09/06/2002 Archived Entry: "Terrifying moments in video gaming"
The Place: My apartment, 2300 hours. Tropical Storm Fay sits stationary outside my window. Rain and wind lashes the glass.
The Game: System Shock 2
The Level: Deck 5, Recreation & Crew Quarters
The Scene: Forward section, in the botanical gardens--used for body disposal by the crew, before The Many took them all.
I'm creeping forward down the red-lit accessways underneath the ship's botanical gardens. Small rooms branch off the main service corridor--rooms which are filled with shallow graves and the bodies of my shipmates. Distantly, I hear the clanking of cyborg midwives, tending to the vile eggs of The Many. I need the damned Crew Section access card, and it's GOT to be on one of these bodies.
The unsavory and terrifying task of searching the corpses of my fellows falls on my shoulders, even as the voice of SHODAN, the mad artificial intelligence, taunts and goads me into action. With trembling fingers I search body after body, crawling under the floor into a tiny crawlspace to reach one poor bastard shoved into a corner. I stand, and come face to face with a shotgun-weilding hybrid.
"SILENCE THE DISCORD!" it howls, unloading both barrels into my face.
I scream. I shove the chair back from the keyboard, and then I leap for the wall, in the general direction of the light switch. While I'm fumbling along the wall for the switch, my avatar is pummeled mercelessly by the hybrid. Horrible shouts and hoarse, grunting screams explode out of my speakers, engulfing me in a symphony of agony and fear as I finally find the bloody light switch. I don't care about the Crew Section access card. I don't care about the damn GAME--I just want to get the bloody damned LIGHTS on, please God let me turn on the lights it's in here it's in here IT'S IN MY ROOM WITH ME OH GOD OH HELP ME--
I flick the lights on, then race to the keyboard and smack ESC.
No more System Shock 2 for tonight. I'll wait until daytime before I try again.
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