Most Chilling Moment in Doom or Doom II?

Ragnor said:

Final Doom PSX's Geryon track, when the whistling starts

I always thought those were distored screaming children.

It's a kettle.

Dragonsbrethren said:

I just find that one annoying.

Spoiler

Being chased by the Dopefish on MAP32 on D2TWID.

Hey, the thread topic is doom and doom 2--so your spoiler implies it's going to be a spoiler for doom or doom 2! not another wad, such as d2twid. You should warn people what wad the spoiler is spoiling!

I would say prolly getting splattered by cyberdemon--still the most chilling/scary thing that can happen in this game (and I still get scared by it from time to time, if I don't see it coming).

Waffenak said:

Brickhouse filled with meat and bones on suburbs. That was chilling when I first time saw it as a kid. Thinking how unsettling it would be to see a real building filled with meat and bones of human victims from floor to roof.

Off topic, but this is the sort of thing that needs to be in Doom 4. Not some absurd attempt at faithfully remaking every sector of each map, but instead taking those haunting architectural moments and realizing them with modern hardware. That building always stuck out to me as well!

On topic, my experiences with Aubrey Hodges's soundtrack for Doom/Final Doom PSX was, obviously, a very disturbing experience. It's difficult to think of what was haunting from the original Dooms, because I played it for a couple years with a PC internal speaker and no sound before finally hearing it properly, and by that point I had already beaten both games.

But I do remember a few specific things that use to give me chills growing up:

• The lights going off when you grab the (blue?) key in E1M3.
• The dark room in E2M1 with the plasma rifle and cacodemon.
• E4M1, because it was, at the time, the most unrelenting start map I had played.
• E2M9, because it's a brutally short map that relies heavily on instigating friendly fire. Not much room for error.
• The red star in E1M9. The way enemies just kept teleporting from seemingly nowhere. Really good use of a monster spawn trap.
• The archvile in The Living End, which I believe is Map 29. He's just chilling there among all these other monsters, making for a very hectic fight.
• Speaking of archviles, I specifically remember accidentally switching to the automap while fighting the one that's in that outside area in "Gotcha!" I just shot blindly and frantically, and by the time I switched back, he was dead. A real "Whew!" moment.
• The Courtyard had some intense moments in the main open area with all the health potions.

The first time I encountered the Barons of Hell on E1M8 on the PC. They still startled me when I played PSX Doom, that roar!

When I originally played Doom on the GBA, pretty much everything was pretty scary to me. Probably because it was just like nothing I'd seen before. I just remember that between Doom and Mario Kart (My first two GBA games), I was a lot more comfortable playing through the latter. Playing the PS1 version can be pretty chilling with the special use of lighting. But now that I'm older and I've finally played through the PC versions of both Doom 1 and 2, the only thing to creep me out was the sudden appearance of the Archviles. That and Icon of Sin saying "Oremor nhoj, em llik tsum uoy, emag eht niw ot."

Doom 64 however(Which I've been playing for the first time via 'Doom 64 EX'), is the closest I've come to being truly creeped out by these games (Though, I haven't played Doom 3 yet). The hellish level designs are really well done and brings me back to playing Doom and Alien Trilogy on PS1 when I was younger. But for me the most disturbing aspect of both the PS1 version and Doom 64 is the soundtracks. Particularly during Doom 64's later levels, the soundtrack just invokes the sense of dread and the feeling that you're really descending into hell itself. The distant sounds of weeping babies is probably the most chilling aspect of those games.

I find Doom 64 pretty unnerving after all these years.

Hearing the baby crying on PSX Mt. Erebus.

scalliano said:

Hearing the baby crying on PSX Mt. Erebus.

When is Threshold of Pain 2 coming out?

How come did no one mention the NIN bomb from E4M1?

printz said:

How come did no one mention the NIN bomb from E4M1?

Because you'd be ambushed by Barons.

It sounds silly to say it now after all of these years, but for me I'd actually say it's the impaled rabbit-head and the flaming city from the end of Doom (the sarcastic music track is forever engrained in my memory as well). I had come all that way, endured so much, and yet at the end it had apparently all been for naught.....it was terribly haunting and demoralizing, at least to my young self at the time. I actually attribute a lot of my fascination with bittersweet/pessimistic/flat-out negative endings to this experience.

Anybody else recall the imagery and thematic style of Ballistyx in PSX Final Doom? The visuals and soundtrack always left an impression on me. The starting area, cathedral you enter and the darkness was striking.

First time I got caught under a crusher, which was that one in MAP19 (The Citadel) in the red building, was chilling. Unlike the crushers in Duke Nukem, these ones slowly and PAINFULLY kill you, as they slow down to kill you even more. God that hurt.

Another chilling moment was when I first played the PSX version of Doom. My goodness the atmosphere really pulls you in.

Ah yes I remember coming face to face with a demon for the first time in
the maze in E1M4, Gave me quite a fright!

Waffenak said:

I want to meet person who plays games but doesn't enjoy videogame music :)

I've actually gotten that way recently. Unless it's game music I really like I usually turn the music off and listen to something else. So hi I guess.

Krispy said:

Also the first time I saw the inverted cross on E2M1.

Yeah same here. I was pretty religious the first time I played through that and when the cross hurt you I felt like wow this is something really evil. The one on Spawning Vats made me feel uneasy too.

Another spine tingling moment was when I first saw the Cyberdemon strolling out from around the marble pillars in e2m8.

DuckReconMajor said:

I've actually gotten that way recently. Unless it's game music I really like I usually turn the music off and listen to something else. So hi I guess.

I always listen soundtrack in singleplayer campaigns but during online mode or mmorpg games I can listen something else too.

Tnt map05 hangar. I got to the soulsphere room and pulled an Indiana Jones out the room. That revenant always sounded close, no matter where i went in that level...

DuckReconMajor said:

Yeah same here. I was pretty religious the first time I played through that and when the cross hurt you I felt like wow this is something really evil. The one on Spawning Vats made me feel uneasy too.

Ive always remembered that cross, even when I had no idea it was an upside down cross (or that that even mattered to begin with). I sort of recreated it in minecraft for the entrance to a massive demon castle where monsters were (storywise) pouring in from the Nether in a huge invasion. The only way in without scaling the walls was to walk through an inverted cross of lava...which 99% of the time is fatal :D

Even though it was the GBA version of Doom 2 I guess I could say my freakish moment although minor as it were was the Courtyards map because of the music and seeing the gargoyle reliefs while it played, the memory of it made me feel uneasy getting to that map again on my second playthrough.

Piper Maru said:

When is Threshold of Pain 2 coming out?

Soon.

I remember the official Doom FAQ saying how Arch-viles could resurrect other monsters and how his attack was very BFG-esque "if he can't see you, he's NOT going to hit you." I never bothered to look up the image of an Arch-vile, so that description kind of kept me up at night, as I had yet to play Doom II at the time.

Also, E2M6 of Doom. Doom for the most part did not scare me (with an exception of the Doom 64 Cyberdemon), but E2M6 was probably the only level in general that made me feel uneasy. The music had a good amount to do with that and I generally tried to get out of the maze with the Red Key as fast as I could. The outright creepiness also made me scared to explore other areas of the map (particularly, all of those rooms near the Yellow Key).

Icon of Sin. No contest. Dat voice. Dat ugly face. Dat chilling music.

I've played Doom 2 long before I played the first one, so most of my good memories are from 2. Other good contenders:

- Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind in Gotcha! (map 20). Damn that was one scary chilling moment. And it was pretty damn awesome when I figured out that you can get them to fight each other. Epic stuff.-
- Spider Mastermind in The Crusher (map 6).
- Apart from map 30, Monster Condo (27) was the creepiest level for me, because of its darkness and soundtrack. There were quite a few good candidates in this category in original Doom as well.

Probably lots more but it's been a while since I played through the games.

PSX Doom THE MARSHES map.

F*ck, it's "Hide and Seek" with Cyberdemon. Really scary moment in game.

To be honest Doom never really scared me probably because I played with God mode as a child; however, Heretic and Hexen have on the odd occasion scared me. Necropolis in Hexen used to give me the chills as a kid.

For Heretic, I remember getting home from school and playing E4M9 Mausoleum in a dark room so I'm just running around to see the level and BAM Iron Lich in front of me, that sick smile coming right out of the dark was terrifying. The other moment was in Blockhouse when the walls collapse and reveal a Maulotaur and two Iron Liches. I just ran really really fast out of that room ever since then.

First playing Doom on the SNES with the very haunting, ominous music on a dark and dying TV screen as a kid. Leave it up to my imagination to how scary the game really was.

My snes emulator shows rainbow colors in doom. Like if u tried to load hetetic
In doom

Job said:

Anybody else recall the imagery and thematic style of Ballistyx in PSX Final Doom? The visuals and soundtrack always left an impression on me. The starting area, cathedral you enter and the darkness was striking.

This always stuck out to me, too. One of those levels where you can't wait to exit because it's so terrifying.