What game made you afraid?

[StephenAnthony]

I've felt severely apprehensive only twice while playing video games.

Metroid II was the first time... That game just creeped me out like nobody's business. That music they played for when you first encountered a metroid terrified me!

And actually, the other time was when I was 17 or so playing the first Halo. When the Flood was first introduced, the scene right before that... really, the entire level really got my heart beating. I wasn't actually -scared- like I was playing Metroid II, but I was definitely on the edge of my seat. When you actually saw what the flood was, I was immediately no longer pumped.

[great]

Rat-man assassins in Arx Fatalis

The ones who make that creepy chuckle and loud footsteps

Then the one who actually attacks you on dungeon level 5

[Nakanja]

Metroid II was the first time... That game just creeped me out like nobody's business. That music they played for when you first encountered a metroid terrified me!

Metroid did for me too, except it was the first one, and it was (for some reason) because of the music in the rooms where you find the chozo statues.  I can't really explain that reaction, because the rooms themselves give you good things.

I was also scared by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the NES, just because of the water level.  Except the only thing in there that bothered me was seaweed (which would kill you if you touched it, but still...)  Probably a good thing Aquaria didn't come out when I was a kid; it would probably've been total nightmare fuel for me. 

Also Shadowgate, again for the music.  You had to have a torch lit at all times and if it started to burn low creepy music would start playing.  Then if it went out you die and this grim reaper face pops up.  But at least that game kinda makes sense to be scary. 

[inkblob]

I only played the demo of Blair Witch: Rustin Parr but that was enough for me. freaked me silly and didn't want to have anything to do with that voodoo.  crap, now I want to play the damn thing, and found out there's 3 in the series 

[Alphasoldier]

F.E.A.R., lol

I know, i know, very original, but this game almost made me crap my pants, I should NOT have played this middle in the night. >_<

And further, most games don't really scare me. I once had a weird game on my Xbox that was with some girl that went into a deserted city to find all sorts of ghosts, that game was immediatly removed from my HDD

Does anyone know a game that actually was meant to be scared? Besides F.E.A.R.

[Glamador]

Well I jumped more than a few times during Doom 3.  And the F.E.A.R. demo was enough to make me not want to buy that game.  I'm all up for some cheap scares, but the gameplay just bored me.  Other than that I can't think of any games that are meant to be scary.  Metroid Prime (the first one) scared me a couple times...especially when that terrifying space pirate music started playing.  Creepy.  RE games are meant to be scary too I guess.  RE4 wasn't really tho, it was a change of pace for them.  If I think of more I'll post them later too.

[Alphasoldier]

Somehow not one Resident Evil game scared me, I like games based upon fear and being scared ALOT, in general I like alot of games that run on emotions, not only on fear.
Emotionless games usually get bored quickly. Which means that I like Aquaria alot. =p
However games that's all about love kind of scares me, lol

[Lenick]

Myst and it's first sequel, Riven, contained some parts that made me afraid even when they weren't designed to scare the player. Since 90% of the gameplay is just the player alone exploring and solving puzzles in nearly desolated and (the following only applies to the original Myst) bizarre worlds, the atmosphere itself can creep you out. Though not many "sudden" things occur in both games, I played them when I was a little kid so everything made me jump.

[IceD]

I remember the hexen series quite well and all of them were quite creppy and made me scared many times, but since I was a kid in those days it's justifed.

From the last games... Yes, I think I can say it was Stalker - overall game atmospehere, music, desolated landscape you're forced to live in and felling of being trapped within the zone makes player to shiver all the time. I remember when I almost fall from the chair few times in some situations...

There were propably alot more games that made me scared while playing them, but It might be I just forgot about them now...

[Alphasoldier]

Oh! I just remembered another one, pretty embarresing too, Super Mario 64, it was very fun game, but I NEVER liked the garden with the ghosts or the path to it and I never wanted to lose cause the laugh of bowser always made me scared. xD

[IceD]

Yeah, I also remember Halo. This game had some unique scary moments. Maybe it wasn't so much frightening as F.E.A.R or Stalker (rather by the atmospehere, pure classical s-f I say), but the moment when master chief got trapped inside the structures on the marshes was terrifying... And the cut-scene before the introduction of flood... Man, I was scared when stumbled upon them for the first time.

[Glamador]

I remembered another one for gamecube.  Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem.  That was a terrifying game.

[Toom]

I think Eternal Darkness has come up a couple of times already; I personally didn't find it that scary, but was completely fascinated by the use of fear as a play mechanic, the way that the player character was visibly more frightened than the player controlling them.

[Lyx]

There were a few, but none frightened me more than System Shock 2 - especially since it made so extensive use of surround speakers and used it for gameplay (a lot of the time you cannot see enemies and need to trust your ears - they could be coming from anywhere, also up and down. A frequent technique would be to carefully look around when you hear an enemy, so that the head of your avatar would move... then carefully listen how the direction of the sounds change, etc.). So, it really was a "game" in that you were not just a passive receiver, but actively involved and immersed in it - and this additionally boosted the fear-aspect of the game. Never play this at night!

About rescue on fractalus - yeah, i found that interesting when i was a kid too. However, the shock-situations only "shocked" me... they didn't deeply frighten me.

Another game which made me quite affraid but whichs name i cannot remember, was a doom-alike on the PC, with the setting being some military base on another planet. The thing now was that there were some enemies which were normally invisible - only when they were already directly in front of you, their image would suddenly and flash up while they attack you, then quickly fade away again until the next attack.... it was pure paranoia.

- Lyx

[RobertWalker]

Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force. Particularly the sequence where you have to recover Lt. Foster and the isodesium from the Borg. Slinking around on a Borg ship was bad enough, but when you end up in the part of the ship that's been taken over by Species 8472 and they burst out of the wall and come at you in swarms... ugh. The giant security robots on the Dreadnought gunship are pretty frightening as well, in a "there's a huge unfriendly thing charging towards me" sort of way.