1. All save files deleted – Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
Before hard drives and internal memory came along on consoles, there existed memory cards (I can’t believe they’re relics of the past now). These memory cards were valuable treasure to gamers. In the tiny squares of plastic held all the progress a player had made in his or her video games. But stating that memory cards only held a gamer’s progress is simplifying the entire idea. Think of what you have accomplished, purchased, or unlocked on your Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii or Playstation 3 hard drives/internal memory and imagine placing all that on a single tiny piece of plastic. Every obstacle overcome, every level completed, every costume unlocked made a home on a gamer’s memory card. It was only right that these items were cherished and (for the most part) taken care of by gamers.
However, instances could (and did) arrive when a save file on a memory card would be deleted or corrupted. The moment you read the words “No save file found” after pouring time, sweat, and tears (I never cried, though… honest) into a game could become the turning point for your newfound path into insanity (or anger management). No matter the case, whether hard drive or memory card, losing your hard work is both depressing and frustrating… and frightening when a video game toys about the subject.
That’s why my number one scariest moment in gaming happens to take place in Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. Throughout the adventure, the character’s sanity plays a key role in the game. As you traverse through the horrific world, encounters with enemies would decrease the sanity meter causing the character to lose their grip on reality. Once this sanity meter was low enough, odd occurrences would take place. These consisted of: a group of enemies appearing that disappear once attacked, blood seeping from the walls, the volume turning down as a TV volume meter appears on screen, your head exploding, etc.
Now, since I was playing this when I was younger and I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what exactly was going on, these sanity effects both confused and terrified me. I was not sure if anything in the game was really happening or if it was another hallucination. However, the effect that truly terrified me was when I attempted.
While playing the game, I reached a part where I had to time my character’s movements to make it past some spinning blades. It seemed easy enough. However, I didn’t realize how low my sanity meter was and as I made it past the first blade, my game locked up and transitioned to a blue screen. Confused, I read the white lettering on the blue screen and my jaw hit the floor. Basically, the screen stated that all my save files were “expunged” and that I needed to reset my game. Distraught, I began to yell, “No, no, no, no! Come on! This can’t be happ-” Before I could finish my statement, the game transitioned back to swinging blades and I was able to continue my trek.
Before I could though, I had to pause my game and realize everything was okay. The game managed to get me riled up as I believed I lost everything. Before continuing though, I said to myself, “I better save.” Opening up the menu, I took all the necessary steps to save my game; but I didn’t read the text boxes because I had saved countless times earlier. Well, you remember what I wrote about complacency in my previous post, right? Selecting the “Yes” option, the corner of my eye caught the question the game asked: “Do you wish to delete all save files?” As I watched the bar slowly increase, I read the word “DELETING” above the bar. I completely lost it, yelling out obscenities and cursing out both the game and console (the loudest one was more of a question, though: ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!).
As you most likely realized, the game yet again slipped one by me as the deletion of my save files was simply another hallucination. I still laugh about this moment to this day and think about how scared the game actually made me by pulling those tricks. I couldn’t imagine losing all the progress I worked for and this game threatened me twice with it. More than that, the game forced me to experience more than a simple scare through sounds or surprising enemies. Instead, it toyed with me psychologically by pretending to destroy something important to my hobby. That is why this is the number one scariest moment in gaming (for me, at least).
Closing comments
That’s it for this segment. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about me through moments that terrified me in gaming. Though, I apologize for dragging this out longer than needed. I promise next time I do a top ten list, the most it will be separated into is two parts.
Unfortunately, I’m off for two weeks for military training so I don’t think I’ll be able to write any new posts. Nevertheless, when I get back I will finally be uploading videos! I’m excited to try out the new equipment I bought, and I hope you are interested to see what I can do. Well, that’s all for now. As always, thank you for reading!
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