Scariest moment of Doom

[Katamori]

Tell us, what place/scene was the scariest since you play Doom 1-2-Final?

For me, E1M8 ending was really scary. I closed the game immediately! :D

[Seeker_of_Truth]

I'd have to agree...the ending of e1m8 was very scary for me as a kid. Well, e1m8 in general because the Barons scared me too.

[Graf Zahl]

Playing E2M8 for the first time. You hear that loud roar, then the stomping. You run around until you see that behemoth of a monster. One moment later: The screen gets red and you are toast without ever seeing what hit you.

Ugh...

[C30N9]

Encountering Cyber Demon in Doom II several times, every time I used to see him I scream a little.

It still could be scary these days if you are in a narrow place and you are hearing his footsteps, afraid of getting splattered any time.

[Vorpal]

The strobe-light maze in I think e1m2 was the scariest for me.

[Seeker_of_Truth]

Vorpal said:

The strobe-light maze in I think e1m2 was the scariest for me.

Yeah, that was pretty suspenseful.

[PRIMEVAL]

E1M1 on the SNES. And E1M2. And E2M1. And E3M1. Never reapply gotten further than that when I was a kid. The music just made things very eerie and the TV screen was fading so everything was very dark.

[_bruce_]

Vorpal said:

The strobe-light maze in I think e1m2 was the scariest for me.

Agree - the secret maze was creepy.

[Jimmy]

Hunted.

[Birdbrain]

The first archvile encounter in Circle Of Death scared me quite a bit.

[Clonehunter]

Anytime I meet an Arch-Vile I jump. Or when I first hear aRevenant. Both enemies you need to work fast on, and that start up 'shrill' always makes me jump a bit.

[PRIMEVAL]

Clonehunter said:

Anytime I meet an Arch-Vile I jump. Or when I first hear aRevenant. Both enemies you need to work fast on, and that start up 'shrill' always makes me jump a bit.

I'm thinking about making my Text alert sound an Arch-Vile activate sound. >:)

[Megamur]

Playing E1M1 for the very first time horrified me. The first thing you see is this splattered mess on the floor in front of you, which set a very uncomfortable tone after playing years of Mario games. Even the sounds of the doors shutting behind me gave me a start the first time I heard them (that hydraulic, whining howl is kind of creepy when you don't know what it belongs to, initially).

I don't know if a game had ever made me experience fear before--certainly nothing like the gripping terror of DOOM. The fact that I can still remember the first time I played it after all these years is testament to how it affected me...and I instantly fell in love.

Deimos Lab was practically unbearable in my early years of DOOMing. That music is just chilling, and depending on the skill level, it's the first time in the game that a Baron is simply encountered during the normal course of a level, as opposed to in a boss-type situation, which was even more unsettling.

And, of course, the Cyberdemon. I'd actually read about Cyberdemons in an old game magazine, so I knew what they were capable of. However, I didn't actually recognize the creature right away. When that first rocket struck and I survived with 8% health left, and it dawned on me what I'd encountered, I literally started screaming while DOOMGuy ran for his freaking life. :)

DOOM 64 didn't make things any better.

[dew]

the nukage room in e1m1. so fucking impossible to stay on the narrow zig-zag floor while sniping the scary brown monsters with pistol and dodging their fireballs without strife. on low res with half the screen size.

[Snakes]

Playing E1M3 for the first time was one of the most haunting things I encountered. The shift in difficulty from the first two maps was nerve-wracking... Forgetting the first spectre/demon encounter is a memory that's still really fresh with me. The damn thing was so fast it freaked the hell out of me. Couple that with the blue key trap... spooky.

The arch-vile in MAP11 is on the same level, and maybe scared me even more. To this day, it's the most intimidating enemy to me...

[Memfis]

Whistling music from MAP30.

[Pedro VC]

Music of E2M2, first demon appearence in E1M4 (yeah, first time i playe
d was in I'm too young to die)and that corridor with STONGARG textures in E2M4.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

The dark maze in Halls of the Damned was very spooky to me. As far as startles: Whenever there happened to be a caco right behind a door I was about to open and seeing it grinning right in front of me like a giant floating one-eyed Tim Curry.

Of course there are more obvious scares like the Cyberdemon, but everyone knows that guy's scary. Sometimes I still jump a little if I hear one after a quiet part in a level.

[Phml]

Even the sounds of the doors shutting behind me gave me a start the first time I heard them (that hydraulic, whining howl is kind of creepy when you don't know what it belongs to, initially).

Ha, that is awesome. I felt the exact same way about that door sound, and forgot about it for years until I read your post.

[dew]

DoomHero85 said:

giant floating one-eyed Tim Curry.

you just ruined cacodemons for me forever, there's no way i'm unseeing that now.

[Torturephile]

The bloody ouch face. I was 15/16 at the time.

[phobosdeimos1]

Birdbrain said:

The first archvile encounter in Circle Of Death scared me quite a bit.

I second that,

also, playing the first level of plutonia on UV not knowing it was that hard

[General Rainbow Bacon]

@dew: lol, sorry. It had to be said. So does that mean now you seeing that every time you blink is your scariest moment in Doom? :o

[scalliano]

MAP23 of PSX Doom (aka E2M8). The first time I got a rocket in the ear and wondered as I lay dying what that shadowy figure through the lingering red mist in the distance could possibly be...

[Daiyu_Xiaoxiang]

At the first time I play E2M8 when I was 8, I meet the ultimate cyberdemon, he was so huge and he shoot rockets and killed me. After that time I never dare to face the cyberdemon, until when I was about 15, I decided to give courage and face him.

And then I was hunting in Plutonia, that maze is so horrible! I keep getting lost!

[Xaser]

Heh, I used to HATE the Spider Mastermind way back in my wee days, so E3M8 scared the daylights out of me. And then I forgot how to fear and suddenly they're my favorite enemy now.

Conversely, I also like actual spiders now. Inversion Power!

[printz]

I always found the bloodiest grin face very disturbing. I was trying not to pick up new guns when under 20% health. The marine in general looked very tortured when low on health, with a bit of power left just to show rage for holding fire.

The scariest moment for me was E4M1. I didn't really find it easy to accept that on HMP a baron of hell was already there in the first level of an episode. Or that on UV there was no health reserve at all. And ultimately, that looking too hard for secrets would unleash the ultimate punishment. That secret could even trap you forever into a strange dimension, if you managed to escape the baron onslaught. Anyway, in general, monsters were teleporting wildly throughout the level, making things unpredictable. The twisted images at the end of E4 levels weren't good omen. Anyway, E4M1 felt like a fitting nightmare at the start of E4, until you reached level 2 and you got better equipped.

[Lila Feuer]

On and off topic, the whole of Doom 64 is an otherworldly experience. Absolute nightmare fuel. Like a gruesome fusion of Doom and the first Quake. Aubrey Hodges' score is easily one of the best video game OSTs ever. And to think in the end, the Doomguy has the nerve to stay in Hell forever to ensure no demon will ever rise again? Brass balls.

As for classic Doom, the Barons did it for me. I was 9 years old playing the shareware.

[Mithran Denizen]

In my early Doom days, I always thought that the dark room with the flashing lights before E1M5's exit was scary as hell. E1M2's dark COMPTALL maze was more bearable because it was only full of zombies and imps, and it was a lot easier to navigate. But E1M5's was much more brutal.

Hell, I still get a bit nervous about going in there. I still get killed by a stray barrel/shotgunner/demon hidden in the darkness about 20% of the time. I know that the light-amp visor reduces the risk to about zero, but it makes me feel like a helpless little bitch, so I avoid using it. :P


Also, yeah, Doom 64 was the first time I felt really creeped out by the atmosphere in Doom, rather than just being jumpy about dangerous areas or monsters that my reflexes couldn't handle.

[kmxexii]

E1M8 for sheer otherworldliness / music and E2M8 for baby's first Cyberdemon.