Wednesday, October 30, 2019

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.

2. Metal Gear Solid 2’s Colonel Freakout Moment
There are quite a few moments from the MGS series, but only two have made this list. I’ve actually gone into some detail with these back when I did a list on weird MGS moments. This is one of the biggest twists from that game and it comes out of nowhere. I was in college and my roommate had Sons of Liberty (as well as Snake Eater).  I was playing this thing at night and I was like, “what the --.” I won’t spoil too much if you’ve played it, but I’ll say a couple of things.

After a betrayal, you (Raiden) end up waking up on Arsenal Gear, a new form of Metal Gear. After you get tortured by Solidus Snake (and get some shocking info on Raiden), you’re able to escape from your cell. While Raiden running around naked (AND DOING FLIPS!!!!!!!) is scary enough. You got Col. Campbell constantly calling you on the Codex and saying weird stuff and sounding really creepy. It also doesn’t help that the soundtrack has suddenly gotten “allll spooky” and stuff. You do find out what’s happening, later, but I’ll let you find that out. Just know that the creepy Colonel  and Raiden’s pale butt don’t last long.

3. Batman: Arkham Asylum’s Scarecrow missions
The Batman Arkham series knew how to get creepy. Heck, one aspect that’s important to Batman’s world is fear. While Batman can bring the fear to criminals, some can throw it back in major ways. That Killer Croc boss “fight” from Arkham Asylum was definitely a suspense clincher. The biggest villain who can bring the fear out of Batman is the Scarecrow, though. He’s one of the villains you face in Asylum, and he’s the main threat in Arkham Knight. I still think his missions from the first game was where he was used best, though.

You end up getting exposed to Scarecrow’s fear toxin early on, and you hallucinate a lot of things. You basically see the fears of Batman thrown on screen like the death of allies, the victories of his villains, and the thing that made him Batman: the death of his parents. After all that creepiness, you’re thrown into this world where Scarecrow literally towers over you as a giant. His missions are part-suspense and part stealthy.

4. Mass Effect 2’s Project Overlord
While the Mass Effect series was mostly sci-fi, Bioware could go into the horror genre a bit. Heck, you got things like the Rachni running around, folk being transformed into Husks, and Shepard thinking he/she is a magnet of love. Two moments from the series come to mind. The first one that easily came  to me was this DLC mission. I brought this mission up when I talked about my favorite missions from the ME trilogy.

 The Illusive Man sends you to a planet where scientists are trying to find ways on controlling the Geth. The lead scientist, Dr. Gavin Archer,  found a way to do it by melding a human (his brother David) to a VI (virtual Intelligence). Of course, things go awry and David activates the dormant Geth that were on the planet. The horror aspect really doesn’t’ get amped up until you make it into where David’s being held. The distorted voice and the constant Geth showing up was a bit scary. The ending of the mission is really what brings out the horror… and the anger. Let’s just say if I could’ve let Shepard shoot Dr. Archer, I would’ve.

5. Metal Gear Solid 3’s Sorrow “Boss” level
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has a couple of creepy things themselves. They even show up back-to-back in the game. While the “Nightmare Game Demo” was pretty creepy, the level featuring the Sorrow was pretty nuts. The Sorrow was one of the Cobra unit, the group of bosses you have to fight in the game. The thing about the Sorrow is that… well, the dude is dead. You see him pop up here and there during the game, but it’s not until Naked Snake’s escape from Grozni Grad where we really see him.

The level consists of you walking down a swamp seeing all the people you’ve killed. While you see the bosses, various shoulders, and a certain… vampiric person, the Sorrow floats in the air and does his best to creep you out. It’s creepy and kinda insightful. The length of the mission actually varies since you don’t have to kill everyone you come in contact with. I don’t know if Kojima was trying to say something with this level or not. Either way, it was one that I still remember. No, I won’t tell you how it ends. My roommate helped me out there.

6. Mass Effect’s Thorian Boss Level
Another Mass Effect mission that really creeped me out was the fight against the Thorian. The Thorian  was basically a remnant left over from the previous civilization. That big piece of grossness essentially acts how a Reaper would be. When it was discovered, it took control of certain folk  in Zho’s Hope, a part of the colony on Feros. What’s worse is that Exogeni Corporation knew about the Thorian’s abilities and let it control a portion the colony. The Thorian would also make the colonists into Husk-like creatures called Creepers.

When you go up against the creature, you pretty much have to go up flights of stairs and take out it’s tendrils. You got the Thorian’s ugly butt, the constant Creepers, and synth music that came right out of a horror slasher movie. You also have another surprise: an Asari. Saren and Beneziah left an Asari commando behind and she’s puts up a fight.  It took a while to finish the level. Heck, in my last playthrough, the game glitched on me. Garrus went down and didn’t get back up, so it was just me and Wrex doing our thing. Glitches can be funny sometimes, but ones like these suck. Luckily, I did still finish the level.

7. Hermaeus Mora’s Realm in Oblivion
If there’s one Daedric Prince that is actually pretty creepy, it’s this squid-like mofo. Seriously, when he first shows up in the game, I was like “GET THEE BEHIND ME!”  or something like that. Even though I did that mission of his (getting blood samples from each race), I kinda didn’t want to. His realm is not less scary either. I think Mehurus Dagon’s realm from Oblivion was even a little less scary, and that looked like Hell!

In the Dragonborne DLC, you have to go this creepy place in Oblivion to face the first, evil Dragonborne. You get teleported to this place via black tentacles… yeah. The place is green a full of books since Mora’s the daedric prince of knowledge. The villains you face there are few but none the less creepy. The Seekers are freaking creepy to look at… I don’t even like getting up close to those things. The Soggoths are less creepy but still pretty tough to beat. I think the least creepy thing about the realm is the OG Dragonborne himself… which reminds me, I need to finish that mission again… ugh.

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I could probably think of other creepy missions from games, but I’ll stop here. Besides, I gotta sleep. If you have any missions from any video game that creeped you out, let me know. Well, I’m outta here. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.

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