The box… you opened it… we came!

This is a blog i actually wanted to write for Halloween. But like you can see, that didn’t happen. It’s…

My Personal Top 5 of Scariest Game Moments!

It’s NOT a top 5 of the scariest games i’ve ever played!  Although the numbers 1 and 2 of this list would also be number 1 and 2 in that list, numbers 3, 4 and 5 would have been a fight between Aliens vs Predator II, Clive Barkers Undying, Doom III, Resident Evil, F.E.A.R. and Quake.  But this top 5 is about the scariest moments.  Moments that almost gave me a heart attack.  We start with number 5…

5. Duke Nukem 3D

This is the first game i’ve ever bought!  The whole drive home I had the box on my lap, eager to install it.  Got home, rushed to my pc, inserted the disk and waited for the installation to finish itself so i could finally start playing.  And so i did… which brings me to the moment i encountered something called a sentry drone.  It’s some kind of flying machine that was waiting for me in the shadows of the room i was about to enter.  I entered the room, a pulsating noise on the background… i turned to the right and… *tudum tudum* whaaaaaahr! …What a game and a good start for this list!

4. Doom II

While Duke Nukem 3D was the first game i bought, this was the first game i got as a present.  Yeay for my sister!  The game itself isn’t that super creepy, but i contains demons.  The fact that this demon isn’t that big and that it has a pink skin doesn’t make it so terrifying… But the little bastard has a habit of waiting for you behind closed doors, so when you open the door it’s *growl* and your heart skips a beat or 2.

3. Half Life

Another masterpiece.  It contains lot’s of scary moments, but the one that earns this number 3 spot is this… After the failed experiment you wander through the black mesa complex, kill some zombies and headcrabs. You solve some puzzles, until you reach an elevator.  It goes up and arrives at the next floor… you step out and notice an electricity cable hanging from the ceiling and a headcrab that is slowly crawling towards you.  I stood still and waited for it to come close enough for me to kill it with my crowbar.  But then suddenly the little monster reaches the cable and *BZZZZzzzzzt* *big flash* it electrocuted it.  I thought “glad i waited in front of the elevator or it would have been me, another scare moment avoided!” and i carefully walked around the cable with a smile.  Seconds later i noticed a zombie trying to hide from me in a corner, so yet again another scare moment avoided!  And that made me overconfident.  I entered a room, found a dark airvent i had to enter… crawled through it… until i thought “hmm i can’t see sh*t anymore, let’s try my flashlight!”.  I pressed the L button on my keyboard to turn it on and exactly at that moment a headcrab jumped towards me…

2. System Shock II

And now the 2 scariest games i’ve played! System Shock II is no game for the weak hearted and personally i think it should have a warning on the box!  And i’m not kidding!   We are talking about the year 1999.  Games back then didn’t have impressive AI’s.  In most games back then the monsters just ran towards you or waited for you behind a corner.  That was it!  So i started playing System Shock 2.  Immediately you can sense the creepy atmosphere, lot’s of strange sounds, never too much light.  Things explode, you see glimps of bio-mechanical organisms walking away, scientist getting chased by those things while you look through thick glass windows, but nothing attacks you!  The tension builds and builds, you just know something is about to happen!  More things explode… It is only a matter of time now… and so it does… a couple of dead creatures later i reached a room where you could see through the floor.  The was some kind of strange monkey-like monster in it, jumping and doing strange things.  I looked at it and for a moment it was like it was looking back, like it was actually thinking.  I ignored it and explored the room i was in.  And then it happened, a “Jurassic Park” moment.  A “Ksssht”-like sound of an automatic door.  It didn’t bother me cause the door i just entered wasn’t automatic and didn’t make a sound like that.  It sounded far way.  I saw a computer that i could use and started hacking it when i heard a “Iiiirk”-like sound, very close to me.  The moment I figured out what had happened it was already too late.  The little monkey creature found its way through all the rooms and hallways AND it knew how to open doors!  The result was… … euhm… i kinda spilled my drink all over the floor when i had accidentally hit my glass…

1. Aliens vs Predator

Nope, not the mediocre movie.  That’s Alien vs Predator, this is about the scariest game ever made!  In it you can to play as a Marine, a Predator or an Alien.  Playing as an Alien is very very cool.  You can climb on walls and walk on ceilings, f*ck gravity!  Playing as a marine on the other hand is what this top 5 is all about!  Unlike playing as an Alien, what makes you the scariest creature in the game at that moment, or a predator, who has special visual modes to track aliens or humans so you can see them a lot easier, the marine only has some kind of tracking radar device.  You see little dots on a rader and hear a bliep when there’s movement.  The downside is… When a door opens, it blieps.  When a elevator goes up or down, it blieps.  Letting you think that there’s an alien or predator running towards you.  Let me give you some examples of the problem.  You start the game as a marine, in your room, in some kind of military-base.  Your superior calls you and asks to come and meet him because something seems to be wrong.  You leave your room and hear your first bliep of the game when your own door closes itself.  That already made me think something behind me was about to attack… nothing happened… so i continued walking with my real life heartbeat now up to 120+ bpm.  I arrived in a large room with some elevators.  Large room = lots of place for aliens to hide!  I slowly walked forward… my heartbeat rising… my rader began to bliep… heartbeat rising some more… but nothing happened except for an elevator that arrived.  I stepped in, got to the next floor and slowly started to explore the next hallway.  The elevator behind me automatically descended and made my radar bliep again. I followed the path and to the right you could see some kind of alienship.  It looked exactly like the one in the first Alien movie!  I continued my slow walking pace.  One eye on my little radar the other in front of me, when i arrived at another descending elevator.  Bliep… bliep… bliep… bliep… everyone who has seen the second Alien movie (Aliens) can imagine how the next hallway looked like. I was, again very slowly, walking forward and away from the elevator. But the blieping sounds didn’t stop and a new dot appeared on my radar.  I could hear my own heart beating with the dot coming closer and closer.  Much faster then i had expected, when a few seconds later an alien jumped before me at an incredible speed!  Result: Dead ingame, almost dead in real life, my mouse laying on the floor and i almost tripped my chair… *catches breath* When i picked up my mouse from the floor and placed it back on my desk my first reaction was… WOW!  I filled my glass with some coke (I still drank coke back then, not anymore), took a deep breath and started playing again.

It now is December 2008, AvP came out in 1999, almost 10 years have passed and no other game made in those 10 years comes even close!  Not even the sequal, which is actually a better and more fun game than the first one.  But it’s a tiny bit less dark…  Aaah those good old days!