Children's Video Games That Are Way Creepier When You're An Adult

Developed by Novotrade International for the Sega Genesis, 1992's Ecco the Dolphin looks, from the outside, like a harmless children's video game. After all, what could possibly be creepy about playing as a bottlenose dolphin? Fourth-grade girls like dolphins. Heck, everyone likes dolphins.

To begin with, nothing looks particularly unsettling about the game's box art. Sure, there's a shark painted on the cover, but sharks are a part of nature. Nothing to get freaked out about. And sure, in the early levels, you have to fight some killer sharks and threatening octopuses — standard fare for a game about traversing the ocean. Again, nothing to get freaked out about. Later, however, you meet a wise blue whale who explains how aliens harvest the ocean's waters every 500 years, before you use a human-built time machine to travel back to the age of the dinosaurs. After fighting for your life against armored prehistoric creatures, you eventually get sucked up an ocean-harvesting tube into some kind of industrialized, alien hell, before finally confronting the Vortex Queen — a massive, terrifying, H. R. Giger-inspired extraterrestrial boss with razor sharp teeth, large black eyes and a gargantuan forehead, set against a jet-black backdrop.

Ecco the Dolphin undoubtedly creeped out many unsuspecting children in its day, but there's something even creepier about it when viewed through the eyes of an adult. And it's not just the aliens that are unsettling. As Andy McDonald described in Vice, it's the "Pink Floydian soundscapes" and oppressive sense of loneliness throughout — the game hints that humans no longer live on the planet — that really make this game feel properly disturbing.

Revisiting this Sega classic as an adult capable of handling scary childhood video games is a must. Just make sure to keep all the lights on, because Ecco the Dolphin goes from zero to disturbing, real quick.

Perhaps one of developer Rare's least-known titles, the Nintendo Entertainment System's 1989 fortune-telling, tarot-card simulator Taboo: The Sixth Sense was the first game of its kind developed specifically for the American audience. Though many kids probably played the game during sleepovers with their friends, taking baby's first steps into the occult and giggling at the naughtiness of it all — it being one of the few licensed games to feature nudity, if you're lucky enough to draw one of the three cards showing breasts or behinds — the game was technically directed at adults. Not that anybody cared.

As a 21st century adult, the game takes on a whole new level of creepiness, with its spooky chiptune score, seizure-inducing card shuffling sequences, and cryptic broken-English fortunes ("PRESENTLY INFLUENCING YOU IS AVOIDS CHANGING OR DIFFICULT SITUATIONS"). Plus, the cartridge comes packaged in purple pouch, like a bottle of Crown Royal, so you know it's not to be messed with.

A relatively unknown point-and-click adventure game from 1986, ICOM Simulation's Uninvited is one of those titles that was good, creepy fun when you were a kid ... probably because you played it on the squeaky-clean Nintendo Entertainment System. As an adult, however, the game is downright terrifying, especially if you play the Apple Macintosh version.

For starters, the game's music is fantastically chilling. The plot is also sufficiently creepy, tasking you with searching a haunted house for your lost sister. Where the game really makes one's skin crawl, however, is with the close-ups of the creatures responsible for the player's untimely deaths. Particularly gruesome is the image of the southern belle — a seemingly impassable skeletal woman who freezes you with horror and rips you apart. The game is significantly more scary on Macintosh, which features grittier, colorless graphics and uncensored monsters.

If you played Uninvited as a kid, it's definitely worth revisiting the Macintosh version as an adult — especially if you're only familiar with the NES version. Just don't blame us if you start experiencing 8-bit nightmares about getting dismembered by skeleton ladies who love yellow jonquils.

Lucasfilm Games' first successful attempt at self-publishing, Maniac Mansion was first released in 1987 for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, before a heavily-censored version appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Overall, Nintendo did a good job of removing anything family-unfriendly — except one strange thing.

In Maniac Mansion, you can befriend a character named Weird Ed. You can also steal his hamster. Not being a part of a puzzle, or useful in any way, what would be the only logical thing to do with Weird Ed's hamster? Microwave it, of course! No, seriously: you can actually put the hamster in the microwave, turn it on, watch it explode, and give the disgusting remains back to Weird Ed, who promptly murders you in a fit of rage. The game actually reads "TOTALLY AWESOME!" after the poor little pet explodes.

Maybe this game is creepier as an adult, because grown-ups are able to recognize all the telltale signs of a future serial killer.

Originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1994, EarthBound is one of those games that is definitely more famous now than it was when it originally released. This is because, in large part, the game has not only aged well, but because it becomes significantly trippier once the player really understands what it's about.

Known as Mother 2 in Japan, the Nintendo-published role-playing game is mostly cartoony, weird, kid-friendly fun. And by mostly, we mean, like, 95% of the game. The other 5% is a ghost-maiming, soul-stealing, alien-aborting nightmare. Literally. Near the end of the game, the children have their souls straight-up ripped from their bodies and put into robots, before fighting a monstrous alien which lives in a what looks remarkably like a woman's cervix called the Devil's Machine. (Sorry, ladies.) The alien itself, called Giygas, looks a whole lot like a fetus, and as you destroy it, it starts to look more and more like, well, a fetus being ripped apart.

Nothing about the experience is particularly creepy when played as a child with, presumably, no knowledge of cervixes or abortions. When played as an adult, however, with the knowledge of both female anatomy and the politically controversial topic, it's ultra weird and uncomfortable.