Fright Week: Favorite Scares in Gaming

Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor

Alone in the Dark

Early game designers with polygons were like Native Americans with the Buffalo: They left nothing to waste. Video games from the nineties often had to tell, in explicit detail, what exactly you were seeing because the graphics sure weren’t going to help.

I’m not 100%, but I think this is 8-bit Skyrim

When games went from 2D to 3D, the effect was amplified. Environment couldn’t be painted into gorgeous mattes; they had to be created and lit and textured and angled. Things like “clipping” and “artifacts” began to appear, altering the landscape of gaming in drastic ways. And like any new technology, it took a minute to work out the kinks.

Enter Alone in the Dark, a game about a mustachioed detective named Edward Carnby sent to investigate a mysterious suicide at a haunted mansion. Updon arrival, Edward realizes that there is more afoot than just ghosts as zombies and bat-men appear to kill and eat him (not necessarily in that order). Using his fists and any other weapon available, Edward fights his way to the secret caverns underneath the mansion and learn the terrible secret.

This game was, without a doubt, one of the weirdest experiences of my childhood. First of all, there is the issue of the graphics.

Don’t bother counting the polygons. There are 9

Then there were the lime green zombies.

But mostly it was the terror created from the awkward control scheme. This was one of the first 3D games ever released, and the first 3D horror title (setting the stage for Resident Evil years later). But just like most survival-horror, the true fear came while trying to spin your tank of an avatar around so you could escape the marauding ghouls. More keyboards died because of that game than in any other point in history.

Imagine yourself back in 1992, your fingers hovering over the keys as your character plods along the screen. Suddenly the music shifts. A monster approaches! Or, it could be a 15th century Prussian sea vessel, the graphics are a little iffy. But bet your ass, that mother is approaching. You turn to run, but your character just starts marching in place. he trundles in a lazy circle, not quite sure when he’ll actually get around to facing the opposite direction. Meanwhile, a pixelated rendition of Washington Crossing the Delaware is nearing your position. In a word, frustrating.

Finally, over twenty years later, those issues were things of the past. Graphics became beyond amazing, controls tightened, and stories were finally placed into games. The modern age had arrived.

And Hell had come with it.