Top Ten Scariest Games

It can’t be denied. Some of the best moments in games don’t come from a first-class headshot, the thrill of a winning lap or a perfect touchdown pass. The moments that you remember years later are the scares that send you shooting off the couch yelling, “Holy Shit!!! What the f*ck was that!?!” Here is our list of the Top 10 Scariest Games!

Number 10: Clive Barker’s Undying
You know it’s a Clive Barker story, so you know it’s going to be effed up. Undying carved out its own little niche on the PC as a true horror game involving gruesome monsters, haunted churches and cults. The game boasted not only the ability to wield spells and guns at the same time (forebearer to Bioshock?¦ or is that too much of a stretch?) but some of the coolest particle effects at the time. Granted that the end boss sucked, but having Clive’s hand in the story really upped the tension and atmosphere.

Number 9: Left 4 Dead
There was some debate around the office whether or not we should include what is, for all it’s worth, a full-on action game. Left 4 Dead can be many things to many people. A run-and-gun action title, a co-operative collaboration or even survival horror at its most base level. Either way, whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a noobie heading in the exact wrong direction, you can’t deny that you didn’t crap your pants the first time you accidentally ran right into that witch. Because of the tension created from the sprinting horde of undead, having a divided party or too few ammo-caches (on hard), Left 4 Dead takes our 9th spot.

Number 8: Condemned 2: Bloodshot
Being an alcoholic is bad for the senses, and you learned that hard lesson playing as Ethan Thomas, our tragic, homeless, boozehound hero. Without a bottle on the ready, all first-person shooting is marred by blurry vision and shaky hands, so you better know how to use your fists and be able to scour the environment for weapons. The scares were mostly of the ‘turn around and see a guy with black goo coming from his eyes’ kind, but some of those set piece moments are still rattling around in the back of our heads whenever we turn on the lights in a dark room.

Number 7: The Fatal Frame Series
These days, if I see another movie with a pale little Japanese kid running around making kitty-mewling noises I’d just as soon gouge out my eyeballs than sit through it. The Fatal Frame series was the first to capitalize on the creepiness attached to undead ghosts in a haunted mansion/village with no weapons! All you have at your disposal to find and dispatch these nasty spirits is the viewfinder of your camera, which definitely made looking over your shoulder second-nature.

Number 6: Doom 3
Not only was it a technical powerhouse on the original Xbox, Doom 3 layered on the scares incrementally as you go from being stranded on a Mars mining colony to Hell itself. Enemies progress from possessed collegues to interdimensional imps to crawling, flying babyheads. But the real scares came from the fact that you couldn’t hold your weapon and a flashlight at the same time. Too many of us have had to go to the underwear drawer after shining a light into a dark corner looking for ammo only to find a pack of creepy spider-things just waiting for you to come by and say Hi.

Number 5: Eternal Darkness
Now this is a game that understood how to get inside of your head. The introduction of a sanity meter that you filled by destroying various ghouls made us not want to kill them off, just to see what was going to happen next when your last marble went rolling down the drain. With zero sanity, you would experience walking on the roof for no reason, watching with horror as your head just rolled off your shoulders, and sitting there as the game “deleted” all of your saved games via the blue screen of death. True horror is watching all your hard work go out the door. Visceral with a great story and probably the most cinematics of any Gamecube game.

Number 4: F.E.A.R.
F.E.A.R. placed you in the boots of a tactical special ops soldier sent in to contain a paranormal menace in the form of the little girl Alma. Creepy little girls have been freaking us all out since The Shining, so it’s no wonder that there are more than one of them on this list. F.E.A.R. borrowed heavily from other sources as inspiration, but that doesn’t make it any less of a chilling story. The outstanding audio elements keep you on your toes to the point that you really can’t play it for more than a few hours without feeling emotionally exhausted.

Number 3: Resident Evil 2
Picking only one of the R.E. games was a tough decision. R.E.1 laid the groundwork, but Resident Evil 2 really thrust you into the middle of a zombie outbreak. As well as the first game gave you that ‘trapped in a mansion’ claustrophobic feeling, number 2 reminded you constantly that you were trapped in a town filled with shambling ghouls, crazy licking reptile-things, and the unforgettable Tyrant, hell-bent on your destruction. You can’t say you didn’t bolt from your chair when those zombie dogs came crashing through the window of the police department. A scarcity of ammo only added to the tension you felt when surrounded by legions of the undead.

Number 2: Silent Hill 2
The fog. It surrounded you, it encapsulated you; it engulfed you. Keeping your eyes open for those shifting images in the mist is the one of the most draining aspects of the Silent Hill series and number 2 really brought it home by adding some of the most freakish enemy designs in videogame (and entertainment) history. You were constantly on the edge because you knew you could die at any time at the hands of some crazy hell-spawn nightmare. Gruesome environments and a lack of conventional weapons only added to the strain. Not for pregnant women or those prone to seizures. Check your sanity at the door.

Number 1: Dead Space

Dead Space did so many things right. Sense of isolation? Check. Everyman hero? Check. Cheap scares that came out of nowhere? Absolutely. Crazy mutant monsters made out of what-used-to-be human beings? Around every corner. And there was no hiding from them either. Somehow they managed to get into every little walled off area you thought you could properly defend and then properly chopped off your head and sucked out your brains. There were so many gory ways to die in Dead Space. The game retrained you to chop off limbs instead of going for headshots. What really scared the shit out of us was those sped-up jabbering monsters that bum-rushed you out of nowhere. A taut storyline coupled with creepy scares and excellent design ranks it Numero Uno on our Top 10 Scariest Games.