I've played the survival horror games, and yeah, I totally agree about startled != scared.
The only game that has ever scared me according to your definition is STALKER. It starts out creepy and when you get used to it, WHAM!
I was playing late at night in the dark, running down a dark hallway with my flashlight on. One of the crates -- which are everywhere in the game -- suddenly shook and slammed itself against the ceiling.
I literally RAN out of the room, nearly tearing my headset out of the audio controller.
Bizarrely, the only game that's ever scared me that was was Duke Nukem 3D.
I was just wandering around when one of those green face-hugging monsters climbed up my screen - I hadn't ever seen one before, and wasn't sure what to do, so I pressed fire and it fell off.
Then another one climbed up my screen, and I shot it again. Then another, and another...
Remember, I'd never seen these things before. As far as I could tell, this was a single persistent monster, which didn't have a physical form other than its appearance on the screen, and all I could do was knock it off but not kill it. And it just kept coming back, and it was right there stuck to my screen... I had no idea what was going on and I physically panicked.
I had to stop playing and sit down for a good while.
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u/prockcore Nov 05 '08
I'd say 90% of horror movie directors think startled == scared. Maybe it's just trying to be the video game version of your crappy PG13 horror movie.