What Scares *You* In Games?

[KingHodor]

The vastness of space.

Anyone play Freelancer and explore the Border Worlds after the main storyline is over?
That's what I'm talking about. Finally getting out of that murky particle cloud, only to realize that you are now exposed to the deadly radiation of the central star. Seeing an asteroid belt around a dieing Red Giant star that is littered with the melted wreckages of ships whose pilots were lured to their doom by the promise of rich diamond deposits. An unknown star system that apparently sits within a gigantic tunnel-like opening in a nebula with the system's star far away in the distance, and so on.

The X series (which I assume even fewer people have played) also has a bunch of spooky-looking systems, especially the hidden Kha'ak hives.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

So yeah - in games, anything with deep water, especially where I can't see bottom, *especially* where I may be attacked by a large monster makes me deeply uncomfortable. Even something as tame as WoW can do it to me.

I guess I've never given it much thought before but this also creeps me out as well, although it wasn't Half Life 2 that I remember it from.

I always freak out when there's any sort of swimming section with a monster in the water. The strongest memory would be Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, the area with the leviathan, mostly because TR controls were always bloody horrendous when in water. Dodgy controls, a giant ass monster and sheer panic don't make a good mixture. Actually, now that I think about it, that game had a lot of creepy stuff going on in it.

The sensation of being followed, and you think somethings there but you can't quite see it.

So totally this.

Also when a monster stops and just stands there waiting for you. Or even worse... when they point at you. FUUUUUUUUUU

There was also a brilliant moment in Silent Hill 2 that was so simple yet so terrifying... I was in the apartment building checking all the doors one by one (so I minimise the amount of time spent backtracking) and I came across one door that neither opened nor was sporting a "broken lock." Instead all I got was a small comment from James saying how it felt like something was holding the door closed from the other side. Of course it was just a scripted line of dialogue, one that wasn't even voice acted. I almost died regardless.

 

[xplosive59]

Having teammate's die in games like Valkyria Chronicles, Tactics Ogre etc.

 

[Product Placement]

-Snip about a scary voice in a room in Silent Hill 2-

I didn't hear anything in that room, but at the start when you're going down that long path to the town from the car park, I swear I heard weird noises following me! Made me feel uneasy as hell and I'd barely started!

You heard correctly. The developers purposely put in a sound of a second set of footsteps, as you were running down that path. The secondary footsteps walked at a different pace than your character did, to insure that people would notice it. If you stopped walking the sound of the other steps would stop as well and continue again every time you'd start walking.

That game used allot of sounds to fuck with people. You were always hearing things but you couldn't see it. That's what made it so scary.

 

[MammothBlade]

Freaky monsters appearing out of nowhere. That gives me quite a fright. Sadly most games don't really exploit this horror to its full potential. Dead Space does it somewhat but you get used to it, System Shock 2 did something brilliant with Shodan's appearance (I only watched a youtube video), Deathclaws in Fallout New Vegas were pretty scary at first.

VtM Bloodlines had a few moments, especially in the sewers. Though the dumb AI took the edge off. How am I supposed to be scared of something so retarded? Oh yes, and the hotel level. That was quite terrifying, I didn't think ghosts could be so scary.

Things I can't see, things I don't expect, they really scare me.

Deep water for one for me too. I don't like swimming sections in general.

On a side note, Bloodsuckers from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Fuck those guys.

I second Bloodsuckers, its the sound they make that freeks me out, i also hate snorks because they aways jump out of those dark places in tunnels.

Urgh yes. That was the first time I was scared in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. On TOP of the poltergeists...

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

Anything meta-like or related to hallucinations. Eternal Darkness freaks me the hell out.

Some examples of the things that it does:
Bring up a save file deletion screen when you go to save your game, and appear to delete your files, even if you say no.
Simulate bugs crawling on the screen.
Turn the screen black, as if the TV was off.
Inexplicable adjust the volume of the game.
Show the picture you see when you start up the game.
Show a fake sneak-preview of a sequel.
Show a blue screen of death.
Disable your controller and tell you it's unplugged, even though it is, as you walk into a room.
Appear to empty your inventory.
Give you an abundance of ammunition, only to have it disappear once the effect's over.
Lock all of the doors in a room, only to have them unlock after a period of time, unless they're supposed to be locked.

 

[Voulan]

Also when a monster stops and just stands there waiting for you. Or even worse... when they point at you. FUUUUUUUUUU

I HATE pointing enemies. Especially ones that gasp when they see you and are all, "there you are! I've found you!" I really hated those alien abominations in the Fallout 3 Mothership Zeta DLC. I don't know why I find that so scary. Another example is the staff members in the infamous Cradle mission in Thief Deadly Shadows. If they catch a glimpse of you, the whispering voices make this really loud gasping noise, and its horrible.

Also spiders. Spiders, spiders, spiders, spiders.

 

[TrevHead]

Not been able to see where the monster is but you can hear it. Then BAM it's in front of your face.

Fear of death is another favorite.

Height.
The fucking bridge in HL2 almost kills me every time.

I don't like heights IRL but only 2 games have made me scared of falling, Tomb Raider 1 on PS1 and Dark Souls

I really need to replay TR1 as I can't remember what made me scared of falling when later games including TR2 didn't have the same effect, was it the scale of the drops, or simply the first time i'ld played a platformer of that type. Or did TR1 allow Lara to walk off the edge, which was changed in the sequel.

 

[gideonkain]

I was surprised so many people held the same fear as me.

Screw you, Ichthyosaur.

 

[dark-mortality]

It's always the lack of monsters, or any creatures and beings at all for that matter that gets to me in games. I will just take a quick scene from Silent Hill: Homecoming *It has SOME good scenes*

It's in the "Abandoned" hotel, where the singing lady resides. Nothing in the game scared me before, and nothing scared me after, but that singing threw me off completely. I suddenly became scared to proceed, feeling that the singing was the only thing protecting me. I several times went back to her door just to hear her song again.

Amnesia didn't as much scare me as it more made me anticipate too much. Sadly enough, it quickly became obvious when monsters would come, so most of the scary parts disappeared... Except for the catacombs... Fuck that place and it's non-existant hiding places.

Going underground in STALKER: Shadow Of Chernobyl was always a nightmare for me. I don't have clausthrophibia, but yet I couldn't stand the extremely tights spaces down there, made me jumpy. Might have to do with the fact one was always used to see the sky.

But anyway, as I said, it's the pure emptiness that often scares me the most, which is something Silent Hill 2 nailed down. Yes there was creatures there, yes there was other humans, but none of that made me less anxious. Heck, I felt MORE in danger the first time I met Eddie! *Fuck you too camera* And half the time, the monsters don't even care about you, like you don't exist... Which obviously means they are plotting my demise.

And at last, a shout-out to the first hunter-battle in Half-Life2: Episode 2 and the bridge scenario in Half-Life 2.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Monsters I can't see.




and the one thing that will make me NOPE and go sit in a brightly lit room for hours on end, not daring to sleep?


Ventillators. Artificial lungs.

Weird thing is, these were terrifying before I started smoking. I'd like to take a quick aside here to say, FUCK YOU SILENT HILL 2 HOSPITAL. FUCK. YOU.

I love that game and hate it in equal measures.

 

[Starbird]

Props to people mentioning Doom 3. Say what you like about how it started the 'startle frights in dark rooms' style of modern horror games, the first third of that game scared the hell out of me. Not because of the jump frights, but because of the amazing audio tricks and really well executed spooky sequences (the bit with the woman and her baby...urgh D.

 

[Spector29]

Mine would be similar to the deep-water fears as well, but expending them to in-game fish in general.

The sharks in the first KOTOR scared the hell outta me.

Also, beign out-of-bounds. This might have something to do with running into far to many screamers in my early years, but everytime I'm out of the game world (IE: No-clip, general glithes) I'm terrified I'll run into something horrifying.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Spiders.

And women.

And spider-women.

 

[SoranMBane]

Being pursued by something that you can't fight. The bear from Condemned 2, Slenderman from Slender, the Hunter from Dead Space, the shadowy figure from SCP-087 (known officially as SCP-087-2), and even the antlion guardian from Half-Life 2: Episode 2; all of these things are perfect examples how to stress me out. Slenderman and 087-2 are the worst, though, because in those respective games death is inevitable. Not only can you not fight them, but you know that they will come for you and they will kill you, you just can't know when or where. Anticipating death is way scarier than being surprised by it, and it's that anticipation combined with the helplessness of being hunted by something that can't be killed that turns those two games into the perfect storm of fear for me.

 

[eternal-chaplain]

I'm with you- nearly all of my fears in games are based in water. I stopped playing Twilight Princess for days because I was too afraid of the murky lake and whatever creature was in the middle of it...
Resident Evil 4 held a similar case, with the worm creature in the lake and whatnot.
I just cannot handle the murky waters of lakes and oceans.

 

[Ninjat_126]

So yeah - in games, anything with deep water, especially where I can't see bottom, *especially* where I may be attacked by a large monster makes me deeply uncomfortable. Even something as tame as WoW can do it to me.

I've got that in real life as well. It's not just water, it's the lack of visibility: fog, long hallways, lots of blind spots...

SCP Containment Breach was a nightmare for me. Absolute nightmare. Awesome nightmare though.

 

[prophecy2514]

wallmasters from OoT - pwah. these scared the shit outta me when I was younger.

But nowdays any game where you are well equipped to deal with any monsters that come your way i.e. any modern horror shooter, I find not scary at all. For reference I would define "Scary" as being emotionally struggling with the situation you're facing, to the point where you'd consider to stop or behave irrationally.

I will admit though that things with tentacles tend to be more "frightening" to me than other stock standard horror enemies.

 

[Erttheking]

I came here to say deep water as well.

How 'bout that, huh?

Makes sense since I get pretty edgy around deep water in real life too. I mean, if you can't see the bottom then there could be anything down there.

Oh thank god I'm not the only one.

I never finished Majora's mask. I looked ahead in the strategy guide, saw that there were GIANT FUCKING SEA SERPENTS, and said "fuck this shit"

Also that giant eel in that level of Super Mario Sunshine that you fight underwater while slowly running out of air? "sobs to self" MAKE IT GO AWAY!