Dead Space 2
For anyone who enjoys survival-horror anything, play Dead Space 2. If regular gameplay doesn't scare you enough, beat the game and play through it on Hardcore mode. Holy. Shit.
In regular DS2 gameplay, there are jump-scares and the occasional heavily infested room where you have to battle for your life and hope you've brought enough ammo/learned enough tricks to get by. There are a few instant-death sections, although not that many, and even then the game is pretty good about giving you frequent checkpoints. It's rare that you'll lose more than 10 minutes of work from a death. Quite honestly, it's usually less than 5.
In Hardcore Mode, you can save 3 times. That's it. It puts the game on the second hardest difficulty, and gives you weapon drops as if you're on the hardest difficulty. There are no check points. If you die, you are basically fucked and can lose hours of work based off a stupid mistake, or running out of ammo, or being ambushed, or failing one of the instant-death sections. And trust me, you will die. And become massively discouraged. It turns the game from a terrific jump-scare third-person shooter to a gut wrenching, horrifying survivalist marathon. Instead of just hoping you've got enough ammo and medpacks to get through each section and brute forcing your way through the game, you start to become paranoid. You don't want to make your first save too early, because then you'll have to beat almost half the game in one sitting before you can strategically place your second save. But if you wait too late to make your first save, you'll have to start all over again from scratch.
Everything turns into a guessing game, and knowing your playstyle well enough to know that you need to save before certain sections, and coming into every battle prepared. Half of my inventory at all times were medpacks -- it was getting pretty insane towards the end, where almost any time I got hit I would instantly use a medpack just to be safe.
Definitely recommend this game for those who enjoy the survival-horror genre, and I especially recommend Hardcore for a truly petrifying gaming experience. That being said, I need something light-hearted and friendly to play next -- this game as sapped the life from me.
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