Favorites - Seven Creepy Moments from Non-Horror Video Games

Now, I’m not the biggest fan of horror games. It’s not that I don’t like them, I’m just not that interested in them. If it has a lot of zombie shooting, there is a chance that I won’t play it since I kinda of want more than that. That doesn’t mean I don’t like horror themed games. I own Vampyr on the PS4, and I think The Wolf Among Us could be considered to be horror. By the way, I finally was able to finish that game. I wish it got a sequel.

 I think I like it more when RPGs include horror elements. Heck, most RPGs tend to mix in a lot of genres together to make something pretty memorable. So, I’m going to go into detail about 7 scary moments from non-horror video games. I was going to go all out and make this a longer list, but I then hit a block when it came to finding scary moments in non-horror games. Besides, this just leaves me to get a little more detailed on these moments and levels. So, let’s start out with what’s probably my first big scare in video games.

1. The Final Level from Spider-Man

“RAWR!!! DIIIIIEEEEE!!” Imagine hearing this for an hour. That’s how long it took me to beat a pretty short final level on the PS1 version of Spider-Man. I hadn’t even ate food for Thanksgiving yet because this thing held me up! In the level, all you gotta do is swing away from the pretty freaky combination of Dr. Octopus and Carnage (Carn-Ock? Doc Carn?). Beating those two separately was hard enough, now I gotta face a merged version of them? While it would’ve been interesting to actually fight them, running from them kinda sounds better.

Anyway, while running like a coward sounds simple, you have to swing, climb, and run your red and blue butt off. You’re jumping over pipes, climbing walls, and running. I think there were a couple of times where I was like “All right, take me!” or something like that. I think I also only got to really beat this once since my PS1 ultimately gave out on me. It’s definitely one memory from I PS1 days I have still held on to.

Movie Talk - Universal Studio's Creature from the Black Lagoon Movies

"Man, these folk coming up and interrupting my fun time with myself!"

Next up for the spooky month is a look at one of the final Universal Studio Monster: The Creature from the Black Lagoon or “The Gill-Man.” The Creature (“Gill-Man” sounds lame) came about in the 1950’s when horror was trying to branch out from the supernatural. Now, you had mad scientists doing bad science, nuclear tests gone wrong, beasts from eons ago inflicting havoc, aliens coming from the sky, and all sorts of mad hysteria. Universal Studios wanted to get in on that action, so the Creature was born. The Creature movies were the last few movies that Universal Studios did in this branch of horror. It’s a monster whose influences can be felt today. Just look at Abe Sapien from Hellboy and the beast from The Shape of Water for examples.

The Creature was featured in three movies: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956). Now, I saw the 1954 film a long time ago. It was one of the only Universal Monster movies they had at Movie Gallery. When my sister got the collection, I watched it as well the second movie. I didn’t even get around to watch the last movie until a couple of days ago when I marathoned them all. So, how did Universal’s last Monster fare out in his movies?

Movie Talk - Universal Studios' Dracula Movies

Dracula: Hmm... I'm quite good in the novel, it seems.

Well, it’s time to return to the Universal Monsters once again. Since I’ve gone through my favorites like the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolf Man, it’s time to touch upon the Count himself: Dracula or Vlad the Impaler. He was the one who started it all with Dracula released in 1931. Even though he’s not the first vampire to hit screens (there was Nosferato in 1922), he’s definitely the most remembered and most parodied.

Now, of all of the monsters, he’s probably my least favorite. Even though he was the one who got this all started, he’s on the low end of the list. He’s not bad, per se, but he lacks something the other monsters don’t lack. I think it has to do with the fact that he is just an evil predator. He’s just going around taking advantage of anyone and killing them. The rest of the monsters have more going on than just being destructive. The Frankenstein Monster’s a destructive but naïve dude, the Wolf Man is a dude struggling with the beast inside, and the Gill-Man (who I’ll get to later) is just a dude who wants to be left alone… and get a hot lady on the side. Drac’s just evil and that’s it. Still, are the movies good? Let’s find out.

On today’s list is the following: Dracula (1931), Dracula’s Daughter (1936), and Son of Dracula (1942). Now, I do remember seeing Son of Dracula when I was younger. I hadn’t seen the 1931 movie until a few years ago when my sister got us that big collection. As for Dracula’s Daughter, I didn’t see it until a few days ago where I watched all three movies back to back. I was going to watch the Spanish version of Dracula, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. It’s basically the same as the 1931 version but with Spanish actors. The same sets are even used for it.

Weird Star Trek Episodes - Impulse aka "Twilight of the Dead(?)!"

Well, Halloween is upon us, and the usual “Look at Somewhat Scary Things” has started. Let’s face it, “Look at Somewhat Scary Things” has been a thing this year if you look at the state of the world. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about what Lafreeze, the Orange Lantern is doing today. I wanted to find and look at some horror-themed Star Trek episodes. There aren’t many unfortunately. If I hadn’t talked about Enterprise’s “Resurrection” a few years back, that would be a contender. I then remembered that Star Trek tried to do zombies at some point, so I set out to watch that.

"Impulse" is the 5^th episode from Season 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise. This is where the show started to take a turn for the better with its season-long Xindi arc. At this point, Earth gets attacked by a new race called the Xindi. Starfleet sends the Enterprise into the Delphic Expanse, the region of space where the Xindi live. It also a region that has weird space anomalies, and this is something that the Vulcans have experienced. They lost a couple of ships in there and what they saw through ship logs was pretty disturbing.

"It's A Video Game!" - Assassin's Creed: Unity

Well, it’s October, and I actually feel like throwing some horror-themed stuff on here. Before I get to those things, I wanted to return to the Assassin’s Creed franchise for a bit. I did think about talking about the more recent games first, but I can’t skip the “awesomeness” of games like Unity, Rogue, and Syndicate. Which reminds me, I need to finish Rogue one of these days. I heard that it’s even not a long game, but still. I got a little more time on my hands now, and yet… I kinda don’t care much about ‘ole Shay Cormac. Before I get to that game, I got to touch upon my most recent play of Assassin’s Creed: Unity.

Assassin’s Creed: Unity was released November 2014 on the Playstation 4 and Xbox One (not to be confused with the Adjective-less Xbox). Ubisoft wanted to innovate and use the power of new consoles, so we got no watered down version of it on the PS3. While things didn’t work out at release (you can look that hilariousness up yourself), that wonder and awesomeness did eventually show up. The game also includes multiplayer co-op, which is something I rarely care about. When the game was released, it got a mixed reception thanks to a lot of glitchy code and messed up graphics. Ubisoft did eventually patch these problems, but the damage was more or less done with some folk. So, now that I’ve more or less finished the patched thing, what do I think of the Adventures of Arno, Man of Boredom?