Written by Alma

Today I will tell the tale of little Alma getting a brand new game long ago. A game that ended up giving me nightmares for a good while because of the content in it.

What game is it, you might be asking? Silent Hill? Resident Evil? Alone in the Dark? Some weird obscure horror game? Nope! The game in question is Max Payne, a third person shooter that isn't a horror game at all, at least that's what I thought. Let me take you back to when Max Payne was somewhat new and I got my hands on it for the first time.

Picture a 10 year old Alma, a child who has never really played anything that was a straight up horror game. The only systems I had growing up were a Sega Genesis and a PC, both of which were given to my dad for reasons I don’t really know. As easy as it was to pop in a cartridge and play on the genesis, I was much more fascinated with the PC side of gaming. Sadly, the only games we were able to get were games my dad was able to burn from his friends. I had very few games that were the real deal, and one game we did get that was the real deal was Max Payne so it was fairly special to me.

So I popped in the game and was hooked! I played and played until I finished the first chapter of the game, which starts the next level with Max having a nightmare thanks to being knocked out. This is a part of the game I didn't see coming since the game was fairly action packed up to this point with the occasional slow part to break up the combat a bit. Picture this: A 10 or so year old Alma playing this for the first time, seeing the horrific shades of green and that foreboding music playing as the camera twirled to Max for the opening cutscene. I was very much taken by surprise since no games I had ever played up to that point had this sort of thing happen.

Then…I was given control of Max. I had no weapons, no way of protecting myself, and he now ran very slow and with the world being fairly blurry as well since this was a nightmare. I was stunned at what I was seeing before me but pushed on still incredibly scared at what I was seeing. At that time I didn't know that you can interact with some stuff in the nightmare house so I just ran through the front door and into the hallway, the hallway that suddenly stretched out into what became a long tunnel.

I ran Max down the hallway and then I heard it, the sound clip that plays of Max’s wife crying out loud for Max to come save her and to help her…and then I shut off the game and went to bed.

That short scene had a huge impact on me, and I ended up having nightmares about that hallway and that sound clip for a good week since I couldn't get my mind off it.

It really screwed me up for that good while and made sleeping at night very frightening. I could hear that music in my mind and I tried my best not to think about it, even playing other games to try to ease my mind but to no avail. It was burned in there and wasn't going anywhere for a while. Luckily, a good week lately and I was able to calm myself down and even pick up the game again…with the sound muted for the nightmare parts.

It wasn't until later in high school I picked up the game to beat again to see if I was just scared because I was a kid and no, the nightmare parts really are incredibly well made and have a genuine creepy atmosphere that puts you in an uncomfortable mood at the very least. As an adult I have come to appreciate the work that was put into them. Even the second game, which had more tamer nightmare scenes in my opinion, still managed to pull it off fairly well. So here's to Max Payne’s nightmare levels!

You scared a 10 year old back in the day for a whole week! Silent Hill? Resident Evil? Condemned? All amatures! Max Payne's Nightmare levels is the first time in my life a horror game truly scared me.