Interesting...
 

Haha!

Good point about video games not being able to maintain suspense.
 

Awesome.

It's true though. Risk analysis is quite different when unarmed vs. armed. Do you avoid the bear, or can you hunt it?
 

I personally feel that a big part of the feeling of horror is the feeling of powerlessness. Once you are capable of acting - even in a small way - to counter it, the horror diminishes. And since games are all about interactivity and control, that's an issue. The best we can do is tease players with the fear of the unknown, and try to activate the fight-or-flight reflex with enough simulated risk to make flight the obvious choice.

F.E.A.R. did an okay job with Alma - she was something spooky you couldn't fight.
 

Well, I thought the dismemberment system used in Dead Space struck a nice balance between interactivity (you have all sorts of crazy weapons at your disposal...) and powerlessness (...but under pressure it's really not that easy to hit tiny limbs of fast-moving monsters).

Admittedly, the genuinely scary parts of that game can largely be credited to creepy sound design (even System Shock 2 didn't do it better) during those brief moments when there were no enemies around at all...
 

That was cool.

Demiath, I would almost agree with you on the dismemberment system. Except, when the first thing you go for is the legs the arms suddenly became inconvenient.
 

Dead Space started out pretty well, I thought, but after awhile the encounters became extremely predictable.

The ambiance was initially very good; I liked that there was little creaks and groans and then... no attack. That's how you scare a player, keep them on edge so they keep expecting something and then don't deliver... until they're someplace they least expect it. :)

Unfortunately, DS started to fall into that Doom 3 pattern after awhile... grab that goodie and you KNOW an attack is coming.