Frightening moments in games

[Twed]

Mine are mostly going to be non-frightening games.

Star Fox (Wing) on the SNES scared me a lot, there was just a lot of weird shit.

https://youtu.be/L1iVfSObKDE?t=263 Why the weird chanting as the boss appears

The weird Asteroid parallel dimension secret: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUSpqMtTMWU

It was really fucking spooky. The faces. The music being When The Saints Come Marching In for some reason. A big floating slot machine. And then being trapped in permanent "the end" limbo. And for some reason I got it into my head that sometimes instead of THE END it would say "BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER".

[Noodle Lizard]

The Night Folk in Red Dead Redemption 2. Random encounters with mysterious, silent voodoo zombies in the swamps. Not something I think anyone was expecting in a Western.

I also found the Pyramid level in N64's Goldeneye pretty scary as a kid, with Baron Samedi cropping up over and over again with that laugh. Again, not the kind of thing you'd really expect from a game like that.

[Blue Jam]

The "Touch to calibrate psychoscope" bit in Prey. Dr Calvino, you absolute fucker...

[popcorn]

The bit in Deus Ex when you're hours into the game and armed to the teeth with guns and power-ups, and then you get an anonymous message from a scary robot voice: "I now have full access to your systems."

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It seems like it would be redundant to mention good old Pyramid Head, being as he's something of a horror icon. His scariest moments aren't the cut scenes or boss fights though, but when he creeps up on you during normal gameplay. There you are, minding your own business, then you turn a corner and see him walking quietly towards you, spear held aloft, looking to give you a poking. It breaks all the established rules and shatters any sense of safety you may have fooled yourself into feeling.

[beanheadmcginty]

Swamp monsters in Moonstone that appeared with a church organ blast. Every time I was so frozen in terror I couldn't react and got immediately swallowed into the mud.

[madhair60]

The bit in Deus Ex when you're hours into the game and armed to the teeth with guns and power-ups, and then you get an anonymous message from a scary robot voice: "I now have full access to your systems."

Good sweet christ, that's me reinstalling. Deus Ex is so fucking good.

[Twed]

Even though it's 2019, when you install Deus Ex do you still worry that it will run really slowly or need a specific graphics card or you'll have to install GLIDE or something?

I remember having a good old nostalgia play of Black and White around 2015 and it STILL ran like shit.

[The Boston Crab]

Some really frightening moments in Death Stranding when it gets a bit splishy sploshy and inky. Looks staggering, too.

[Twed]

scary thing happens

playing luigsi mansion? big ghost!

[C_Larence]

Quantum Conundrum. A previous gen puzzle game designed by someone who worked on Portal. Got it for free on PS+, don't remember anything about it other than one of the "rewards" for completing the game being an option on the main menu, which when pressed opened up a screamer (like those old videos that used to go around online with her off the exorcist) with an image of a character from the game. No need for it whatsoever, especially as I was playing it with headphones on at god knows what time of night.

edit: Found a clip. The option on the menu was called "Do A Thing"
https://youtu.be/p0749tKumdY

[BJBMK2]

I literally still have nightmares about the Redeads from Ocarina Of Time to this day. Ever since getting my dad to play through the Shadow Temple for me, while I cried in the corner.

Even finding out the shit tingling scream they emit when they look at you was just a stock sound effect with some reverb added, still diden't do anything to diminish there power.

[Thursday]

Ah you've reminded me... Yeta from Twilight Princess https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoSJamj0TUc

[Utter Shit]

That first moment where the Licker runs past the window in Resident Evil 2 on the original PS. Shit me right up.

[Glebe]

Probably loads I can't think of right now, but Heavy on the Magick could be fairly nerve-wracking... when one of the door indicators on the map started flashing to warn that a monster was approaching... even your helpful mate Apex the Ogre would cause damage if you made contact with him. And when you'd summon a demon for advice, it you took too long, if was "You waste my time, to the furnace with you!"



The first time you encounter a zombie in the first Resident Evil is a bit of a chiller. Oh, and as for the Silent Hill games, plenty of bizarreness in them...

[madhair60]

Honestly? This weekend a very early bit in Luigi's Mansion 3 where I had Luigi peer through a crack in the wall so it went to POV, looked around the room for stuff only for a screen-filling gold spider to WALK ACROSS THE CAMERA with a little scary music sting.

I'm not arachnophobic but they got me good.

[H-O-W-L]

Even though it's 2019, when you install Deus Ex do you still worry that it will run really slowly or need a specific graphics card or you'll have to install GLIDE or something?

I remember having a good old nostalgia play of Black and White around 2015 and it STILL ran like shit.

In case you have any issues with it, Kentie's Deus Exe will make DX1 run better than 90% of modern games.

[Cerys]

HUGE FUCKING HEAD!

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

"You're a big head."
"For you."

[Norton Canes]

When the 16K RAM pack wobbles just as you're about to complete 3D Monster Maze

[Phil_A]

The Lost City level of Thief really spooked me the first time I played through it, the sense of isolation and the feeling you were getting further and further away from recognisable civilisation the deeper you went was really powerful. It helps that the level maps are absolutely vast so you really feel a daunting sense of scale.

[Jim Bob]

The Lost City level of Thief really spooked me the first time I played through it, the sense of isolation and the feeling you were getting further and further away from recognisable civilisation the deeper you went was really powerful. It helps that the level maps are absolutely vast so you really feel a daunting sense of scale.

Ah, yes. Good shout. That's a very memorable level and perhaps only equalled by the Cathedral level in terms of spookiness, in what is already a very spooky game.

[Phil_A]

I agree with you to a point re: The Cathedral, but I do think having to do a really long fetch quest in the middle takes the tension out of it somewhat(your mileage may vary). That moment when you grab the Eye though and all the haunts in the vicinity immediately go into overdrive, ohhh shit.

Oddly I never found The Cradle from Thief 3 all that scary, I think maybe it was a victim of hyperbolic games journo writing in the early 2000s. By the time I got to play it about ten years after that, it was a bit like "Oh, is that it?"

[Pink Gregory]

I played Wind Waker before Ocarina of Time so the WW version of the ReDeads shat me up something proper.  The black holes for eyes and the exposed gums, also the noise they make sounds like elephants

Obvious choice but walking under the lake through that enormously long tunnel in Silent Hill 2 in complete silence.

[Jim Bob]

I always felt that Thief 3 is when the series went "commercial".  It lost the singular vision and raw creative energy of the first two games, I felt.  The 2014 reboot was the nadir of that corporate dissolution.

I consider Thief 3 to be when the series went "commercial", so to speak.  It lost the singular vision and raw creative energy of the first two games, I felt.  The 2014 reboot was the nadir of that corporate dissolution.

The first two games have such a unique atmosphere and identity.  Though they were made by a team of people, they come across more like the fever dream of a singular, messed up man's diseased mind.  Nothing beyond the second game has been able to recapture that vibe.

[Phil_A]

I consider Thief 3 to be when the series went "commercial", so to speak.  It lost the singular vision and raw creative energy of the first two games, I felt.  The 2014 reboot was the nadir of that corporate dissolution.

The first two games have such a unique atmosphere and identity.  Though they were made by a team of people, they come across more like the fever dream of a singular, messed up man's diseased mind.  Nothing beyond the second game has been able to recapture that vibe.

Yeah, Thief 3 was massively compromised on the whole, the biggest thing being how the maps were chopped up and dramatically scaled down to appease the memory limitations of the OG Xbox. There are also aspects that feel underdeveloped or unfinished, like the broken faction system and the fact Garrett has gone from being a competent swimmer to instantly dying if he so much as steps in a puddle. They also crippled his climbing abilities, therefore dispensing with one of the great joys of the original games - finding ways to get to places on the maps the designers never intended you to reach.

I can't say I got no enjoyment from it, but it was always tempered with feeling of disappointment that it wasn't what it could be.

[Jim Bob]

Garrett has gone from being a competent swimmer to instantly dying if he so much as steps in a puddle.

"I'm melting! Melting! Oh... What a world, what a world!"