Until I played Friday the 13th on NES , I had never really been scared to play a video game. Seeing my namesake Jason come at me and often being armed with just rocks to bounce off his hockey mask made me wish I had never picked up a controller. Earlier in my gaming career, I do remember having Haunted House for Atari 2600. There was nothing really scary about it other than just roaming around in the dark, but the box art was what made the game so spooky (and ads like this one .)