In the spirit of childhood nostalgia, specifically the terrifying elements of it, please find below an example of what terrified me as a kid, the source of fear being my old beloved Atari ST:



Behold the prawn-shrimp-alien-monster from level 1 of R-Type! Actually this thing wasn't scary so much as a b*tch to beat. The trick was to move your spaceship inside that scorpion-like tail so you were out of its stinging reach, leaving you free to blast at his delicate eyeball-underbelly. But sadly this was where my R-Type adventure would grind to a halt, as I found the subsequent levels very treacherous to complete.

Is it just me or were computer games designed to be impossible back in the 80s?