Date: August 15th, 2009
Cate: Video Games
Tags:

Scariest Game Music

Prompted by this entry at Crummy about video game music medleys, I went and listened to some old game music and realized that some of the songs that have stuck in my head throughout the years were accompanied by some of the scariest moments. Here are some that play in my head AT LEAST once per day, in trendy “TOP $N” format:

#3 Scariest Moment: Dracula

Castlevania was the first game I ever played where, when you finally manage to kill the final end guy, after weeks of playing to reach him… HE COMES BACK TO LIFE IN AN INCREDIBLY MORE SCARY FORM and immediately jumps on you with huge sharp claws and you die. This is the music that plays as that happens. It took many more weeks to figure out how to kill the alternate form of Dracula. The secret, which is to use the Holy Water, came to me in a dream. For reals.

#2 Scariest Moment: About that cake…

In Portal, throughout the whole game you have been promised, and I quote, “delicious cake”. When you finally finish the last set of obstacles and your Aperture Science Unstationary Platform rounds a corner, instead of cake you find… the oven.

And the #1 Scariest Moment is: MOTHERBRAIN

Anybody who has played Super Metroid remembers this moment with perfect clarity. You have descended to Tourian, in the depths of planet Zebes, and found Mother Brain, in exactly the same setting as the original Metroid. The same way to destroy it works too: missiles through the glass. It doesn’t even take that many before Mother Brain explodes, and you get ready to celebrate. But then, after an eerie pause, this music begins to play and Mother Brain comes back to life in a screen-filling, and seemingly invincible form. None of your weapons work, and Mother Brain keeps shooting you with an energy draining beam that pins you to the back wall and leaves you immobilized. No matter how many E-Tanks you have, all you can do is sit there and watch them all be drained away. To raise the drama even further, Mother Brain shuts off the beam when you have like 10 energy points left, giving you a few moments to helplessly pound on the buttons, or scream and swing the controller around over your head, depending on your panic level. Lots of games do the “that was only a hologram… now my TRUE FORM” thing with the final end guy, Castlevania was maybe the first, but I say Super Metroid did it the best.

6 Comments

    I have the second one on my phone as a phone ring, it works amazingly well because of the slow start it will be noticed if it is right next to me but then the drums kick in and it is noticable from wherever it is.

    1F

  1. June 15th, 2010
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  2. I bet some songs really are associated with negative experiences in my life… Like the twilight zone theme, I always remember the experience when my mom leaves me to my own room to sleep alone,… waaaaa so scary…

    2F

  3. June 20th, 2010
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  4. nice game, it should show the tricky to play game enjoyable

    3F

  5. June 20th, 2010
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  6. it’s good game

    4F

  7. June 24th, 2010
    REPLY))

  8. yes, it’s really good !

    5F

  9. December 29th, 2010
    REPLY))

  10. Good, thanks.

    6F

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