Nightmarish stalkers like Pyramidhead (seen above)
from Silent Hill and the Tyrant from Resident Evil
have been absent from video gaming in recent years.
Artist: Masahiro Ito, photo credit Silent Hill's wikia.
Fear is a hard emotion to convey in video games. Games can share similar scare tactics in movies like tense music, silence and darkness, violence, gore, and creatures jumping out of nowhere, but a lot what makes horror movies scary, realism, is not what video games can utilize to scare gamers.
Video games can also lack the sense of tension and danger lost with interaction opposed to simply observing. The cliché horror movie line is, "don't look behind that "(insert object)!" and then the slutty teenager does and is subsequently killed. In gaming, you're more apt to just whip out a shotgun and run in blasting, diminishing any dangers within.
Despite the problems developers face conveying fear through conventional means, they've still managed to deliver the scares throughout the years, usually by non-playable cut-scenes or extreme violence. Here are some of my personal scariest moments on the 360. One moment I previously mentioned, the body in locker in Condemned: Criminal Origins, seemed redundant if I mentioned again, but can be read here.
The Witch in Left 4 Dead was probably a looker in her pre-zombification days.
Photo credit to www.l4d.com.
Left 4 Dead - The Witch
Despite starring zombies, Left 4 Dead is primarily about the "holy hell" moments (with more expletives). When a smoker tongue lassos you and drags you into a group of zombies hellbent on ripping out your entrails, you're more focused on yelling at your teammates about their poor play then being scared. However, the one enemy that always instills fear is the Witch. She's not a problem if you can sidle past her, or if she's in a long hallway and you're loaded with enough pipe bombs and heavy weaponry, but find her moaning right in front of the safe house in a condensed area or stumble into her in the open while covered in Boomer's bile and you're boned.
She also has the most brilliant and creepiest music that crescendos or fades depending on your proximity to her. Add in her crying that is so freakishly depressing and unnerving that freaks you out even if you're safely trotting away with an automatic rifle in your hands.
Gears of War -
The Berserker
When you're first introduced to the Berserker, one of your fellow soldiers falls prey to her, and you're positioned to watch the entire thing in wall shadows as she sprays his blood and guts in a cartoonish manner. Upon first meeting, she's built like a brick house, in a bad way, and never gives you a chance for any one-liners as she charges. She's blind and impervious to your guns and has no issue running you over or kneeing you square in the face when you've entered bleed-out mode, even on the first date. However, once you learn to lure her into an open are to easily melt her down with the hammer of dawn, she turns into an easy mini-boss, even on "Insane," the hardest difficulty. Repetition kills any fear, which was probably why she was left out of Gears of War 2.
Feeding the crocodiles bullets is advisable in this type of situation.
Photo credit to Co-Optimus.com
Resident Evil 5 -
The Crocodiles
The crocodiles in Resident Evil 5 are a throwback tribute in a way to the great white sharks in the original Resident Evil. They're oversized, deadly, and almost impossible to kill by conventional means in the water. They can also surprise you, chomping and gulping you in approximately one bite. Much like the Berserker in Gears of War, the ridiculously enlarged crocodiles aren't scary once you figure out their movement pattern and the uselessness of attempting to kill them. It might just be me, but when they're submerged underwater and only their eyes are peeking out, they look pretty cute until they gently caress you with their razor-fang teeth.
Fallout 3 -
The Dunwich Building
When you're carrying around a weapon called the "Fat Man" capable of delivering miniature nuclear strikes, there's really not much to fear in the wastelands of Fallout 3 except one building. The Dunwich Building is an especially deceript building that stands far away from the heart of Washington D.C. that's dark and full of radiation. Those who are horribly disfigured after surviving the nuclear blasts known as "ghouls" make their home here, but not the friendly, "Ha ha, I'll murder you in your sleep, just kidding or maybe not" kind of Ghouls. It's the feral and glowing kind. What makes the situation bad is the building is entirely in the dark and it's a situation where ghouls can easily jump out of anywhere, startling you with their broken screams. It can be unnerving, especially if you're unprepared and venture too far into the building without a viable exit.
Have a happy and safe Halloween everyone. Be sure to share your own scary moments in gaming in the comments section below.
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