I thought of writing about the most frightening moments I've had playing games, but I haven't really had that many. Sure there are plenty of games that have made me jump. I've also felt plenty of suspense during sessions of Resident Evil and Dead Space with the lights off. However, when all was said and done I was able to flick the lights off and go to sleep without any issues.
That is, save for one game. Only one game had truly managed to frighten me in the same manner as an H.P. Lovecraft story. No, it was not Eternal Darkness of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I've yet to play either of those games, as damaging to my gamer credibility as it may be. When I read a Lovecraft tale there's a chance I'll not want to shut the lights off before going to bed. Just the very notion of lying in bed in the dark makes me feel exposed to unseen and unspeakable horrors, even if I read it during the daytime.
Bioshock is the only video game to have spawned that level of fear in me. The conditions weren't even very frightening, either. I was sitting in my living room all the lights on with my brother watching me play.
I was wandering Fort Frolic, the area where you have to photograph men you've killed for Sander Cohen. I descended some stairs into an area that was, well, a large empty room. The only light came from the blue light of the ocean outside, painting everything within the room in a cyan hue. But for some water that had flooded the floor and a safe in the far corner of the room, it was empty. I walked straight for the safe, opening it to find some ok contents. Overall nothing too impressive. I turned around to leave and...
Wait, those weren't there before. Splicers. Painted white and covered in paper mache. They filled the room and were just standing there like mannequins. I knew better, though. I knew they were alive and waiting for me to step too close. One by one I shot them with the electric buck, dealing some bonus damage as they were standing in the water, until they all fell. Still paranoid, I began to walk along the wall towards the exit. I killed all of them, right?
I turned my head to the side just an inch, but when I turned back there she was. Another one. Where were they coming from? I blasted her as well, no real challenge. None of them were a challenge. However I felt as if I was running up those stairs for my dear life.
Looking back, it was a very simple trick the developers pulled on me. One second the room is safe, then when you least expect it there's a bunch of foes that weren't there before. Yet this is the true psychological concept of terror that made H.P. Lovecraft such a genius in horror. It's also why so few can ever match his genius.
Horror doesn't come with bloody imagery or stalking psycopaths in the night. It isn't when something jumps out at you with a high pitched burst of music. It comes when our preconceived notions of reality are proven wrong. When I stepped into that room it was safe and empty. As I prepared to leave it was no longer empty, but filled with things that couldn't have possibly gotten in there. At least, not without my knowing, right? The icing on the cake was that final one. The one where I turned my head an inch, and as soon as I looked back there she was. Standing in the water as some angel of death.
No game had ever freaked me out like that before, and as I prepared to go to sleep that night my mind trekked back to that one moment. I didn't want to turn out the lights. If I turned around, who knows what would appear behind me.
No game has ever done that to me before or since.
