Childhood gaming frights! Share your stories!

[Key-Glyph]

We all have stories about games that freaked us out as children. It's time to share!

Here's one of mine: After I'd gotten good enough at Ecco the Dolphin to get past the Undercaves (but not good enough to get to the Ice Zone), I decided to mess around on the password screen and see if I could jump ahead a little. I got the idea to create entries out of just one letter and eventually hit upon NNNNNNNN. This transports the player to the second-to-last stage of the game, Welcome to the Machine, and let me tell you: my fear of Eight Arms became instantly puny against the feelings this level put in me. The creepy music; the fixed scrolling terrain; the screen's slow fade to red when you get trapped; and the aliens! Aliens! Whose heads are rent from their bodies -- and then explode -- from Ecco's sonar! It was so unrelated to anything I'd seen previously that I honestly thought I'd unlocked some terrible evil secret that was not supposed to be a part of the game, and that my cartridge might have been possessed.

I put it down for a week or two. When I returned to it armed with an invincibility code, I thought it couldn't get any worse... and then I met the Vortex Queen.

I couldn't finish my dinner that night and wouldn't touch the game for half a year afterwards.

[Lodestar]

Nothing too crazy, but I was about twelve when I first played Resident Evil 2. There was one particular Licker "entrance" that literally made me drop my controller in sheer fright - I believe it was the one when you're in the storage room with the crates and it breaks in through the ceiling. The interrogation room appearance was rather scary, too.

That was the only time, and I vowed not to let it happen again because I embarrassed myself in front of myself.

[Para]

Resident Evil was terrifying when it first came out. Everything about the game was so thrilling, scary and awesome all the same time.

[deathsled]

1993.

Doom has just made its debut.

My neighbor and I are at his house playing the demo on his dad's 486.

We're in the dark playing the game together.

We turn a corner, bam, first encounter with a pink demon.

Scared the crap out of us.

[Lone Wanderer]

1993.

Doom has just made its debut.

My neighbor and I are at his house playing the demo on his dad's 486.

We're in the dark playing the game together.

We turn a corner, bam, first encounter with a pink demon.

Scared the crap out of us.

That's exactly what happened to me the first time I played Doom. I was kind of rambling on and not paying attention, so it was quite a surprise.
Me: Why to they have candles in a mars base? I don't see why they would need... OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING??!?!?
After freaking out and shooting a whole bunch of times, I realized it was on the other side of a wall.

[Betamax001]

Once again early morning dyslexia strikes again! I read the thread title as 'fights' instead of 'frights.' Like a story thread about fights people had as a kid over games or something.

[insanecow0]

Once again early morning dyslexia strikes again! I read the thread title as 'fights' instead of 'frights.' Like a story thread about fights people had as a kid over games or something.

I read it that way too at first

[Veno]

All I can think of right now is Illbleed. Damn, as a kid, that game scared the shit out of me. It was being played by my brother and brother-in-law, and I was watching since the dreamcast was hooked up downstairs. That was also the night I decided to sleep alone downstairs, and I was only about 7 or 8.

Looking back, they didn't get that eyeglass thing that lets you see traps. They just went through each trap head on, so I saw most every trap in the first level, and as a kid, they were pretty freakin scary.

[J T]

I found game glitching secrets to be rather unnerving as a kid. I remember when I figured out some of the glitchy secrets to Ghosts n Goblins (NES) that it weirded me out. It started with realizing that when the key fell at the end of the level, if you duck while it falls on your character, the door will not open and the game will not progress until you stand up. That wasn't very strange, but then at the end of level 3, I noticed a little ledge near the exit. I knew you could jump from crouch and I wanted to see what would happen if I jumped off to the side of the ledge.

This is what happens when you do that:

(You can also do something similar at the end of levels 5 & 6 by crouching on the latter where the key falls, then climbing down after you have it.)

When I was a kid this freaked me out because I didn't know what I had done. "Did I break my game? Did my character go to hell? Was I heading off to something horrible? And what is all this stuff I see? It can't be good. This is weird." It was like I had peered behind the curtain of the gaming world and it weirded me out.

[Xeogred]

1993.

Doom has just made its debut.

My neighbor and I are at his house playing the demo on his dad's 486.

We're in the dark playing the game together.

We turn a corner, bam, first encounter with a pink demon.

Scared the crap out of us.

That's exactly what happened to me the first time I played Doom. I was kind of rambling on and not paying attention, so it was quite a surprise.
Me: Why to they have candles in a mars base? I don't see why they would need... OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING??!?!?
After freaking out and shooting a whole bunch of times, I realized it was on the other side of a wall.

Gotta agree with you guys. I wish I could remember what level it was, but I remember when my friend and I were playing it (I was in Kindergarten at the time), we found some little compartment in the ground or something that saved us from invisible pink demons. So I just have this image in my head of like the space marine ducking down with pink demons running around, grunting and growling, biting at us and trying to get under there. Haha.

@Key-Glyph: Is your name based off the Ecco games? Heh. I can see how that'd be scary, having finished the game last year myself... it was weird as hell. I think I messed with the password system myself when I had the Sega CD version years ago. I think I remember getting to that one stage (I think it was maybe part of Atlantis) where you had to do those really high jumps to get over these ledges, it was so tough.