This is gonna sound weird, but if you die in real life, you're done, whereas if you die in the game, you have to do that section over again, which is a pain. That's why I hate video game sharks personally. Also, in a game like AC4, you're powerless to fight the sharks. You can't kill them. The scariest enemies to me in Resident Evil 4 are the regenerators before you can kill them, because there's just nothing you can do to stop them. So maybe it's similar for sharks as well.

Phobia of video game sharks, and not real sharks? You hear something new every day :p

Sharks rarely come at you head on, they are usually coming from behind or below, out of your field of view, which is particularly frustrating in a video game where you have very limited awareness of anything that isn't directly in front of you.

Year of the shark.

See, I hate video game spiders, to the point where I've stopped playing them when I found out they were in it, can't take it. Then again, if there's a spider I my room I almost get paralyzed, so I'm pathetic that way.

I just wrote up a whole thing about how the sharks in AC4 are mostly pushovers once you start upgrading your harpoons, then deleted it when I realized you were talking about the diving bell sections. Yeah, those sharks are total dicks.

Fuck sharks. Fuck all sharks, real or video game (not really real sharks are cool just not near me).

Your stories about diving with Sharks....man. I was WAY into scuba diving until the first time I bumped into a reef shark (not literally collided, but...you know). That experience told me everything I needed to know about my fitness for that endeavor.

This is really weird. Im interested to hear peoples theories on this.

I hate video game sharks. But the good news is the more exposure to them you have, the less awful they become, between Batman Arkham City and AC4, I have gritted my teeth and faced down a number of the sea devils, dicks.

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the sharks you can harpoon. My bad. I should have been more specific in my first post.

you are not alone... i have shark phobia as well...

@jacdg: So basically the best Christmas present for you would be a box of spiders? :D

It's not just sharks for me, it's anything that chases me around in a situation where I cannot defend myself. That shit sends me into an almost panic attack.

I'm not scared of sharks but I am scared of plot devices.

My fear stems from Banjo-Kazooie. Like the second level had a shark that would eat you if you were in the water too long. 7 year old me was so scared of that...

I'm sure I'd actually die of shock.

Me too, man i was freaking out in the water in Farcry 3.

At least in AC4 you get the opportunity to gank them.

FUCK SHARKS.

Stuff like this doesn't bug me much, but spiders if they are done really well can be a little icky to me (damn I hate spiders). Limbo was kinda gross that way. Skyrim's a little too.

Crysis had the most terrifying sharks. They were used to deter you from going out too far in the ocean. So you would you swim out and out of the pitch black water would come a big fucking shark.

I think it's the whole navigation of an extra axis. Because flying creatures I can deal with, it's just "now I can't reorient myself what's going on where are these bites coming from" I often feel this way since Quake and Half Life 1 under water battles with fish monsters.