Fright Week: Favorite Scares in Gaming
Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor
Dead Space 2
Whether you like it or not, you have to admit Dead Space has some great scares. Sure, they are mostly born of monsters exploding from linen closets, but they do work. Personally, I’m not a fan of the jump-scare. In movies they seem too gimmicky and easy a trick to pull on audiences, and in games they take away from the atmosphere.
Why would a soulless Hellbeast from another world play dead? It already massacred a room full of armed guards, but when the engineer with the Tron armor walks in, it’s straight to the floor.
The original Dead Space had decent atmosphere, with some of the eeriest scenes coming when you found live members of the crew. Well, they were living at the moment, at least.
However, my biggest scare came from the second game in the series. Isaac Clark, the space engineer suffering from a bad case of PTSD-induced dementia, finds himself struggling to escape a Necromorph-infested station. Armed with the usual assortment of laser cutters and saw shooters, Isaac searches for survivors and a path out.
Two scenes in particular stand out, and for vastly different reasons. First came early in the game, when I arrived at Titan Elementary. Now, in the first Dead Space, one of the monsters evolved from the parasitic demon-spawn finding its way into a baby’s sleep tube. So when I found myself walking through the blood-soaked halls of a school, I immediately prepared for the worst. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt as tense in a game. Say what you will about the series, the developers knew when to kill the action and focus on setting.
After reaching the gymnasium, I find the way out. Sure enough, I have to set off some sort of alarm to do so. And when the bell rings, the kids appear.
I can’t say with certainty, but I’m pretty sure this was a new-pants situation. I screamed out loud when the grutesque bastards of Cthulu and Justin Beiber rushed me. And I was right to do so. All of those things are horrible.
However, my last real scare came from a horror-movie cliché.
While wandering through the wreckage of another ship (the Ishimura from the first game) I heard a strange sound coming from behind me. I was content to ignore it, as spaceships always seem to have funny sounds when they’re filled with the dead. After crossing through several rooms, the sound persisited. I was too scared of taking my flashlight off the path to turn around, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was lurking in the shadows just out of sight.
Then, at a dead end, I turned around.
There were at least a dozen bad guys, all tiptoeing up to me with bladed-arms at the ready. They paused, equally shocked that I had discovered their game, and attack en masse. After curb-stomping the last of them into mush, I paused the game. My hands were still shaking, and sweat had started to form on my forehead. It was horrible, and traumatic, and absolutely amazing. That experience is why, to this day, Dead Space 2 remains one of my favorite games.
Halloween is all about having the experience you want, and I won’t claim that these games are for everyone. So why not share your favorite scares below? What game gets under your skin? What monster never fails to freak you out?
Enjoy the rest of Fright Week, everybody. And have a Happy Halloween.