- Dragon’s Lair in the arcades. I recall as a 3 year kid being freaked out during this one seen where Dirk (or someone) gets turned into a skeleton. Even though it was cartoony graphics, i remember being disturbed as a little kid about that.

- Sword of Sodan for the Amiga. Aside from realisticly surreal graphics for its time, it actually had some serious bloodshedding as well as dead bodies that didn’t “evaporate” like most games. I thought that was a bit freaky..

- I can not for the life of me remember the name of this game, but it was around the 1991-1993 period there was a PC role playing game that had digitized (the coolest thing back then) graphics of people as characters whenever you spoke with them. I recall the very first thing that happens was that your father or uncle gets killed immediately when you start the game and you’re suppose to avenge him or something. Anyways, this was the very first game that genuinely gave me a shock. As you explore the land, you come upon this severed head – which you can actually keep as an item. But when ever you viewed it, it was the most disturbingly disgusting sick image I’ve seen in my life….

- The infamous Ravenholm level of Half Life 2. You knew something was bad when Alys states “We don’t go there anymore”. Turned out to be a festering dark zombie infested town…with a lot of dead bodies everywhere. Of course zombies are scattered throughout the town where you least expect it, in the darkess area. Not to mention a demented former priest running around with a shotgun yelling prayer verses everywhere. Pretty creepy atmosphere too.

- FEAR. Well nuff said about that one. Mix “The Ring” with a first person shooter and you got yourself a sh*t in the pants fest.

- If anyone has played Eternal Darkness, then they know what a creepy game is. I’m quite surprise that this is a Nintendo Game Cube exclusive. Everything from the minute you turn the game on is all creepy. From visuals, music, and sound. All creepy. And to make it worse, this “sanity” thing that causes the game to go wacky – litterally. This is the first game i know of that will screw with the player, making them think THEY’RE losing it. Now what other games out there will do a fake turn off TV or system reset on you? Not to mention fake memory card error, change of TV volume..etc…as well as tons of other crap. And thats not even the scary part….

then came “shadows for the empire”(N64). just the fact that they were IN there terrified me. you actually went underwater and SAW them. i never would go underwater. then the BOSS……

this developed into a constant fear of deep, dark water in videogames. the last time i remember it was in playing duke nukem. the “protozoid slimers”. they’d just crawl up the screen out of NOWHERE. and they were always around pitch black areas, even WORSE when coupled with it being water.

i can’t explain the anxious feeling of dread.