PixlBit

Alex recently typed up a great piece about Limbo up a game that is not traditionally thought of as horror, but is effective in giving that feeling you get from horror games. Which got me thinking over which games scared me that no one really praises for their horror elements. Well, it turns out my (as of a month ago) favorite game does that very well, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. Yeah, not that much of a change from my old favorite, but after playing the restored version, I....you know what, that deserves its own review. 

While Kotor 2 is not a horror game as a whole, the first four or five hours of that game would not lead you to believe that. Kotor 2 does not pull horror off in how many think is the correct way to do it in games. You'll scrap plenty of robots and kill plenty of Sith soldiers during the game's first planet Peragus. Combat is an integral part. Rather, it thrives on story structure and atmosphere to create a sense of dread.

I say create dread rather than scare because Kotor 2 does not use any jump scares. Enemies will sneak up on you, but you can always pause combat so thsi won't matter. And damage is never severe from common enemies, even if you get hit, you can shrug it off and fight back. 

Yet in the right context, this game had me panicked all the time, which is a lot harder to pull off. All the game informs you is that you escaped a Sith ambush going in. You don't know anything about them other than that they're hunting Jedi and the passengers aboard your ship are dying from the attack before it takes you to the mining facility Peragus. 

Peragus is a lot like System Shock/Bioshock where you find yourself in a disturbingly empty area. Everyone around you is dead as you try to piece together what has happened. Everything about it points to the Sith tearing out this place as you fear the worst. Video journals of the passengers reveal what really happened there, luring you into a false sense of security when this happens.

Where Kotor 2 truly invokes fear is through its villains. Darth Sion is the perfect way to kick this off, as everything about him is scary. His appearance is scary. His voice is scary. His music is creepy. He does everything in an eerily calm manner. And you learn nothing about him other than his basic motivation and that he will stop at nothing to kill you. And then there's Nihilus

That's not what I expect from Star Wars. That's what I expect from an exorcist movie. The way he sounds, the way he tortures his servants, the way she begs for death rather than compassion and still follows him. Hell, evenhis ship looks haunted. The second I saw Nihilus knew I was alive is one of gaming's biggest, "Oh shit," moments. I had been struggling to survive and finally felt like I could do it. Then that happens.

Kotor 2 is not traditionally scary. It invokes fear in a more unique way You're being hunted through the galaxy, by these Sith Lords  whose backstory you can eventually piece together, but you only get the essentials. You understand how they use the Force and that they want the Jedi dead. But never what they exactly intend to do once the Jedi are gone. They have an evil plan, that is certain. But what it is remains mostly a mystery, which adds to making them scary villains.

Kotor 2 takes the Force, once a wonderous and mystical thing and turns it into a dark, twisted weapon. A weapon which can cause unspeakable destruction. A weapon which feeds off of its host like a symbiote if not contained. Where all you see from these hosts is the sick aftermath, knowing they were once normal people, but nothing more. And that they were once normal people is really terrifying.

Kotor 2 may not be a true horror game, but it scared me. There are some elements I cannot properly describe, such as how the music and dark atmosphere add to their effects. but it's the kind of game where the more you think about it, the scarier it is. And that's the best kind of horror.