I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!

Ghosts, demons, and zombies have been part of gaming since the beginning. Though they take on different forms in the hands of different developers, they all have one thing in common: they can no longer be counted among the living. Here is a ranking of some outstanding members. Drag your dead bodies off the floor and be recognized.

Pac-Man - Pinky, Blinky, Inky, and Clyde

The four siblings that haunted Pac-Man as he devoured his buffet of “yellow” dots until the yellow hero inhaled the “power pellets” and became a ghost-eating machine. The four ghosts should be pissed off, considering Pac-Man ate their protoplasmic bodies, leaving only their eyes to find their way back to their square home to regenerate. Always seeking their own meal of Pac-Man’s savory, yellow, and circular body, playing a round of Pac-Man was Darwinism in its most simple form.

Final Fantasy X- Auron

Auron wasn’t physically frightening with his samurai-esque demeanor and I’ll-tell-you-when-it-matters attitude. It was during the last thirty minutes of FFX, when all the secrets are revealed and we find out that he was dead. Dead the whole time and he never said anything about it. What’s worse is that he knew that Tidus was dead also. It just shows that teachers can’t be trusted, the bastards. Though like a true warrior, he disappears without remorse, unlike that whiny metrosexual, Tidus.

Fatal Frame - Ghosts

The original Fatal Frame was one of the scariest games I ever played and never finished. My college roommate and I attempted this game over three nights and gave up because it freaked us out. The fact that you used a “camera obscura” to take pictures wasn’t bad, it was that to take pictures you had to be in first person with the ghosts coming toward you. The worst part was that the closer they got, the more damage the picture did; and the closer they got, the more disturbing they looked. After three nights, I couldn’t do it, partially because I had slightly peed myself during the third gaming attempt. My roommate eventually beat the game, by playing only in broad daylight. Using the best in Japanese cinema horror techniques, it again illustrated the “less is more” tradition.

Silent Hill 2 - Nurse

I played Silent Hill 2 on a 13-inch TV and still freaked out when I first saw the nurse. The slow, inhuman, spasm-y gait was a surprise along with the freakish attack that the nurse attempted. Silent Hill 2 was the first game that really screwed with our minds and illustrated the darkest sides of humanity and its psyche. Every villain is memorable, but the nurse was iconic, because how could something with nice legs want to kill you? If we became a villain after entering Silent Hill, at least we got the best ending.

These are who I consider the varsity class of the undead. Add your own picks and give your reasons, the four mentioned are the ones that have stuck throughout my gaming history. I haven’t been back to horror in a while, but I will be returning. (Insert Vincent Price laugh.)