Games and Fear

Happy Halloween, game folks. There are a couple of creepy-themed game articles floating around the web today, and they're all lists ... disturbingly. eToyChest gives us the top five most horrifying moments in games. Next Generation offers a ten-point guide to inspiring fear in games. And finally, GameTrailers.com has an entertaining top ten scariest games list, complete with video. Even if I don't agree with some of their placements within the list, I think their #1 is a pretty accurate pick.

Scariest game moments

[RingDev (879105)]

Max Payne, the crying baby hallucination level... scares the crap out of me still.

And the first time I played Quake 1 home, alone, in the dark.

-Rick

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[justkarl (775856)]

Quake was pretty scary the first time. Diablo, when I played it for the first time, seemed pretty scary(I think it came out when I was only about 14.)

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[sammy baby (14909)]

The sound was all that level had going for it, though. The "running through the trail of blood" puzzle was just annoying.

On the other hand... man, the sound was freaky.

Remember the Alien TC for Doom?

[El_Smack (267329)]

I don't think you hit an alien till about the 3rd level, but it was in a dark hallway and he came out of a hidden spot.
I think I crapped my 256 color, 320 x 240 pants.

Fear the F.E.A.R.

[creimer (824291)]

F.E.A.R. is a scary FPS. The horror did sag a bit in the middle by not being there as much. I'm going to finish playing and get the expansion pack.

F.E.A.R. and Doom I

[jgoemat (565882)]

That and when walking in the office building I turned a corner around a cubicle. It had been a long while since I had seen the girl and wan't thinking about it one bit. I swivel to check out the cube for anything of interest and BAM, she's there crawling like that creepy chick from 'The Ring', only faster.

One of the scariest moments I've had in a video game was also playing Doom I. There was an Aliens mod that replaced the monsters with different aliens from the movies, and replaced a ton of the sounds

my scariest video game moment

[JeanBaptiste (537955)]

looked something like this

.......
.......
..@.c..
.......
.......


Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 3.6).

Re:my scariest video game moment

[ConceptJunkie (24823)]

Pshaw! Now this is scary: ....... ...D... ..@D... ..DD... .......

Now I have to add a whole bunch of text to get around the lameness filter. Of course, if it were truly a lameness filter it would, in fact, filter itself.

Still waiting on GT

[XxtraLarGe (551297)]

But a couple of the scariest moments I can think of come from first person shooters. Like the discovery of the Flood in Halo, or in Unreal where you walk down a hallway and all of the lights systematically shut down, leaving you to face a Skaarj in the dark!

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[SQLGuru (980662)]

I'd say in Half-Life in the reactor with that gigantic green spiked tentacle. With the lights off, speakers on full, and no one else in the house. I spent a good bit of time cursing that stupid thing.....I was out of grenades and couldn't distract it, so I had to do it the hard way.

Layne

My personal scariest

[Red Flayer (890720)]

Well, one of TFAs is not responding, another requires flash...

But I will say that there is NOTHING scarier than "It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

Because eventually, if you keep messing around in the dark, it's going to happen... and only your imagination limits how terrible a grue is. This game experience was why I demanded my parents install a nightlight.

Bloody flash sites!

[Deagol (323173)]

Oh well.

I haven't gamed in a good many years (the occasional hop onto the 'family' PC to play my kids' copy of The Sims doesn't count), so I'm sure I've missed out. However, the only *truly* frightening experience I ever had was while playing the Doom TC Aliens conversion, in the dark, with a good set of headphones. I can't count how many times I jumped while playing that game, or held my breath while I hesitated to turn a certain corner.

So, to anyone who remembers the Doom mod I mentioned above.. do

Half Life 2, Ravenholm

[El_Smack (267329)]

Hearing those skinless howler money things come ratling up the drainpipes *still* freaks me out a little.

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[sdaemon (25357)]

no freakin' kidding.

HL1 was, until HL2, the most immersive, pulse-pounding FPS-with-a-storyline I'd ever played. HL2 outdid it in every way.

Ep 1 was pretty darn good as well. Looking forward to Ep 2!

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[sammy baby (14909)]

Yeah... although I have to say that as soon as the level started, I groaned a little. "Crap. Another one of these "scaaaaary" levels." I'm tired of them.

And since my computer is pretty much obsolete, the worst thing about the steroid zombie things for me was that by the time I heard one, I knew that my framerate was going to drop to 1 frame every other seconds. *Screeeeech* *rending and slapping sounds, with accompanying slide show*. "Whoops. Guess I'm dead."

I've got your scary right here...

[Morphine007 (207082)]

Picture it: 2am in a thunderstorm after having drank WAYY too much coffee. It's exam routine for finals, and you're playing Metal Gear Solid 2:Sons of Liberty... you're hopelessly addicted to it, and desperately need to finish the damned game so you can get some studying done... you're near the end and... the game starts going all crazy.

Suddenly the screen turns itself off and then on, and then the colonel says "You've been playing the game a long time, haven't you?"

I nearly had a fucking heart attack...

AITD, DOOM3

[cHALiTO (101461)]

Lots of scary games, but I particularly remember playing Alone in the Dark, well... in the dark, and the music and ambiance was excellent despite the old graphics. More recently, doom3 is scary in a different, monster-suddenly-jumps-out-of-the-shadows-when-yo u -least-expect-it kinda way.

Alien vs. predator also comes to mind.. when the motion sensor starts beeping faster and faster and you can't see a thing and before you know some aliens are kickin' the hell out of you.. just like in the movies (first two I

fear

[Stormwatch (703920)]

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Thief: The Dark Project

[Chuckaluphagus (111487)]

I was playing Thief on a stormy night with a cheap 4.1 speaker setup, because you need some reasonable positional audio for Thief. On the second level, where you're trying to get into the prison through the abandoned mines, I came upon a decayed corpse lying on the ground. First in the game, mind you. After waiting a moment at the edge of the room to see whether it would rise up and try and eat my brains (as decayed corpses are wont to do in such situations), I decided everything was safe and walked right over to it and looked down to see whether it was anything interesting.

That's when it chose to jump up and take a swipe at me. I screamed bloody murder and yanked the power cable from the back of my computer, turned on all the lights in the apartment and didn't turn the damn computer back on until the next day. For serious immersion in a game, Thief is amazing. Much, much more interesting than most of your regular first-person games. Like a lot of people here, I am a huge fan of Half-Life 2 and Ravenholm, though.

Doom II

[Bigbutt (65939)]

The Downtown level I believe. I climbed that one lone tower about half way back. I got to the top and experienced some acrophobia and a lurch of panic in my chest as I got close to the edge that first time. That's probably the only time I was actually scared in a video game.

Man, that was great!

Carl

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

[balthan (130165)]

The Ocean House Hotel was one of the creepiest areas I've ever played in a game.

Original Half-Life

[Thornae (53316)]

This is the only game that made me empty a whole magazine into something I knew was dead, just because it scared the crap out of me.

Evil story: Years ago, I moved into a sharehouse with a couple of friends. One of them hadn't played HL yet, so I set it up on his machine and left him to it.
A couple of days later, I came home late at night and saw that the door to his room was open.
He was playing one of those freaky bits where you're crawling through badly lit ventilation tunnels, and headcrabs jump out of the dark. He was hunched over the keyboard, right into it, with headphones on, with his back to me...

Naturally, I did what any good friend would do. I sneaked up behind him, grabbed his shoulders and yelled "Hi, Mat!" ...

He didn't speak to me for a week.

One of the best horror games ever: Anchorhead

[ChaosDiscord (4913)]

It's "just" a text adventure, but it's reach, convincing, creepy, and free. I highl recommend Michael Gentry's Anchorhead [wurb.com] . Your husband has just inherited an old family home from a relative he didn't know he had. You've just moved to Anchorhead. Your husband has gotten a position at the local college. You have a simple task: head over to the real estate agent's office and pick up the keys for your house. Unsurprisingly things go downhill as it turns out that your house and the town have a dark past.

For anyone new to interactive fiction, you'll need a free interpreter. I recommend Gargoyle [ccxvii.net] on Windows or Linux and Spatterlight [ccxvii.net] on Mac OS X.

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[sdaemon (25357)]

so how do they pronounce "id" on your planet?

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[LordEd (840443)]

So you were 12 and played a game rated M(17+) [amazon.com]? Somebody's parents didn't check the rating.