Games That Shocked You As a Kid..

[2nyRiggz]

The game that i was amazed to see was TimeKillers....this game had eight characters from different time periods and they were cutting off each other limbs and other body parts......I thought MK was bad but then this came along. I always liked playing with the dude with the chainsaw.


Bless

[SamIchi]

I don't think I was ever shocked by any game. Yea... I really can't think of any. What's there to be shocked about.

[steelfist]

the game that shocked me was when i saw my friends playing grand theft auto 3 for the first time, they were causing chaos by beating every person to death with a bat, shoting the prostitutes they just used, used flatbeds to tear through the whole road of cars, hijacking any car they want, and a lot more stuff.

otherwise, nothing else really shocked me. child innocence has been getting more and more less nowdays. millions of elementry kids have seen murder, and sex on tv nowdays. kinda scary if you think about it.

[reberto]

I was shocked at Tomb Raider 1. It looked so good for its time (I played it on a now VERY old Pentium 1 system)

[Kernow]

I was kind of toying with starting a similar thread.

I recently exhumed my N64 to remind myself how good some of the games were, and one of them I was playing was Perfect Dark. I noticed that it had an 18 rating certificate (not sure what the US equivalent would be - R? NC-17?).

There is no bad language, very few blood effects, and granted that it's an FPS, the violence doesn't seem over the top.

Compare this to GTA:San Andreas, which has the same rating over here, with its casual violence, drugs, prostitution etc, it's amazing how standards have changed.

[Soulstorm]

Well when I was 7 I layed my hands in Wolfenstein 3D. Man, I was shocked! I liked to play this game very much, and I couldn't stop playing it, but at the same time I was afraid to confront the baddies... Kind of funny if you think about it.

For some reason, Doom never scared me so much.

[crachoar]

E. T.

[risc]

E. T.

HAHA! Well done! That game sucked ass! God bless you Atari!

[greatdevourer]

I dunno about games, but EA scares me. How can one company release so many poor games! Now that is shocking!

[ChrisBrightwell]

Metroid on the NES.

"What?! It's a GIRL?!"

[paddy]

For me it was DOOM 64 on the N64. That scared the hell out of me!:eek:

[Dagless]

It wasn't until a few years ago (when I was about 17) that a game scared me. I played through Doom 1 without cheats for the first time ever, got onto the bloody Cyberdemon in Episode 2 and wow. my whole body actually felt a real fear for this monster.

[zelmo]

Pong. What with being born in 1961, I'd never seen anything like it before.
Candyland would be a close 2nd, though.:p

[Schmittroth]

The first time we installed the speach packs for Wing Commander after we had just gotten our first Sound Blaster! This marks the first time we'd heard real profanity in an actual voice in a game. We had this moment of "Did we just hear that?" And then it got overplayed like every early voice sound sample. I think Wing Commander was the last time a game really blew me away, talk about a leap forward.

[Lincoln 6 Echo]

Well when I was 7 I layed my hands in Wolfenstein 3D. Man, I was shocked! I liked to play this game very much, and I couldn't stop playing it, but at the same time I was afraid to confront the baddies... Kind of funny if you think about it.

For some reason, Doom never scared me so much.

^ lol yup, me too with Wolfenstein 3D. Doom series wasn't as scary.

Also, Leisure Suit Larry 1, good shock(??).

[pknz]

Marathon Infinity

[Lord Blackadder]

N.A.R.C. for NES. If you had the shotgun you'd blow the bad guys up into little bloody pieces that bounced around. :eek:

My intro into gore.

[DavidLeblond]

7th Guest. More of a "wow, my computer can do THAT" shock than anything else. I remember I thought the graphics were the best I've seen.

Nothing else has made me feel like that. I went to an internet cafe to try out Half Life 2, and it made me think "wow, its half life 1 with more polygons and larger textures"

I wonder if there's a way to get my old copy of 7th guest to run on mac os x.....

[Tommyg117]

Timekillers was really violent. I remember playing that and watching people's twitching limbs on the floor. But as far as the one that shocked me, it has to be the original mortal kombat. The first time i saw it, I saw someone pull someone's head off as Sub Zero and I thought it was awesome, but I had never seen that kind of REAL violence. Timekillers was cartoony, but those characters looked real. Really cool.

[Patmian212]

I would have to say warcraft 2 cuz of the indepth story or system shock cuz i almost literally shat myself, scary stuff!

[Miguey]

final fantasy VII, it was so shocking and amazing..especially the storyline was so intriguing...graphics were good for 1997 also..

[Laser47]

Doom 95 really scared me.
Heck, all the Dooms scared me, oh and also Wolfenstein now that game was awesome.
GTA just made me go WTF?

[mrfrosty]

You people are making me feel old........How about forbidden forest on the c64. Man, that music was scary !

[MacRumorUser]

Oh god I had alomost forgotten forbidden forest :eek:

I dont think any game made me jump as much as the first resident evil. The very first time the hounds jump through the window was the scene that 'shocked' me..

Of course many games are 'shocking' because they are so piss poor...
ET on the Atari VCS, Transformers on the C64 etc....

[dotdotdot]

Conquer's Bad Fur Day for the N64...

Conquer, the little cute squirrel, suddenly wakes up with a hangover next to hookers... :mad:

[2nyRiggz]

I remember when street fighters was the top dog in town then came Fatal Fury that was so much of a knock off from SF....but it was addictive..Terry Bogard kicking arse.

Bless

[RedTomato]

Stretching the topic a little, I'd like to nominate Warcraft 3.

Maybe I'm more sensitive now as I get older (I used to read alt.tasteless at college) but the storyline in WC3 really depressed me, and I had to stop playing it as I found it too depressing.

Summary - you start as this noble prince, trying saving the land from plague and all that, then you start killing your own citizens to save them from the plague then you become this night ghast spreading death and doom... it just took me unexpected, each plot turn.. I stopped when I was ordered to commit genocide on the elves and despoil their nature reserve.

It wasn't the actual acts that got to me, all's fair in a computer game, but the reasons, the twisted step by step slippery slope that made it eventually plausibly ethical for me, supposedly a force of light, to genocide the elves, was so similiar to what the politicans were saying in the run up to the Iraq war that it really spooked me.

Kudos to Warcraft for pulling it off, and I hope it helped other gamers (of any nation) to see behind their government's veil of decency.

xx RedTomato

[Patmian212]

Oh american mcgees alice is fricking freaky aswell:eek:

[RedTomato]

Oh, Alice, yeah I picked that one up and played a bit in Classic last summer. Lovely visuals, tho dire game play...

I didn't finish it - all the restarts got a bit painful but definitely beautiful artwork and very psychotic. Does anyone know if the designers were actually on creative substances, or where they got their inspiration from?

Alice is now being made into a film, to be released this year 2006 apparently. (more details at Wikipedia.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mcgee%27s_alice

Set years after Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Alice features an older, more cynical and macabre incarnation of Alice.

Alice's parents are killed in a fire. Driven catatonic and having attempted suicide (note her bandaged wrists), she is institutionalised in Rutledge Asylum. Years later Alice is called by the White Rabbit to the aid of a radically altered Wonderland, under threat from the Red Queen, the evil despot who has enslaved its people.

The game is written in the spirit of Tim Burton's gothic and nightmarish works (such as The Nightmare Before Christmas). For example: insane children whose laughter echoes through the game's empty halls; a spirit wall made of tortured faces; and the remnants of the Mad Hatter's sick clockwork experiments.

[Temujin]

First place goes to 7th Guest. Actually made me stop playing at night, and never when home alone.

7th Guest was my third cdrom game purchase. Day of the Tentacle (Great game!!) being second and Star Wars: Rebel Assault first.

Getting all nostalgic here, thanks :)

[AdamR01]

System Shock 2

[Lazyhound]

Does anyone know if the designers were actually on creative substances, or where they got their inspiration from?
Didn't Levelord work on that one? If so, yes.

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/3568/mainlevelord0vr.gif (http://imageshack.us)

[Lukasha]

Alien (after the first movie) on my Commodore 64. Blocky as hell graphics, but playing it in the dark, watch out! When crawling around the Nostromo, the Alien could pop on screen with no warning screeching in 8-bit glory! Made me jump out of my seat so many times.

Jeff

[2nyRiggz]

^Indeed alien was a scary game even the pc one was scary. Those games hit the nail on the coffin with atmosphere.


Bless

[KC9AIC]

Well when I was 7 I layed my hands in Wolfenstein 3D. Man, I was shocked! I liked to play this game very much, and I couldn't stop playing it, but at the same time I was afraid to confront the baddies... Kind of funny if you think about it.

For some reason, Doom never scared me so much.

I was shocked when I discovered that you could shoot dogs. I can still picture it and hear their cries.

[dubbz]

Maybe I'm more sensitive now as I get older (I used to read alt.tasteless at college) but the storyline in WC3 really depressed me, and I had to stop playing it as I found it too depressing.

I love the storyline in WarCraft III. The whole betrayal thing is just great. They did it too, in a way, in StarCraft. Killing off your former friends and allies were both awesome (in story kind of way) and horrible (because they where some of my favorite characters).
That said, they do seem to repeat themselves somewhat. There's a striking resemblance between the stories of Kerrigan and Sylvanas...

Speaking of storylines... Heroes of Might and Magic IV's Necromancer campaign ("Half-Dead", iirc) kind of rubbed me the wrong way at times. Kind of shocking, even. Betrayal's and everything. Damn, I hated the main character at times. The Order campaign is also one of my favorites.

When S.H.O.D.A.N. reveals herself in System Shock 2 was also shocking in way (though, admittedly, I suspected something wasn't quite right before that).

Come to think of it... the only thing that's ever really shocked me, when it come to games, are storylines and story events. Neither Mortal Kombat's violence nor *any* games graphics have ever shocked me.

Well, ok... I've been shocked by the awfulness of some games too. :p

[heaven]

mine was the first doom :o

[Mord]

abe's odyssey ect. games, they freaked me out

[TheGimp]

Infocom's "Zork".

I thought the "nasty knife" in the dark attic directly above the kitchen in the main house was gruesome, and shuddered with delight at the game's warning that "it is dark. you are likely to be eaten by a grue"

Some of the mental images from that and other Infocom games have a stronger hold on my imagination today than do many explicit images I've encountered in most games since.

Let's see...

"Out of this World" was a little bit shocking...plus the look and eery howling of the undead rising in the graveyard scene from "Sword of Sodan" on my Amiga 2000 back in 1989. To this day my mom occasionally refers back to the bloodcurdling sounds emanating from my bedroom back when I used to play that game with the volume cranked, the sounds of lowly enemy soldiers being impaled and slashed.

[saunders45]

I wouldn't say shocked.... but, when Resident evil came out I was like 12 and I remember the day my uncle got it and he, my cousin, and I stayed up all night playing.We were playing at like midnight with the sound all the way up and I remember when you walked into the first hallway, and the zombie is eating the first guy, and then he turns his head and looks at you. Freakin' scary man.

[Sayer]

I think I was shocked by my Intellivision II once. Wet hands + handling electrical devices = BAD IDEA.

I was shocked by how good the Collecovision games were compared to even the Intellivison. They even had those steering wheel controllers for some racing game, way back in the 80's, for a home console.

I was kinda shocked at the original Nintendo and that robot thing that it first came out with. You could play like one game with it, and all it really did was move some stackable spinning tops around, or something.

I was especially shocked when I saw my first "hacked/cracked" cart for a 2600. The cart had an exposed EEPROM connector (the one with the little lever that you swung to lock the chip down) and there were all these little game chips stuck into a piece of foam that you could plug into the one cart and play. One of these chips had the E.T. game I think.

I was shocked at how bad E.T. for the Atari 2600 was. Of course, that was *all* we had back then. AND WE LIKED IT! :D

[WhiteSavage]

The first time we installed the speach packs for Wing Commander after we had just gotten our first Sound Blaster! This marks the first time we'd heard real profanity in an actual voice in a game. We had this moment of "Did we just hear that?" And then it got overplayed like every early voice sound sample. I think Wing Commander was the last time a game really blew me away, talk about a leap forward.

Ah I still have Wing Commander, WC3 and also WC4. :D Cant play them, I lack classic or an old enough system. But those were that games that really got me into computer gaming. U just cant do that on console.

Onto the subject: Grand Theft Auto still shocks me (I'm proud of still being able to be shocked by it :D). GTA:3 came with my PSP. I played it... didn't anyone else get bored? I mean... thats probably the most boring game I ever played. Seriously, all u can do is kill people, drive to certain point by certain times... and kill other people. The first time u steal a Rhino when u have 5 stars is fun I suppose... but after the first 5 minutes that gets boring to. Yawn*

[rockthecasbah]

Super Mario 64 - My first experience with 3D games in general, let alone mario. I was hooked. That was the only game that got me actually hooked, other than Tetris. :)

[Kernow]

Super Mario 64 - My first experience with 3D games in general

Good call. I wouldn't say that it shocked me as such, but it certainly exploded my expectations of what a computer game could do.

[Macmaniac]

First time I played Doom I or II I was freaked out!

[bartelby]

Nothing has shocked me in a horror/ gory type way.

Elite on the BBC totally blew me away when it was released.
The sheer size of the game was amazing. I spent many, many, many months playing that game.

The next game I remember being shocked by was Iridium (I think it was called) on the Commodore 64, the smoothness of the graphics was stunning at the time.

Then Xenon II on the Amiga. Mainly for the Bomb The Bass sound track.

[takao]

perhaps first "gory" shock was: playing mortal kombat at a friends house. it was simply so over the top it was unbelievable

the perhaps biggest "graphical/ most seamless 3d" was perhaps Mario 64 as well.. i remember getting it and sitting in front of it for the next 1,5 weeks from the morning to the evening including "i'm not hungry mom"
and it wasn't even my first 3d game

another "shock" was perhaps the original Panzer general ... i mean a game where you could controll the german army during WW2 ? that was unheard of around here (and it got banned in germany)

[brett_x]

The original Syndicate was way ahead of its time. I it was like Rainbow six for the early 90's. And yes, it was available for the Mac, though I can't find any references to the mac version. I was so hooked on that game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicate_computer_games

[Abulia]

Alien (after the first movie) on my Commodore 64. Blocky as hell graphics, but playing it in the dark, watch out! When crawling around the Nostromo, the Alien could pop on screen with no warning screeching in 8-bit glory! Made me jump out of my seat so many times.Somewhat related, there used to be an online PC game called...wait for it..."Aliens Online" that was a multiplayer version of the movie Aliens. The graphics were so-so but the theme and mood was spot on. You played as colonial marines or as aliens -- 8 on 8 I think -- and it was amazing. It had RPG elements where you could improve your character by surviving.

My friend and I played that game -- sometimes just as a team of two -- late at night. Scary. As. Hell. :D I remember being stuck in a corridor with waves of aliens coming at us as we burnt through ammo. "I'm out!" <pulls out pistol> "Ditto!" "COME GET SOME!" :D

[freeny]

"Liesure suit Larry and the land of the lounge lizards" circa 1987?
Spent days trying to get him laid and only ended up dying from a venerial disease he caught from that damn chain smoking hooker.:eek:

I also remember seeing pacman for the first time when I was 10 at a Shakies pizza parlor in D.C.. I was attending a friends birthday party and everyone was crowded around the console arguing weather it was called "pacman" or "pagman". The line to play was at least ten deep.

[paddy]

What about Resident Evil on the PS? Im sorta surprised no-ones mentioned that. It had some scary visuals and an (at the time) original story line.

[danny_w]

I guess I can't play. There weren't any computer games (or personal computers) when I was a kid. The only computers were big enough to fill a large room.

[keysersoze]

I wouldn't say shocked.... but, when Resident evil came out I was like 12 and I remember the day my uncle got it and he, my cousin, and I stayed up all night playing.We were playing at like midnight with the sound all the way up and I remember when you walked into the first hallway, and the zombie is eating the first guy, and then he turns his head and looks at you. Freakin' scary man.


AAHHHHH That part scared the CCCCRRRAPPPP out of me. I was wasted too when it happened which didn't help. It was the reason I love Playstation.

[freeny]

I guess I can't play. There weren't any computer games (or personal computers) when I was a kid. The only computers were big enough to fill a large room.
You just had to "out old" me didnt you?:D

Id say you are about 40-45+?
its probably gonna take an abacus user to beat you out old man.

[2nyRiggz]

Resident Evil was a bit jumpy but when Silent Hill came along it made resident evil look like a walk in the park....Silent Hill still freaks me out with its atmosphere and storyline.

Some of the most unpleasant creatures ever made in games.


Bless

[RedTomato]

I first played The Secret Of Monkey Island as a not-so-young-un on my stepmum's new Mac LCII (affectionately known as Lucy).

I still remember the shock of:

- finding you couldn't die, (especially when I fell off the cliff onto on the rubber tree!),

- picking up the zombie head, when it suddenly became a full screenshot of a rotting head ..

- then later on, having to follow the scabby mouldering head twisting in your hands to guide you through the final maze.

.. RedTomato ..

[MacRumorUser]

What about Resident Evil on the PS? Im sorta surprised no-ones mentioned that. It had some scary visuals and an (at the time) original story line.

Think you'll find I did on the first page :D Those bloody hounds through the window :eek:

Another game that shocked me as a kid is kind of taboo.
Does anyone remember the 8bit freeware game that involved jostling your joystik to make a phalic object explode ;)

[danny_w]

You just had to "out old" me didnt you?:D

Id say you are about 40-45+?
its probably gonna take an abacus user to beat you out old man.
Try more like 53. My first computer game of any consequence (besides Adventure on mainframes) was Loom (Lucas Arts). It was a very interesting game based on musical notes that started my gaming life on computers, and I still love them. Monkey Island (esp. 1 and 2) and Day of the Tentacle were also great games.

[moooosedude]

hahah im gunna go with the first time i saw gta in action (gta3)

i was at my aunts for christmas, and there son was like shooting people in the head and boom there head was gone and bloood would like shoot up in a huge stream and omg it was crazy. (i was sheltered from violent videogames till like age 13)

[RedTomato]

hahah im gunna go with the first time i saw gta in action (gta3)

i was at my aunts for christmas, and there son was like shooting people in the head and boom there head was gone and bloood would like shoot up in a huge stream and omg it was crazy. (i was sheltered from violent videogames till like age 13)

It seems your 14th birthday is coming up soon. Congratulations - I hope you get something you like.

xoxo

.. RedTomato ..

[Agurri]

Day of the tentacle was awesome. So stupid. But so bright .... I loved the mummy

[CanadaRAM]

Games That Shocked You As a Kid..Watching my parents play "Twister (http://boardgames.about.com/od/twister/)"


:eek:

[mcarnes]

My brother modified the board game "operation" to actually deliver a shock when you messed up. It was much more effective than the sound buzzer. He was always doing stuff like that.

He's an engineer now for Intel. :p

[DaftUnion]

Contra III for SNES...that game was so BADA**...back in the day that is.

[link92]

Doom.

[zathras]

I was shocked at the amazing graphics and huge worlds of the first Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System. And now several of them fit on a single GBA cart... :)

[MacRumorUser]

Sam Fox Strip Poker on the Spectrum 48K. I never got to see her 'bonus level' ;)

[Kernow]

I first played The Secret Of Monkey Island as a not-so-young-un on my stepmum's new Mac LCII (affectionately known as Lucy).

I still remember the shock of:

- finding you couldn't die, (especially when I fell off the cliff onto on the rubber tree!)

Except in one place. Towards the beginning of the game, Guybrush boasts that he can hold his breath for 10 minutes. Later on, you are thrown off the pier by LeChuck, tied to a large statue. If you stay underwater here for more than 10 minutes you die - I think that it was an obscure in-joke the programmers put in.

God I'm so sad for knowing this :o

[whooleytoo]

Ok, obviously, not a game I played as a kid, but Thief - Deadly Shadows scared me into a clean pair of pants. One level - Shalebridge Cradle - has you playing in an 'abandoned' asylum which doubled up as an orphanage. I love the description from Arstechnica:

"Shalebridge Cradle
There is one jewel when it comes to level design, that I feel it deserved a separate paragraph. It shines that bright. I'm sorry as a perpetually aspiring Designer, I just go on and on when it comes to this. Just bear with me for a second. The mission in the asylum of Shalebridge Cradle is, in the more or less qualified opinion of this reviewer, one of the top five levels ever made by humans. Worth the price of admission by itself."

One of the clever psychological tricks it plays is that you don't meet any adversaries until well into the building, and so the tension builds and builds, and when you do, you're ill equipped to fight them.

The first time I played, I saw what looked like a mummy ambling about very, very slowly, but when I approached it, it lunged at me. [Change of pants #1] I ran out of the room, down the hall, up the stairs and into another room. Turned around.. and it was right behind me and lunged at me. It gave me such a fright I nearly vomited there and then, had to get up and turn off the console. [Change of pants #2 and #3].

[PBGPowerbook]

myst

[Mord]

all your base are belong to us! :eek:

[Bubbasteve]

Resident Evil 1 (that game scared the living crap out of me) and Mortal Kombat

[jsw]

Alien vs Predator. Jaguar.

I wasn't a kid. Still spooked me.

[~Shard~]

All for different reasons, mind you, but here would be my list:

- Doom / Doom 2 (just plain scary)
- FFVII (shocked me that a game could be so good, epic and moving)
- Alien Trilogy for PSX (damn scary - played off your paranoia)
- Starflight (running into the Uhleks the first time)
- Silent Hill (very eerie, although the ending left a lot to be desired)
- Myst (classic!)
- Univited for NES (sweet game)

[~Shard~]

all your base are belong to us! :eek:

Wow, I thought I was the only one who remembered Zero Wing! :D

[cwedl]

pass the polo.

[gekko513]

Alien (after the first movie) on my Commodore 64. Blocky as hell graphics, but playing it in the dark, watch out! When crawling around the Nostromo, the Alien could pop on screen with no warning screeching in 8-bit glory! Made me jump out of my seat so many times.

Jeff
Oh yeah. I would have to go with that one too. It was so scary I couldn't play it. I never figured out what I was supposed to do before I was scared away from ever playing it again.

[Otto Rehhagel]

Every game of the Marathon series shocked me, but I always thought Doom went over the top.

Even earlier in my childhood, a friend of mine with his Amiga computer shocked me with Lesuire Suit Larry. This was the first time I witnessed any sexually-themed material on a computer. (Obviously a different kind of shock)

[2nyRiggz]

- Silent Hill (very eerie, although the ending left a lot to be desired)


This game still have that effect on me(except SH4: the room)...i love it!!


Bless

[Thomas Harte]

All I can think of for a scare factor is 3d Monster Maze, which was originally a ZX81 game but which I played under emulation on a SAM Coupe in about 1992 being quite a bit too young to have played it in 1981. In terms of "look at the advance of technology", I have only really been surprised twice - first when I saw an Amiga after years of only knowing a ZX Spectrum and second when I saw an imported Playstation running Ridge Racer in a shop, although I found Wipeout to be much more impressive when I actually got one.

[~Shard~]

This game still have that effect on me(except SH4: the room)...i love it!!

Yeah, you know a game is good when it can still have an effect on you after so many years, and after that initial scare. ;) :cool: