10 Scariest Retro Video Game Moments That Still Terrify Us Today

4. The Innocent Abandoned - Sanitarium

There are plenty of people who'd argue that the best kind of horror is of the uncanny kind, rather than something that relies on gore and jump-scares. While I think that there's room for both jump scares and psychological horror in the genre, and that they should both learn to get along, Sanitarium is a fantastic example of the latter. Sanitarium is point-and-click adventure of the old-school, almost inscrutable variety, following a heavily bandaged man who wakes up in a creepy, derelict mental asylum with no idea of how he got there. The visuals and music of the game are consistently unsettling throughout, but the 'Innocent Abandoned' scene tops them all. Here, you wander around a large, ruined playground filled with horrifying, disfigured children you can interact with - including a boy with two mouths and a deformed girl who could easily pass as the ungodly offspring of PT's Lisa. There are no particular stand-out events that make this part of the game stick in the memory, but the whole sequence - supplemented by haunting, hypnotic music - is like being stuck in some kind of purgatory. Everything feels 'off', from the backwards clock to the creepy kids who aren't supposed to talk to you, and by the time you complete this sequence you'll feel like you're emerging from some kind of nightmarish trance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9tVCgYNXvo