I know this is stupid but, I just can't replay the hotel level of Vampire the Masquerade. I just... have no tolerance for that style of game. It's kinda like Slender, or FNAF I guess, except that it doesn't have pop scares. It's more like Slender. I'm rambling.
Basically there's a ghost, and you keep seeing him - but not in your face, down a hallway or something - and then he disappears. Usually by simply being *gone* in an instant. No puff of smoke, no howl. He'll be standing there, maybe looking at you, and then there's nothing.
The first thing you do is get a key from the empty guardhouse (which involves looking away from the door and window, natch). I thought he'd be watching me when I turned back around, but no. There was a strange motor sound, which grew in intensity, and then the guardhouse shook a bit. It was weird but not really scary. This was just the intro. I left the shack, and a forklift had driven into the side. Bit creepy, nothing I couldn't handle though.
As I approached the hotel doors, one of the lightbulbs burst. This is the civil, artistic version of a puppet screaming in your face. It's startling, but nothing on its own... It just keeps you on edge. Or me, anyway. Bulbs burst and paintings fall throughout the entire level, but they're hardly the scary part.
I chided myself for being silly and managed to enter the hotel. I stood still and looked around the familiar area. Ahead, a beautiful double stairway leading to the second floor balcony. To the left, a hallway which I was pretty sure lead to the scariest single moment in the game. I remembered walking down that hallway, lost and frustrated, the tension gone as I tried to figure out which way to go. It was a dead end, so I turned around... And he was there. Just standing there, not in my face, but staring right at me from the other side of the dead end. Or... was he walking toward me? This is literally what happens in my worst nightmares.
While remembering that, I scanned to the right. And there he was. Just a figure in the darkness, easy to miss, holding something... an axe? To dark to tell. I didn't panic, in fact I felt in control! I had spotted him, and if I didn't move, surely he would- oh he disappeared, so unnaturally, like a graphics glitch. Like he could reappear anywhere at any time.
Now I was panicking despite myself. I ran to the right, past where he was. Down the little hallway, which looked just like the one I remembered (was it on the right, not the left??) As soon as I moved, the hotel groaned and fixtures started shaking. I didn't hear a voice, but there was a caption: "He hates you. He wants to kill you." The little girl he murdered.
I turned around expecting to see him waiting, and he wasn't there. I think that was the final straw. If I could have predicted that appearance, I could have kept going.
Too much like my nightmares. Wonderful game, well done, maybe sometime I'll cheat my way out or play with a friend in the room. But I don't think so. I beat that level once, and it kinda felt like a justification for every selfish act I committed for the rest of the playthrough. It was the point when my character really became a vampire instead of a scared mortal.
... I swear to fuck that I just heard a cough from downstairs. Obviously it was someone walking outside but... fuck this game.
Author
Topic: Things that made you absolutely terrified today (Read 2021472 times)