TGWTG User Blogs

Halloween. A time of witches, bats, vampires, and (if you're anything like me) ceremonies meant to summon the Old Ones so that they may come forth and drive the world to madness. (That which is dead can eternal yaddayaddayadda)

And since videogames are chock full of scary beasts and and frightful terrors, I figured it was only appropriate to count down the scariest monsters in gaming. They may not have the clout of final bosses and villains, but these are the guys that terrify us and make us fill our pants with excrement. 

 Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Top 10 Scariest Video Game Monsters!

10. The Yeti (Skifree)

No, I didn't just draw that in microsoft paint.

If you owned a PC between 1996 and 2000, you have either played Skifree or you are a dirty fucking liar. I mean, it came with the damn computer, for chrissakes! Skifree was one of those games you played more to unwind and relax than anything else. You'd be skiing along, minding your own business, imagining yourself at the winter olympics, when suddenly, from nowhere, TERROR!! TERROR OF THE WORST KIND, as suddenly a goddamn stick figure Yeti comes out of nowhere and gobbles you down faster than a fat kid with cake (no offense to actual fat kids). What made the Yeti all the more terrifying was that he WOULD NOT STOP. Oh, sure, you could evade him once, maybe twice. Hell, I've seen Chip dodge him 4 or 5 times before. But eventually, inevitably...the Yeti will have his prize. This turned your relaxing ski game into a race of screaming terror. And when he finally gobbled you down, he would jump up and down, a bloody grin on his face, taunting you endlessly.....until you shut down the game and got back to work you damn slacker!

9. Sinistar (Sinistar....duh.)

We saw this face in our nightmares for YEARS.

For many of us, Sinistar was (and still is) the very face of Satan in video game form. Sinistar started off as your basic space shooter. You flew around, shooting enemy space ships and asteroids, collecting Sinibombs (destructive weapons not to be confused with Cinnibons, the tasty baked treat), and overall proving that we had the biggest stones in the room. All that changed once Sinistar became active. Once we heard the famous BEWARE! I LIVE! We knew we were about to be digitally pimp slapped. Those who have played Sinistar for the first time remark on how tough an opponent he is on the first level, always chasing you around, with a lot of close calls. Those of us who have gotten up to at least level 3 know better. We know that at that point, Sinistar is only TOYING with you, as a child toys with his food before eating it. From Level 3 onward, Sinistar does not fuck around. He will let off a trademark "I HUNGER!! RAAAWWWGGGHH!!" And then chomp our ship in half like a Twix bar. Sinistar goes down in history as the only video game enemy to make you feel like less of a man.

8. Poison Head Crabs (Half-life 2)

Fuck you, Poison Head Crab....just....FUCK you.

Having to shoot at tiny little enemies is always annoying, but for the most part, the head crabs of Half-life were at least manageable, not really a major threat.....until these little bastards showed up. Their attack consisted of injecting you with a poison that would lower your health to one measly hit point.  Oh, sure, it would regenerate (slowly) but until then, you were easy pickings, even for regular head crabs.. Add to that the fact that these suckers usually travelled in groups (often on the back of a zombie), and you were basically in a world of trouble. But THEY wouldn't kill you, oh no. Each hit simply bumped you back down to 1 health point, as if to mock you and your gaming prowess. If this little bastard had hands, you can bet your ass those hands would be giving you the finger 24/7.

7. Flood Carrier Forms (Halo)

Give Uncle Balsac a hug!

These guys were suicide bombers from hell. They usually travel with a pack of Combat forms and like to show up when the action is at its most chaotic. Usually, a well placed Shotgun blast would take care of them (unless you were playing Halo 2, in which case, why the hell are you carrying such a useless piece of shit?), but in their death blast, they would unleash a swarm of podlings, which would make your day that much more chaotic. More than a few Co-op games of Halo have been lost to a single Carrier Form, and I think we all owe Bungee a one fingered salute for creating such a vile beast.

 6. The Grue (Zork)

The Zork series was the crown jewel of Infocom's legendary Text adventure games. Right at the start of the original Zork, in the attic of the little white house, gamers would be greeted with this little line of text.

"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." 

When the player politely asked the game what the hell a grue was, the polite reply was:

"The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is adventurers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale. "

A monster so fearsome that few who have seen one have lived? Excuse me, I must change my underwear. Players knew whenever they entered a dark room to either light a match or GTFO, PRONTO, as a Grue would gobble a player whole if they hung around long enough.

5. Big Daddy. (Bioshock)

Yes, I just used the Bioshock cover art. I'm lazy like that.

Good lord, even the NAME sounds scary. Scary like the hick from Deliverance. And we all know in the back of our minds what he REALLY wants to do with that drill, and it ain't something I can elaborate on in mixed company! If you went anywhere near any of the Little Sisters, this guy would appear and mess you up but good! I mean, come on, look what happens when we first meet him!

 Big Daddy: His Pimp Hand is STRONG.

4. Cyborg Midwife (System Shock 2)

Yeah, they start out hot, but once they hit 40, their figure goes straight to hell.

 Credit for scariest monster in SS2 could easily go to the Hybrids, with their pleas for euthanasia while they beat you with wrenches, or the spiders, because spiders (by their nature) are an affront to God, or the monkeys, with their exposed brains and high pitched shrieks (just thank god they don't sling their poo at you).

But its the Cyborg Midwife that takes the gold. I mean, first off, LOOK AT HER! JUST FUGGIN' LOOK AT HER! Add to that, the bitches keep giving you coos of motherly affection, and singing you lullabyes all while trying to scorch you with their plasma guns or claw your eyes out. And of course, like all mothers, it tell you "this won't hurt a bit" which we all know is one of the 3 Great Lies our mothers tell us (the other two being "you won't get in trouble if you tell the truth" and "Its not your fault daddy went away").

3. That F***er with the Chainsaw (Resident Evil 4)

Geddum' Leatherface! Geddum!

Anyone who's played Resident Evil 4 has been killed by at LEAST one of these guys. These suckers would lop your head off in one swing, and from that moment on, whenever we heard the rev of a chainsaw, all 30 of the other regular non-zombies in the room became SECONDARY CONCERNS. It took about 8 shotgun blasts to the face to bring this guy down, which as far as we were concerned was about a dozen too many. Oh well, he could have been worse. you could have had to fight two at once.

SHIT!!!

2. Evil Otto (Berserk)

Once again. actual screenshot, not an MSPaint drawing.

Berserk played out like a twitchier version of Robotron. You went from room to room, shooting robots, and causing all kinds of digital mayhem. But when the timer started to run down, Evil Otto would appear to chase you down. He was invincible, could move through walls with impunity, and in general made your game an exercise in  sweating horror. But these are not what make Evil Otto so terrifying. Nay, what gets Evil Otto on this list is the fact he killed players in real life. Within one year, two players died of heart attacks mere moments after posting high scores in Berserk. This means either one of two things: either Evil Otto reached from the gaming world to have vengeance, or the players were so mighty in their skills, that God himself reached down to take them from this mortal plane, that they might die undefeated.

 and finally....

1. The Cyberdemon (Doom)

Many monsters claim to be hellspawn. Few actually ARE.

The Cyberdemon. The ultimate enemy in the Doom universe. The game's manual describes them as "A missile-launching skyscraper with goat legs. 'Nuff said." 'Nuff said INDEED.

This guy would turn you into paint with just one or two direct hits, and even if he missed, if you weren't hauling ass, even the splash damage from his rockets would cause you hurtin' a plenty. But the real terror from this guy came just moments after he kills you and you continue the game....only to find that you didn't save your game recently, and now you have to take this bastard on with just a handgun. WOE BE UNTO THEE, MORTAL!!!

Got a monster, demon, or just plain baddie that you think deserves the title of scariest monster ever? Sound off and discuss!

 And don't forget, this weekend, we continue our Halloween Horrorfest in the Hall of Fame with your second Reader's Choice game, Resident Evil!