Playing Frightening games

[Theory5]

Hey, I just got Fallout 3 it looks like a great game. The only problem is that I dont like horror. Fallout 3 has mutants and other wierd things. The only problem is, I want to play this game. With Half-life 2 (and ep 1 2) I needed to keep taking breaks and stuff. And I still havent finished it. Is there a way to play frightening games but not be scared by them? I do watch futurama, the simpsons, family guy, and firefly on my portable DVD player as I play these games, but its not enough. Do you guys have any ideas on how to make it less fightening? Turning off the sound only works with movies, in games you cant hear people sneaking up from behind if you turn off the sound. I know there are these things that make flashing light at a certain speed and you stare at it which helps you fall asleep. Is there one that would calm you down?
(look on instructables.com for these devices, I forget the name of the device sleep aid or something like that)
Thanks,
Theory

Edit: a wierd thing though, is that I can watch stuff like bones and ER and all that, without feeling squimish at all. (unless it is mutilation like in the movie GLORY when they were cutting off that guys leg, I nearly passed out. Its not really the gore I dont mind gore) What got me thinking of this was the episode of bones where the state trooper fires tear gas into a captured meth lab to demonstrate to cadets why they dont fire tear gas into a meth lab.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Theory5

Do you guys have any ideas on how to make it [a video game] less fightening?

If you had access to the game’s source code and the appropriate compiler and build info, you could replace the scarey elements with silly/unscarey ones (ie: happy clowns, fuzzy kitties, etc.) though you’d have to be cautious, as sometimes such edits can make a graphic more scarey, and certainly more creepy, as all the happy/fuzzy stuff will still be trying to kill you.

More practically, you might check a source for game cheat codes. Some games have cheats that add comic elements, such a “big-head mode”, while otherwise not affecting gameplay.

A non-software trick is to keep some real objects visible between you and the screen – eg: a (small, obviously) vase of flowers; an action figure or two. Such objects serve, I think, to remind you that the two-dimensional image you’re looking at in the screen is not real.

Frequent pausing can also reduce one’s level of emersion in a video game – though IMHO, it adversely affects the gameplay experience.

[Theory5]

Thanks, Fallout 3 isnt as frightening as I thought it would be, its sorta like oblivion. (it IS made by the same people after all :-) The one thing I dont like is that you hear creatures before you see them, there are alot more creatures then humans. It has a day and night thing though.