What's the most unlikely scary gaming moment you had? I'm not talking about the likes of System Shock or Alone in the Dark but something more in the lines of getting a fright of Space Quest III. Here's my story: I was playing Space Quest III one night on our XT (monochrome monitor, yeah!). I was walking down the corridor of a wrecked space ship when suddenly a rat like creature fell down the roof causing me to press keys at random! Needless to say I never got far in Alien vs Predator!
AvP... oh god... (shudder)... the memories! A combination of drink, playing AvP for the first time, playing it in the dark, and wearing headphones made me come worryingly close to fulfilling the cliche of "I nearly S**t myself"... In terms of games that really did scare me - did anyone play "The Beast"? It was a big "Alternative reality" game that went on for a while, so you got disturbing and odd text messages / phone calls to give clues etc to how to progress. Getting one at 3am while still groggy from sleep made me spend a good couple of minutes completely convinced someone was out to kill me.
The original doom. Episode one no less. here comes the catch, i was playing it about a year ago when it scared me! I've played through Doom episode one a million times, i know it back to front. I thought I'd cleared a room of enemies then when i turned around there was a bloody pinky gnawing at my pixelated shotgun! um...yeh a bit embarrassin!
The first time i played resident evil 3 on my ps1, i opened a door and a zombie jumped out at me, i jumped and ran away. I refused to play the game ever again and i would watch my brothers play instead. Still scared the crap outta me.
I think AVP was the one that really surprised me for being scary - playing as Marine was pant-wettingly bad. Awesome games though, it's all about pred tbh.
Realms of the Haunting, nuff said. Though the scariest single moment was when I was about 8, I was playing a top-down shooter called Blastar. One night on my own in the house (my parents had popped out), surrounded by aliens and about to die, I started panicking and hit Spacebar for the smart bomb, which I hadn't used before. There was an enourmous bang, the screen went white, and everything went dark. Monitor, computer, lights, everything. I looked out of the window and every house I could see had been plunged into darkness. Scared me shitless, I honestly believed I'd overloaded the electricity grid and killed all the power. Don't think I ever played the game again, was too scared of its power.
AvP obviously, and a many-years-old original Doom conversion dubbed, quite fittingly, AlienDoom. AlienDoom was quite freaky! But the most unlikely game to scare me I would say have to be Zak McKracken, though it didn't scare me as such, it rather surprised the h**l out of me when I actually got open that door on Mars on time. Ah, good old Zak McKracken - when will it be remade I wonder.
It's mainly the points in games where it goes very quiet or the background music is of the 'there's something veeery bad ahead' sort. I played through the monastery level on Drakes Fortune last night and the music alone stopped me dropping off a ledge until it subsided a little.
Black and white2. Imagine the scene 0300 whole house is silent its a night cycle in the game, when quietly i hear my name being whispered! Ducking **** myself! Wrote it off as my imagination then a few minutes later the same thing... Took me ages to realise it was a cleaver feature of the game.
God, yes. ROTH scared the pants off me, to the extent I've never played it since. Not even tried. Resident Evil also ****ed me up as a kid, but AVP was one of the games which was the most oppresively scary I think. The Dark Eye was a pretty creepy experience. And Thief. Anybody who can play through Return To The Cathedral in Thief 1, or The Cradle in Thief 3 without getting freaked out is an inhuman monster tbh.
RE was I think the first true "Survival Horror". And with the camera angle and dark world, you didn't know what was going to happen. The part with the empty hallway and the dog jumping through the window almost gave me a heart attack. I know that part of the game made the Top 10 scarest moments in gaming. People still jump when they play that part even though they know it's coming.
Resident Evil was the first Survival Horror? Hardly. There were dozens of Survival Horrors before that - the original Alone in The Dark games for instance, which that dog section had been inspired by (except it was better in AITD where you could block the windows and provoke different outcomes). Resident Evil was mostly based on the earlier Capcom game Sweet Home. Survival Horror is a theme, not a presentation style. All Resident Evil did was establish the modern style through which the survival horror genre is expected to be presented. Games like Call of Cthulu (which is also bloody terrifying) are very much Survival Horror despite being FPS.
Eternal Darkness on the GC played tricks with your mind. Not exactly scary, but it's the one horror game that has stuck with me. Although now I think about it, The 7th Guest was also one of my favourites even through it was just a puzzle game with FMV sequences (the music was especially creepy - I want to listen to it again now, but I lent the disc to someone a good few years ago (maybe 10+) and I didn't have it back).
