns.  They're cheap, and everyone should have one.  It just amazes me that my players make new characters and don't bring a $50 handgun, when they're given like $20,000 to start...  Average HP is around 10 or 12, and armor added might bring that up to effectively 18 or 20 HP when damage reduction is factored in... but a light handgun hits for 5, and a machine pistol can hit for like 8 with armor penetration.  So we get quite a few one-shots.  Either my NPC grunts just getting wrecked, or a lucky shot wrecking a player.  Gun fights don't last long, usually 3-ish turns around the table, but that's all it takes for people to drop.

[Neonivek]

It doesn't have to be a horror game.

I actually appreciate Sinistar's contribution quite a bit.

It just needs to be a game where guns are legitimately scary which with few exceptions would be hard to find outside horror.

Though I do like the Tangent on "When guns represent an escalation, as opposed to a de-escalation" So I approve it.

[nenjin]

Red Orchestra 2 makes guns appropriately terrifying in my mind. On a mostly realism server, being caught out in the open in the sights of a machine gun is terrifying. I've told this story a lot, but, I basically kept half an enemy team pinned down from my top floor vantage point on a map with a German MG42. The sight lines, the lethality of bullets, the fact you can be wounded and bleed out from it, the sound effects of rounds going by, the tracers, the constant sniping. It's not like modern Battlefield games where half the time you don't even know you're being shot at until you're dead, and most players just sprint around in wide circles to kill people respawning. It's very visceral in RO2, you can't run and gun and survive except in close quarters because everyone is a sniper, and the classic image of guys being suppressed by tons of gunfire in war comes across pretty well in it. It's one of those games that asks you to run out into the open despite the fire you're taking, and that puts the fear of pretty much every gun in to you.

I won't say there aren't some BS death out there, mainly from getting single-shot-sniped by a good player. And to replicate the experience, you need a full server. Playing with bots won't do it. But when it works, it works well.

[MDFification]

Shadowrun has proven fun with guns.  They're cheap, and everyone should have one.  It just amazes me that my players make new characters and don't bring a $50 handgun, when they're given like $20,000 to start...  Average HP is around 10 or 12, and armor added might bring that up to effectively 18 or 20 HP when damage reduction is factored in... but a light handgun hits for 5, and a machine pistol can hit for like 8 with armor penetration.  So we get quite a few one-shots.  Either my NPC grunts just getting wrecked, or a lucky shot wrecking a player.  Gun fights don't last long, usually 3-ish turns around the table, but that's all it takes for people to drop.

We have a cultural obsession with melee, and it really shows when people decide to make melee-focused characters despite guns being superior to melee is virtually all aspects in a system.

[n9103]

If we're specifically using firearms when we reference guns, I think my first moment was probably the hardcore setting of MGS. A clean shot by the enemy and you're gone. That goes from frustrating to frightening very rapidly if you're going for the no-saves game. (Nintendohard anyone?)
If we're taking the convention of very powerful ranged weapon instead, then I think I would either go for Red Alert and the nukespam that the earlier AI versions would pull if you gave them a chance, or ranged enemies when around the shopkeeper in most of the classic roguelikes. A more recent, and less gamey, situation would be the  Njerpez in 2.9 Unreal World. Those jerks were hard enough to deal with one-on-one in melee even in the later game, but give even a single one a bow, and you're ready to reroll. (I reference 2.9 versions specifically, since they, or bow-wielding enemies in general, got nerfed pretty hard at some point.)

[Sensei]

Personally, I wouldn't get a $50 handgun. I'd be afraid of it blowing up in my face.