I seem to have a thing where games scare me far more than movies do. I’ve never been the biggest person to scare easily watching most movies, as I’m constantly more interested in looking for bad effects, terrible acting, and the overall sense of feeling completely detached from what’s happening on screen. Games however, have always been able to scare the shit out of me for the simple fact that -- if a game is good -- I can really get into them. I feel like I am that character, in that situation, and getting through it relies entirely on me. Unlike most movies, where I can get through any one part by going to take a piss.

So below are a collection of the best scare-moments for me as a gamer. This is by no means supposed to be a definitive list. These are just the games that came closest to making me scream like a little girl.

Resident Evil: Those Fucking Dogs

I don’t think any list could be complete without the original pant-shitting moment from Resident Evil. It’s totally played out now, and even seeing a video of it makes any of us wonder how dogs consisting of 6 polygons covered in shit could ever scare us, but goddamn it did. You have to realize that, at the time RE was new, nothing like that had ever been presented in a game like that. Sure I hear the Alone in the Dark fanboys rolling their eyes out of their heads, but whatever. Unlike Alone in the Dark, RE looked crazy unbelievable at the time. It looked almost real to our young Playstation-playing eyes. And when those fucking dogs came busting through those windows the first time…well, it’s something you don’t forget. If you didn’t come close to shitting yourself, you sir, are a braver man than I.

Bioshock: That Guy Standing Behind You

You can really tell the guys that made Bioshock had a lot of fun making it just by the sheer amount of freaky ass ways they try to scare you throughout. There are so many neat little details and things in each set piece to make your skin crawl that you’d probably miss most of it if you’re not paying attention. Case in point: You just crawled through a vent in a creepy ass medical pavilion. Suddenly the room fills with smoke, and you clench your ass preparing for whatever the hell is about to happen. The smoke clears and…nothing. Everything is the same. You can actually leave the room and never be aware anything did happen. But if for some reason you happen to turn around, you’ll be treated to a splicer standing a foot away from your face. Staring at you in complete silence. Then you realize you weren’t clenching hard enough.

Bioshock Honorable Mention: That One Room

Runner up for sheer creep out factor goes for that one room with a switch behind the counter that leads you into a room featuring a plaster man sitting in a chair facing the corner. The first time I wandered into that room and saw that fine fellow I froze in my tracks. Almost to the point of just shutting down the game to stave off whatever horrible scare-tactic was about to make me change my underwear. I soldiered on, though. And sure enough, those underwear had to be burned off of me.

Silent Hill 3: The Haunted House

Possibly the most awesomely meta thing I’ve ever seen in a game, the haunted house at the end of Silent Hill 3 stands at the top of my list for most creepy fucking thing ever in a video game. I’m sure everyone is aware at just how crazy Silent Hill is. Taking every possible chance to just make you feel completely unnerved is like some sort of twisted joy to the Silent Hill developers. For the haunted house though, they must have been rolling around on the ground in glee for days when whoever thought this up. Basically, it’s a damn haunted house. Like a straight up haunted house…if you went to a haunted house located in Silent Hill. Every room is twisted, complete with narrator over a speaker telling you the tale as you go along. As you’re slowly being pulled along, it’s the complete uneasy feeling you have. You know the game is just fucking with you. Having some fun at your expense. You just keep wondering when things are going to go terribly bad. And then they do. Then you don’t play Silent Hill without the lights on ever again.

Silent Hill 3 Honorable Mention: The Mannequin Decap

A rare jump scare for Silent Hill. And even when they do jump scares, it’s still creepy to the core. You walk into a small room and by the top half of a mannequin. Make your way to the other side of the room, turn around, and suddenly the most piss-inducing scream ever blasts from the speakers. Once you get brave enough to venture back out of the room, you go by the mannequin again only to notice it’s head has been chopped off. Complete with blood everywhere. Not a huge moment, but something that sticks with you. A lot like the mirror room later in the game. What’s the mirror room? Don’t ask.

Dead Space: Running From An Invincible Monstrosity

Dead Space has it’s share of scares, but the most memorable comes from a monster you simply can’t kill no matter how hard you try. In fact, you spend more than a few sections of the game running in terror from it, because there’s nothing else you can do but that. It’s the tension that gets you mostly. Running into a fog-filled operating room with tons of normal everyday unholy mutations from the pits of hell itself, only to see this fine fellow right there with them. And if he gets ahold of you, you’re all but done. I realize Resident Evil 3 did this years ago, but Dead Space did something RE3 never could do: Actually be scary.

Silent Hill 4: The Trailer

Silent Hill 4 was a pretty big disappointment. It just never came together as a whole. But the trailer for the game…hooboy. I actually showed this to my girlfriend at the time it was released one night, and she literally refused to go to sleep afterward. When your fucking TRAILER does that, you know you did something right. Too bad the rest of the game just made you not want to actually play it.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Laughing Octopus

Metal Gear 4 was a fine game, but it hit it’s peak for me with the boss battle starring Laughing Octopus. You’re in a wooden shanty house, you’ve been drugged, you’re seeing hallucinations, hearing voices, AND you have a freaky octopus woman vanishing in and out of reality trying to kill you. The only thing you can do is wander around completely broken, just hoping the game doesn’t fuck with you too much. It’s one of the best boss fights ever in a video game, and worth just playing MGS4 to get to. It’s unsettling, crazy, and just flat out awesome. This is also the only time in the entire MGS series where you’ll hear the word “fuck” said. It’s that fucking serious.

Siren the Blood Curse: Trapped In A Hospital

Siren the Blood Curse (the PS3 version) is one of the best and most overlooked horror games ever made. The setting on some crazy Japanese island where everyone turns into zombies and spews blood out of their eyes is just classic. It also does something few horror games have done; it makes the enemies actually terrifying. No better place does it do this than early in the game where you’re trapped in an abandoned hospital filled with nurses that the Silent Hill nurses have nothing on. You also have no weapons at your disposal. All you can do is slink around and pray you don’t get seen. Did I mention you’re also a ten year-old girl in this section of the game as well? You have to use your smarts to distract the nurses long enough to get where you’re going, praying they don’t see you. And if they don’t get you, the sheer tension of it all will. I actually had to stop playing for a while after I beat it. It’s that rough.

There you go, kids. If you’re looking to get scared this weekend with some awesomely scary games, any of the above will do (minus MGS4, I guess). And really, there’s no better way to celebrate Halloween by realizing just how close you can come from scaring yourself so bad that you won’t be able to look at yourself in the mirror until at least Easter.