What’s your scariest gaming memory?

I don't know about you, but the scariest moment of gaming for me is in Portal 2... yeah, Portal 2... going into the Ratman dens. I know they're secret areas, but considering the fact that you've got some creepy artwork (some of the you, the main character) and words written on the walls. The only exception for me is the 'Exile Vilify' room; I love that song. You know about Valve and their easter eggs... some are downright creepy. I have yet to play Half Life 2, but if you reverse the zombie audio, you get little segments of them yelling "OH GOD HELP ME!" and that's just f***ed up.

Thief Deadly Shadows, sry

I was playing through Half-Life for the first time, in the dark with headphones on. Someone mentioned the first head crab in the air duct which got me pretty good too, but the moment that freaked me the hell out was going down the corridor towards a metal door with the first vortigon behind it that starts beating it down when you get close. Almost crapped my pants when that happened.

for me one of those games i remember fondly but it brings chills down my spine is Thief Deathly Shadows, the mission Enter the Cradle. also almost everytime Garett opened his mouth in the middle of a mission... it always made me jump. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srDSPtKZhfk

To the endless hordes frothing at the mouth over the lack of Amnesia mentions, I have played it and it is indeed very scary. In my case though, I was 26 when I played Amnesia, versus 12 when I played RE. Also this is a personal list of our own experiences, not a "definitive" list.

F.E.A.R. That game pretty much always had me on edge during the time I played it. Even during the non-combat parts where I knew I wasn't going to be shooting at anything I was still paranoid as all hell and jumped at every shadow that moved across a wall or floor, even if it was my own. Dead Space also gave me some good scares, particularly the Regenerator. First there was the "oh crap it's growing all its limbs back and is still trying to kill me," which quickly turned into "OH CRAP IT'S IN THE VENTILATION SHAFTS," which sometime later became "DAMMIT THAT PSYCHO WENT AND THAWED IT OUT." Doom 3 also was overall pretty damn scary back when I played it years ago. Although one incident that really got me was when I decided to desecrate a corpse with the chainsaw, and said corpse was sitting right by a door. As I was crouched down on the ground making a mess of whatever I had killed, I offhandedly noticed the door in front of me opening to reveal a pair of legs standing in them. This pair of legs happened to belong to a zombie, who began to attempt to eat me. I freaked out and jerked my sights upwards to look at my attacker, forgetting that I was still left-clicking. Cue me looking up to see a zombie fall apart as a running chainsaw ripped into his crotch. Hilarious as all hell in hindsight, but scared me pretty damn good back when it happened. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has given me some pretty good creeps lately as well, pretty much any time it gets really dark at night or when I'm running around someplace underground (where it just so happens to be dark). Also zombified Stalkers. Because the only thing worse than zombies that shamble towards you while moaning are ones that do it while wielding automatic firearms. And I can sympathize with Tyler on having his WoW account banned. I had my Guild Wars account suspended earlier this year after having not been on for about a month because it had apparently been hacked, and when I first tried to log back on to it to see the 'Account suspended' message I freaked a bit. Fortunately I was able to get the issue resolved without any problems. Arright, that's enough outta me...

3D monster maze on the ZX81. I used to play that on my own, the scary thing is my age!!!!!!

So many different things I could list... the scariest experience I remember is doing the dream portion of Max Payne. Never has a baby crying scared me so much. >_>

I can tell Gamesradar hasn't played Amnesia: The Dark Descent yet. Over and over people will tell you to play it because it is by far the scariest game ever made. Every single scene on this list can be outdone by the water part in Amnesia, trust me, its a MUST play for any horror game fan.

The original Half-Life on the PC. When you first have to crawl through the air ducts armed with only a crowbar and a 9mm with little ammo, plus a tiny flashlight that only lit up a single circular area on the screen.....and then a headcrab jumps at you. Played at full volume, this terrified me!

Looking in the bath in Eternal Darkness. That was a creepy game but that bit took the biscuit.

For Christ's sake. Pokemon? Seriously? Carolyn did this same nonsense during some piece where everyone nominates badass game cover art, picking Random Pokemon Clip Art Asset Placed Over Swirl Background #346123 as if it was in some way distinct from every other Pokemon cover art ever released. Is there some rule that every editor HAS to contribute, even if they obviously have no input that fits the criteria of the article?

Metal Gear Solid, Psycho Mantis Boss Battle. Can't believe no one has even mentioned this! The whole creepy looks of the hunting voice within a gas mask, the way he controls Meryl and you can hear his voice, screen goes blank and you think the game has crashed, the controller doesnt work, meaning you have to plug into controller port two and he reads your game saves!! THIS BEATS EVERYONE ONE ON THE LIST and comments in my opionion, gets to you in a Psychological way. Gaming perfect and both creepy and shocking!!

in resident evil 1 i was always afraid to open the doors. it was such a creepy and beautiful way to mask load times. then there was doom 3. my brother and i said we would only play in the dark with the volume up. the introduction level before anything happened had us jumping out of our seats, and when zombies finally did show up, we were effing terrified. btw the fatal frame video was hilarious. great article guys. there were some folks on the gdar staff I'd never seen, so i like the inclusion.

The entire Aqua Ring part of the REmake on GameCube. I've always had a terrible fear and fascination with sharks, and jumping in the water with that zombie great white to hit the switch on the other side, then having him thrash at me, damn near made me crap my pants.

Dead Space 1, like the first time you're in zero-g I think? I went down a walkway in space to get some item or other and nothing attacked me, I got the item. Come back down the walkway, and there's this corner where you can't see what's around it right? Walk forward without thinking about that and I don't even HEAR the necromorph f*cker when he's right in front of me. Beat the fire out of him and stomped the corpse for a full 30 seconds. Zero-g sucked so bad. Still not past like act 2 I think. Bought it uh....years ago.

I remember that part. Barreled right around that corner and straight into the Necromorph that I clearly remembered as NOT BEING THERE the last time I had traversed the hallway. Damn sound waves for not being able to travel in a vacuum...

Remember that part in Resident Evil 2 where you run down the empty hallway to something something collect whatever and then when you backtrack through that hallway all of those zombie arms came out of the boarded-up windows? Yeah, that one. That's hard on a kid.

It would have to be from Left 4 Dead. I was the only one alive at the end of the no mercy campaign, the chopper was ready and all I had to do was get to it. I was being chased by many zombies but more importantly, an tank. I got that feeling, you know, when you're being chased by a big bad scary monster. That is some scary sh*t man. I never made it to the chopper though, damn zombies.

For me, it was the first encounter with a Bloodsucker in STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. Between the dark enviroment, my lack of ammo and powerfull weapons and the fact that the motherf*cker turned invisible... it was terryfing.