Video games which scare(d) you

Im interested in finding out which games scared or still scare Giantbomb users. I've played through both the Silent Hill and Resident Evil series and consider them to be great games though they never really scared me to the extent that Doom 3 and Penumbra have.

Doom 3 I know is pretty much full of cheap shocks which are predictable to many, however it was just a game which its horror clicked perfectly with me. My constant guessing of upcoming shocks was always ill-timed leaving me in a constant state of paranoia when playing.

I tend to get startled easily, but I wouldn't really call that scared. For example, loud shrieks will make me jump but then I'll shrug it off and move on. Being scared, to me, is having a lingering sense of foreboding.. you know, like things that will come back to haunt you in your nightmares. I could list tons of games that startled me -- the Resident Evils, Dead Space, heck, even Gears of War.

But I think the game that left me with lingering thoughts of dread would have been the original Silent Hill... I was young and it was a new style of game for me at the time. Sure I had played Resident Evil, but RE was moer of a "scaring through shock" type of game that started me rather than left me with lingering goosebumps and nightmares. Silent Hill's horror aspect came from the dark corridors, the creepy radio noise and never really knowing what to expect. There were definite nail-biter parts for me that I was afraid of playing through.

The unfortunate side-effect of that was I quickly became desensitized to that sort of horror and I no longer feel the same impact from similar games, such as subsequent Silent Hills or Fatal Frames. I still get a kick out of playing those kinds of games from time to time, but I don't experience the same level of the fear of the unknown that I did with that first Silent Hill.

Oh man, where do I start. I get scared by so many games, as soon as I'm alone and it's dark in the game, I get all paranoid and scared.

Take Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for example, I couldn't get further than 3 missions before panic took over and I had to stop.

I do believe my fear of games is getting better though.. at least I hope so. D:

(Please don't call me a pussy, I'm well aware that I'm overly sensitive to stuff already)

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, I'm re playing it now.. and it's still gives me the heebie jeebies.

Whaaa? Splinter Cell scared you? Well, admittedly the musical score was pretty intense, and some of those situations are very difficult; I find that in Splinter Cell it's easy to think you are in more danger than you really are- it's not that hard to take a direct approach to dispatching with your enemies, and disappearing, unless you alert EVERYONE to your presence.

Project Zero II(otherwise known as Fatal Frame II) scared the living crap out of me. I never even finished it, and whenever I think about it I'm like "Nah, I'll finish it some other time... yeah, I'm gonna keep telling myself that".

When I was like 8 years old, I was so shit scared of Sephiroth, that I couldn''t bring myself to finish Final Fantasy 7.

It's not a scary game but, this one time in Fallout 3, I was walking and then I turned and BAM there stood a motherfucking Deathclaw. As you can imagine I crapped in my pants with the power of the Greek gods.

The first time I was ever really afraid was on "Home Alone" for the SNES.  I have a fear of spiders to this day and one of the earlier "bosses" is a giant tarantula.  Whenever I would get to that part I would either turn the game off or hand off the controller to someone else and hide behind a chair (I was 6 at the time).

I was good until the GameCube Resident Evil remake came out.  First time a crimsion head popped up it startled the shit out of me.  Shortly there after, Eternal Darkness Sanitys Requim came out and the game just messed with my head.  I have vivid memories of the scene where a dead body in a bathtub of blood comes on screen making me jump.

Current generation, first game that made me jump was the first Condemned.  I felt like such a pussy - my girlfriend/now fiance was in the room and was at some part where I had to climb over a rope.  As you're climbing the rope a crazy hobo jumps on you and for the first time ever I let out a "Bahh!".  I get shit for it to this day.  I couldn't play that game in the dark and usually had to have the volume down - as each time I'd kick a can or box in the game I'd get on edge.  Dead Space had a few startling moments.   There is a vault in Fallout 3 (the number escapes me) where you start to see things in some purple filter which was really creepy.  I had to actually stop playing the game for the night about 1/4th the way through.

I guess in conclusion, the game that scared me the most was probably Condemned.

When I was a kid, three or four, the original DOOM scared the shit out of me. I played it at my cousin's house and it was terrifying. I had a nightmare once about the Pinky demons. Freaky stuff!

These days I would agree with C0V3RT, Condemned 1 and 2 both scared me plenty.

Doom 3

Silent Hill 2

I can't play horror video games.  Just cannot do it.  Everything from the old school Alone in the Dark, Police Quest 4, and Phantasmagoria to more recent games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill.  I don't know what it is about video games, but I get way more freaked out playing them than, say, watching a horror movie.  I think it's the fact that I'm controlling the character directly - somehow, that just ends up frightening me more when I feel like the character I'm controlling is in actual danger.

Probably the freakiest moment in a game I've played start to finish would come from the afore-mentioned Police Quest 4.  Keep in mind, at the time, that was one of the most visually striking and realistic games I'd ever played.  SPOILERS - the specific scene I'm referring to is when the hero character wakes up in the theater with the dead body nearby, and then later, when searching through the psycho's home, you find the head on a plate in his fridge.  Just pretty damned intense and frightening for the time.

I would have to say Condemned, Call of Cthulu and Fatal Frame II.  Some of the most startling scares I've ever experienced were from playing Fatal Frame II.  

I thought playing Bioshock at night was the scariest thing that I ever played because it was so different from anything else, horror-wise.

Both Condemned games thoroughly jump-scared the shit out of me

When I was a kid, Banjo Kazooie. Remember that mummy maze where the mummy would curse you when you entered? Guess who thought that the curse was real? Yes, this dumbass right here.

Resident Evil 1 for the PSX scared the hell out of me when I was about 10-12 years old. The scariest game I've played in the recent years must've been Condemned 1.

Doom 3 (couldnt play it for awhile when those creepy flying bat thing were around, but then I got over it)
Thief: Deadly Shadows (I havent played it for a very long time, dont think I'm going to beat it.. maybe not as bad now? but those tree things are crazy!! lol)
Original Doom (not really too much, but I remember turning around and seeing those black fire guys right behind me :P)
Return to Castle Wolfenstein(Co-op was crazy awesome, but not didnt like it the last time I played it. anyways once in the catacombes or w/e with the zombies, forget what exactly happened, but my brother was somewhere, and I thought I saw him, and I was like "Theres a guy right behind you!!" but I think they both turned out to be zombies and freaked me out :P)

Silent Hill 2 DC. I played though it once (and got the suicide ending, thanks for that) and I can't bring myself to play through it again. It just scares and depresses the shit out of me.

I can remember Bioshock scaring me it was a surprise because despite its slightly creepy atmosphere it never felt totally horror, until this one point while I was taking the photos for Sander Cohen there was a long set of steps going down in to ankle  deep water,and a bare flickering bulb.

The original Resident Evil. I was maybe 10 when that came out.....that dog jumping through the window scared me absolutely shitless. I will never forget it.

Clive Barker's Undying was wonderfully scary through it's first half. I'll never forget being chased by howlers on the moors. And like many other people I love Eternal Darkness. Some of those sanity effects were creepy as hell!

iv had scary experiences in may games one what sticks out most was recently .. i was in fallout 3 messing around at a train station listerning to some tunes and just try to find some toot i haerd a ghoul screetch then run i turned around and couldnt see it anywhere .. gave up and carried on being in a mind of my own then turned back round after  a couple of seconds of listerning an dhumin to fallout radio.. and there it was right in my face staring at me and screeching it really made my stomoch jump outa my mouth..


the most scariest moments can come out of nowhere ..i always found being chased by something wierd and screetchy to be quite intense.. especialy with my graphics on ultra and surround sound.. doom 3 gave me the willys to begin with but i hardend up to that.. fear waas always a good jumper but i nver got as many jumps out of the 3rd one like i did the first..


the invisible monster in stalker was always pretty freaky too easpecialy at night with no one around ..

i find these moments to be the scaryist..bioshcock sientists always like to scare you .......... they like to stand there til you turn around and then they laugh a litle instide i swear..when you have craped yourself a lile.



as a kid i uset to hate being scared now i love it in games..

F.E.A.R I had to turn the volume off it was so bad... *happy thoughts*

Penumbra or the older Silent Hills.

D on Sega Saturn...the first time I played it...when I was a fucking kid.  Creepy shit.

The only game to ever frighten me was REmake.

I don't play a lot of horror games, because for the most part I play games to relax, not get all tense and paranoid. However, the few that I've played have gotten me with a few jump scares... Bioshock and Dead Space come to mind.

EDIT: I've found a good way to deal with fear in games is to shout vulgar obscenities at the monsters when they appear... A favorite of mine is to inform the necromorphs in Dead Space that they ain't nothin' but a bitch anyways.

You can get Penumbra 1 and 2 on Steam right now for 5 bucks.

When I think about it System Shock 2 was the only game that managed to truly scare me. 

Wow, if you think Splinter Cell is kind of a strange game to be scared of then you'll get a kick out of mine. When I played Super Mario 64 as a kid, the under water level with the sunken ship and the eel scared the shit out of me... and it still does lol
But for more current games, Bioshock definitely had its moments. The Sander Cohen level with the rooms full of posed corpse sculptures gave me the creeps. And I screamed for a few of the good jump scares ;)
Also, while Deadspace was a bit scary, I would describe it as more stressful than anything. The sound effects were so loud and abbrasive that after a run in with a few necromorphs, I was more relieved by the silence than the fact that the character was still alive.