Zombies and Zeitgeist: 5 Games that Scare the Hell Out of Me

It’s almost impossible to come up with the top 5 scariest games that I have ever played. In retrospect some of these games were more frightening because of the context than the content (and more in theory than in practice), but let’s have at it. Because I can’t even imagine trying to rank these games I am just going to list them chronologically and see what that ultimately says about my gaming history. And I’m cheating a little bit by playing homage to the very first survival horror game that I played, Alone in the Dark (1992).

Resident Evil (1996):

I remember the night that I got THE call. It came from my friend Patrick who told me that I had to come over to his apartment ASAP. I, of course, jumped in my truck and drove right over. I found Patrick sitting in a darkened apartment (which was only made scarier by his collection of pet reptiles) drinking a beer, smoking cigarettes, and playing this new zombie game that I just had to try. With beer and cigarettes by my side I got my first introduction to Resident Evil. I remember walking into a mansion (as Jill Valentine, of course) looking for Chris Redfield, I remember killing zombies (and not quite killing zombies), but more than anything I remember the first time those damn zombies came through a fucking window at me! I can’t tell you how many hours I spent hanging out with Patrick and those zombies or how much time I spent playing on my own in my dimly lit living room, but either way it was definitely one of the most memorable experiences ever. Years later I still owe Patrick a debt of gratitude.

Parasite Eve (1998):

By the time Parasite Eve was released the video games had moved from the living room to the basement and turning down the lights made gameplay that much scarier. PE was a solitary gaming experience for me (as most RPG games were at that time). I loved that I got to play as a female cop (Aya Brea) and that there was that early inkling of what an open world experience would eventually be like. Ultimately what was so damned scary to me at the time was the biological element. When everyone around me started to spontaneously combust for unknown reasons tension started to build, when the actress talks to me about my mitochondria and turns into a monster the horror really sets in, there is sperm and the breeding of the Ultimate Monster. This game was all about reproduction and genetics…it spoke to the horrors of women/monsters who sought to use donor sperm to impregnate themselves. This game is scary on myriad levels.

Bioshock (2007):

This was the game that brought me back to shooters (or more specifically to shooter hybrids). I can’t even remember what made me buy this game in the first place because it looked more like a shooter than I was used to. In the end I was really glad that I did. Here I found a shooter-like game that took place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic underwater world. And then throw in the Ayn Rand references and you have a game that is right up my alley. This game was made even more complex by the fact that you have to strategically kill zombie-like enemies, the presence of protective Big Daddies, and the moral choices involved in saving/harvesting Little Sisters. Never knowing what was around the corner, through a door, or down a hall while I trying to save these innocent looking children was definitely a tense and scary situation.

Heavy Rain (2010):

Heavy Rain was a hybrid genre psychological thriller. Really more of a cinematic game, or as some folks say a series of connected Quicktime events. While game starts with the death of one of your children and the kidnapping of another by a serial killer. The game all revolves around a single question. What are you willing to do in order to save your kidnapped child? In the game you play 4 different characters whose individual actions affect the story for the rest of the characters. One of the scariest things about this game is that your characters can die and while it won’t end your game it can change the outcome. As a parent this game this game is scary because of the ways that the protagonist loses his children and what he must do in order to retrieve his remaining child. Aside from the storyline involving the children this is first game that I have had such a visceral/physical reaction to that I actually had to stop playing. It involved the playable character Madison Paige and her robbery/murder/rape dream sequence. As I played through this sequence the tension got so high and the ending so startling that I got a sudden and severe headache and had to stop playing and go to bed. Definitely a game to play if you haven’t found it yet!

Dead Island (2011):

I’m pretty sure that this is a game that was a whole lot scarier in theory than in practice. I remember the pre-release trailer for this game. Is was beautiful, dark, and ultimately horrifying. Not because it had zombies…every game these days has zombies even Call of Duty and Red Dead Redemption. For me it was the little girl. Since I have become a parent my tolerance for games that show children being hurt in any way horrify me. I have to admit that I didn’t finish Dead Island, but in the part of the game that I did play there was no little girl zombie attacking her still human family, but that still did not stop me from constantly struggling with the question of what I could do in a situation like that. Is my nature instinct…my will to survive strong enough to allow me to “kill” my own child, even if she were already dead (or undead)? Every fiber of my body tells me no, it tells me that I’d have to jsut become a zombie Mama and protect my undead child. Or maybe I could just stay human and procure human sacrifices/food for her for as long as I could. The scariest thing about this game (that I found was just an average zombie beater) was not the gameplay or even the actual narrative, but the narrative that was constructed around it by the pre-release trailer.