Creepiest levels/settings/all around scary moments in video games.

[DeathSwitch109]

I'm a decently strong willed gamer. If there is an obstacle 9 times out of 10 I will eventually overcome it but when it comes to games with suspenseful horror settings I tend to fold pretty quickly; which is funny because horror movies in general don't phase me.

The first time I was ever scared in a video game was when my dad played Alone in the Dark on the 3DO in the early 90's and ever since I've been strangely addicted to the element of fear in a video game.

That being said there were a quite a few moments in where I was almost too afraid to continue because of how terrifying games can really be. Hell even hearing a zombie in a cave in Minecraft can give me the creeps (laugh it up).

A couple that stand out for me are:

1. The Department Store - Condemned: Criminal Origins: What got me here was when you arrive at the department store and you see a ton of mannequins...some of which are cleverly disguised psychopaths ready to jump at you at any given moment. Combine that with realistic graphics (this was back in 2005) and a unique A.I. system at the time I almost didn't make it.

2. Silent Hill 1-3: Need I say more? That whole game is creepy.

3. The Tea Room - Resident Evil: 1996 was a long time ago but the iconic first zombie was terrifying. Fast forward to 2002 and he's still f'in creepy!

4. Doom III: This game is a one trick pony but back in 2004 these graphics were state of the art and the first few hours of the game can really sink into your skin...that is until I.d. recycled the same formula for almost the entire game.

5. The Body Bag - Resident Evil 4: Just plain creepy...witnessing this so late in the game it was almost like Capcom was foreshadowing the notion that something scary was going to come along very soon...the Regenerator...and man did they really amp up the fear until you finally encountered one.

So here are a few games that I think genuinely scared the crap out of me. Please share and discuss some of your most horrifying moments/settings/games that made you wet your pants (figuratively speaking).

 

[The Mighty Stove]

I have a few...

Dark Souls - "Painted World of Ariamis" First, you have to find a doll in a dungeon cell to even enter the portal. But before gaining entrance even occurs, you have to fight these "cultist" protecting said portrait? Why? What are they doing there? After that, you enter too see....bodies . Seriously, all the hallowed impaled on spikes reminded me of Vlad-esk antics. Not only that, but hell most the enemies there. The birds with human bodies, the infected hallowed filled with Toxin, or the deformed spartan-ey warriors. Then at the end, Priscilla says the land is "Peaceful" and says your the problem.
(There we're a lot of creepy things in that game, but this personally stands out.

Resident Evil 4: Yea, OP the Regenerator had my heart racing as well.

Dead Space- That one enemy that was like, a person glued into the wall, all deformed. Ugh the screams they made were chilling. That and the thought that they were once human...

Super Mario Bros- The water levels...something about them... just bother me. I ALWAYS hated them as a kid, and truth be told, still do. ha

Star Fox 64- Andross, nuff said.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Uh...the Scarecrow sections in Arkham Asylum.

...I HATE that stuff.

Also anything involving water, giant sharks, water monsters, octosharks, or Cthulu-esque creatures. Or anything where you're being chased.

I guess I'm kind of a wimp, honestly. I don't take even the tamest horror very well.

 

[skywolfblue]

The return to the Ishimura in Dead Space 2.

The game has you trained by that point to carefully take one step at a time an always be on the lookout for anything that makes a sound. It begins with a long necromorph-free section, which only makes it worse because you know that they're around the corner somewhere. Then the long dark tramway tunnel, you know by now this is BAD NEWS, but you don't have any choice. Tiptoe forwards and sure enough a bunch of necromorphs pop out. Also, all the blood on the walls in med bay highlighted by UV light, that was brilliant, colorful yet horrifying at the same time.

 

[Korzack]

Yeah, the early parts of Doom 3 were terrifying, specially once they started messing with your head.
Also, I know it's probably been mentioned, but the Original Aliens V Predator - Face huggers. Those guys are just several kinda of unpleasant

 

[Dandark]

I have recently been playing through F.E.A.R and it's two expansions. It's not the scariest game(Partly because your an awesome badass who cheats in firefights with slow mo) but some of the horror sections can be really creepy, espeically in the expansions. I love it though, I have never been a big fan of horror and getting myself scared but I have been really enjoying this game, I want to try the sequel but I doubt my computer can run it >.<

For a particular scene or level, Fear: Extraction point. The first expansion.

Spoiler: Spoiler warning, this contains spoilers

That bit where you are with Holiday in the warehouse and those...things appear all around while the lights are out and your flashlight is freaking. Then what they do to holiday....oh holiday I liked you too.

Also the bit later on in the subway was kinda creepy, when Alma massacared the Replicas and whispered "Your safe now" it just kinda made me stand there and not want to continue for a bit.

 

[Zeckt]

I don't think I can ever forget the Insane Asylum from Thief 3 where I dreaded every corner dealing with invincible psychopathic ghosts and nearly wet myself stealing the gems from that one ghost who used them for eyes in his crazy drawings with him literally around the corner.

At the end of the level where you are running not just for your life but your soul to jump out a window had my heart pounding knowing that a horde of nightmares were literally a foot behind me.

Oh, and also from thief there were these gargoyles that simply say "rend and tear and stomp and kill and maim and kill and ... " over and over. 1 of them chasing you is a near a joke, but when I found myself running from 5 of them at the same time all saying that I suddenly felt myself more disturbed then I've ever been in a video game ever.

 

[Lectori Salutem]

Hmmm... I thought the department store was really cool, but not really that scary. As soon as I knew that some of the mannequins were enemies, I started to pay attention to them. Turns out that the enemies look somewhat different, making it easy to just spot them and hit them in the face.

 

[Nouw]

We seem to be having heaps of scary game threads lately. Not that I mind! These threads are a valuable place of finding terrifying games. Here's my own experience.

AVP2 as a Marine is scary. Really, really scary. The atmosphere is tense with only your trusty motion tracker as a way of detecting enemies and your Shoulder Lamp as seeing what the hell is going on. This is why I look forward to Aliens:Colonial Marines, to get that experience only the aliens universe can provide.

 

[The Madman]

The Shalebridge Cradel from Thief: Deadly Shadows aka Thief 3.

Best level in the entire damned game and one of the best uses of lighting and sound to create atmosphere in the entire gaming industry. I struggle to think of a single other example of real time shadows being used to such effect in a game, just the feeling you got when the lights started flickering and you knew one of them was near... brilliantly done.

The original Thief games also had their moments. The Haunted Cathedral and Return to the Haunted Cathedral were both extremely well done. Just something the series is known for, despite not actually being a horror series there's always at least one proper horror level in each game.

The Fairfax Residence in SWAT 4 is also amazingly well done. Not a hard mission at all, it's one of the earliest in the game and purposely kept simple: One, maybe two suspects possibly armed held up in a small suburban house suspected of kidnapping and murder. Your job obviously to go in there and arrest them if possible.

But jeez, I don't think I've ever seen another game that made the level so terrifyingly believable. The creepy house littered with garbage, crawling with insects and the air buzzing with flies. The cages in the basement full of dead pets... That goddamned creepy bedroom plastered with news clippings and wanted posters. The 'studio' where the psycho did his work...

Goddamned freaky level, probably moreso than most others in gaming simply because it never tries to be fantasy, you know there probably is some psycho out there like this, or at least has been. Eug.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I definitely agreed with number 5.

The only other scary moment in a video game was in Alien Vs Predator in the Marine campaign when you encounter the Facehugger for the first time.
You have to go down this lift and into the tunnel and it was dark as hell so you can barely see anything ahead of you especially the ground. There so happen to be a facehugger hanging around there at all. They deliberately make the facehugger sequence as a sudden "in your face" type of shock so heart attack is ensure when you encounter it for the first time.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

For me, it was the entire hospital area in F.E.A.R Extraction Point. Dark, empty hospitals with weird shit going on just terrifies me. I had to summon up the nerve to walk down every corridor in that place. I never felt so relieved of hearing soldiers radio chatter before, since then I knew it would be a combat sequence, not a scare-me-shitless/weird-as-hell sequence. Oh, and then there was the basement... the morgue... fuck!

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I definitely agreed with number 5.

The only other scary moment in a video game was in Alien Vs Predator in the Marine campaign when you encounter the Facehugger for the first time.
You have to go down this lift and into the tunnel and it was dark as hell so you can barely see anything ahead of you especially the ground. There so happen to be a facehugger hanging around there at all. They deliberately make the facehugger sequence as a sudden "in your face" type of shock so heart attack is ensure when you encounter it for the first time.

Every single part of the marine campaign in AvP2 (except when with Alice). The subtle to non-existant background music, the atmospheric sound and most of all, and I mean most of all, that fucking motion tracker. Just that damned beep, beep, beep and that electronic 'tick' it does all the time. Your heartbeat synchronises and as soon as the Xenomorphs appear, BOOM, heartrate in the upper thousands.

 

[Vuliev]

I still remember the first time I got to the Flood in Halo. Going through a dark swamp, with Covenant fleeing from vague, but disturbing, shadows; seeing slaughtered Covenant piled in rooms; seeing very strong doors smashed out of the wall; and finally, getting to the single light bridge that actually works, and it's leading right into an especially smashed door with eerie red symbols around it. And then the cutscene after you enter the last room...mang. Still one of my favorite set pieces/levels in gaming.

Also, everything about Amnesia. Everything in that game is scary. ;__;

 

[Don Savik]

Everyone is saying the same horror games over and over again so I'm going to say something different.

The last level on Alice: Madness returns. Was quite disturbing. Also the doll level had those creepy as fuck doll children that helped you out. Man.....nightmare fuel right there. And the Red Queen's castle was overgrown with zerg creep. And inside were those rooms that were entirely organic with eyes on the walls and stuff.

*shudder*

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Ravenholm in Half-Life 2 has to be the scariest video game level for me. It's not just the body horror in the headcrab zombies and mutilated corpses lying around that's scary; it's the tension. Looking around and hearing a zombie's cry but not knowing where it is is terrifying, especially when you consider that these monstrosities used to be human.

The Fast Zombies are the worst, with their distorted screams and clanking as they climb up the pipes to maul your face off.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Caught outside during an Emission in Stalker Call of Pripyat. Nothing like desperately running for cover while what looks like a portal to hell erupts in the sky above you.

 

[Innegativeion]

No matter how desensitized to fantasy horror settings you are,

if you turn off the lights while playing fable 2,

the winter lodge WILL make you shit bricks.

Spoiler

Granted, it's a jump scare, but still... it lingers

 

[Furioso]

Clanker's Cavern in Banjo Kazooie. That shark terrified me as a kid, and was a huge wall for a couple of months until I got the courage to beat the level. Clanker is a friendly shark too, but the way he is designed is just scary, he is rusted and has open wounds all over him, and him and those massive teeth are the first things you see after coming out of a narrow pipe.

Spoiler: How does a metal shark bleed?

The rest of the level has an uncomfortable design too, with rusted walls and filthy water... Tons of fun though, I think I'll go play that game again


Edit: OH OH OH and that shark in the pirate level from Banjo Kazooie! Don't any of you dare tell me that you didn't nearly shit your pants every time you fell in the water

 

[drummond13]

The hotel level in Vampire Bloodlines is pretty freakin' scary.

Penumbra: Black Plague had some great moments as well.