Anyone every play the game "The Suffering"? Really good horror game. I can tell that its a good horror game when I get paralyzed with fear and bunker myself down in a room alone untill I can regain my wits and move onto the next room.
Its unfortunate that there aren't many truly scary FPS games out there. All I can think of is Undying, and a few mods like They Hunger and Infection. Theres a real lack of these types of games out there.
and FEAR which will come next year.. something too look forward to.. thefirst game you actually can see your own legs by looking down.. and kick "things" with them..
Watched the FEAR gameplay movie a while back and didnt know it was a scary game.. all most shit my pants.. later on.. after some weird stuff going on..
Doom 3 doesn't count, at least not for me. None of the enemies are really scary after you fight a couple, they only get put into categories of "fun", "annoying" or "boring".
One thing that makes a game scary is keeping things fresh. The endlessly spawning imps behind you gets old very fast.
Not much scares these days, maybe the kiddies, but adults should be fairly descensitised to it by now (if you've played alot of games).
The Resident Evil series does a firly descent job at scaring me at least twice per game. Take Resident Evil 2 for example. Every damn time i go in the investigation room (I believe the cord and eagle stone is in that room) and that Licker busts through the window from the other room, it ALWAYS scares the shit outta me, i even know it's coming and it still makes me jump.
The Rainbow Six series is really good at giving you quick jumps too. I know it ain't horror, but when your go sneaking around a corner not looking and all of sudden WHAM!! a shotgun blast errupts and you get shmucked, you'll jerk a bit in surprise.
Doom 3 had a couple jump moments, but not as many as people make it out to have. I think the whole point is to not know the enemies will be their is what gets the jump factor, Resident Evil is good at this, cause the camera angles sorta mask some of what's in the room until your right there. Of course you can hear the zombies, but if your not paying attention, the'll startle you.
Doom 1 & 2 had very little of that, i mean sure you run into a dark corridor, and hear a Baron of Hell hollar, it may getcha once in a blue moon, but not too often. Reason is cause once you enter a room, you can hear the enemies once they see you, so it kinda removes the element of surprise.
in times of doom 2, not everything could be represented visually. Lots of stuff also goes in your head, making it even more scarier then ever. Lots of people use it in films, i.e. yo uonly hear a sound and you KNOW something terrible happens, you picture it yourself in your mind. ie, kinda like the first Alien movie.