Unknown's scares

[Sexbad]

I believe that Dead Space not only faulted because of monster closets, or rather, monster ventilation shafts, but more to the fact that it resorted to try to scare the player with technical limitations. You walk slowly, you run slowly, you turn (fucking awfully) slowly, and the camera is extremely limited. The scares constantly consisted of backing you up into a corner, locking all doors saying there was some sort of contamination, and then throwing hordes of enemies at you while you move so slowly that you can't even aim. Parts that were supposed to be scary were only frustrating to me and I consider it one of the worst games ever. (Plus the voice acting reminded me of Scott Bakula)

Penumbra, on the other hand, portrays you as a human being, with all the head-bob and perspective and strength perfect for a skinny English professor, and instead of introducing some sort of technical limitation, it introduces realistic limitations about how you are a badass motherfucking skinny English professor. As said before, the one monster closet people can remember is tangible, and most of the plot devices don't suck (though that maze with the security cameras was bordering on silly, but I do consider the encounter with the Tuurngait before it the scariest part). I found Overture's clunky combat controls nice, and it is probably how I would be able to attack things down there if suicide was out of the question (against the rules, eh?).

No defense is really cool, but I'm open to certain things that would probably have less of an emotional impact but still maintain "holy shit."