Things in games that terrify you irrationally

[Cleinhun]

Night in Minecraft. The mobs in that game aren't even hard if you're a little bit careful, but for some reason that game makes me feel super vulnerable. One time I was in a cave and I dug out part of the ceiling andaskeletonfelldownOHGODITSRIGHTONTOPOFMEFUCKFUCKFUCK and then I died because I don't know how to react properly to things.

[Max Ernst]

he vicious poodle from Beavis and Butthead for Sega Genesis

Well that's ten years of therapy down the drain. Thanks for dredging that back up.

[tegan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZIMQ9NIB-sA

[Zeusthecat]

Well that's ten years of therapy down the drain. Thanks for dredging that back up.

 

I didn't think there was a chance in hell anyone else had ever played that game. I'll never forget getting the final piece to the GWAR tickets and going to the concert at the end. There was a lot of shit in that game that terrified me but the poodle was the worst.

[Murdoc]

Patrick Klepek just played this live, it uses Creepy Watson technology which was pretty funny at first, but then became pretty terrifying.

 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/whenlightsdie/

[Tanukitsune]

The closest thing to "irrational fear" I get from games are timers, I just freak out the moment I see one. Even more when it's already happening in a tense survival game. :|

[Merus]

Cannot handle poison headcrab zombies in Half-Life. Poison headcrabs kind of freak me out but the poison headcrab zombies are a) disgusting and  fling poison headcrabs at me. Therefore c) auuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh

[Thrik]

I remember when I thought I was glitching in Half-Life 2 by pushing a table over to an inaccessible stairway to get to the second floor of a house on the coast, only to go into a room upstairs and be greeted with one of those fucks. I shit myself more at that moment than I ever have in any other game.

[BarshSmash]

All of the original Ninja Gaiden

 

Yes, that game was an anxiety treadmill. To this day, I'm not sure why I put so much time into it and remember it so fondly. Never could get past the stage 5 boss =(

 

Demon's|Dark Souls reminded me of it a bit, and I love those too. All three have a similar sense of baddassery when you do manage to get into a flow but cause dread, anxiety most of the time.

 

For being irrationally terrified, I agree about mirrors. I'm always sure they're going to flash some horrifying nonsense for a second and make me crap myself.

[Patrick R]

I had Where In The USA Is Carmen Sandiego? growing up, and in that game if you get too off track people you question just start giving non-sequiturs as answers. One time I just wanted to see how off track I could get and there was a town that just kept talking about UFO's. It really freaked me out, and right then my dad's pager on his dresser started to vibrate and I ran out of the room screaming.

 

When my parents asked what was wrong, it was really hard to explain.

[SecretAsianMan]

Re poison headcrabs: The clicking/hissing/rattling sound they make when they are near is terrifying. Whenever I heard it I would freak out and use every explosive I had until it stopped.

[tegan]

You know, Nintendo has deliberately gone out of their way to make the Pokémon Hypno into the creepiest motherfucker. From Pokémon FireRed:

 

It carries a pendulum-like device. There once was an incident in which it took away a child it hypnotized.

 

...and from the TCG:

 

Carries a pendulum with it always. Sometimes appears near less-traveled roads and schools at dusk

 

And here's an official t-shirt design (Sleeper is Hypno's Japanese name. 97 is its Pokédex number):

 

 

 

 

Also there's a bit in FireRed and LeafGreen where you have to find a little girl who followed a Hypno into the woods. The continued child molestation vibe that they deliberately give to an already unsettling character is not the kind of thing I normally associate Nintendo with.

[Merus]

I don't see that as child molestation so much as the pokémon version of English fairies, or really any kind of mythology where kids are kidnapped by creatures and never come back.

[tegan]

It's still creepy as butts and I don't entirely understand how we went from "this Pokémon is a hypnotist somewhat based on the Baku" to "this Pokémon steals children."

[Patrick R]

[impuuuu]

Night in Minecraft. The mobs in that game aren't even hard if you're a little bit careful, but for some reason that game makes me feel super vulnerable. One time I was in a cave and I dug out part of the ceiling andaskeletonfelldownOHGODITSRIGHTONTOPOFMEFUCKFUCKFUCK and then I died because I don't know how to react properly to things.

Minecraft can be such a scary game sometimes. The stress of losing stuff, and sometimes it's like a jump scare type deal haha.

[Bjorn]

I finally had to quit Don't Starve tonight from anxiety.  The longer and longer one run went on, instead of feeling like it was getting easier, I kept getting more stressed, sure that there was going to be some monster I was completely unprepared for that would wipe out several hours of playing.  I can't really think of another game that just kept having the dread build like that for me.

 

On the completely irrational side, I concur with the bird sentiment.  You can never overkill birds.  One raven on a ledge...sure I have a rocket launcher. 

[Region9686]

I hate it when I get to fight spiders of any kind...

 

Also, when damn facehuggers get no my screen while playing AvP

[Griddlelol]

Dodongos. Specifically in The Ocarina of Time. They've scared the shit out of me since I was 9 years old and still do.

[tegan]

 

 

Despite being the cartooniest version of the Redead, this one was by far the scariest, because of the sound that they make.

 

 

[Zeusthecat]

After seeing the game re-released on PC, I was reminded of one of the things that terrified me most in video games: the environment in Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. The ever present fog was super oppressive and there was an ambiance to the atmosphere that just always gave me the chills.

[Apelsin]

Being hunted is indeed terrifying. I generally tense up enormously when playing Zelda bits where things are chasing you, like giant hands and stuff. Twilight Princess has a brutal scene in that regard, where you need to do some serious platforming while being inexorably chased by a slow moving hand.

 

Walking in shallow water without seeing what's below is also a weird experience.

 

Being the monster in Evolve was the most tense experience I've ever had. Knowing that 4 other people were out there somewhere, trying to hunt me down made my whole body just crawl and tense up.

As far as video games go I guess that's not so irrational, but the degree of my discomfort makes it seem like I'm actually about to get physically hurt.

[GavinTheAlmighty]

It's probably pretty rational, but any game with swimming or diving into water where you can't see the bottom, ESPECIALLY first-person games.

 

Examples:

 

Deus Ex

Metroid Prime 1 and 2 (2 especially, like when you're hunting for the keys in the Dark Torvus Bog)

Half-Life 1 and 2

Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Sea of Okhotsk mission)

The Fable series

 

It was made infinitely worse in Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

 

I also get very unnerved when I got off the map and there's just one colour (usually white) everywhere.  Like when you enter IDSPISPOPD in Doom and go through a perimeter wall.  Don't put that evil on me.

 

To that end, I was very uncomfortable with the training mission in Splinter Cell: Double Agent for that reason.  All white everywhere.

[Tanukitsune]

There is a certain flower that's an expert in messing with your mind that really freaks me out... ¬_¬;

[Problem Machine]

Heights. Stuff like the Anor Londo cathedral in Dark Souls is pretty obvious and unsurprising, but I've noticed that even in 2d platformers if a level is presented as a bunch of jumps over a void it will make me a lot more nervous than if it's exactly the same platforming challenge presented as spikes or something.