Top 13 Scariest Video Games

It’s October. The leaves are falling, pumpkins are being smashed and video game nerds are breaking out all their scary video games from the past. Which are the scariest though? In this list we will go through what video games frightened the gamer to the core of his being while trying to find their way through the game. Some games just plain nailed the spooky quality needed to make a game scary by accentuating the moody soundtrack and making the enemies horrifying to look at. Some of the choices on this list may not be obvious, but on second look the reader will understand what could make a simple game like Pac-Man for example, so scary, which we will start off with first.

13. Pac-man

Pac-man may seem like a simple game and it is. It’s the greatest simple game of all time. But let’s think about it a little bit more. You are a floating head trapped in pitch black maze with four ghosts chasing after you. Is this not the definition of hell? Spending the rest of your life as a moving mouth running away from ghosts that never tire from trying to exterminate you from existence? With this in mind, I think we now all understand how scary of a game Pac-Man was. We like playing the game, sure. But who would honestly want to live the life of Pac Man?

12. Alone in the Dark

Alone in the Dark was unprecedented for its time. The music was suspenseful at every turn. The voice overs were dramatic and dark. Doors would randomly close behind you, and you never knew what was behind the next corner waiting to suck your blood. This 3D adventure started a slew of games like the Resident Evil series, where you were alone in a house trying to solve mysteries and find artifacts. Actually laying Alone in the Dark in the dark would accentuate the already tense mood of being in a massive house reading Latin scripture relating to biblical demonic prose. Making this game even more scary was seeing yourself from the prospective of zombies inside the house and you drive into this nefarious manor. Alone in the Dark was the first of it’s kind and still gives spooks to those who have played it thoroughly in the past.

 

11. Ghostbusters

What could be a scarier job than busting ghosts? If you answered “nothing” then you’ll agree with us that Ghostbusters for the NES deserves a spot on this list. There’s no denying that the Ghostbusters franchise has provided Western society with some great entertainment, with the cartoons series and the Ghosbusters movie, but most people seem to forget about how great the video game was. Unlike most movie-based games, this game actually stays true to the plot of the movie it was based on, and that by itself is scary enough considering all the ghosts we see in the movie. But if battling a 20 story walking marshmallow and an ancient Mesopotamian demigod doesn’t scare you, maybe bad spelling in a video game does, as this game is filled with spelling mistakes as you can see by the ending text:

“Conglaturation !!!
You have completed a great game.
And prooved the justice of our culture.
Now go and rest our heroes !”

10. Zombies ate my Neighbors

The main character of Zombies ate my Neighbors may have looked like some regular old teenager, but the town he was in was one of the scariest in video game history. Everywhere you turned, zombies were out to devour your human body. The whole town looked like the best Halloween you ever had, except you didn’t have to worry for your life in your town. Some things were odd about this game. Like why you had to save cheerleaders if everyone knew that the town was manifesting zombies at every second and why some obese guy was drinking a beer in his back pool with zombies waiting for him by the side. Regardless, running away from these zombies made you on edge. It made you not want to relive this experience in real life.

9. Fester’s Quest

Along with being one of the most difficult games of all time, Fester’s Quest for the Nintendo Entertainment System is also hands down one of the scariest as well. Spooky music, a scary looking main character and aliens from another world combine to make this one of the most frightening experiences of your life (assuming you played it as a kid like I did). Battling the alien invaders from the streets to the sewers, to even their own space ship armed with nothing more than a what’s basically pea shooter, this game will give you the chills. To make matters worse, the “upgrades” for your gun turn out to be downgrades, as some of them don’t even shoot straight. If you’re not scared yet, you also have to fight the game’s gigantic alien bosses in a pitch black screen. Spooky.

8. Doom 2

Doom 2 took the themes of Doom 1 and accentuated them to more spookier proportions. The levels were darker, the music was more tense, and cacodemons would appear out of nowhere. Let’s also not forget the sheer amount of Cyberdemons you had to face in this game. Beyond the sheer quality of engineering super-spooky levels was the final boss who represented arguably the scariest final boss in the history of video games. The Icon of Sin (which was listed in our top 10 bosses of all time) looked like the worst nightmare a human could possibly have. Having to fight him was even more of a nightmare with the bastard throwing out every enemy in the game on command. Doom 2 set the standard for 3D spookiness that would be mimicked across all platforms. This game needs to be remembered for setting that standard.

7. Zelda 2

Zelda 2 was always an underrated game within the Zelda series. This game was a bit too adult and strange for some gamers, but this is what made it such a great game for others. Right from the start, you were adventuring into towns with Old Wizards (Like us!) endowing Link with the best magic, and completely dark fighting scenes where you were getting hit by monsters from places you couldn’t see. Further into the game, and you were visiting deserted towns with townspeople who would turn into bats. You would be walking on water at points and fighting massive bosses with chain balls taking away half your strength with one hit. There were always some secret forests or caves where you were picking up ancient statues and letters to help you on your way.

This game had a very hidden feeling to it keeping the gamer tense throughout. This was certainly the spookiest Zelda out of the whole series.

6. Maniac Mansion

Walking around a broken down mansion. Being chased by mice and old nannies who look like they’re doctors of Euthanasia. Blood stains on kitchen walls. Knives in those kitchen walls with even more blood stains on them. Pictures of brain surgeons on the top floor of the mansion. Has their ever been a game that has appeared more gloomy than Maniac Mansion? Sure, this shit looks like a B-rated horror movie, but you have to give this game credit for the sheer amount of gloomy aesthetics attempted in the appearance. This game started a trend for many more after like Resident Evil. Maniac Mansion was the first though to overkill the gloomy aesthetic of a destitute manor.

5. Castlevania Symphony of the Night

What a game Castlevania Symphony of the Night was. This was appropriately placed very high in our top 100 video games of all time. It was also on our top 5 video game soundtracks of all time. It finds its place again in our top 13 scariest games of all time list. Just listen to the sweeping soundtrack. It’s like you’re in a broken down church which somehow still has an organ player who has advanced beyond his years into making music on par with Beethoven’s Sonatas. Play the game itself and you will come across the creepiest monsters in the video game medium like massive brain organs with human body parts falling off of it. Get to the top of the castle and you are in the dark of a full moon night with owls and bats ready to attack from every corner. We could write about this game forever. Play it, and you will be in a perpetual haunted house for at least 40 hours.

4. Super Metroid

Boy was this game moody. Right from the start of the game you were in a broken down spaceship with quiet music slowly rising up every minute. Out of nowhere flies Ridley into the screen tearing down the whole spaceship Samus was on. You have a couple minutes to dash off the spaceship before it blows up. This sets up the whole game as a spooky adventure across the newly adjusted Zebes. Every area is smothered with spooky music and dark backdrops. The environments continually get more creepy as you visit a ghost ship and have to fight a phantom one eyed octopus, and visit Ridely’s lair where the pounding marching beat sets the mood for a battle of the ages. In terms of pure mood, there has never been a game to capture the mood sought after like Super Metroid. You are on edge at all moments of this game.

3. Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th is infamous for being one of the worst games on the NES, but what most people don’t talk about is how it is also one of the scariest video games ever made for the NES. When I was a kid this game gave me some serious nightmares, which may be why I’m so screwed up today. In the game you play as six faceless camp counselors trying to survive their stay at Camp Crystal Lake. During the game you fight a ton of zombies with little more than a knife (anyone who’s ever fought a zombie in real life knows how useless a knife is against them) while trying to find Jason and save your fellow camp counselors. I’m not sure if there are any zombies anywhere in the Friday the 13th movie franchise, since I stopped watching them after number 4, “the final chapter”, but apparently they exist in great numbers in the video game. After surviving the zombies you fight Jason in a style reminiscent of fighting Mike Tyson in the Punch Out! series. While Punch Out! is a far better game, there can be no denying that Friday the 13th is scarier.

2. Castlevania 2

Castlevania 2 was always an underrated game, much like Zelda 2 as a sequel to its precursor. This is unfortunate as many people won’t have the opportunity to play this incredible game that was one of the scariest games to play in video game history. Days would change into nights and the most nefarious night time monsters would do more damage than the day time monsters. The towns were desolate with townspeople epitomizing borderline mania speaking in strange proverbs and walking around slowly in cloaks. The music throughout the game was haunting. It’s not as if you felt totally at ease when visiting towns in Castlevania 2. The environment always stayed tense throughout the game. This game was a pure success at making a game as morbid as possible.

1. Ghosts n Goblins

Ghost’s n Goblins tries to be a scary game by hinting at full moons and zombies. The game itself though is not scary at all. The monsters don’t come across as scary, the final boss looks like a buffoon and the music lacks any sort of mood. So why is it on the top of this list? The game is the scariest game of all time because of how fucking hard it is. What’s scary is knowing that you will continually have to buy new controllers because how many times you smash them playing to impossible game. What’s scary is that after years of playing it and finally getting to the end, you have to go back to the middle because you didn’t pick up an artifact. The sheer difficulty level of this game makes it the scariest game of all time. Just the thought of playing the first level again frightens the shit out of us, because we won’t make it half way through.

Source