CD-ROM Fossil

I don’t care how low res the graphics are, I’m not turning off the lights.

By: Katelyn Vause

Anyone who knows me knows I cannot abide even the slightest hint of horror in any kind of media. Of course, the majority of games have to have enemies, which means something is going to pop up on the screen that I’m not going to like. I’ve compiled a list of game enemies that give me nightmares, and even if you’re not a giant scaredy cat like I am, I’m sure you’ll see where I’m coming from.  

Fallout’s Centaurs and Feral Ghouls

These two are probably not a shock to anyone. The Centaurs are literal abominations, and I hate looking at them so much it is physically painful.

The Feral Ghouls scare me with their vocalizations moreso than their appearance. Every time I hear their guttural growls, I can feel my heart rate rise. I once spent a summer playing Fallout 3 every evening; I’m pretty sure my terrified shouts made the neighbors concerned more than once. The Feral Ghouls made me want to avoid the tunnels in the city.

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It should be noted that Fallout 3 is probably the closest thing to a “scary” game I voluntarily play.

Foxy from Five Nights at Freddy’s

There’s a reason I used the word “voluntarily” in the previous entry. I know I started this article off with me reminding everyone that I can’t stand horror, and that is very true. If you’re wondering how I ended up even looking at this game, you can thank our founder and video editor, Elijah. We were on the debate team in college, and this meant we frequently stayed in hotels in the middle of nowhere due to our travelling all over the country. Elijah and I, along with another friend, were hanging out in my room and playing games. The guys thought it would be funny to show me about half an hour of Freddy’s and then leave me alone in a strange place. 

I think I got about three hours of sleep that night. 

All of these characters are horrifying, but Foxy just seems the most deranged out of all of them.

Quake’s Scrags 

Before I knew what these were actually called, I referred to them as the “floating snake ghost things.” I have only watched someone else play Quake, but the first time I saw a Scrag, I made a disgusted noise. Something about them looks so wrong, and they have a tendency to just pop up out of nowhere, which just adds to the unpleasantness. An enemy that is annoying on top of looking creepy is a “nope” in my book. 

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’s Rakghouls

I adore the KOTOR games. I do not adore the body horror that is presented on screen by the final stages of a Rakghoul transformation. I suppose the enemies themselves are scary too, but watching the poor NPCs get transformed into monsters is genuinely unsettling. 

Anything from Spore 

No dev could cook up anything as frightening and unsightly as the creatures you’re allowed to craft in Spore. While some of the animals that auto populate your island can be creepy, the real monster always ends up being the one you make yourself. I know this article has “enemies” in the title, but I often found my own creations more terrifying and more work to deal with than anything I encountered in the game, so this counts.

One time, I was really invested in making a bird. However, because I leaned too hard into the bird thing, I ended up with an herbivore that was not very socially adept, which meant I couldn’t befriend any of my neighbors, but I also couldn’t kill them. This made gaining new evolution options quite difficult. In the next evolution cycle, I had to give the darn thing “people feet” so that they could dance. Things only spiraled out of control from there. I genuinely wonder why the game let me do this to myself.

And that’s it for this year! I could go on and on about game enemies that freak me out, but that would probably take until next Halloween to finish. If you’re into horror, make sure you check out Elijah’s article on secretly creepy games. 

Happy Halloween from all of us at CD-ROM Fossil!