Scariest video game moments...

wol-va-rine said:
my guess is the Agroprom Underground (that's what the map is called in multiplayer) was one of them, IIRC that's where you find Strelok's PDA and where you first encounter a controller, which scared the shit out of me, so much so I ran outside without even killing him...lol
Click to expand...

My scariest part in the original Stalker was making it up that hill with your psi-blocker helmet to turn of the Brain Scorcher, fighting Monolith and then those crazy mutant ghosts would run at you and disappear. Making it in was easier than getting out...you have to fight like 40 monolith to get out of the underground lab. Pretty scary stuff...

But yeah I know that part in the Agroprom underground..you think you're home free to the tunnel exit after killing all those enemy then bam...the controller zaps you .:p
 
The single scariest moment in a video game me for the cathedral level in Thief. Jesus Christ
was that unnerving, and the fact you couldn't just blast your way through everything (unlike, say, Doom 3, or Fear) just made the experience really frightening.
 
The first half hour of Doom 3 scared the absolute shit out of me. Once you realize how predictable and weak the enemies are it loses it's edge, but those first engagements were terrifying.

Playing as a Marine in AvP and AvP2 was also terrifying. I'd really like to see AvP2 redone in the new engine. The new AvP looks great but it just doesn't feel quite right.

Dead Space was creepy but there aren't any moments that really stand out besides being chased by the invincible monster and it was so slow that it wasn't much of a challenge.

I just finished FEAR 2 and it made me jump a few times, but not nearly as much as the original.

Also, I was in middle school when Resident Evil came out. I rented it on a friends recommendation and I shut it off when the first zombie turns its head. I had to rent it again just to actually play the game :p
 
Dead Space 2, chapter 10. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, but if you play through the first game, that chapter is 10 times as scary. I had to put the controller down and take a break because it messed with my head so much.
 
Amnesia: The Dark Descent, literally every second I have been playing it. The storage room and also the sewers are some specific moments that were absolutely horrifying. I'm currently in the sewer I had to save and exit.
 
MiG29TangentBoy said:
Oh yeah. I recently played Amnesia. Being chased in the water by some invisible...thing was kinda freaky. :eek:
Click to expand...

Did you play with headphones? If you did and stood still you could hear him walking in the water and almost feel his presence in your computer chair. The game has an insane sense of putting you there and fucking with your head.
 
F.E.A.R. no doubt had some really freaky moments. I remember playing this back in college in the UK dorms. There is one part in particular where you're go down the ladder, and as your character auto-turns around, you're looking at the feet of that little girl! And when you freak and slide down the ladder, you turn around and that dude is right in your face! And of course he floats away in a cloud of ash. I'm pretty sure I peed a little.
 
The scariest part of the FEAR games for me was in, I believe, Perseus Mandate. There are these blood pools on the ground, that when you step in them, something reaches out to pull you. Actually, some kind of shriveled-up entity reaches for you and pulls you into its pool... The first time that happened, it really freaked me out. I wasn't expecting that at all, and just unloaded on the thing with my assault rifle. I avoided stepping in blood pools after that...
 
Obviously Amnesia is a game designed to scare the crap out of you (it's on hold right now for me). Also, The Void (also known, appropriately as: Tension) in the beginning when you don't have many tools for dealing with enemies... never did finish that game...

As for good presentation of suspense but not necessarily 'scary':
The opening level of Unreal was pretty good. The monster that you never quite got a good look at that was killing every other survivor. The only reason it wasn't really scary were the non-totally-gloomy environments and how well armed you were.

And the scary parts of HL2 were pretty good, as has been mentioned. But most games arm you so well that you're only 'surprised' before you blow the scary thing to pieces.
 
It definitely enhances the scare factor on a game when you have to maintain tactical gameplay to stay alive when it hits the fan. That's one of the biggest reasons I think Clive Barker's Undying was scary (and fun) and Jericho was not. In Undying I swear the developers counted the bullets you needed to kill enemies with head shots and then gave you one extra per level. It added major suspense when you were exploring new areas with only enough bullets to fill a six shooter. Do not miss.

Jericho on the other hand threw this gameplay out in favor of Serious Sam style circle strafing with thousand bullet-per-minute gunfights and ammo just falling from the sky. How on earth they expected build suspense when you kill a hundred brain dead enemies every minute without a break is beyond me.

As much as I hate to admit it, games with check points tend to be scarier than games with quicksave too. Adding the risk of losing chunks of progress raises the stakes and adds just that much more anxiety to the game. This being said I still hate checkpoints; that whole saving system should have died with the need to save on memory cards.
 
FEAR, the demo scared the crap out of me. The part where your coming up the ladder and she is standing right at the top.

Amnesia, the whole thing. The part that scared me the most was when I was randomly walking around and I stepped on that fleshy stuff (not knowing that it hurts you) and it hit me. I freaked out, thinking "its right behind me ahhh!!!" and ran to another level where I hid for a while.

Penumbra, the first time I saw a monster, It was just a shadow coming towards me down a dark hallway. I was so scared that I couldn't get the door (which I had been standing right in front of) open for about 10 second which seemed like and eternity, I finally got it open, hid behind some boxes and just sat there for about 5 min trying to recover.

Boishock, really wasn't a scary game but there was one part that just scared the piss out of me, I was going back around looking to see if I missed any thing, I had just entered a medical area when down a small flight of stairs I saw a plasmid sitting on a medical cabinet. I ran down there and grabbed it, turned around and there was a guy just standing their, wrench raised to smash in my face. I screamed like a little girl.
 
Recently bought Crysis 2, Homefront, Bulletstorm and a few others. Scariest part was seeing my credit card bill :)
 
When I turned on the Xbox360 and it showed 3 red lights.... :p

I would have to agree that the original Alone in the Dark scared me the most ;)
 
The most scared I was when I played the aliens (movie) TC for Doom... yeah, it was a while ago lol :D
 
Cathedral and Shalebridge Cradle from the Thief series. And the level with all the stone golems...

I think the atmosphere in the Thief series is unmatched.
 
Krenum said:
Doom 3 Mirror Scene (Through my headphones off and ran out of the room. Looking back its not that scary by today's standards but I was playing it in the dark by myself with headphones on and this game looked so realistic when it came out).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJB8GdlG6UY
Click to expand...


Goddammit, now you have me wanting to break out Doom 3 again....

I personally loved the game. Glorified tech demo maybe, but it was still great fun and had some really really scary visuals.
 
Not scary in the traditional scary sense, but I thought the guys inhabiting the swamp in Risen were very intimidating. Like walking into a camp of Hells Angles. I thought they were pretty bad dudes! Some of those guys wouldn't think twice about taking you out.
 
Resident Evil 1 for PS1 (very 1st time playing the game)

You watch the intro which is pretty gory for its time. Then you walk in the front door of the mansion and close the door behind cause the infested dogs are chasing you ...
so finally your heart rate goes down and inside the mansion it seems all normal. Then i walk north to a door, which leads to a long corridor with huge windows on the right side and desks to your left. As I walked down the corridore the FUCKING same dogs chasing me jump throuhg the fucking glass and scare the shit out of me to the point I jumped back and dropped the control , grabed the control paused it and turn on the lights in my room...LOL...

Also Silent Hill 1 was even scarier at times, but RE1 had better gameplay!
 
NastyNative said:
Resident Evil 1 for PS1 (very 1st time playing the game)

You watch the intro which is pretty gory for its time. Then you walk in the front door of the mansion and close the door behind cause the infested dogs are chasing you ...
so finally your heart rate goes down and inside the mansion it seems all normal. Then i walk north to a door, which leads to a long corridor with huge windows on the right side and desks to your left. As I walked down the corridore the FUCKING same dogs chasing me jump throuhg the fucking glass and scare the shit out of me to the point I jumped back and dropped the control , grabed the control paused it and turn on the lights in my room...LOL...
Click to expand...


The exact thing happened to me haha. Those damn dogs!
 
Silent Hill is by far the creepiest game I've played. Being outside in all that fog, and then the radio starts to make that noise and you can hear beating wings, not knowing what direction its going to hit you from. Also, walking around in that dark school with nothing but that flashlight and turning around and seeing those demon kids.
 
sugosugita said:
guys come on, System Shock 2? Where you walk down this hall, look through a sealed window into another hall and this zombie alien guy is chasing this human down and they go off camera and then you hear screams. I was like oh shit.

that game was fricken scary.
Click to expand...

I remember playing that game with a friend and about pissed my pants. The mommy bots / iron maiden like things.. ugh.

"For my little ones... *static/distorted* I'll tear out your spines!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LjtSogs0qM&feature=related

Creepy game!

Also Bioshock creeps me out.. the circus of value!
 
Last edited:
Krenum said:
My two scariest moments

Resident Evil 1 Dog Scene (Dropped my damn controller and died)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGx-miGbF-Q
Click to expand...

Lol, this is the very first scarey experience in video games for me from what I can recall. It's crazy how this game was so damn scarey with it launched, but now it's comical when you go back in play it. Games have come a long way in this regard. Like OP cited, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (I've only played CoP so far) had a lot of good atmosphere in this regard.

For some reason, this part in F.E.A.R freaked me out pretty good. When I got there, I just stood there staring at her waiting for her to do something like come through the glass at me. I didn't want to go around that corner with her standing there, lol.

Pretty much all of Silent Hill 1 (sequels are creepy too, but none have surpassed the first, IMO).
 
Playing the original Aliens vs Predator at a LAN party at my house with some friends. Regular deathmatch, can't remember the level name. I'm an alien, my friend was a Marine, and my brother was a predator.

I'm in predator hunting vision and out of nowhere I hear a strange sound, moments later, I exploded. Jumped outta my seat and screamed in terror. :)

My friend was laughing so hard, he could hardly fire straight after that.

Of all things, aliens? nope. Predators with the cheap boomerang of death and spikes? nope

A Colonial Marine with a rocket launcher, normally easy prey.
 
Man what memories of borrowing my cousins copy Resident Evil 1 and playing it at night. Classic!
 
Can't remember the game, either Doom or Quake, this pink spidery thing with long sharp legs. Running around with a shotgun, had to jump from a ledge to a pool to get away. I'm underwater,the damn thing had jumped in after me, gah
 
I'm glad someone else included Phantasmagoria in this thread. I remember playing that game when I was about 8 years old and it was the scariest game ever. Of course, I wasn't old enough to play it by the rating systems. I would just sneak onto the computer after my brother who was much older was on and play. When the demonic-sounding music started going and the first time I saw one of the cutscenes were the wife dies ...particularly the one where the wife dies from choking to death eating entrails.... That was truely disgusting.

Modern day games are so mild compared to what Phantasmagoria got away with: rape, torture, murder + torture, etc
 
serpretetsky said:
crawling through half life air ducts first time. Headcrab jumped at me, i didn't have my flashlight on.
Click to expand...

That was probably one of the ones for me too, not scary but definitely startling.

I can't remember the name of it but there was one scary game with a mist and ghostly things in the first map...creepy.
 
The hippo king guy in mike tyson punchout...lol...

Actually System Shock the original for me....maybe I was just the right age, with just the right lack of responsibility to give it all in to a game, maybe smokin a dube...don't remember, it's been a while...but man, crappy graphics and all, scared me silly.
 
I had no problem with FEAR. I enjoyed the gameplay, though.

The first STALKER had the couple of parts which were scary, I guess. Again, amazingly amazing gameplay, though.

I keep meaning to get Clive Barker's Undying.
 
Can't believe no one mentioned the original Diablo yet, that's the first thing that came to mind.

AHHH, fresh meat!

That scared the crap out of me as a child.
 
CryingGod said:
Can't believe no one mentioned the original Diablo yet, that's the first thing that came to mind.

AHHH, fresh meat!

That scared the crap out of me as a child.
Click to expand...

I remember watching my brother play, and running to hide during any of the big boss fights.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top