It’s not a bad list, either. The thing about horror is everyone is scared by different things, so judging this sort of affair is a subjective exercise. Still, there are points of agreement. Myself, I just use these lists as a road map of the reviewer’s gaming experience. Hmm, no Clocktower, looks like someone didn’t have a SNES growing up… The Coast has the story.
Here’s my list. No order, just a suggestion.
1) Silent Hill
Creepy, empty town, inexplicable events, and an industrial metal horror theme that goes beyond monsters.
2) Fatal Frame
The freakiest ghosts in gaming.
3) The House of the Dead
An entire mansion devoted to trapping, killing, and undeading people. More for the implications than the zombie hordes.
4) Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Just about the perfect Lovecraftian horror adventure. Shame it’s a buggy pit of bad game design and unfinished potential.
5) Alone in the Dark
The original, polygon graphics and all. Also a Lovecraftian adventure with some serious scares, but it doesn’t understand its source material as well as Dark Corners.
6) Dark Seed
HR Giger wanders into a game studio one day… An old-school adventure game of the sort that requires you to solve puzzles before they appear, it’s a fine glimpse into a right proper nightmare world that’s trying to glimpse back.
7) The 7th Guest
Puzzle solving in a haunted mansion. Goofy, but demonic.
8) Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Tension. Fear. Unending tension and fear.