Michael Grimm, cheats and guides editor
These days, it takes a lot for a game to affect me; the slightly less surly 12-year-old version of myself, less so. Thanks to my open-minded grandma, 12-year-old me had a pipeline to the latest M-rated games on the market. The original Resident Evil was one of those games, a much-coveted birthday gift that I assumed would be a fun, gory romp through a zombie-filled mansion. Soon after booting it up though, my little brother and I realized Resident Evil was something far different.
The somber music, isolation, and limited resources created a palpable sense of dread and fear in us. Add to that the brutally explicit death animations for your character, and there was plenty to disturb our young minds. In fact, the game so disturbed us that we’d routinely leap up and hit the power button when a new enemy appeared, out of fear of seeing our character decapitated, eviscerated or some other verb-ed.
The peak of horror came at the first boss, though: Yawn, the giant snake in the attic. Having glanced through some gaming magazines, I knew that the boss was there. I knew that once I opened this door, it was on. And I couldn’t do it. I’d load my save and just stare at the door. I’m not particularly afraid of snakes or anything, but something about that boss was just too much for me to handle. I ended up having to get a friend to press the button to open the door for me. The jaggy string of polygons that composed that snake isn’t much to look at today, nor was it at the time, but RE left a lasting impression on me like no scary movie or story ever did.
Sophia Tong, managing editor
I tend to avoid scary games, because I get scared easily and it takes me awhile to recover from the subsequent nightmares. I know that there are a lot of excellent games I'm missing out on, but even when I play with all the lights on and very low sound, I still get freaked out.
My scariest moment would have to be the dentist's chair in BioShock. I knew that the game would raise my blood pressure, but I really wanted to see the story. I had my brother play for me, thinking that it would be less scary that way. When I played on my own, I stayed in open hallways and never wandered into bathrooms, but when he took over, he was much more thorough. I remember screaming and falling off the couch when he walked into a room that WAS empty, but when a burst of smoke came down and a dead body appeared on the chair after it cleared, I knew it was over and had to leave the room. I've been meaning to go back, but I still haven't gotten over the shock.
Tyler Nagata, senior news editor
Lorenzo Veloria, cheats editor
If you ever want to know whether you, as a person, would be good and level-headed in a crisis, take a look back at how you handled the village in Resident Evil 4. Walking through the woods leading up to the village and finding disemboweled corpses, axe-wielding psychopaths and deadly traps sets the tone for just how deranged a place Leon stumbles into. Soon after Leon discovers the murderous townsfolk burning a pile of corpses in the village center, they attack, forcing Leon to barricade himself in a house.
Never in my life have I done so many things wrong in such a small amount of time. The townsfolk were breaking in – through the doors, the windows, everywhere. I frantically wasted all of my pistol and shotgun ammo trying to hold back the horde. I was surrounded and backed into a corner, when the door came down and a chainsaw-wielding maniac ran straight for me. My knife did little to prevent the most gruesome and frightening beheading I’d ever seen in a videogame. If I’ve ever screamed while playing a game, this is when it happened.
Annette Cardwell, digital content director
Amber Fariss, production editor
Tailing the guy, I see him turn the corner. Right as I turn the same corner, he’s disappeared. I see a mask made out of twigs on a desk and go to take a closer look. The lights flicker, and as soon as they stop, an unfamiliar shadow appears on the wall in front of me! I turn around, and there’s a splicer standing there facing me. He says, “Hello, beautiful,” I jump in my seat and fail to shoot him in time before he disappears.
Matt Keast, reviews editor
Out of the fog, beyond the guard rail, a shape emerges, arcing through the air as if fired from a catapult. It looks like a giant dead spider, with legs curled up over the body. It hits the ground with a thump. Here the game has cheated, just a bit – your radio hasn’t gone off with its white noise to warn you of the presence of monsters. It’s a great trick, because otherwise it wouldn’t have had the same impact. There’s just something about the way the silence remains unbroken as this grotesque, bizarre thing just floats up out of the mist and thumps on the asphalt. Then, of course, your radio does kick in, as the thing unfolds, gets to its feet, and you realize it’s a mannequin. Such a simple, amazingly creepy moment and a wonderful way to take a known enemy and reintroduce it in an alien way to keep you off your footing.
Hollander Cooper, news editor
But the experience changed me. From that point on, I shot every single corpse I came across for fear that it would happen again. It made things more difficult, since I’d always be short on ammo, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t getting caught off-guard; I wouldn’t let it scare me like that ever again. Even in the game’s sequel, which released over two years later, that haunting memory stayed with me, and I continued to check every body.
Now that we’ve let you in on our scariest memories, what are some of your own? Let us know in the comments below.
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