10 Terrifying Video Games Where You Can't Fight Back
The most frightening titles that leave you feeling completely powerless.
There are plenty of unforgettable horror games in the world, but you would be shocked at just how many of them give the player the ability to fight back.
Silent Hill, Resident Evil or even the likes of Dead Space all allow players to hurt or kill the horrifying creatures they encounter. While they are still brilliantly scary titles, it does give the player a position of power within those games' worlds.
Combat is usually made intentionally cumbersome or difficult to make sure the enemies players face are still frightening, but nothing is scarier than facing a foe you have no chance of winning against because you can't hurt them.
Without the ability to fight back, you are left powerless and this invokes much more fear as a result. The following games understood that the less ability the gamer has, the more effective the horror of the video game can be, leaving you running and hiding in a cold sweat.
10. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009)
Silent Hill may have lost its muster in its waning years with later entries making players too powerful and losing its inventiveness, but the Wii gave fans one last taste of just how strong the series can be with one of the franchises most overlooked gems.
Shattered Memories is a reimagining of the first game in the series, and it shakes up the formula through its innovative use of motion controls. It allows players to really feel the actions their character Harry Mason performs, and this includes shaking an otherworldly horror that has latched onto your back.
The atmosphere is also the demented, dark Silent Hill experience fans have come to enjoy with the soundtrack particularly good at getting under your skin.
Previous entries contained combat that was appropriately ineffective to heighten the scares, but here combat is stripped completely. This makes the sequences where the player enters an icy dimension filled with monsters all the more frightening as you can only run, hide and block their path for temporary relief from their clutches.
It contains some psychological elements that divided opinion, but there's no denying that when you are spotted by a disturbing creature in a realm your not welcome in, waggling yourself to freedom is a scary rush.