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October 30, 2009 by The News Team Filed Under: DS, Wii, GoNintendo Updates, Nintendo in general

gonintendo endofday border


Time for me to sneak off to bed, but not without sharing our latest GoNintendo/GameDaily feature. Hopefully you're willing to get in on the Halloween spirit with us. If not, you can always check out the delightful Rinry. She's not scary at all, I promise! See you all in a few, short hours.

It's time to take a break from the console-specific top 10 lists that we've been putting together with GameDaily. In honor of Halloween being right around the corner, we decided to put together a list of the scariest games that ever hit Nintendo consoles. When looking back over the generations of platforms, be they portable or console, you sure do have a lot to choose from! Needless to say, this was one of the hardest lists to put together.

I just want to make this clear before we jump into the list. This feature focuses on titles that both GoNintendo and GameDaily picked as titles that scared the crap out of us. They may have made us jump out of our seats, sit uneasily as we played through, or just made us uncomfortable from start to finish. There may be some games that you'll be surprised to see on the list, so by all means, feel free to tell us why we're totally wrong!

GoNintendo and GameDaily worked on the list together, but here we'll be showing off spots 10 through 6. Please click over to GameDaily to see our collaborative choices for spots 5 through 1.


Number 10 -Out of This World

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To this very day, Out of This World creeps me out. While the game's first intentions may not be to scare you, it definitely creates an atmosphere that makes you feel vulnerable and unsafe at all times. You can literally die within the first 5 seconds of the game if you aren't paying attention. It's this game world that is constantly out to get you that makes you sweat.

To this very day, I can remember freaking myself out while playing this game at night. The graphics were top-notch for the time, and they really helped to pull you into the title. Working even more for the fright factor is the minimal amount of sounds. There's barely a hint of ambient noise in some portions, which makes for a quiet intensity unlike any other game. Damn, just thinking about rolling through the air vents is giving me goosebumps!


Number 9 - Shadow Man

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Back in the days of the N64, I was truly looking forward to Shadow Man. It seemed like it was going to be one hell of an adventure. Luckily, the game did indeed turn out to be fantastic. Little did I know that the world of Michael LeRoi would be so scarily evil.

Here's an element of scary games that we haven't even touched on yet...voodoo. It's hard to think of many games that use voodoo in a scary way, instead of a comedic nature. Shadow Man played on the voodoo theme heavily, by showing you the very dark side of this dark art of the bayou. Mix this in with tortured memories of your brother, and a setting that seemed like it was right out of a nightmare, and you'll find yourself hiding under the covers at bedtime.

Quick note - Shadow Man was the very first game Mom Brain saw me play back in the day. It scared the hell out of her! Why in the world did she stick with me?!

Number 8 - Dead Rising

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Being trapped in a mall with thousands of zombies. Sure, that seems like a great idea for a game, but it wouldn't be too great if you were in that situation in real life! Thankfully Frank West has his wits about him for this situation...as well as a plethora of tools and weapons from the local mall.

Dead Rising played heavily on the zombie fascination that gamers have, and puts you right in the middle of an absolutely enormous outbreak. It's literally kill or be killed, as you can be swarmed by the living dead at any turn. Throw in some psychotic zombie bosses such as Adam the Clown, and you can nearly get me to wet my pants. Go ahead, try to tell me that a zombie clown juggling chainsaws isn't scary!

Number 7 - Dementium: The Ward

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Who knew that you could make a portable game that was scary as hell?! I surely didn't expect to see anything of the sort, but that's long before I knew that Renegade Kid was going to push portable gaming to its limits with this all-out freak fest. Not only does Dementium truly pump some awesome horsepower out of the DS, it also makes you want to shrivel up in a corner and die!

When you're talking about a portable horror title, you have to make sure you pop on the headphones. Once you do that, you're surrounded by all sorts of scares and atmosphere that only makes the gameplay that much more intense. Shuffling about through a hospital with enemies waiting to pounce you at every corner...try to tell me that's not scary?! This is one of those situations that's only considered fun when you know it's only a game!


Number 6 - House of the Dead: Overkill

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I've never really considered the House of the Dead series to be scary. I'd say that campy/cheesy comes to mind for most. That all changed with House of the Dead: Overkill. While the game definitely played up the B-movie style of the previous titles, it was the characters and on-rails nature that took you for a thrill ride.

Mind you, House of the Dead: Overkill isn't going to make you jump out of your skin, or make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up...but it's still a freakish adventure. You're pushed through corridor after corridor, peeking in on some of the grossest settings you'll ever see. If you don't think this title is scary, then I don't think you've made it to the final level. Trust me, when you see the thing you're fighting, and then witness the end cutscene...you're going to get that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. Too scary to even think about in real life!

Once again, click here to check out the rest of GoNintendo/GameDaily's list, which features spots 5 through 1


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October 29, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Shadowman is freaking awesome. About time that game got some love.
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October 29, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Glad someone else out there loves it!
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October 30, 2009 at 12:07 am
Eternal Darkness was a great choice for #1.
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October 30, 2009 at 12:10 am
@Archangel_James

I agree.

I don't agree with RE4 being on the list though, I played the Wii version, and didn't think it was scary compared to the other REs I had played before.
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Shaanyboi
October 30, 2009 at 12:10 am
YES Eternal Darkness.

YES
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October 30, 2009 at 12:19 am
@RawmeatCowboy

Are you kidding? I loved the atmosphere and creepiness of the title. The babies crying in that creepy nursery was... brrr!

Then again, I also liked the comic.
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October 30, 2009 at 1:30 am
Man, I so regret that, on all my playthroughs of Eternal Darkness, I kept using the spell to refill the sanity meter. SUCH a stupid move on my part; I missed out on all the good, creepy stuff.
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October 30, 2009 at 1:50 am
Eternal Darkness... scary? No.
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October 30, 2009 at 2:23 am
Love me some eternal darkness. Got it for $12. Played it through three times. Talk about game value.
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October 30, 2009 at 3:07 am
Thank god REmake beat RE 4. I swear, if RE4 had beaten REmake I would have called this list complete crap. I like the list. I would have put REmake first though. ;)
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hcig
October 30, 2009 at 3:33 am
seriously, i think frictional NEEDS to port penumbra to wii in a collection, then do a sequel, dead space style, because i cant tell you (unless you played the game) how awesome that game would be if you got to be someone like red, one of the survivors, there from the start of the outbreak

edit:penumbra is a two game series with 1 expansion, and is a 3d horror adventure game (like original RE) that is based around a physics engine (like half life) i encourage you to NOT look up any videos of it, not even screen shots, just get the damn game, and freak the hell out, even better if you can get an hdmi cable running from a bigass tv with surround sound, which is actually what me and my friends are doing tonight, oh yea, the game is still scary with friends in the room

@Artistic_Anarchy

ditto, RE4 shouldnt even be in the top 5, and DEFINITELY not before REmake
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October 30, 2009 at 4:50 am
Doom? House of the Dead?Seriously? They really should look up scary in the dictionary.
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October 30, 2009 at 5:14 am
Shadowman had some fantastic atmosphere. Eternal Darkness gave me nightmares for a month, even after I had completed all three colours.
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October 30, 2009 at 5:32 am
I found Doom64 to be scarier.. there was something about the level's soundtrack that really got to me back then.

RE4 had its moments but it wasn't scary as RE2.
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October 30, 2009 at 5:46 am
I've never played #10 or #9 so I can't really comment on those.

I own both the 360 and Wii versions of Dead Rising, and honestly it's not really a scary game. Tom Hulett, the current Silent Hill producer at Climax, said it best: "sure it's a gory game, but it's not very scary" and mentioning how "when's the last time someone woke up screaming because they dreamed they were beating a zombie to death?" I'm not knocking the game in any way, because I think Dead Rising's awesome, it's just not a "scary" game to me. Now "adrenaline pumping," yes I definitely agree there.

I agree with Dementium. So far it's the only handheld game to scare the living crap out of me. The sequel looks like it'll be a better game in many respects (no more respawning enemies, you can carry around health, and saving is highly improved), but I'll have to wait and see if it scares me as much as the first one did.

Overkill's another "adrenaline pumping" game, not really "scary." As much as I love lightgun games, I've never found any of them to be "scary."

Doom actually can be kinda creepy in some cases.

Haven't played DS:E yet so I'll comment on that one at another time.

RE4 did have a nice atmosphere and well, yeah I don't mind it's placement even if it didn't scare me a whole lot. The furnace man actually still gets me sometimes.

Definitely agree with the Gamecube remake of Resident Evil. It's the first horror game I ever played, and that game managed to creep me out so much I had trouble trying to sleep at night the first week I played it.

And lastly, I highly agree with #1. On my first playthrough a lot of the insanity effects managed to fool me (except the "memory card corruption" one, because the employee at the GameStop informed us of it early because apparently they've had trouble with people thinking the game had a major bug and almost returned it multiple times). I still won't forget the night I encountered the now infamous "bath tub" scene. I was alone in my room, 3:00 AM, lights off, siting a little close to the TV. After that moment happened I was so scared I turned off the game and reverted back to being 5 years old for a moment by getting under my bed covers so "the monsters won't get me." I was still very new to horror games at age 13 so you've got to remember that it freaked me out pretty badly. That "cockroach on the screen" one also got me the first time it happened. Almost smacked my TV screen with a sandal before I realized it was fake.
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ejamer
October 30, 2009 at 6:04 am
My wife has one simple rule: never play Eternal Darkness when she is in the same building. Not room... building.

As for Shadow Man, I always wanted to play but never had the opportunity. Wish this game would come out for Virtual Console.
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October 30, 2009 at 6:32 am
I love ShadowMan. Back in the day I bought it without knowing anything about it, and it turned out to be amazing.
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October 30, 2009 at 7:09 am
Definitely in agreement with ED's placing.

RE started losing its scare factor and gameplay roots with 4 [and then full swing with 5], tbh.
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October 30, 2009 at 7:40 am
Dead Rising? Come on, that game was comical, it was -funny-.

@Chosenoneknuckles

Those gameplay roots sucked some serious nuggets, good riddance.

The scare factor, however, I dearly miss.
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October 30, 2009 at 7:50 am
Shadowman is too low. Behind DR is a joke. I played it three months ago (70+hs of pure scary gameplay FTW!), and it still scared the s*** out of me.

I'd pay double the premium price for a Shadowman remake.
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October 30, 2009 at 7:59 am
@RustyCage
"Those gameplay roots sucked some serious nuggets"

What do you mean?.. care to explain.
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October 30, 2009 at 8:02 am
swarmed by the zombies? really?

Shadow man its a great game, there was level i think its called the playground (or something like that), that was really scary.

House of the dead, this game scares no one, i mean light gun games are lame at scaring people.

Dead rising, pffff this is other game that does not scare anyone, Killer7 is scarier (by a large margin).

I havent played dead space extraction, but its a light gun game so i dont think it will scare me.

RE4 had its moments, the first time i played it (which means i did not know what i was doing) and got swarmed in the house it scare the hell out of me, also the first encounters with regenerators and iron maidens..

@NeroSuferoth

He means that the gameplay sucks, and that is true, the control where horrible but i think that added to the scare factor of the game
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October 30, 2009 at 8:20 am
@Tanori

But the controls haven't even changed that much (excluding RE5).

When I first tried RE4 they felt natural and familiar to past RE games, except for a few new moves, but the core gameplay was still there...

EDIT: my bad.. I totally forgot this is RE4 Wii, I was talking about the PS2 version.

The Wii controls were fine but I felt that the IR aiming made the game somewhat easier and part of the RE experience hangs on the classic controls. That's why I wouldn't say I prefer the Wii version over the PS2 because I'm still very confortable aiming with analog sticks.
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boxter432
October 30, 2009 at 8:36 am
@NeroSuferoth

well RE5 is alot like 4 so...
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October 30, 2009 at 10:03 am
@NeroSuferoth

Well you can play RE Wii edition with the GameCube controller (or the clasic), the GameCube controller is better that the dualshock.
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October 30, 2009 at 1:13 pm
@RustyCage

No. The old gameplay was perfectly fine. In fact, it's what made the game scary & difficult. These new ones are so easy and don't even provide any challenge it's ridiculous. At least with the old titles, they'd make you think and conserve ammo, and you couldn't see where some enemies were at due to the camera. It added more strategy and scare factor.
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October 30, 2009 at 1:48 pm
10 - Never played this, but it sure looks creepy.

9 - Again, never played it. Heard good things, though.

8 - Dead Rising? Scary? Please, the game is meant to be funny. Adam the Clown was pretty creepy, but that's about it. Luigi's Mansion was scarier than Dead Rising. What does that tell you?

7 - Never played this one, but my friend has it. It certainly does look creepy.

6 - I have a hard time thinking of House of the Dead as "scary" but I've never played this particular HotD, so I can't really comment.

5 - Doom? I can actually agree with this one. Sometimes monsters will sneak up on you out of nowhere in Doom and give you a pretty good spook.

4 - Have yet to play this one, but Dead Space has always looked creepy from the first time I saw the trailer for the original ("twinkle twinkle little star...") so I imagine the Wii prequel has its share of creepiness.

3 - RE4 wasn't really scary, though it did have a pretty good creepy atmosphere.

2- REmake was my very first RE game, so it's always going to stick out in my mind. Really, I'd probably rank this at number one when it comes to scary Nintendo games. Everything about it was great. It had really awesome "boo!" scares, the atmosphere was fantastic, and, come on, it had Lisa freakin Trevor.

1 - Hmm, I never beat Eternal Darkness, but I don't know if I'd rank it as the most scary. The sanity stuff is great and really messes with your head, which should earn it a spot on this list though. The only real scary part I can think of though is when you look in the bathtub.

No mention of Clock Tower or Fatal Frame 4? I guess I understand, since they never made it out of Japan.
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yomerodes
November 1, 2009 at 11:48 am
Yeah, is a shame that games like Fatal Frame, CLock tower or the graphic novel SH for GBA didn't got a chance because the nintendo versions of those games didn't make it to America.

I think that with some honor exceptions (Dead Rising Wii), the list tended to the "quality" side of the spectrum, which is all right of course, I prefer a great game over a mediocre scary one.
But, when I say scariest games, I prefer amazingly scary games, even if they are horrible as hell in gameplay, graphics or value department.
To put a recent and fresh example, I consider games like Cursed Mountain and JU-ON the Grudge far more scary than the top three of this list (RE4, RE0 and the excellent ED), not to mention things like Overkill or Doom.

Anyway, Shadow Man, OOTW and Dead Space are IMO the scaroest picks of the list...and I would put REs and ED below all of them.
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