Okay, way back in the mid-90s, I had never seen Doom before, and I was watching my friend play it. Most of the time the monsters and soldiers were pretty obvious, they were out in open spaces and you could kill them from afar. But there was a narrow maze that was on one of the levels that at first is a puzzle in itself as you try to make your way through it - but all of a sudden a monster is RIGHT THERE, and I just about screamed like a girl.
That’s pretty sad.
Also, the first time I saw a Licker in Resident Evil 2 I was creeped out for the rest of the day.
Oh yueah, and there have been various creatures in the Tomb Raider series that have caused me to have to take a deep breath before venturing into their realm each time, including dinosaurs, yetis, tigers, and sharks.
At one point, one of the early missions in the Marine portion of AvP2:
Your job is to scout out the facility, and activate the generators, prep the landing field for the drop ship, right? I’d gotten onto the landing pad, when suddenly, my motion detector begins to make with the *eep-eep * sound. Something is MOVING!
I arm my pulse rifle, look around, furiously. I see nothing. I hit the light. Nothing. I track the movement as best I can… five meters… four meters… I’m approaching slowly, being careful – be just my luck, there’d be a durn facehugger running around, and —WHOA! Three meters… two meters… one meter… what the hell? I’m standing dead still… and the tracking device says there’s motion… but if there was, I’d be STANDING on it… can’t be a Predator, and an Alien would have tried to eat me by now…
…then it hit me. I looked UP.
There was a chain twirling in the breeze overhead… just enough to set off the motion detector.
I think it was that level that had one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard in a computer game. There are some other marines in other parts of the facility, and you can hear their radio chatter. At one point, one of the other marines starts saying, “Please say that’s just a boot. Please say that’s just a boot.” Followed, a few seconds later, by, “Hey, it’s a boot!”
For some reason, that kills me every time.
Well, that’s how I remember it, anyway. It’s been years and years, so I might have gotten confused.
And I had to buy a cheat book to get through the game.
I had the exact same experience. That had my heart racing for quite a while. Stupid Chain!
Ditto the bit about the Boot. Going down through the facility was damn creepy.
And of course, I love that part when you come back to the facility to signal the dropship and when you alive, the entire area is covered with that Secreted Resin they cover their nests with. Not to mention it’s dark as hell. That game was fricken great for so many reasons.
No I’m sure you’re correct I don’t remember trying to burn it. I just remember not opening that coffin or going around it when I did open it on accident. I didn’t use a cheat book but I did quit it for over a month because I couldn’t figure some things out (turns out I needed to cast a spell on the globe in that one room. Darn thing)
First time I was eaten by a worm in the Immortal I jumped a bit. Does anyone remember that game? It also had one of the best scenes in any video game. After drinking a shrink potion a troll could come by and step on you. It wipes its foot off after.
Trying to get Pools of Radiance:Ruins of Myth Dranor on my D: Drive was a frightening experience.
an honorable mention should go to Sacrifice though not scary there’s a creepy part in the end if you followed the God of Slaughter. He asks if you want to become his avatar and destroy the demon that’s currently in that position. Here’s the conversation you have.
“Charnel, death isn’t always the answer” You
“Yes…torture has it’s merits too” Charnel
“Exactly” You.
Made me feel like an evil bastard for sure.
KCSuze: (still not spoiling the ending per se, but here’s how to see it: )
[spoiler]First off, you’re going to have to get the Heather Beam/Sexy Beam weapon. To do this, you need to kill 333 monsters in any number of replays (you know, like a New Game+). This will give you the Heather Beam. Entering the costume code “PrincessHeart” will give you the Transform costume (worth a laugh in and of itself), which will let you use the Sexy Beam, which is more powerful than the Heather Beam. These weapons use stamina rather than ammo, so they’ll wear you out. Find a place to rest, though, and all’s good.
After you’ve done that, start a new game. You’ll need to kill over 33 monsters with the Heather Beam or Sexy Beam (it may help to use the Beam exclusively) before you reach your apartment.
[/spoiler]
I’ve played, and have felt my pulse increase, by many of the games that have been mentioned so far. Especially the Silent Hill and Resident Evil series. It sounds as if I should really check out Alien vs. Pred. as well…
Anyway, I wanted to ask all of you esteemed game fanatics if any of you have played The Suffering?
I almost bought it about a week ago because it appears to hold some of the creepiness factors I adore, but I haven’t heard much praise for it…
Perhaps I’m alone on this, but I have to list Perfect Dark.
Playing a deathmatch 1-on-1 with a DarkSim was pretty damn frightening. That feeling was intensified with both music and radars off. Running through the Facility (or whatever it was called in PD) while hearing doors open and shut in the background is nerve racking. And those damn sims always had a way of jumping right in front of you as you ran a corner (I yelled out loud at least once).
The AI, too, was impeccable (for the time at least). As an example, in most first person shooters, a player can simply camp and wait for the computer player to come and find you, then promptly get his ass kicked. However, in Perfect Dark, the sim would actually stop coming after you if the player tried such a tactic, forcing the player to go and fine the sim. That was never fun…
Exactly. Wolfgang wanted Gabriel out of the way. Plus their poses were too extreme for me to buy them as mummified corpses; some of them were standing upright in postures of movement.
(And I have the book, too. I love that series entirely too much. The second book went out of print before I even realized it existed, though, and I’d dearly love to read it some day.)
When you first meet the Tyrant in Claire’s half. That back hallway is already kinda creepy, but the last couple of times through it’s been only annoying crows. Then that huge ugly mofo is suddenly THERE. I don’t remember if he crashes through the ceiling or not. And the fact that he moved so slow made him even more scary!
I read it and it was pretty good. Unfortunatly, I didn’t buy it, rather got it from the local library.
I don’t think they made one for the 3rd game though, even though I enjoyed that one as well (I seem to be the only one. A lot of people seemed to hate the 3rd game. I agree with them that the jumping puzzles towards the end were a pain, but otherwise I felt it did a pretty good job).
I never played the third one, but I loved the first two. Especially the second one, which is one of the very few computer games I ever played that did FMV right. Plus, there was enough homoerotic tension between Gabriel and the Duke to power at least three Pride Parades. Couldn’t believe I was seeing that in a video game at the time, although, of course, they didn’t go anywhere with it.
I was disappointed to hear they brought back Tim Curry for Gabriel’s voice in the third one (They did bring him back, right? Or am I high?) I like Curry well enough, but I thought his accent in the first one was awful.
I’m going to second the worms in Immortal, and add yet another vote for Half-Life’s headcrabs and just about anything you do as the Marine in AvP1.
A couple other things which deserve mention…Undying’s been mentioned already, but I can’t believe no one said anything about the family portrait. Use of Scry at the right spots in that game will disturb your friggin’ sleep patterns, mang.
The opening scene in Nightmare Creatures II, where you see your protagonist cowering from the voices from his head on a filthy mattress and stroking his ax for comfort, is quite creepy. (If you’ve never played the game, don’t. It’s a horribly repetetive brawler/mindless item-hunting game. And, once you see an asylum inmate being allowed to keep an ax as a comfort item, it’ll totally destory your ability to suspend disbelief.)
Much of Galerians was too badly acted to reach up to its full creepiness, but when Mother gives up talking nicely to Reon during the FMV and shows her true face…that was shudder-worthy.
As an aside note, when I was a lil’ guy the first boss on the NES Legend of Zelda used to freak me right out. I remember having nightmares about him. Seriously.
Ooh, here’s a great one: the game Sanitarium had all sorts of creepy moments, but one of the levels is a town where there are only hideously deformed children, and no adults. There’s something terrible in the schoolhouse… and something even worse in the barn.
…oooooWEEEEoooo…
But the scariest thing is the way the kids don’t seem to mind what’s happening to them. They’re glad to be turned into mutant freaks. And they keep talking about their “mother,” but they clearly aren’t all siblings… The way they talk to you is very Village of the Damned. Fantastic voice acting.
I disagree. I thought Curry did a wonderful job. I also never played the third game. The second was buggy as hell. At first, I could only play to the end of chapter four. Then, I downloaded the patch. None of my saves were compatible after that, and I had to start over. Now, I couldn’t finish chapter one.
The only MP game I’ve ever been scared by is Natural Selection, the RTS/FPS mod for Half-life. It isn’t as much the case anymore, since games are generally faster, but back in the day there was a fair amount of stuff like sneaking around as a marine hoping not to be seen so you could build a phase gate for your team, and them you turn to sneak a glance over a balcony and a skulk leaps right up over it and chomps your face off. There also used to be more giant doors, so you’d be walking through this hall following your teamates somewhere, and all of a sudden something would trigger a door and it would close in front of you, cutting you off from your team. You can’t see what’s going on, but you hear your teamates screaming on the mikes as biting sounds are heard, and then their mikes cutting out. Then the door opens, but there’s nothing to be seen other than their dead bodies. Then, from somewhere, an alien voice chuckles…
That and the first time I saw an Onos: turning the corner of a U-bend, charging straight for as I uselessly emptied an entire clip into it… and then it ATE me, digested me and POOPED ME OUT.
I’m playing through Thief 3 atm, and every friggin’ level seems to have at least one heart attack. I just got to a ship crawling with undead and had to quit for a bit. The guy that does the sound in the Thief games is a genius!
This is most definitely lame in comparison to what everyone else has mentioned, but I found the ReDeads in The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time to be creepy. That weird moaning sound and the way you freeze when they start coming towards you and how s-l-o-w-l-y but surely they came after you . . . I hated the well, too. I found the well to be creepier than the Shadow Temple, even . . . Especially the mini-boss at the end! Just . . . AUGH.
I know this may sound really lame, but I have a slight fear of heights. While playing Everquest one night, I was following a group through some really high mountains. After hitting a zone edge, I had misjudged how close to a ledge I was and fell off. It took 3 seconds for my character to hit the bottom. My heart was racing the whole time like it was actually me falling off that cliff instead of pixels.
