gaming Any games that emulate hopelessness and desperation?

[cider float 2,539]

I found one game like that though I still found it rather easy but at least it emulated the feeling of being an untrained goof that found himself in a zombie apocalypse with nothing but weapons you find out on the street and that's Left 4 Dead 2. Other than that does anyone know games that give that feeling of desperation of fighting things that are far stronger than you or in greater numbers and all you got it a bat and a shotgun?

[Sky Knight 1,172]

Hmmm, a hopeless character who's pretty much useless? Or so it would appear?

[Kira Dogeikage 230]

I think in Don't Starve you seem hopeless, same with Dark Souls.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Jellal Fernandes

[Banul 3,831]

Well, its not a post-apocalypse game (in the sense that it has zombies), but Dark Souls is somewhat like that. 

[Ochre_Dust 329]

Silent Hill 2 perfectly captures the cloying dread of hopelessness, especially once you go past normal difficulty.

[Moonlight 7,288]

Anything from the Silent Hill franchise honestly.

 

If you want a game with your only "weapon" being a flare and a flashlight then Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is perfect, you're being repeatedly chased by monsters and there's no real way of killing them you can only stun them.

 

Regular-wise, go with Silent Hill 2 because it's amazing.

[Sky Knight 1,172]

The old Fallout games felt quite hopeless.

[Draxon 214]

I've never played it, so I can't say this with confidence, but I think Limbo is something along those lines.  There's definitely an atmosphere of isolation and helplessness in that game.

[Light Rain 64]

Team Fortress 2 always makes me feel hopeless and desperate.

[Daring_Do 552]

Man, this thread title sounded dark. Opening post explained it better, but going by the title alone, I thought...

[Will Guide 21,364]

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. My most favorite Legend of Zelda of them all. You are in a 3-day Groundhog Day-equse loop where the Moon is going to crash into the doomed land of Termina by the end of those 3 in-game days. You must play your magical ocarina to reset the 3-day loop before time runs out. You can bring back only major items with you when you do this. If you let the moon crash, you'll lose everything you could have save since the last "Save Game" point. This cycle will repeat over and over until you can get everything needed to stop the moon.

 

This game even has the theme of the 5 stages of grief, one for each region of Termina:

1. The people of Clock Town are in denial of the Moon imminent crash until the night of the final day when the town is almost completely empty.
2. The Deku King of the Southern Swamp is in great anger because his daughter was kidnapped and the swamp has been poisoned.
3. The spirit of a dead Goron Warrior in the Northern Mountains is begging even after death for someone to come and save his people from an endless winter.
4. The lead singer of the Zora band from the Western Coast is in deep depression because she lost her voice, her unborn children, and her (guitarist) Zora husband as the ocean's climate is getting dangerously unfit for her people.
5. The undead spirits in the Eastern Canyon cannot accept their afterlife and move on until someone can break the curse on a nearby temple.

There's a nice article that goes into more detail about this: http://www.zeldainformer.com/news/themes_in_motion_majoras_mask_and_the_five_stages_of_grief#.Va61z_lViko

 

The hopelessness of this game comes from the stages of grief I've mentioned above. The desperation comes from getting as much as you can done before having to reset the cycle, until you're finally able to stop the moon and break the cycle.

[cider float 2,539]

Man, this thread title sounded dark. Opening post explained it better, but going by the title alone, I thought...

Yeah but if you have the skill you'll feel like a badass wading through monsters several times your size or through armies of bloodthirsty zombies. Of course small mistakes means limping around which is a mechanic I really liked in L4D.

Edited July 21, 2015 by cider float

[gamecubeguy214 2,512]

Uhh.. Smash Bros? Because I read the OP and Smash Bros was what I thought of from what you said.