Atmosphere in games

Can we get a general thread about atmospheric games and atmospheric moments within those games going? Moments when environments, visuals, music, story etc come together really well. I tried this on Holla Forums the other night but the results were fairly shitty.

My examples would be:

- Morrowind, specifically when you disembark at Seyda Neen.

- FF7, when you leave Midgar for the first time, and Midgar in general.

- Myst and Riven.

- System Shock 2.

- Bioshock: Pretty much all of Rapture was atmospheric.

- Deus Ex in the Hong Kong canals district. Eerie as fuck.

- The town of Silent Hill, naturally.

- Arcadia and various other areas in Dreamfall and The Longest Journey.

- Halo: ODST, the noir feel of the city and the music.

- Grim Fandango at various points, mostly the year skips.

- Baldur's Gate 2, when you get out of Irenicus' dungeon at the start and find yourself in Waukeen's Promenade in busy Athkatla.

- Thief II, in the 'life of the party' level. Skipping across the rooftops of a medieval steampunk city.

- Deux Ex: Human Revolution - Entering Adam Jensen's apartment for the first time.

atmospheric

Dark Souls unironically

Fuck that, post games with zero atmospheres

obligatory stalker post

Oblivion

RE7 honestly
most of the way through the game

Escape from Innsmouth part.
Fucking awesome

Gotta agree, it's quit elovely how everything looks like it was lived in, somewhere beyond it's glory days but without being entirely in ruin, barring it's denizens who are just falling into shambles.*

Ctrl+E yourself

*Then that one dude in a cosplay build comes along as an absurdly powerful phantom but you don't care because ninja-flipping Gwyndolin punching hollows in the face is pretty neat.

-Super Metroid
-Super Mario 64
-F.E.A.R
-Postal 2
-Vice City
-Ghotic
-Might&Magic 6
-Far Cry
-Pathologic
-Jurassic Park Rampage Edition
-Jurassic Park Operation Genesis
-Penumbra
-Silent Hill
-Resident Evil mostly the laboratory parts though
Shitton of moody games actually

Kings Field does it better though

Oh yeah, Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun also.

It made me felt like I'm walking through Springfield in a Rated R Simpsons episode.

Backwater desert town full of crazies, its great.

Half-Life 2

The garbage island in LISA really worked for me. A floating garbage patch being portrayed as a chilled out beach resort is a good idea on its own, but it being the happiest area of the game is such a nice contrast. Very soothing. Gave me curse of monkey island vibes.

>Ctrl + F S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Disgusting

See

-Machinarium
-ECCO the Dolphin
-Shadow of the Colossus
-EVO: Search for Eden

Rayman 2 is great stuff

I didn't really think the original was that atmospheric, but I can sort of see where you're coming from. Prior to the mutant monkeys it was actually kind of eerie at points.

The only good thing Skyrom managed to do is atmosphere in caves. And that the only thing.

I disagree. I like the characterization of minor NPCs, however minor. It made the world feel significantly more lived-in than Morrowind.

The Metro games do a great job of displaying the lived in hell that is the Metro.

Also can't seem to loose my boner for Freelancer's music and levels, even though the actual game world is very tiny compared to pretty much every other space game the music and Visuals somehow manage to get accross some kind of vastness that others rarely do.

I think it has something to do with the fleshed out on-planet menu screens and backdrops. Regardless of what a clusterfuck SC may/may not turn out to be, Roberts is bang-on when he talks about that whole desire to "step out of the cockpit" you sometimes get in a space sim. Freelancer didn't deliver that, but it at least gave the impression of it.

The skybox in this game is great. I like how you can see Gastown in the horizon from pretty much everywhere in the map because it provides great perspective on your progress. It's worth a pirate if you can actually get it to run.

Down in the Bonehoard blows that level out of the water in terms of atmosphere.

Tiberian Sun best Sun
KANE LIVES

Too bad the gameplay's absolute dogshit

Trigen are part of it
Being lost on an archipelago while these things and Mercs roam it on a jungle is great.
Going from being hunted by 5 of them and shooting them point blank with a Jackhammer in the face at night and them silently taking out an Merc outpost which houses an underground lab full of Trigens that's ominously popping out of the jungle with industrial bright white lights is fucking great and the cheesy plot kind of helps with it, like watching a B movie with some decent atmosphere.

It woulf be even better if it had something like embed related.

The driving bits are genuinely fun. The game needed to scrap the walking bits though. Just give me like 50 more caravan missions and we'd be golden.

...

I never played it, but for some reason it reminds me of Flashback.

Spacehulk: Deathwing
Although it might not have been the amazing masterpiece I was hoping it would be, the atmosphere is fucking great

...

Age of Wushu really nailed the wuxia feel. Strange mountain hermits giving out powerful techniques at random, court eunuch cults stealing player dicks, secret tablets containing techniques that require hundreds of player kills to train, every detail and event goading players towards PvP like the world was conspiring against them, friends were temporary and enemies were for life. The game sucked but it had great atmosphere.

I remember seeing a certain clown play it,was nice.

Really? Vtmb oozes atmosphere. Like the starting city of santa monica, as well as the apartment when its raining and you're just listening to the radio or t.v.
Also, new vegas has a really good dusty atmosphere, especially with the tunes on.

I always felt Santa Monica was the high point of the game, and the sections of the city went downhill from there.

Santa Monica was definitely the high point of the gameplay but Hollywood was the high point of the atmosphere.

Thief (The Sword), Demon's Souls (Latria 3-1), and Morrowind (Azura's coast + Telvanni cities) would be my top picks


I prefer DaS1 overall but Demon's Souls had the superior atmosphere.