[McMurphy]

The leaves are dead, and the wind has returned to its habit of blowing cutting cold gusts at night. No wonder Halloween is celebrated on the 31st of this month. To drive home the point further, the superstitious are rewarded an extra treat (or is it trick?) of a Friday the 13th tomorrow.

What noteworthy games have you played that perfectly attribute themselves to the same elements of macabre? What game has made you jump more than any horror film?

For myself, I really didn't play any haunting video games until Resident Evil 2. Sure, I remember playing Castlevania III between rounds of handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, which weren't many when living in the country, but the game wasn't scary. It merely felt like a homage to the tone of the celebration. Aside from accidently starting a fire in the microwave while playing the game (a story I will not go into now), Castlevania never made me jump.

But Resident Evil 2 did. I would pop the N64 ported game into the system at night, turn off all the lights, and hook the sound up through surround speakers. Killing hordes of zombies wasn't the scary part. It was the moments of build up when the game cleverly attempted to lull players into a false sense of security yet keeping them a bit unnerved by supplying bone-chilling music (or lack there of), lighting, and isolated echoes. Just when events started to feel like more of a "search and seizure" mission, a, let's say, undead canine would smash through a large mirror: shattering the tempo that the game had taken the time to establish.