What was the first time a game scared you?

The Combination Carnage/Doctor Octopus from the first Neversoft Spider-Man game. He freaked me the fuck out as a kid with his Juggernaut like presence and horrible screams

First time I got legitimately terrified by a game was when playing Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. This was in 1999 so I was around 9 years old. There was a specific part where you inspect a winery and a manor that may or may not be run by a local cult. And a bunch of freaky shit involving a crying baby and an old lady.

Ratchet and Clank 1's water gauntlet. The lurkersharks in Jak. Sly Cooper 2. The Prague level. That combination of being that character they lock you into and the level.

I didn't really have any games before those that had anything remotely frightening.

I get jumped by other people's scares a lot more.

The eel in Mario 64 taught me the true meaning of fear.

The original Resident Evil for the PS1. That FMV in the beginning is cheesy as hell in retrospect, but to my young 10 year old self even that was downright terrifying.

Clock Tower 3. There was a certain jump scare where one of the bosses jumps down from the ceiling. Almost made me pee my pants.

I had the demo for Alone in the Dark (1992) and I never tried it more than once. The first bit of gameplay has a zombie coming at you and that was more than enough for me. TBF I was 7 and also already pretty bad with scary stuff.

I know this probably isn't actually the first one for me, but the first one I can remember is the zombies in Ocarina of Time when you first become adult Link (chalk up another one for OoT!).

Silent Hill 1's school was probably the scariest shit ever when I was younger.

Same. We borrowed the cartridge from someone, and when we took a peek at his save file, we were shocked. We were also scared by the ReDead we found as kid Link under Hyrule Field. I wish Nintendo still made games that could evoke those emotions.

@sinusoidal:Came to this thread to post this.

Fucking terrifying

Ocarina of Time and those damn Wallmasters. Hell they still scare me.

I did NOT like this sound as a kid. I literally ran out of the room whenever I tried to play this game. That, and my fear of drowning for real if you drown in the game, and fuckin' Chain Chomp in world 1, 3D platformers were just too much for me at the time. Banjo Kazooie scared me as well.

The original resident evil on PlayStation. I was 12 and that game is legitimately scary for adults. What a great game.

Shadow Man for the N64. It was the scariest thing I'd ever seen.

@crimsonjesus: Doom 1 also was the game I got scared first time, it was at the ending screen.

Before that, some Demoscene demos scared me but those aren't games.

The first thing that came to mind was the T-Rex coming in through the the window in Dino Crisis.

I've probably been creeped out by game before then (see everyone post about LoZ: OoT), but this one just stands out to me. It might have been the fact that I was playing it with a friend and we both jumped and yelped when the Rex appeared. So yeah...DIno Crisis.

Those crocodiles in Tomb Raider chasing you around the Tomb of Tihocan, holy shit. Then Tomb Raider II had that level where you start off surrounded by sharks.

No. Thanks.

it was Doom, I was really scared

When you don't get all of the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 3, and a robot Robotnik rises up from the rumble and just stares at you. I tried looking for a YouTube clip, but couldn't find it.

Watching my sister play the silent Hill games freaked me out a bit.

The SA-X in Metroid Fusion. I was 10 or 11 at the time, first Metroid game, still pretty new to video games. And now here’s an enemy you can’t kill, can’t even hurt, that forces you to just hide when it shows up...until you have to run away while it chases you. Obvious now that it only shows up at scripted points, but 11 year old me sure didn’t know that. Felt like it could be anywhere. The way its footsteps echo even when you can’t see it was, kinda still is, terrifying.

I tried playing Silent Hill: Origins on PSP with lights off, headphones on, sitting alone in my room. I lasted about 15 minutes before I threw the UMD behind a dresser.

This isn't what you asked, but it's tangentially related: I have had a recurring dream about a scary game for a long time now, since before I even played Silent Hill. I'm sitting on my couch, playing a game. Monster approaches. I am horrified. I try to pause. Pause screen does not come up. I am overtaken by the monster. It gnaws on me. I close my eyes. The same images play in my eyelids. I open my eyes. The game is pause. I catch my breathe. I unpause. I am in the game. I try to pause again. It doesn't work. I am slowly consumed.

@elmorales94: I had some pretty freaky dreams about Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. But that had less to do with it being a scary game and more to do with my brain acting all funny because of epilepsy and medication at the time I was playing it.

Metroid for the NES.

The atmosphere was spooky as hell as a small child. The ominous music didn't help.

Actually, Blaster Master was similar.

@monkeyking1969 said:

That is mine too...

Oh yeah, in addition to The Flood reveal in Halo, Ravenholm in Half Life 2 fucked me up. Me and a friend were playing on and off together when it released, and I clearly remember us exiting a building and seeing the fast zombies sprinting across the roofs. And then we made the mistake of turning around, so we didn't see one of them jump down towards us, and we turned back around just as it leaped at our faces.

Ravenholm's now just a playground of physics to me whenever I play, but that moment back then was a pretty intense jump scare and it wasn't even really suppose to be one. It also just does "dead zombie city" really well, with great enemy placements and some good scripted moments.

It's great seeing some games here you might not expect at first glance! For me I think it was Duke Nukem 3D. I was young and the feeling of isolation is what freaked me out.

Nightmare Creatures on the ps1. I was only 9 or 10yrs old at the time. The first time a videogame gave me nightmares (I should have known better xD), and I wasn't even playing it...lol (I was watching a family member play it with the lights out). The sounds of that game are burned in to my memory!!! =0

The horror....THE HORROR! =(

I forgot the age but I was in elementary school, it was when I was at the end of Zelda Ocarina of Time; not dead hand, redeads or bongo bongo, I got to the final form of Ganondorf and I was so scared I had to give the controller to my older brother to finish the game for me and tell me when he did so I can see the end of the game. No surprise that the Majora's Mask final boss was something little me could't handle either.

Jump scared: RE1. The dog jumping through the window sticks out the most. Was playing in the dark and dropped the controller.

Actual feeling of dread and putting the controller down because I didn't want to go down that fucking hallway again: PT.

I had it pretty bad compared to most of the responses. It probably scarred me for life and I don't even realize it.

I went over to a friend's house when I was 8 or so, and he booted up D on his brother's PC for us to play.

Never had I seen such gore in my life, the main character opened up a closet and inside was a rotting dead guy who got impaled by a spike trap through his body. It was a very realistic looking cinematic sequence, too.

The earliest truly shocking jump scare I can recall was in Dino Crisis. I was playing it at a friend's house (or maybe I had borrowed it), and I was trying to line up with a door when a raptor leapt in from off-frame and nearly killed me. I remember actually screaming and having to turn the game off once I escaped to safety.

Now, if we're talking about actually, legitimately terrified, then that easily goes to Amnesia, which gave me full on anxiety attacks. I would probably do significantly better with it now, but there was nothing like it when it came out, and it got to me on a level that I didn't think possible.

Probably Resident Evil

I purposely avoided that level a LOT when I was a kid.

A weird one but it was Dino Crisis for me, largely due to the fact I was about 7 when I played it. I just remember it being very tense and jumpy. I kinda want to watch a play through of it now...

My honest oldest gaming frightens:

Also in Black & White 1, the "Deaaath" Whisper before knowing what it meant. Especially as a kid who stayed up too late playing that.

I'm not really sure. I was thinking Super Castlevania IV, but honestly Resident Evil probably scared me way more. I do remember being pretty freaked out by Super Castlevania IV though.

A self destruct sequence packaged on an Amstrad Action covertape. I was a dumb 7 year old.

Im still not completely sure which game it was. It was on Master System or Genesis? I must have been 3 or 4 and watched my brother get eaten by a giant alien head that then ascended into space. That was scary enough, but then he took it a step further and told me that this was a regular thing that happens to everyone.

I of course had a nightmare that I got eaten and taken into space. The best part was my brother complaining that i woke him up and my mom yelling at him that it was his fault in the first place.

Are there no other old farts like me on here? If you were a kid in the early 80's there was nothing scarier than Phanto in SMB2. That thing can die in a fire!! TRUE TERROR

Mario 64. The Spooky Ghost house. I was like 6 and did not like it at all...

I was terrified of Pathways into Darkness. Marathon was pretty scary too. Much later, but still notable enough to remember, I remember panicking the first time I encountered a controller in STALKER

MGS 3. I was crawling around a dark tunnel in the cave after the Ocelot fight while in first person and as I was rounding a corner a snake popped up. It was early in the morning and I wasn't expecting it. It scared the crap out f me.

Resident Evil. I specifically remember my dad and I renting a PS1 for the weekend and having to run in and out of the room while he played RE1.

It was probably either "Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time" or "The 7th Guest".

me and my bro playing Wolfenstein on SNES, getting to the first boss and him screaming "COMING FOR YOU!!". We both screamed.

Phantasmagoria traumatized me.

And the Resident Evil dogs always get me, even after replaying it and knowing it's coming.