Since the events of Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT, the argument about violence in games and the effect it has on children has been reignited. Recently, Vice President Joe Biden spoke to everyone from gun owners to experts in the entertainment and gaming industries to try and find ways to prevent another tragedy like Sandy Hook from happening. And when a call came for a ban on assault weapons, the NRA responded by trying to shift the blame solely to the media, including the gaming industry, since the offender was reported to have played “violent video games.”

Obviously, there are many issues that contributed to the tragedy at Sandy Hook and the events that led to it. I cannot even begin to fully explain them all and to try would be socially irresponsible on my part. However, there there are some aspects of it, and the resulting controversy, I feel I need to address.

With Halloween fast approaching, it is time to look back at some of the scariest moments in gaming. The horror genre of gaming extends from platformers and puzzlers to FPS and even point and click adventure games. Now while the delivery of the scary moments listed below all differ, every one below has given us an “Oh s*%t” reaction. Some were instant scares while others were reactions that took some time to really hit home. But be warned, there will be spoilers ahead.

Doom 3 – Mirror Scare

While Doom and its successor Doom II took players through the gates of hell, they weren’t exactly scary games. There were some moments when an attack would come from a newly opened door that players were not expecting but it wasn’t until Doom 3 that the series had its first horrifying moment. With updated graphics and sound, Doom 3 was able to explore atmosphere in a way its predecessors never could. With a new lighting engine, shadows played a huge part in the game and players had to choose between holding a flashlight or a weapon, making the game incredibly tense.

As a result, when players find a well lit bathroom early on in the game they don’t expect the glimpse of hell that quickly pops up on screen when they face the mirror. Music crashes, flames burn around the player and then almost instantly everything goes back to normal. From then on, no place in the game feels safe. Between the poorly lit corridors seen only through a flashlight’s bulb or the uneasy tension from walking into a bright open room, everywhere a player goes now feels like evil is lurking around the corner.

It’s an argument that has plagued gaming since the first time a player was able to pull out a weapon and attack someone else. No one ever worried about Mario jumping on the heads of turtles or Donkey Kong kidnapping a woman and defending himself with barrels. But by the time characters began looking like real people and players had the ability to whip out a gun and shoot Nazis in Wolfenstein or possessed marines in Doom, violence in video games has be criticized by those outside the industry. Now, the argument against it comes from within by an incredibly respected member of the community.

Warren Spector was recently quoted saying, “The ultraviolence has to stop.” This doesn’t come as a huge surprise that he would be an opponent of violence in gaming as Spector left Eidos in the mid-2000’s because of the level of violence he saw in certain games being created by his studio.

Spector continued, “We have to stop loving it…I just don’t believe in the effects argument at all, but I do believe that we are fetishizing violence, and now in some cases actually combining it with an adolescent approach to sexuality. I just think it’s in bad taste. Ultimately, I think it will cause us trouble.”

Hearing that id software would be bringing Doom to E3, most any gamer would expect it would be time for Doom 4, the next iteration of the series to make its way to PCs and consoles. Instead, the now Bethesda Softworks published Doom is in fact a next gen console remake of the classic, Doom 3.

In addition to a graphic overhaul, the BFG edition will also include full 3D & HMD support, the expansion pack Resurrection of Evil, a new mission pack known as The Lost Mission and both Doom and Doom 2. Also added to the Doom 3: BFG Edition is the ability for players to hold a flashlight and a weapon at the same time. This is probably one of the most frustrating mechanics of the original Doom 3 as it made the main character seem too clumsy to walk and chew bubblegum at the same time since he couldn’t hold a flashlight with one hand and a handgun in the other.

While it isn’t a new Doom, this release is probably an attempt to get Doom back in the minds of gamers for an upcoming Doom 4 announcement, probably within the next year. Doom 3: BFG Edition will be released later in 2012 to PC, XBox 360 and PlayStation 3. Check out the trailer below and stick with us for tons of new E3 trailers and announcements coming this week.