Majestic Twelve - Scary Game Locations

Halloween is almost here and what better way to get excited for the scariest and best holiday of the year than by talking about the scariest locations in video games. Since, obviously, I haven’t played them all, these will be the scariest locations in games I have played. If you think you have scarier locations, please go ahead and let us know in the comments. 

#12 – Luigi’s Mansion – Not really scary, but more of the Ghostbusters level of spooky, Luigi’s Mansion is just what you’d expect. Luigi inherits a mansion filled with ghosts. You spend the whole game trying to clear them out and some of their stories are kind of spooky. But given the target audience for the game, they had to tone down the terror a bit. Regardless, a mansion filled with ghosts is still a mansion filled with ghosts and that’s worth something. Plus it has to be scary to some degree since Luigi is constantly whining like a baby and freaking out at every little thing.

#11 – Hard Rain Campaign from Left 4 Dead 2 – Admittedly, L4D is not the scariest game in the world and L4D2 is even less-so. But Hard Rain is probably one of their scarier campaigns solely for the fact that the Witch population is off the charts. You see them wandering around and it is a pain in the ass to try and get through those levels in the middle. Add in the rain storm the latter half of the campaign and you lose communication with players and the ability to really see what’s going on clearly. No other campaign in the game really captures the same level of terror this one brings to the table. Closest other one I can think of is maybe Blood Harvest from the first game, but that’s a very shaky “maybe”.

#10 – Mansion from Eternal Darkness – You see a lot of creepy locations in Eternal Darkness, but when you consider the fact it all takes place in the mansion (as Alex reads the tome) it makes the mansion all the creepier. Not to mention the various in-game visual tricks that play around with you when your sanity is low. At first the mansion just seems ominous. But as you continue playing, monsters will appear (for reals) and you find what was thought to be an abandoned city of horrors below your mansion. Why not ranked higher? You get a fairly good assortment of magic and weapons to handle these creatures, so it isn’t all bad.

#09 – Ocarina of Time Forest and Shadow Temples – As much as I hate to say it, Ocarina of Time has one thing Majora’s Mask doesn’t. While MM is creepy throughout the experience, there’s never one moment in the game where I’m genuinely freaked out by what’s happening. But OoT features not just one, but TWO dungeons that can be considered nightmare-fuel. The Forest temple is home to spiders, wolf-men-monsters, and of course the dreaded Wallmasters. Giant floating hands that will appear and drag you away into the darkness if you stand around too long. The Shadow temple, likewise, is filled with zombies, skeletons, and various illusions to get you turned around and lost in its walls as long as possible. Plus, invisible traps. The one game where you really do have to look out for those.

#08 – Slender Forest – Rated lower on this list because as creepy as it is to be chased by anyone in the forest… I just don’t find Slender Man to be that scary. The forest itself is pretty spooky, but it’s also hard to really see what’s going on which makes capturing video a pain in the ass. Have to turn that brightness up in the video just to see what the player is looking at. The explosion of Slender-videos also kind of contributes to the loss of scariness in this character and forest. You’ve seen him once. You’ve seen him twice. Eventually you see Slender enough times and you are just kind of used to it. Nothing ruins scary like over exposure.

#07 – Outlast Asylum – This would have been higher on the list, but I dropped it a few spots for very valid reasons. First, the enemies you face here are very much human (or mostly human) and humans aren’t as scary as otherworldly monsters and ghosts. Plus the game seems to push the gore-scare-factor more than the psychological scare factor. In short, it’s more about shocking you than it is about unsettling you. Granted, the unsettling horror of mental patients running amok and seeing dismembered corpses scattered about is still quite terrifying. It also feels offensive to those who actually reside in mental institutions and asylums, given that this kind of shit doesn’t normally happen and for as weird as the people in these places can be, most of them aren’t this level of psychotic and deranged. Key words- most of them.

#06 – Lavender Town – Pokemon’s biggest claim to fame, if you ask me, is Lavender Town and their Lavender Tower. It’s a big spire that’s nothing more than a Pokemon graveyard. It’s also haunted by the legit ghost of Cubone’s dead mother (killed by Team Rocket, no less). During the events of the game, you must calm the spirit down and then defeat Team Rocket, but you must fight an line-up of mediums who are possessed by spirits as well as the ghost Pokemon that inhabit the tower. While Pokemon themselves aren’t scary, a lot of the creepiest lore surrounds this town and this city. Plus that Lavender Town music is some of the most unsettling stuff ever. Sound direction people… good sound direction is all that’s needed to make something normal come off as creepy as shit.

#05 – Space Pirate Labs (Metroid Prime) – One of the first moments in games where I was scared of what was happening. The power goes out in the labs in the middle of the Phendrana Drifts (which seems like it’s in a constant blizzard). Of course, you’re held responsible so the Space Pirates send you their “Shadow Pirates” who have the ability to blend into their surroundings rendering themselves INVISIBLE. So it’s dark, they’re invisible, and you’re likely damaged from the trip it took to get here, meaning you need to move or get dead. You have the thermal visor at this point (I think) to help fight them, but the room is cluttered with stuff and it seems like the Shadow Pirates just keep coming. It’s like if you were being attacked by an army of Mortal Kombat’s Reptile but in space. But if not these labs, the space station in Metroid Fusion could also easily take a spot because it’s the first time you’re hunted and it’s by YOU! Out gunned and out matched, your only hope for 80% of the game is to run and hide from your copycat foe, the SA-X. Metroid really does deliver some creepy shit sometimes.

#4 – Metro Tunnels in Fallout 3 – I guess any Fallout game has these, but Fallout 3 is currently the only one I’ve played since the first two have trouble running on my machine (for some reason). The Metro Tunnels aren’t paralyzing with fear, but it’s a constant state of worry or panic when you’re traversing the dark and maze-like tunnels. You’re constantly on the lookout for Feral Ghouls, Raiders, Fire Ants (those things suck), or other creatures that took to the safety of the tunnels to escape the radiation of the Wastelands. On top of the creatures, you’ll likely also find traps and radioactive waste down there too. It beats dealing with super mutants… but still isn’t fun.

#3 – Apartment Complex in Lone Survivor – I think what makes this scariest is that there’s a lack of knowledge as to what’s actually taking place here for the longest time. Weird things are happening, dead things are walking around, and the hero doesn’t seem all that reliable in explaining the situation either. And the worst part is you’re all alone with no one else to help you or make sense of what’s taking place. Armed with little ammunition and few supplies for survival, finding you where you need to go and what you need to do is excruciatingly difficult and terrifying.

#2 – Castle in Amnesia: The Dark Descent – You wake up with no knowledge of what happened. You get brief reminders of your past through the game and eventually you find out a dark force is chasing you. Then you start seeing the monsters. Without a way to defend yourself, all you can do is hide. But the tipping points for me are the screaming you hear taking place off camera and you never know where they’re coming from. That and the one room you enter where your character states “it feels like an unnatural darkness” the room is literally pitch black; you can’t see anything, even with a torch. Definitely don’t want to book my vacations there.

#1 – Silent Hill – Despite the number of times we’ve been forced to go here, Silent Hill is still one of the scariest places in the world (real or otherwise). Taking the various mental and psychological aspects of those who enter and making it a personalized nightmare experience for anyone who visits. This wasn’t better exemplified than when James Sunderland took a stroll there in Silent Hill 2 to deal with the loss of his wife and his pent-up sexual frustrating that resulted from that. Granted, more recent games haven’t followed the formula of what Silent Hill is and how it’s supposed to work. But here’s hoping Kojima and Del Torro will get it right with the upcoming Silent Hills… which presumably will just be a larger town or a town surrounded by more hills. 

Those are my twelve scariest locations in gaming. Tune in again again for more horror themed goodness as the month continues. Also, tomorrow, let's get a review out. How about that? See ya next time!