Happy Halloween! Uncanny Fox here, riding in once again for another article now that my Furries-And-Lightsabers Romeo And Juliet script is out in the wild. Yeah, I’m weird like that. With Halloween 2021 now upon us, I figured it would be a good time to talk about some of the bosses, enemies, cutscenes, and other elements in video games that freaked me out, either as a kid or well into my adulthood. Now, I know that I’ve become largely desensitized to scary things like most of the population, but even I still have moments where I’m writing about Pinhead coming to Dead By Daylight, only to be startled by my mom’s keys as she walks in the door just as I’ve finished adding backlinks. That… was an experience.
But for this list, I’ll just be sticking to things I’ve experienced in-game, whether they are creepy-looking enemies or scenes that scared me. Of course, some of these might not be that disturbing in retrospect, and others might not be scary to you, but that’s the point of a subjective list, isn’t it? In that spirit, let’s deck ourselves out in that sweet Green Arrow costume, dig into that Trick-Or-Treat bag, and laugh at how I’m a complete wuss-job who jumps at his own shadow.
8. The Brickster Wins (Lego Island)
Okay, this first one isn’t really scary, especially to a jaded 30-something who’s been spending the better part of the last couple of months feeding off the oily ghosts of the Death Stranding, but it was still a surprisingly creepy moment when I was a kid. Lego Island is a pretty lighthearted game for the most part, with players taking the role of one of five Lego citizens, building vehicles, and delivering pizzas among other various mini-games. It’s this last part that serves as the basis for the closest thing this game has to a main plotline, where local pizza delivery boy Pepper accidentally sets the villainous Brickster free from his prison with an especially spicy pie, causing the criminal to go on a rampage throughout the titular Lego Island in a mad quest to steal every last Lego brick.
So far, so cute, but here’s the dark part… he can actually win! If you fail to successfully lure the police to the Brickster before he can destroy the last building on Lego Island, you’re greeted to a lovely pre-rendered cutscene showing the citizens of the Island crying in despair at the ruins of their once beautiful home. Meanwhile, the Brickster himself stands atop a red 2×4 and declares that it’s all his now… though there’s a brief pause in his voice, almost as if he is questioning his endgame just like Thanos in front of little Gamora. Everything about this scene, from the villagers crying to the ominous lighting to the drowning music that plays throughout is surprisingly chilling for a kid’s game centered around colorful building blocks. Of course, everything gets put back together offscreen almost immediately afterward, but still…
7. “Game Over” Message (Tunnel Blaster)
This is another one that doesn’t seem that scary on paper, but it still haunts me to this day. Way, waaayyyyyy back when, our parents bought this collection of eGames titles, sort of a sampler of indie games like Spooky Castle and Eddie Galaxy: Intergalactic Exterminator. And there was some kind of game with a chicken and Bible verses… I really don’t know. Anywho, one of these was Tunnel Blaster, a sort of Dig-Dug knockoff in which you dig through the Earth and use some sort of air gun to shoot aliens and pump them until they explode. Nothing really scary there… until you run out of lives and are greeted with a pleasant message of “Game Over. Try again, if you dare.” Spoken in a creepy mechanized voice with a sinister guitar riff backing it up. Bonus points for when the game glitches out (because I was playing on an old office computer, remember) and causes this to play on an infinite loop for the rest of the session. “Game Over. Try again, if you dare… Game Over. Try again, if you dare… Game Over. Try again, if you dare…”
It’s only going to get worse from here, people.
6. Visser Three’s Ultimate Form (Animorphs: Know The Secret)
Ah, Animorphs. Though I haven’t read most of the books myself, pretty much every kid who grew up in the late 90s to early 2000s will at least have some knowledge of KA Applegate’s long-running series of novels featuring an unlikely group of kids with the ability to transform into animals to fend off an army of invading brain parasites… not to mention all the grisly violence, themes of war, nightmarish alien creatures, at least one of the kids almost going insane and dying in the end, another being trapped as a redtail hawk for the rest of his life (which was pretty much a crapshow to begin with), and the idea of being trapped in your own body as a malevolent entity uses it to plot the downfall of humanity. Yes, Animorphs is infamously dark for what is considered a children’s franchise, though the 2000 tie-in PC game kinda undersells that aspect…
At least until the final boss battle, where the Animorphs find themselves face-to-face with the sinister Visser Three and his new alien recruits aboard an old Yerk spaceship. These things are pretty freaky on their own, but the kids manage to fend them off… and then Visser Three morphs. You see, ol’ V3 has possessed the body of a shape-shifting Andalite warrior, and thus has a multitude of nightmare-inducing alien morphs with which to torture his enemies. And the one he picks for his big final boss fight? A freakish green lizard monster with eight heads, razor-sharp claws, and an unnerving spinning attack that perfectly walks the line between comical and uncanny valley. A fun piece of trivia: this morph was used in the first book, during Visser’s first battle against the Animorphs in the Yerk Pool.
5. Mine Crabs (Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast)
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast is more well known for being one of the first real Force power fantasies than any genuine horror, but these little things are freaky! They’re these little scorpion/spider things called “Mine Crabs” that crawl around in the mines of Artus Prime and snip at you with this scary snapping noise. Even worse, there’s this section of the level where you’re locked into a first-person perspective and forced to crawl into a dark tunnel with only your binoculars as a source of vision… at least as long as the power cells last. And the place is filled with Mine Crabs, all running at you and snapping to take a bite.
I hate Mine Crabs. I really do.
4. Dinosaurs Mauling You (Carnivores)
Ah yes, Carnivores… my brother and I have fond memories of this quaint little FPS, which is set in a future where this megacorp discovers an alien planet that is filled with dinosaurs… where paying customers can go hunting them, of course. Because the Jurassic Park movies apparently don’t exist in the future. Since meat-eating dinos are also there, there’s the natural risk of the hunter becoming the hunted – heck, when starting a new game, you have to sign this waiver that states that DinoCorp isn’t responsible if you end up getting mauled and eaten out in the field.
And there’s a good reason for that, as anything that can maul and eat you will maul and eat you. There’s nothing quite as nerve-wracking as trying to sneak by a wondering Allosaurus, only to have it suddenly gain wind of you and lunge straight for the camera. Sure, you can try to shoot it, but if you miss – and make no mistake, most of the time you will miss, because you have to nail that sucker straight in the eye – you are dead. As in, you will watch as the dinosaur lunges on top of you and devours your tasty flesh in true late 90s, T-Rated detail. It gets even worse with the T-Rex around, as you can hear his thundering roar from halfway across the map. Just thank your lucky stars that the poison-spitting thing that killed Newman isn’t in this game.
3. The Flood… Just The Flood (Halo)
The Master Chief really does deserve the accolades he gets through the Halo series. Not just because he frequently risks his life for the good of the universe, but because he’s stared straight into the face of one of gaming’s most unnerving forces of nature: the mother freaking Flood. This parasitic enemy force is a threat to both human and Covenant alike, able to crawl into the bodies of the dead and revive them as twisted nightmare zombies that run straight at you relentlessly.
These mutants don’t go down easy either, as Master Chief typically uses up half his ammo just to re-kill a lowly Grunt. Not to mention the fact that they look like rotted fungus growing out of people, or the nightmare fuel that is Gravemind, the plant-like creature that commands the Flood from its cave within the Delta Halo. The threat of the Flood was so bad that the Forerunners were ultimately forced to wipe out all life in the galaxy with the Halo Array to eradicate them in ancient times… and that didn’t even work! A monument to our sins indeed…
2. Killer Croc’s Sewer (Batman: Arkham Asylum)
2009’s excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum is already a pretty scary game from the start. You’re placed in the role of the Dark Knight himself, sure, but you’re also tasked with surviving a single night inside the titular Arkham Asylum. With every single supervillain and mentally-disturbed inmate free to run amok after the Joker takes over the place. Yeah. Rocksteady did an outstanding job selling its version of Arkham as Hell-On-Earth, with dingy blood-stained walls everywhere you turn, rabid inmates charging at you at random, and pretty much everything Scarecrow does. Dude even crashes the game at one point.
And then there’s Killer Croc, who has naturally taken up residence in the flooded sewer beneath the Asylum. Batman has to venture down there to retrieve the spores he needs to synthesize an antidote to the Joker’s Titan formula, which leads to a tense walk across a series of wooden planks as Croc himself lurks in the murky water below. Players have to crouch down and move ever so slowly to avoid drawing his attention, but even if Batman does everything right, Croc can and will emerge at random to try to snack on the Dark Knight. Oh, and did I mention that one of his Game Over screens has him eating the camera? Spectacular. Add in the lack of music and you have a tense mission that will send chills down the spine of even the most hardened crimefighter in Gotham.
1. Dead Space 3. Period. (Dead Space 3)
As unnerving as some of these examples were, at least I was able to play through and actually finish the games they were in. This last entry though? It forced me to put the game down and never return to it. You see, my dad gave me a random gift of Dead Space 3 on the Xbox 360 for reasons known only to him. He did leave a note telling me that it was a random gift though. He must’ve seen the cool space guy on the cover and assumed it was something I would be into, and yeah, I was well aware of Dead Space being noted as one of the scariest games ever made. But I also heard the numerous claims that Dead Space 3 was “watered down” compared to the previous two entries in Visceral Games’ sci-fi survival horror series, so I thought I could power through it just to not let a good game go to waste…
I made it about three play sessions.
If Dead Space 3 is the watered-down, “not scary” chapter in the series, then I certainly won’t be checking out the upcoming remake of the first game anytime soon. Isaac Clark, the space engineer who survived the first two titles, finds himself stranded on an icy planet filled with Necromorphs. Twisted, flesh-eating, always-charging-at-you-with-their-bony-arms-and-never-letting-up-no-matter-how-many-limbs-you’ve-already-blown-off Necromorphs that burst from the ground at a moment’s notice. The three-or-so hours I played were pretty much a non-stop jump scare with little breaks in between, which only get worse when you start encountering the Feeders, former humans that were forced to eat Necro meat to survive, only to be mutated into fleshy skeleton cannibals. Look, I get that this is what the series is going for, so I guess Dead Space just isn’t for me. I did write about the new dismemberment system in the remake once…
And that’s it for my scariest video game moments/enemies/whatever. The interactive medium can invoke a lot of emotions in people, ranging from excitement at beating a difficult boss to sadness when Peter Parker is forced to sacrifice Aunt May to save New York from the Devil’s Breath in Marvel’s Spider-Man. And yes, fear is one of those emotions. Until next time, I’ve been The Uncanny Fox. Live long, stay gold, and have a happy and safe Halloween. Check your treats before eating them, and don’t go opening up any creepy ancient puzzle boxes. I’m still not over that, Mom…
The Uncanny Fox 