DV EXPOSE: Video Games Can Drive You Insane

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

Here's a game that not only was created as a horror game, but was also designed to fuck with the gamer outside of the four walls of the game world.  As players explored the various demon-filled and occult-themed areas in the game, the story's protagonists would begin to lose their senses.  The game's developers translated that into some serious mind games for the player; bleeding walls, random flashes of disturbing images, insects appearing to crawl on the screen, the sudden dismemberment of your character, and even a faked system crash and data loss are just some of the "insanity effects" of Eternal Darkness. 

The Silent Hill Series

Silent Hill games always worked in opposition to the Resident Evil series, but took a more cerebral and generally creepy approach than the startling "cheap scares" of RE.  These games place the player in a totally warped setting where disfigured mannequins come to life and strange creatures with no skin stalk you in the fog-laden darkness.  To add to this, the environments are constantly changing from "normal" to something more closely resembling hell on earth -- and back again.  And let's not forget the hospitals, schools, mental institutions, etc. that are painted in blood and the giant, convulsing, severed head and ghostly images that tell you to murder people.  It can be quite disturbing.

Any Game That Features Level-Grinding

This is a different sort of insanity.  It's more of the "I-hate-you-for-making-me-do-this-you-motherfucking-piece-of-shit-game" sort of insanity.  When forced to do the same thing over and over and over again, with little variety or the slightest hint of fresh content, it's not very difficult to find yourself cursing at the TV/monitor or physically abusing inanimate objects.  This sort of dementia can even spill over into real life, causing you to hear battle themes playing in your head or see hobgoblins on the side of the road at night.  Becoming a slave to the grind certainly takes a toll on healthy brain activity.

Killer 7

This game may not actually make you go insane from playing it.  You may have to already be out of your mind to make your way through this deranged story.  Or maybe it's the process of trying to actively decipher all the symbolism, metaphorical crap, and deeper meaning in the game that causes one to lose it.  In any case, there is at least one method of mental abuse going on here.  They say that there's a fine line between genius and insanity, and Killer 7 proves that theory correct.

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

This game was a close runner-up in the Crazy-Hard NES Games article a few weeks back, and for good reason.  This game thrusts you into a ten-level labyrinth crawling with enemies who will kick your ass -- and a shitload of traps and other dangers -- with not so much as a scribble on a napkin to let you know where you're going.  If you're looking for a map in this game, you'd better have a pencil and some graph paper ready, or you're shit out of luck.  On top of this lab-rat-trapped-in-a-sick-cheese-maze gameplay, the character creation is the stuff of nightmares.  On many occasions, I've sat down to create a party, only to discover that an hour later I was still working on the first member.  It's like instant-onset OCD when you "roll" for stats, because no matter what stat bonus you end up randomly getting, there's always that little voice in your head that says, "try one more time... just one more... you can get better... do it... just once more."  Did you read that?  The voice in your head.  Voices!  That's insanity.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth