Scary enemies in nostalgic games that made you quit the game

[unerxai]

There are enemies in games that used to scare me as a kid to the point I'd even shut down the game just from seeing them. Sometimes it was the design of the monster, and sometimes it was just how threatening they were. 

 

1) Dopefish (Commander Keen 4)

 

 

This guy is very famous among old school PC gamers and it's featured in many games as an "easter egg". It appears in one stage in Keen 4 and if you've played it you know how hard it can be to avoid him. They knew this so they put one at the very end of the stage. It was pretty terrifying.

 

 

2) Berkeloid (also Commander Keen 4)

 

 

This fucker throws fireballs that insta-kill you (like most things in Commander Keen) with a random trajectory so it's tricky to avoid them. What's scary is that the fireballs can go through walls so even when you're inside a building or underground you're not completely safe (I've always thought that was a glitch). If you play on harder difficulties, they appear in several levels (not just the fire level) which would take me by surprise and scare the shit out of me.

 

 

3) Demon, aka "Pinky" (Doom)

 

If you were a wimp like me when you were kid, you played Doom on easy, and the first time you encountered a Demon in Doom was in the E1M4 maze. The first time I saw it was so scary I shut down the game immediately. Keep in mind I was like 5/6 years old. The following playthroughs I was afraid of even opening the blue door.

 

 

 

4) Zombie (System Shock 2)

 

 

I'm ashamed to say I was an adult when this happened. The first time I saw one of these I quited. This is an example of a video game which its primitive graphics helped it being more disturbing looking. I've seen mods of SS2 that have more advanced graphics and the enemies aren't nearly as scary as the vanilla models.

 

 

Honorable mentions: Most other enemies in SS2. The witch in the Hugo game (lol).

 

 

Share some of yours.

Edited February 24, 2020 by unerxai

[Mr. Freeze]

The Wampas from Shadows of the Empire

 

Crimson Heads from Resident Evil REmake. 

 

The Alien from Alien: Isolation. By far the scariest enemy here.

 

Cyborg Midwives from System Shock 2. 

 

 

[doomsucksass]

IIRC i was scared of arch-viles, barons, revenants, cyberdemons and spiderdemons when i was younger.

Edited April 6, 2020 by doomsucksass

[spineapple tea]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

The Wampas from Shadows of the Empire

Yes. This thing was terrifying.

[HorrorMovieRei]

When I was a small kid I was really scared of Nemesis from Resident Evil 3, and the Torso boss from Tomb Raider 1. But I was too young to be the one actually playing, so I'd usually be watching my dad or sister do it. No doubt those would have made me quit though if I were the one playing at the time.

 

But one that actually made me stop playing in a time when I was old enough to comprehend and play more complex games was the zombie Elephant from Resident Evil Outbreak on the PS2:

 

I never got to the end of this scenario cause I was scared shitless of this thing.

[taufan99]

Oh hi, that's my avatar in the OP! XD

 

Also, yeah, the pinky demons are still scary to me, moreso in the SNES port, where their movement appears to be rather erratically fast.

[Gaia74]

in my childhood this guy make me have nightmares....

[Chow Yun Thin]

 

Boss Bass (Super Mario 3). This guy can kill Mario in one gulp regardless of how big Mario is. I don't think you can even jump on his head to beat him. And he's always on those stages where the tide raises and lowers, so you gotta do some tricky jumping to keep your feet dry.

 

I didn't think the pipe zombies from System Shock were too scary unless they got the jump on me. I mostly felt bad for them especially when they go "(anguished scream) KILL ME!" But then they do that stupid-fast pipe swing that I can't dodge and well, I solve the problem with the space wrench. I find the cyborg midwives grotesque and disturbing, but not scary until they shoot from the hip with their lasers. Then I think, "Well, I guess she doesn't want an open-casket funeral." I've never even gotten to the rumblers that veteran players talk about, because of...

 

 

Spider (System Shock 2). No, just no. I just can't handle them even if I went Marine with a tricked-out Assault Rifle and anti-personnel rounds. They move super fast and make an unearthly sound that puts me on edge for the rest of the deck I'm on. Good luck finding an anti-toxin hypo once they bite you.

 

Spiders from Blood. Eugh, that high-pitched chirp and the fact that they often appear from hidden alcoves skeeves me out. The Spray Can primary would be a cost-effective weapon for disposing of them if it didn't have a realistically short range. And then there's the shebitch spawner herself, truly an inspiration for incendiary birth control.

 

Similar to the Spiders are the black Headcrabs from Half-Life 2. Fucking terrifying when they're introduced in Ravenholm. Sure, their attack only reduces your health to 1 and the suit provides a quick antidote, but I don't ever want my health to go single digit in a heartbeat. That and one knocked me off a rooftop after biting me. These devious little shits and the horribly bloated corpses throwing them deserve every headward-bound .357 Magnum hollowpoint coming their way.

 

Shadow Ninja (Shadow Warrior 1997) Cloaked in shadow so you don't see him well. Once you hear that chain of explosions racing toward you, you might as well restart because you're not gonna survive it even at 200 health and full armor. I expect that from a boss, not an enemy on the first level.

 

 

Superhulk (Descent 1). This yellow cyclopean bastard is the boss of the shareware episode, and he believes "fighting fair" is a word jumble. You encounter him in a donut-shaped arena that locks you in once you enter. He sends out his posse, three tough red hombres with homing missiles and three mushroom-shaped gunslingers who make a horrible metallic windup sound before blowing away your shields with undodgeable hitscan aimbot attacks. Then there's El Gigante himself, with his shitton of health, cloaking (to negate homing weapons), teleporting around to hide like the coward his paintjob suggests he is, and then there's his signature weapon. See that green-ringed rocket firing out out his left arm? That thing explodes into a half-dozen angry green balls that seek as well as the homing missiles. Grab the cloaking item nestled in the center of the arena and trichord (SR40 in 3D) your ass off the whole time because they will be gunning to violate your tailpipe. God, that fight is a serious "FUCK YOU AND THE NEXT 5 SPACESHIPS YOU FLEW IN ON".

 

 

Not an enemy, but being one-shot by the environment. First thing that comes to mind are Spikes in Mega Man games, especially in underwater stages where you gotta feather that jump button carefully or you'll end up lobotomizing him. Those stupid floor traps in the Metal Gear NES games. Slow crushers in Doom. Icon of Sin telefragging can be rather unexpected. Slopes and swinging doors in any Build engine game.

[Jello]

I don't think I've ever played a game where an enemy scared me enough to just quit playing it. However The 7th Guest, and Phantasmagoria did give me a few nightmares as a kid. The pinky freaked me out as well, the first time I played Doom. It was in E1M5, in the room with the yellow key. Looking through the window, a pinky started infighting with a Sergeant, and I swore it gibbed him. Looking back on it, I assume one of the barrels in that room gibbed him, but my 8 year old self convinced me that the pinky was powerful enough to blow up a zombie with a shotgun with one bite.

 

The Fiend from Quake freaked me out as well. That thing is still one of the scariest enemies I've ever seen in a game.

[Graf Zahl]

2 hours ago, Gaia74 said:

in my childhood this guy make me have nightmares....

 

Yeah, this one. Still ranks for me as the most annoying thing ever being cooked up as a final boss. Its entire creepiness comes from the unanswered question how someone could genuinely think it was a good idea to do such a setup.

I think I only played fair against it one single time. Seeing it repeated in virtually every single classic megawad failed to increase my appreciation for it entirely - quite the opposite in fact. These says, if I can't shortcut them with mouseaim I just quit the game right before because these "fights" are un-fun by default.

 

[seed]

HL1 Zombies. Their extremely long claws and noises creeped me at the time. The same reason I could never finish mods such as Zombie Edition at the time.

 

 

NO, NO, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME. FUCK YOU.

 

Even now as an adult these things still freeze me on the chair. There is a good chance I suffer from arachnophobia, but only a select few types of spiders trigger it. For instance, Skyrim Spiders, or Tarantulas, don't do it, but the faster they are, and the thinner their legs are and the bigger their bodies are... O_O.

 

Resident Evil 4 and 5 parasites also used to creep me, but not anymore, I don't think.

[Havoc Crow]

Much like the OP, I also used to be terrified of Doom's Demons. There was something about their strange, hunched-over silhouette and unnatural speed that scared the heck out of me. On the occasions where I loaded up a Doom map, I hoped it would contain no Demons.

 

As for an enemy that really made me quit a game: the ghosts from the dungeons in Elvira II. Here you are in this dark corridor, and suddenly a magic trap roots you to the spot and you can only watch helplessly as ghosts suddenly fly out of the screen at you:
https://youtu.be/Gd-cJUuU5mo?t=318
The first time this happened to me, I 'nope'd out of the game and didn't really feel like playing it afterwards...

[CyberDreams]

When i was younger me and my friend could never get very far in the first Resident Evil game because we were to scared of the zombies when we played lol. Of course we were also not really supposed to be playing that game and we were also in his older brothers room using his PS1 so...that might of caused some extra anxiety as well.

 

This cutscene too...

 

[holaareola]

E1M4 maze and pinkies did it for me as a kid as well. I think this section is a great bit of Doom design, It works so well with the primitive AI, playing through the other day, even knowing pretty much where everything is after countless runs through KDITD in my life, I still got snuck up on.

 

-  The choking hands in Blood. Instant quit.

- Silent Hill 2, every enemy ever introduced pretty much.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

 

Where do I begin with zizzy?

First off, to kill this boss, you have to go INSIDE him. Literally. And this isn't some cutscene where you see your hero blast away at the boss from the isnide. No, you have to MANUALLY shoot his organs and his eyes. This, creeped me the hell out (even now it still weirds me out). On top of that, this boss has some really weird attacks like using his swirly eyes as lasers or making you go dizzy.

Zizzy is rather funny though. :)

[Kizoky]

Weird cartoonish Doom wads (i.e. Simpsons Doom) used to give me a weird and bad vibe that eventually turned into nightmares, all of this when I was 5-7 years old

[Murdoch]

Doom 3 made me jump a lot but the monsters were more unnerving than scary. Alien Isolation gets a nod though it never made me quit. Probably the closest I came was the first time I encountered those super fast zombies at night in Dying Light. As I was sprinting from it to the nearest safe zone, for about 10 seconds or so I was so focused it was almost as if I forgot I was playing a game.

[unerxai]

Yet another one from System Shock 2. Self destructing protocol droid that won't stop chasing you.

 

[Mr. Freeze]

Everything about SS2 is ridiculously freaky. I think the scariest aspect of it was the fact that you could never fully clear a deck out, and enemies would always spawn. Speaking of Protocol Droids, two words: COMMAND DECK

 

that one hallway with 10 droid container boxes and if you moved too fast or got too close they activated and gave you a explosive hug...FUCK i hated that area

[DuckReconMajor]

QIX on Amiga scared the hell out of me as a kid for some odd reason, but I couldn't stop playing it.

[reflex17]

Some good ones in this thread. A lot of them a big part is the sound or the way they move that's the worst part.

 

The first time I ever felt sustained fear/actual panic that lasted more than a few seconds in a videogame was Resident Evil 4. That first farm sequence I had to take a break afterwards because I was shook up, that doesn't happen often lol.

[Doominator2]

These guys

 

 

Also the robots from Thief 2 weren't really scary but kind of unnerving 

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

 

The banshees from Nitemare 3D.  They scream upon seeing the player and have an overpowered hit-scan attack.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

The dinosaur things in earth worm Jim. Well nearly everything in it is freaky. 

[Solmyr]

On 2/22/2020 at 8:42 PM, unerxai said:

3) Demon, aka "Pinky" (Doom)

 

If you were a wimp like me when you were kid, you played Doom on easy, and the first time you encountered a Demon in Doom was in the E1M4 maze. The first time I saw it was so scary I shut down the game immediately. Keep in mind I was like 5/6 years old. The following playthroughs I was afraid of even opening the blue door.

 

Oh a fellow former wimpy kid. I remember the feelings of uneasiness when i got to the maze part of E1M4, just the tought of getting chomped from behind by pinkies made me shudder, i also remember the first time i attempted to play the shareware version on NIGHTMARE! when i saw how fast pinkies and spectres where at the start of E1M3 i nearly shat my pants, quit the game and had nightmares for weeks. Good times.

 

The Zombie Crows and Dogs from Resident Evil 1, i used to hate going trough long hallways in that game because i was afraid a dog might jump right through a window at any time. Crows were also scary mainly due to a puzzle in RE1, the puzzle was about pressing buttons on several paintings depicting the stages of a man's life, from being a newborn to his deathbead, iirc the puzzle took place on an art gallery room, there were many crows sitting on golden railings near the room's ceiling. Because i was dumb as a bag of bricks and didn't had a good grasp on english i never solve the puzzle until i was 14. Always had to run in terror from that room when the crows descended to punish me for my ignorance.

 

These things from Alone in the Dark 1992 made me feel very uneasy when i was a kid. It looks goofy as fuck, but something in the way it moves makes it kind of creepy. 

 

 

Not the enemies per se but what happened when they kill my pilots in Mission Force Cyberstorm, a nostalgic turn based strategy mech game.

Spoiler

 

 

[unerxai]

That MissionForce: Cyberstorm video... damn. The characters alive already look scary enough, and then it gets even worse.

 

Yeah Alone in the Dark is a good one. The basic 3D graphics really gave a weird, bizarre feel to the game.

 

@DuckReconMajor I used to play Qix on DOS when I was like 3. The only thing I remember about it is the awesome title screen.

 

Edited February 24, 2020 by unerxai

[printz]

The Barnacles from Half Life scared me enough to quit the game, and I wasn't even a child. When I thought I saw hanging cables for climbing, I jumped on one and sure enough, I was hanging on it, except that I was rising up a little, had no actual control, and it was making a funny noise. When I looked up, DAMN. And my player character died immediately.

 

Not exactly the same kind of thing, but after playing too much Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, where you must use a ritual dagger to fully kill your enemies, I soon had a nightmare where I used a kitchen bread knife to kill burglars who broke into my house.

Edited February 24, 2020 by printz

[Boaby Kenobi]

Never made me quit but as soon as I see or hear one of them I get a shiver through me.

 

 

[seed]

Interesting to see some common fears here, notably SS2 and even some HL.

 

Gotta agree that everything about SS2 was just spooky overall, even the damn droids were creepy thanks to their movement and how they sometimes manage to sneak up on the player.

 

HL had its moments, but these were usually few - that iconic area from On A Rail for instance, where the player hears loud screams once they see it, and HL2 had the Poison Headcrabs. It wasn't so much for their look, but their attack noises were pretty chilling, especially when you saw them for the first time, after that, you get used to them.

[Rare Hatchiama]

The ReDeads in Zelda used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kiddo.  Would do everythint I could to avoid them.