This is my list (in reverse order, so least scary is on top):

3) Porting down to Baal with my D2-Hardcore-Sorc and ending up in fanatism/cursed/extra strong frenzy Mobs
2) EA taking over Mythic Enterainment
1) Paradox releasing a new DLC

Stuff I remembered that scared me on PC that would qualify -

- The "lights out" moment towards the end of the temple in Tomb Raider 2, when all you hear is the yetis. It comes after a quiet section, but it's still somewhat unnerving, particularly once they burst out of their cages.
- The run up to The Master in Fallout 1 as the dungeon gets more and more organic, culminating in talking to The Master himself. Great atmosphere, there.
- Being dragged down into the tree and, earlier on, the unescapable geometric hellthing in Alone in the Dark. That series can be more goofy than scary at times (I distinctly remember the highlight of 2 being swordfighting ghost pirates in a Santa suit), but the original has some tense moments.
- The Africa section in Gabriel Knight 1, particularly the climax.
- Resident Evil's 2 "Licker Interrogation Room Mirror" bit. This one still gets me due to the timing of it.

More recently, Bioshock Infinite's jumpscare - you know the one if you played it.

Clive Barker's Undying have very scaring moments, the sound alone in certain places is enough to leave the player very nervous

Silent Hill was always enjoyable for a good scare and would love playing during the month of October.

I would say year 2000 is the upper limit to what constitute a classical PC game, obviously you can stretch it by a few years, hence have no real problem with F.E.A.R inclusion but Outlast was released 6 years ago (I'm not saying it's a bad game just that it isn't old enough to be a classic).

For me Goosebumps Attack of the Mutant always scared the pants off me when I was younger.

Realms of the Haunting is another good one.

Manic Mansion also gets me even now lol.

I didn't get the impression you thought it was bad. I was really more honestly curious about where you were placing it that kept it out of "classic" range and the explanation you gave makes sense.

I think tossing around "classic" is a bit like "iconic", myself. It's a word that's diminished in impact the more people slap it onto things, to the point where it seems less like a word of importance as time moves forward (with this thread's title being no different - if you were to hack out "classic" from it, it'd serve the same purpose).

Just wanted to say that it's nice to see another article like this among the two-sentence things thrown there haphazardly as news posts for quite some time now.

Otherwise, don't care for horror stuff, so just definitely adding a +1 for the hotel in Bloodlines, but couldn't say about others since I haven't played them and don't care to.

About a definition of "classic" though, 10 years should be a bare minimum age threshold...

Yeah especially the Catacombs levels.

I also recall the part in Silent Hill 2 when going down the stairs for 2-3 minutes towards prison underneath Toluca lake. That feeling of fear and anticipation of what awaits there and what is about to happen.. it was more scary than confronting demons and monsters later on. Great atmosphere from start til finish. Love it.

I haven't played that game, but I can relate to what you're saying.
For me, pure tension has always scared me much more than monsters and ghouls, so my favorite pick is "Thief: Gold". That game legitimately creeps me out every time I play it. At some points, the tension is too much to bear, so I have to walk away from it for a few hours to get calmed back down. The audio track also greatly enhances that experience. Thief is also my favorite game of all time, but that's for reasons of gameplay. The scare factor is just a nice bonus.

BioHazard/ Resident Evil : dog + window.
Nuff said. :p

I prefer this one :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXXoq3yr4eI

Back when I originally played it as a child IG-88 in Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire comes to mind...

Now that I replayed it here I beat him rather easily though. Aside from that both Shadow Man and The Suffering not so much scared me as they gave me a sense of dread, because both convey the feeling that you are isolated in a universe that consists almost entirely of violence.

Outlast and FEAR didn't get to me. Both very quickly establish what to expect of the scares (in FEAR they are mostly harmless and in Outlast it is pretty clear what monster can or cannot do).

In the past, I didn't like to play games, that featured zombies, mummys or similar ... so it was very hard for me to try games like Dangeours Dave in Haunted Mansion or Doom. And later Painkiller. However I did play games, that featured skeletons :)

The games I played were mostly arcade (CD-MAN), arcade beat'm ups (Golden Axe for DOS), arcade shooters and SHMUP (Raptor, Baryon, Major Stryker, different iteration of ), platform games (like Skunny games, Jazz Jackrabbit, Prince of Persia 1 - however this was hard and such type of games), some strategy games (Dune 2, C&C 1) and shooters, that didn't have many monsters (Dark Forces, shareware Wolfenstein and later Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, Medal of Honor and Call of Duty 1, 2, Modern Warfare...).

I really don't see it. Whatever atmosphere there is, is instantly destroyed by the horrible 'actors' and the cheesy dialogues. Calling Phantasmagoria horror or creepy is like saying that The Room is actually a drama with good characterization.