Videogames Scariest Titles

[Crisp_Rapper]

Aliens Vs Predator as a marine, probably beats them all though. Genuinely, unplayable at times. I shat my pants. When you first venture out of your cabin into the basically pitch-black corridors, at the game's opening...bloody hell .

i stopped playing... it was just too scary, i wussed out and started playing as the Alien.

marine is evil, you wander about, hear some scuttling, check your motion tracker *beep* *BeEp* *BEEP* BEEEEEEEP* then there's this thing about 7 foot tall hurtling towards you along the wall screeching and making the most horrible sounds, you turn to run but you know you've got no chance, you try to track the thing as it scuttles along the wall towards you....

[Reef]

Dungeon Master always scared the crap out of me

(Remember I was only six or seven)

Running away from the purple worms down long twisting corridors when all of a sudden you turn and...

WAAARGH

You've just ran head first into four mummies who are now screaming at you. This was definately a mid-80's pre-cursor to the DOOM panick people have mentioned, when you just run as fast as you can shooting in all directions.

Choosing the scariest game nowadays - easy PROJECT ZERO. Still building up the courage to go back to it.

[dataDave]

Resident Evil was never really scary for me, apart from #2 when you had the T-00 following you around on the scenario B. Playing that for the first time was crazy - especially since he could smash through the pre-rendered scenery, you never knew when he was going to turn up. A great concern when low on ammo.

Silent Hill 1 whilst taking mushrooms will probably always stick in my head as being one of the most scariest moments of my life - 1st time on SH, first (and last) time taking mushrooms. I can't remember much from that experience apart from the whining hospital wheelchair on its side.

"What's this doing here?"

Indeed.

[Lyris]

Wow... I've never been scared by a game.

[Lebowski]

Tomb Raider: A strange one this, hear me out...

When this first came onto the scene, I bought this game and Resident Evil 1 at the same time. I put on RE, and the dog incedent happened, and although the odd occasion I managed to jump out of my skin, the rest of the time was spent aimlessly wandering around corridors. However, Tomb Raider, through fantastic use of music and background effects immersed me in dark tombs, and really gave off that "holy ****, i'm in deep" feeling. Unforgettable for me.

i know its strange but, once i was playing TR and was totaly imeresd in looking around the level for clues and this fekkin dog jumps at me, because i wasent expecting it as i thought the room was empty, it made me jump and i nearley droped the pad,

ive never really found the resident evil games that scary its more anticipation because your low on ammo and not wanting to run into enemys.

I rember a game on the amiga when i was about 8 or 9 it was about zombies in a shoping center, it was an into the screen adventure and you had to wander around the shoping mall and find your way out, it worked really well because you had to controll the spred of the zombies and when you killed them you had to put them in a frezzer.

it had some very scary moments to, one involved wandering out side and parking a truck across the door of the shoping mall (one of your caricters would almost always get killed doing this as there were hundreds of zombies outside the center. Anoter involved wandering around a dark bacement trying to get the power back on, when you run into the zombies in the dark, some scary stuff and some very inovative puzzles. if i rember rightley you excaped in a helicopter in the end hmmmm

[Treble]

I remember, I played the original PSOne Resident Evil with a mate whilst stoned. We figured the calming influence would help us with the puzzles (which it did), but we were unprepared for the fact that, as we were so relaxed wandering round killing things, the big shocks made your heart leap up even further than usual. Great stuff.

I agree with MJ: Silent Hill 2, the bit with the gallows.
hivers:

Snatcher on MegaCD is actually quite scary in parts, as it's so atmospheric. There are a couple of parts where you think you're getting stalked by the reptoids (or whatever they're called) which are tense and unnerving.

A good few of the Castlevania games have some scary moments, with (in particular) the SFC version and SotN being standouts.

The game I found most unsettling (even though it's not the scariest mentioned, by any means) would be D2.

Discovering the wrecked plane, with the eerie music cutting-out, then seeing the slaughtered bodies of all the passengers, before the dead stewardess starts coming towards you, still running through her in-flight babble.

The sexual undertones of the dead grandfather wanting to see 'his little Jannie'.

Near the end, Jannie being melted into a puddle on the floor whilst she begs for your help.

Having only just discovered your Mother's mind inside a computer, having to destroy her whilst she screams "Kill me, Kill me, KILL ME" at you.

I really want to play Fatal Frame now. Does that make me odd?

[Commander Marklar]

Exhumed - Great atmosphere in that, certainly got my pulse racing

[cassidy]

Doom on the 32X was my first experience of it and it was pretty intense.

Then Doom on the PS1 and it was mine and my birds first flat together only a 1 bedroom place with a living room, now she used to turn in for the night on went Doom up went the stereo. 5 mins later she sneaks into the room sneaks behind my chair and WAH! Im on the celing, cheers for that one love.

It was my scariest gaming moment ever those babies whailing a big kick ass Demon, then the missus jumping up behind my chair.

Resi for PS1 also got the old adrenal glands working overtime. Never had I jumped so much as THAT Corridor THOSE windows and the DAMN dogs.

At the moment though unsurpassed in its terror inducing skills is Project Zero, the music damn eerie, the ambient effects on my 5:1 are terror inducing and then you spy a ggggghost. AARGH. I really cannot manage more than a hr at night. It scares me that much I keep repeating to myself its only a game, its only a game, its only a game

Am I alone in finding those headless spirits the most unsettling, even some of my photos are bloody scary to look act.

I just thought of a new hook for the sequel

"Know Terror"
"Know Tecmo"

[Corrupt Rose]

I'll tell you what scared the crap out of me as a kid... Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga. I can't pinpoint the exact reason that it scared me. Maybe the monsters. Almost certainly the music, and all set off by the Psygnosis trademarked artwork (I can't remember the name of the guy that did the front covers, but I love it).

Brrr.

I was probably around 7 years old, and it was bought for me for my birthday, and I remember my mother being quite disappointed when I refused to play it... although I still have the T-shirt that came in the box.

---

I've got the game sitting on my computer in ADF format. It's been there for weeks. I'm not sure whether I should play it or not, because of the danger that it's not going to be anything like I remember it being, and my fear of that game is one of my defining videogame memories.

I don't want to wreck it... but the nostalgic side of me wants to experience it again. But in my heart of hearts, I know it's just not going to be the same...



- Corrupt Rose

[Tom Salter]

I'll tell you what scared the crap out of me as a kid... Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga. I can't pinpoint the exact reason that it scared me. Maybe the monsters. Almost certainly the music, and all set off by the Psygnosis trademarked artwork (I can't remember the name of the guy that did the front covers, but I love it).

Did you read the manual for that game? it had the best back-story ever, and certainly went some way to creatying the atmosphere

[Corrupt Rose]

I did indeed. I've still got the manual at home, in my storage area (somewhere), so I'm going to dig it out and try and refresh my memory. I remember it being quite a grim tale, actually... Somewhat worse than you normally get in videogames nowadays, but once again, this perception might be wrong because I was younger then.

It was certainly on par with the Psygnosis 'Barbarian' game (not to be confused with the head chopping one by... somebody else). That game had a great atmosphere too... I remember the bit in the story about the dragon that you'd have to defeat, but it was forever trapped underground, having grown too obese to leave it's lair, from feasting on human flesh.

Another Amiga game that scared me (although it wasn't all that inherently scary... perhaps I'm confusing it with Panic) was The Killing Gameshow.


- Corrupt Rose

[Baz]

Gotta be Alien vs Predator 2 on the PC (never really played the 1st one).

I started a game as a marine and couldn't play past the first half hour or so of the game - it was all too frightening. I was worried about getting a heart attack or something.

I've never had to stop playing a game altogether before then.

[Saurian]

I know this is bait but the most prang I have ever been in my life was when playing Silent Hill. The 1st time you go into the school was terrifying, especially when it started to mess with your head with the sudden sounds, phone call etc. Even tho the place is still proper creepy it's such a relief to get out of there, even if it's just back out to the bleakness and fog - ANYTHING is better than being in there!

[Corrupt Rose]

Creating fear in computer games is quite a hard thing to do, and I think an individual has to be open to it. My girlfriend is seemingly immune to horror. Ringu. The Shining. Silent Hill. Fatal Frame. HP Lovecraft. She can sit through any of these for hours without flinching (she only really does the slow, adventure-esque games and puzzlers).

She just doesn't understand what I find frightning about them.

For me, if I get hold of a game that's supposed to be frightning, I read a short horror story first. Sit in a dark room after taking a cold shower, and let my mind run rampant. Then I sit down, turn the console on, and leave the screen/sound off for 30 seconds while the obligitory loud, atmosphere shattering manufacturer logo gets itself out of the way.

Always play with headphones, and big, over-ear ones at that. It isolates you even further from the outside world. During the quiet moments of the game, you can hear your own muffled breathing, and you're pulled even further into the game, as your own bodily sounds merge with those in the game...

And that's just the start of it...

But then again, I'm the kind of person who walks the backlanes by night, hoping to finally confront the things that always used to terrify me. It's my mentality. I always remember the longest journey in the world was from my lightswitch to my bed at night. I was convinced there was something there, watching. When I held my breath, it held it's own. Just out of touching distance.



- The Corrupt Rose

[overlord uk]

The only game that has ever actually scared me (as opposed to simple shocks that AvP did so well) was System Shock 2. Now I've got a full 5.1 speaker set and an EAX card, and since this game has the best audio of any game I've ever played, it makes it terrifying.

The scene, deck 3. After killing a few hybrids in the corridoors near the elevator where you first enter the level, I duck into a quiet office and start rummaging through the desks, and play a few log entries that I hadn't listened to yet. I hear a clanking noise coming from my rear speakers, but think nothing of it, putting it off as background mechanical noise (it was difficult to hear over the log entry). I finish playing the logs, and turn around...

"I'll tear out your spine."

I was on 4 health at the time (I had been relying on the matrixing chambers rather than health hypos), and one very quick slash across the face from this utterly terrifying cyborg woman with the most hideous face was enough to kill me. Now I'd not encountered the cyborg midwife back on the engineering level (you had to go down a small gravlift that I hadn't spotted), and so this was my first encounter with one. I seem to remember yelping when it happened, and I laughed my arse off afterwards.