Tater Tot Terrors: Games That Scared You Shitless as a Squirt

[fancy]

I saw my brother the other day and we ended up reminiscing on this PC game that scared the living hell out of us as children. We never could remember the name of it, but the premise was basically this: You're a pig collecting pellets a la Pac-Man and these really fast horses are chasing after you. What terrified us was the squeal the pig would make when they caught you.

Of course, the game doesn't sound so terrible now because I'm a grown-ass adult, but that's the thing about being a kid: your imagination coupled with a brain that is still making sense of how the world actually works can make things so, so much worse.

So tell me about your moments in childhood where a game had you spooked. This should be fun!

 

[Jason Tandro]

Oh man, the Zork games, especially Return To Zork. Apart from the creepy music from the game, the ever-present Grues that appear in all the dark places of the game (literally any Infocom geek will respond to the phrase "It's dark." with the phrase "You are likely to be eaten by a Grue...") literally were the main subject of my childhood nightmares until I was like nine.

Also... the death screens in Return to Zork:



Those eyes freaked me out so bad I would literally just exit out of the game before they came up.

Edit: I just realized that I used literally three times in the above post. However I meant them all literally, at least.

 

[fancy]

For whatever reason seeing the death door had me remembering the

Spoiler: First Zombie

from Resident Evil. Wow, repressed childhood memories indeed. Ah! And those fucking spiders!! I'd watch my cousins play those games and had nightmares for ages.

 

[trash panda]

Silent Hill. I saw my brother play the original one (I think it was the first one) and there were these tongue monsters on the walls. Nope. Nopediddynopenopenope. Never played a horror game ever again in my life. I played Parasite Eve once or twice and even that one gave me high blood pressure.

 

[Octo]

Silent Hill, though I wasn't a kid exactly when that came out

Actually the original Alone in the Dark freaked me the fuck out, even though the graphics are laughable now.

What made it especially scary, is that I only ever played it at the house of one of my mums friends. They had this creepy/awesome victorian house, and the office where their PC was was allll the way in the attic. So it was almost like, you're playing the game about a creepy house in a creepy house.

 

[trash panda]

It took me a minute to find this one. I couldn't remember the name.
Tecmo's Deception.

This game scared me mostly because I thought my Dad would kick my ass into next week if he caught me playing it.

 

[Teioh]

As a kid the Nightbreed game where you're

Spoiler: running in the graveyard.

I used to watch my dad play that and whenever he got to that part he'd always get caught and died. You'd see the guy getting closer and closer until he got you

 

[Ghost X]

Dungeon crawlers were often scary for me as a kid. You basically had tunnel vision, so if someone attacked you from the side, it was like a jump scare. You could only see a certain distance in front of you as well, and knowing an enemy was possibly around, especially given sound effects, yes. Eye of the Beholder and Black Crypt, for example.

 

[Hisako]

When I was still a young sport I watched my brother and his friends play through the entirety of Resident Evil 2 and it made me afraid of night-time for a whole month.

Not the dark, night-time, that period of a day from 6pm all the way up until 6am.
(It didn't help that my bedroom had a large, waist-high window that for some reason invoked my memory of the Kendo Gun Shop)

 

[Joe]

That music that plays when you start to drown in Sonic.

 

[Flintlock]

The Northern Crater in Final Fantasy VII scared me and my brother to the extent that we put off finishing the game for at least a year. Of course by the time we did go there we were so over-levelled that it was hard to see what the fuss was all about...

 

[fancy]

This game scared me mostly because I thought my Dad would kick my ass into next week if he caught me playing it.

Lmao! This next memory sort of plays into that.

Speaking of Silent Hill,

Spoiler: Lisa's fucking death scene.

I don't know how I managed to forget this one; my aunt had walked in in the middle of it happening and I clearly remember her getting upset and grabbing me out of the room (it was the first time she had ever been "rough" with me). Surprise, surprise, I had been watching my cousins play again. Dunno what their thinking was.

"Here, baby cousin Fancy. Watch your ol' cousins take on some terrifying horror shit. Sure you'll probably have nightmares for quite some time, but you know what? Builds character."

As a child seeing the blood running from her scalp and her jerky movements? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooope! This is actually the first time I've watched the scene in its entirety. Wow, thanks for getting me to face these demons guys. This thread is turning out to be more psychotherapy for me than anything.

 

[Octo]

^I remember that, one of my brothers friends was round, and he was sort of laughing at the animation, taking the piss out of it.....but then when she started bleeding and that he just went totally fucking silent

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Parasite Eve has some properly creepy stuff in it, though by the time I played it, it was more intriguing than scary to me, I do definitely remember the Rat FMV as being one of the creepiest things I'd ever seen in a game.

Spoiler

Everything creepy or terrifying always seemed to accompany equal amounts on intrigue rather than proper fear, but probably because most of the stuff I played when younger was also heavily science fiction (Doom, Masters of Orion II, etc), and while the things are creepy, I was also really interested in all their designs more than afraid of them.

Unfortunately, with my mom being a massive luddite, I didn't really play any games during the proper "scare the shit out of you" years, and only really got to play them with friends later on.





X

 

[Cthulhu]

Scared might be a big word but there were some games that made me... apprehensive at least. During childhood at least.

One of these would be Ultima Underworld; mostly because it was an exploration into the unknown, with limited vision, and monsters that could fuck you up and if you died I think you were dead for good, or something.

A while later I think I stopped Half-Life because in part the unknown, in part face huggers and jump scares. Years later I found a video where they played the zombie voices backwards:

And finally there was HL2, Ravenholm. Nope.

 

[Joker]

There's two of these? O_O

 

[X-SOLDIER]

There's two of these? O_O

Yes. One for Vidja Games. Another for Movies/Shows.




X

 

[fancy]

A while later I think I stopped Half-Life because in part the unknown, in part face huggers and jump scares. Years later I found a video where they played the zombie voices backwards:

And finally there was HL2, Ravenholm. Nope.

Ha, I quietly stopped playing Half Life (2 I think?) and it would haunt me for years because my friends loved it so much and kept talking about it and I'd avoid the conversation because, "Nooo, spoilers." I told myself I'd finish one day. Still haven't. I really hate jump scares.

That HL2 zombie is both so sad and genius. I remember getting chills because they always sounded genuinely in pain. So now knowing what they're screaming in reverse....poor poor things.

Spoiler: Does anyone remember this asshole from Tomb Raider II?

Winston was terrifying for a number of reason. Because he was so fucking slow, he'd just spook up on you seemingly out of nowhere or you'd be watching from a distance as he creepily walked up to you. I'm guessing my little mind likened him to the zombies I'd see in video games.

I'm remembering a particular occasion when I was running through the hedge maze and I could hear his tea set rattling in the distance. I was so scared. I didn't want to accidentally run into him. Is that why I have so many reoccurring nightmares set in mazes? Damn you, Winston! I always needed my older brother to

Spoiler: lock Winston in the fridge for me

so that I could roam the house without fear...

While I'm on Tomb Raider II, lol, I remember the

Spoiler: dinosaur

terrified me as well.

 

[Flare]

AVP for the Atari Jaguar scared me in some parts when I would watch my dad play. He loved playing as the marine, and the

Spoiler: aliens running at you

were scary as fuck.

Also, Doom for the 3DO and future variations always gave me chills.

Other 'creepy' games my dad played and I watched: The Horde and Space Hulk for 3DO both.
The Horde has these red monsters in it that you have to defend your village from. One particular breed always made this long, low, growl when they appeared on the map, they were huge and hulking and you had to scramble around looking for it to kill it before it ate too many people. They kinda creeped me out!

Spoiler: Space Hulk.

Nuff said.

 

[ChipNoir]

The games...weren't quite the problem for me. In my high school years, my friends lived in a neighborhood a mile and a half away. I was the guy brave enough to take the controller for horror games. We played it all: Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, Resident Evil, some of the PC horror stuff too.

Now, I'd walk over (I have a phobia of driving), and we'd play to 2, 3, even 4 in the morning. Unfortunately my folks weren't always keen about me sleeping over for the first few months, so I had to get home before my folks got up and new I was gone that long. So after an entire night of jump scares and screaming at the undead hordes, I'd have to walk home in the pitch dark. Alone. For an hour.

My 15 year old sleep deprived imagination ran away with me more than once. Especially because there was this long fence along the main road home. I'd sometimes get to imagining what was lurking behind those fences.

 

[Ghost X]

This game. The music was/is creepy as was the ever-present sense of doom, etc. May not look like much these days, but damn, it was back in the early 1990s .

 

[Octo]

^reminds me a bit of Sentinel Returns

John Carpenter composed the soundtrack.

Super Hans: What we really need to do is create a powerful sense of dread.
[he presses a key on his keyboard and holds it, playing a deep bass note]
Super Hans: See, the longer the note, the more dread.