Video game monsters that scare the hell out of you

What are some monsters from video games that still creep you out? I gotta say the monster that still scares me now is the Slimer from Duke Nukem 64. Just how they have that creepy child molester laugh when they first see you, how they hide in small pipes, there's usually a bunch of them and how your screen just becomes filled with the thing trying to suck your face off still makes me a little creeped out when playing the 2nd and 3rd episodes of the game. Strange thing is that they don't creep me out in any other versions except for the N64 version. Maybe it's the lack of music...

Most monsters from The Suffering, including the main character who can turn into a monster. There's a good reason to be scared though, as most non-human enemies are typically stronger, faster and tougher than you and can rip you to shreds in a matter of seconds if you let them too close. Plus, they can take disproportionate amounts of damage with certain weapons. On the other hand, you face them in groups larger than e.g. Doom 3's, and they actually require a strategy to beat, but very often you'll find yourself being hopelessly chased away.

The original Suffering is now freeware, so you can all give it a shot.

This asshole. Scared the shit out of me as a kid, still startles me today.

FUCK YOU KAISER KRAB

The black Arachnids and Midwifes in SS2. (Especially the Arachnids)

Not as much these days of course. But back when I first played SS2 they made me freak out like never before as I heard that wake up sound they made. I would leg it and eventually end up in a dead end and be forced to duke it out against them.

The midwifes were freaky and disturbing.

<3 SS2

I used to be a complete pussy when it came to FPS monsters until I was in Jr. High or so. Certain ones scared me more than others. For some reason, I absolutely hated pinky demons and spectres in Doom. I could deal with all the monsters that hung back and shot shit at me, but those guys getting all up ons just creeped me out. I always hated slime pits and the like because I KNEW there would be some down there.

Similar monsters in other games did the same thing. Fiends from Quake (ESPECIALLY those since the first one you encounter just flies out of nowhere at you), the dog-things from Quake 2, the dogs in Wolf3d...by the time Half-Life came out, I was okay with headcrabs though. Maybe also because they're so common and small. I always hated aquatic enemies too...the piranha things in Quake, the shark things in Quake 2, the icthyosaurs in Half-Life. That's probably because I hate underwater combat in FPSs, though. You can never tall what way is up.

I hate the Sentry Drones in Duke 3D. They always hide or phase in at the most inconvenient times, like in a dark room or in cramped quarters. That pulsing drone sound they make when they're looking for you makes it hard to pinpoint where they're coming from. They take up a lot more punishment than expected for something that tries to run into you and explodes. And they hurt like hell when they get close.

I echo the same thing regarding Slimers, only on the PC. The Slimers' sounds make my skin crawl. They sound icky and gross. They tend to hang out on the ceilings and in vents and they RAPE YOUR FACE when attacking. I actually had a dream where I got to blow up a lot of mauve-colored Slimers with a pipebomb in the bathroom in E1L1. It felt freaking good seeing those claymation-animated freaks splattered against the walls.

The Archvile's flame attack can be panic-inducing at the right times. Sure it doesn't do any damage until the end, but I don't like being blinded by something that has line of sight to me. And since he's usually surrounded by fellow hellspawn, he's the last thing I want to see.

I can't stand most spider-like enemies in games. The aforementioned Arachnids from SS2. The giant spiders in the sewers in Resident Evil 2. The spiders and their squeaky sounds in Blood, although I could re-enact the ending to Arachnophobia given all the flame-powered weapons. I always hated the image of that goddamn four-eyed spider in SimAnt chewing up your player ant. On the other hand, playing as the spider was loads of fun especially if I cheated and got the auto-laser on the spider. Strangely enough, I'm not afraid of the Trites in Doom 3. They look more like upside-down heads with fingers on their sides. Same deal with the Arachnotrons and Spiderdemons. I'm less frightened of their appearance than what their weapons will do if they catch me in a bad spot.

This yellow fucker. I hated him when I was 12. I still hate him after killing him in D2X-XL. The bad thing is he's a pushover compared to his big red brother.

The black grunts in Half-Life. Yeah it sounds racist, but it seems every black grunt carries a grenade launcher that blows away a ton of health in the blink of an eye. I don't get it, I see plenty of white grunts use their GLs in Sven Coop, so why do I prioritize black grunts in single player HL?

The black headcrabs in Half-Life 2. I really hate those rattlesnake sounds they make and that horrible shriek when they attack. The fact that they reduce your health to 1 for a few seconds makes me hate them even more. The fact that I died by getting knocked off a roof by a thrown black headcrab makes me hate them with a white-hot fury. And the fact they look somewhat like tarantulas makes me wonder why they don't burst into flames when I narrow my eyes at them.

The undead fetish dolls in Diablo II. Very fast melee enemies that do a lot of damage with their oversized cleavers. When they die, they explode and do damage that's a percent of their health. It gets really frustrating fighting them, and the only characters who have the least trouble with them are ones with mercs and summoned creatures.

Enemies with one-hit kill attacks or even the potential for it make fighting very stressful. It means I get no room for error. Examples include the bosses and the Protector Drones of Duke 3D, the Cyberdemon in all its incarnations, the Icon of Sin (mostly telefragging). Hell, even a bot with a strong weapon is dangerous, but I don't feel quite as bad dying to them.

The choking hands from Blood since it was almost impossible to get them off in the earlier versions of Blood although their "I'll swallow your soul" still makes me jump. This also continued in Blood 2: The Chosen with not only the choking hands but also the Bone Leaches and Thieves (the small spider like creatures that jump on your head and start sucking your brains out) where it was also almost impossible to get them off aswell which makes me try to either avoid or keep a good distance from them every time I encounter and blowing them away quickly as possible.

This might sound silly, but the Air Tiki robot from Mega Man 2 certainly frightened me, especially when I was just a little boy.

These fuckers from the original Dark Forces game. Gave me bloody nightmares back before I had the hand-eye coordination to use a keyboard and mouse simultaneously.

MissingNo and the havoc he wreaked on my Pokemon Blue.

One of the classical tracks from Lemmings.

That level in GoldenEye where you're at the snow place again but everything's got that reddish tint.

TheeXile said:

These fuckers from the original Dark Forces game. Gave me bloody nightmares back before I had the hand-eye coordination to use a keyboard and mouse simultaneously.

Yes! I remember I always stopped at the level where you crawled around in the dark sewers.. :<

Also, I was absolutely terrified by everything in X-Com: UFO Defense. Now that game had atmosphere.

Protozoid Slimer

Being woken up by an Ancient Lich/Vampire in some dank Daggerfall dungeon was always...a surprise. I don't know why but they seemed capable of casting several contact-based damage spells in a split second. The hurting was so bad the resulting view bob/tilt was completely wacky.

zap610 said:

Protozoid Slimer

Those things scared the shit out of me for a long time. I couldn't even play Episodes 2-4 since it bothered me so much. It wasn't until last year when I played Total Meltdown (The PS1 Version of Duke 3D) that I got used to them.

These angry sounding blurry pricks have got me to jump more then once.

that damn grue

I'd say the wheelchair zombie http://i11.tinypic.com/4p493du.jpg in the half-life mod afraid of monsters. Although most of the enemies in that game still scare the crap out of me, and it's really the only game that does that anymore. Especially the fact that the zombies are fast, and they have that creepy Jacob's Ladder head shaking going on. Cautiously proceeding through an abandoned mental ward of a hospital with a flashlight that's almost out of batteries and a pistol with three rounds left, hearing a squeaking noise, and turning around to see a zombie wrapped in barbed wire with a sack over it's head in a wheelchair coming towards you is something I'll never forget. The graphics, while really good for Half-Life aren't amazing, but I can't recall a game with better atmosphere.

uhh... Cyberdemon and blue devil from CK4 (the worms that become vicous mouths were scary too).

"Looking for Baal?"

STAR troopers, Blake Stone.

STOP!!

flames surround you flames surround you flames surround you...

TheeXile said:

These fuckers from the original Dark Forces game. Gave me bloody nightmares back before I had the hand-eye coordination to use a keyboard and mouse simultaneously.

I was pretty easily scared by these guys too. I was also scared by the Kell Dragons. I always wanted to skip those two levels whenever I played through the game.

kristus said:

The midwifes were freaky and disturbing.

I've always found the hybrids more disturbing with their cries to kill them and to run. The logs on deck 4 (iirc) where backstory on the midwives was explained were pretty fucked though. heh, making me want to play it again :P

HWGuy said:

The undead fetish dolls in Diablo II. Very fast melee enemies that do a lot of damage with their oversized cleavers. When they die, they explode and do damage that's a percent of their health. It gets really frustrating fighting them, and the only characters who have the least trouble with them are ones with mercs and summoned creatures.

Frost sorceress ftw

Sinistar. That bastard always scared the crap out of me when I was young. I didn't know how to kill him either, so I would just run for my dear sweet life before inevitably being devoured.

Wow, I didn't think so many people would be afraid of the Slimers from Duke 3D. I thought I was just being a wimp... :) The first version of Duke 3D I played was the Sega Saturn version. That game ran on a different engine than all the other versions, so instead of the Slimers raping your face right away, they seemed to crawl up your leg and glided into your view instead, So they didn't creep me out in that version. Safe to say when I played the N64 version with face raping Slimers, that's when I starting hating them.

This guy right here. He was both the stage boss and an enemy during the sewer section of the third level in Shinobi 3. As an enemy, he would pop out of the background when you were most exposed and then a targeting reticule would pop up. You had to move really fast to avoid this, otherwise he would hit you with an unavoidable blast. The appearance and sheer size of this guy as a boss was what scared me the most, though. That was probably my most dreaded part of Shinobi 3 for a long time.

I remember the entirety of Splatterhouse 2 scaring the shit out of me when I first played it. So much so I couldn't even beat the first level and played the other game I rented for the rest of the rental period instead. :p

Edit: Image link fixed.

I'm the kind of guy who might get dragged to a horror movie and will spend the entire time laughing, so nowadays nothing really scares me for monsters. Until about '95 though, hell knights and barons of hell got some jumps out of me, the roar being what got me. Also the floating pinkish greenish eye decorations tended to trick me, so I'd think there was a Baron right on my ass.

SS2 has some of the most unsettling enemies in my opinion though, I have to back up the choices of the Hybrids and Midwives, but also add those damn suicide helper robots.

A little off topic, but I said I was never really afraid of many monsters. There was one exception to that. A monster from X-Files who lived in pota-potties and toilets that killed people while they were shitting. When that episode aired I wouldn't shit for like two weeks.

Shaikoten said:

When that episode aired I wouldn't shit for like two weeks.

Ouch. And you're still alive?