A Video Gamer’s Guide to Safe Trick-or-Treating

With the scent of Halloween sweets dangling in the air, many of you are planning your trick-or-treat routes in order to provide maximum candy-grabbing efficiency—and to avoid those people who think pennies, apples, or razor blades are an acceptable substitute for chocolate. It’s a strenuous job, and sometimes you might just decide to “try your luck” at a new place in hopes of free candy. But beware: if there’s anything that video games have taught us, it’s not to go anywhere unprepared (especially if ghouls are involved). The following are five locations you may be better off avoiding during your hunt for free sugar, but in case you do end up waltzing through these neighborhoods, I’ll offer some advice on how to make your trip a treat, even in the trickiest of situations…

• Raccoon City

It’s always nice to see an entire town participating in a holiday, but it’s at times like these you wish the department stores had a bit more variety. Either way, the people of Raccoon City are lethally committed to their costume of choice, to the point of physically lashing out (some have even resorted to biting!) at those who try to rebel by wearing something else. You’d think these guys were infected by a virus or something. Rabies, maybe?

How to survive: When surrounded by zombies, do as the zombies do, right? Try to blend in with the crowd (you probably had enough practice in high school to make this work), and you should be able to make it to a candy-giver’s doorstep before getting munched. Also, shotguns.

• Rapture

First off, did you think your trick-or-treat plan out well? It’ll take hours to get to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, even by plane. Fortunately, there seems to be an ample amount of the best Halloween treat just laying around everywhere: liquor. That’s right kids, if you can survive the homicidal, bloodthirsty denizens of Rapture (not to mention the guys in the diving suits taking their costume a little too seriously), you just might be able to score enough booze to kill yourself.

How to survive: Try building up a high tolerance first, starting with a few beers and working your way up to the bigger stuff. Before long, you can tackle even the biggest of Rapture’s abandoned bars with only the slightest risk of a hangover. Oh, and ditch the “innocent schoolgirl” costume idea. Trust me.

• Liberty City

Let’s face the facts: Liberty City hasn’t exactly built its reputation on the generosity of its citizens. Instead of giving you candy when you come to their house, they’re more likely to steal whatever candy you already have. Then your car. Then shoot you. Then park your car on top of your bullet-riddled corpse. I guess it’s a good thing this holiday celebrates the dead, right?

How to survive: Try to incorporate some type of body armor into your costume, perhaps a knight or Batman theme. I would advise against Godfather-themed attire—you might be mistaken for a rival mafia don.

• Roivas Manor

3 candies = 3 time periods.

It seems like a good idea to put at least one mansion on your list, as more money equals more candy, right? Unfortunately, the Roivas’ candy always seems to have slight side effects, like thinking you’re a soldier in the Roman Empire, or that gods that look suspiciously like giant insects are planning to take over the universe. Or even worse, that your save data has been erased.

How to survive: Always be suspicious of candy delivered through hypodermic needle or snorting, or if the “candy” is in the middle of a piece of honeycomb. Also, wearing an aluminum foil helmet can help keep the crazy-rays away from your skull.

• Pac-Man Maze

Probably the trick-or-treater’s worst nightmare: a neighborhood with no exit and inhabited by unkillable ghosts. And to top it all off, some bald dude in a yellow costume is eating all of the candy as fast as he can. Nothing is more annoying than having someone snatch all of the goods before you get your share.

How to survive: Get to that big piece of candy as fast as you can; the extra sugar gives you the energy to defeat those damned ghosts temporarily and snatch the candy for yourself. And just pray that you didn’t decide on a cherry-shaped costume this year.