Favorite Atmospheric Shooters

Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Since October is coming up and the like, what are some of your favorite shooters that have really good atmosphere? Like, rather than being generic run-of-the-mill stuff like Call Of Duty or Battlefield, these shooters have a feel of horror, claustrophobia, loneliness, etc. Basically, horror and/or gritty sci-fi themed shooters.

Might as well post the theme from my favorite:

Still my all-time favorite FPS game.

edited 24th Sep '13 8:32:10 PM by LDragon2

...Can I mention the Metroid Prime games? Because they definitely have the isolation and atmosphere, although I'm not sure I'd call them "shooters" exactly.

Also, Bioshock. Any of them. And System Shock 2.

Yep, Metroid Prime does indeed count.

Though I think that the first had the best atmosphere.

That's not what 'atmospheric' means. Or, it is, but is a very specific subset. Also, why only shooters?

Why only shooters? Because those usually don't have good atmosphere to them, and I like to know about ones that do. You know, to find variety and the like amongst all the generic ones, no offense.

And what do you mean by a specific sub-set?

edited 24th Sep '13 8:40:08 PM by LDragon2

Did F.E.A.R. or Doom 3 come out first?

Pulling the Halo card. Recent activity surrounding the franchise seems to imply the single player aspect of the series and it's rich full well-developed world is what people are really coming for anymore.

I believe Doom 3 came out before F.E.A.R.

Still though, I think that the latter had the better atmosphere, since it didn't just rely on cheap monster-behind-the-closet scares.

"Atmosphere" strikes me as a buzzword like "charm", "generic" etc. that basically means nothing at this point and mostly serves to compliment Games I Like/put down Games I Don't Like

Whining aside, Robotica and Kileak are two tittles that strikes me as successfuly a sterile, oppresive ambiance, despite their dubious merit as games. Alien Trilogy, too.

Though they may be buzzwords, the fact that gamers can feel immersion (from atmosphere), warmth and fuzziness (from charm) or apathy (from genericness) is objective.

My vote to Bioshock. All three did a spectacular job of telling story through environment and immersion, and the second holds a special place in my heart reserved for those protagonists driven by unyielding, unconditional love; the Harry Mason section*

I wish I could nominate Resident Evil, but they're over-reliant on fear as a product of monsters lurking around every corner, rather than building tension and atmosphere. When there's nothing particularly special about that set of windows other than the fact that you know zombie dogs will come crashing through them eventually, that's not atmospheric, that's meta-fear. Resident Evil uses scarcity and monsters to create fear for the gameplay rather than fear for the character.

An atmospheric game will have you walk into a room, see a bisected corpse on the floor and blood trail leading from his intestines towards the vents. The room is overturned, a containment tank is smashed open. Something HAPPENED here, and just looking at the room, you can get a good guess of what, but you have no idea what's out there or what could be lurking around the next corner.

A meta-fear game will have you walk into a side room with a viewing window where you see the monster break out of the glass, slash open the scientist, and then escape into the vents. The game is saying, "THIS is a THING, and it's COMING FOR YOU, BOOGAH BOOGAH HOPE YOU HAVE AMMO!!!"

edited 26th Sep '13 7:51:57 AM by TobiasDrake

I think for me either Doom 3 or the AVP games.

Probably Half-Life 2 or Modern Warfare 2 for me. Both of the games' single player just stand out to me, I guess because of the entire experience.

edited 26th Sep '13 9:52:33 AM by HellmanSabian

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, Metro series, and Half-Life series...

I'm to scared of System Shock 2 to comment...

edited 26th Sep '13 10:14:27 AM by onyhow

Half Life for me.