is probably Silent Hill 2. I spent the entirity of my first playthough shitting it about Pyramid Head. And there are some scenes in there that as creepy an oppressive as anything in a horror film: the courtyard with the horses. The long tunnel with the screaming horn blasts as you enter the prison. It's smart, psychological stuff; not the LOOK A BADDIE, BLEURGH scares of most games.

I always forget how utterly fucking terrifying Half-Life 2 is in places, however. In general, this is because I find myself nervously hoping not to come across one of the two scariest monsters in scary monster history whenever I play it.

There's a whole section of the game where you drive along a (mostly) deserted coastline; you can either bomb through, or investigate the weatherbeaten houses you find along the way. I spend this entire section edge, because I know that one of these houses contains An Awful Thing. But I have to find it, otherwise I'd be letting it get the better of me. I enter the house through a side door; the windows on the bottom floor have been boarded shut, and the staircase is broken. I check all the downstairs rooms, finding nothing. I wonder if I can get up the stairs, and pile up some furniture to scramble up there. I pop my head up; it's deserted too. The windows aren't covered up here, and sunlight is filtering through dirty windows. I am suspicious of the layout up here; I can see into two of the rooms but there is a third adjoining room out of view. I creep through the empty bedroom (filthy mattresses on the floor), checking the corners as I go; nothing. Edging into the final room; it's dark, but nothing here either. All clear: a sigh of relief. I, of course, turn round to find the The Thing behind me, black and glistening: it went though the other adjoining room while I was creeping up on it. It is moaning, and the Things it carries are screaming and biting. I panic and shoot it in the face with a rocket launcher, managing to kill not only it, but myself too. I can still hear the chittering sounds of its pets as the screen goes blank.

I turn the whole thing off.

a) Anyone know what monster am I talking about here?
b) Name me some scarier ones. I like scares real good.