I’ll start with the Baron of Hell and the Cyberdemon from Doom. It’s something about the roar when they activate, their humanoid shape, plus the awesome damage they do if they actually hit you. The other monsters in Doom really don’t have the same affect on me.
Dammit! Could some kind Mod please move this to The Game Room where I meant to place it?
Headcrabs, and Fast Zombies from Halflife 2. It’s the whole leaping-at-your-face thing. And the creepy sounds they make.
The Tyrannosaur from the original Tomb Raider that attacks while you are in this canyonish area; it’s huge, it’s fast, and it can instant kill you if you don’t dodge like crazy or get into cover fast. And you can see it coming, boom, boom, boom towards you; it’s not like most bosses where you walk into a room and there it is or it pops out of something.
I reported your mis-post for you; i don’t know if you can report your own OP, I never tried.
EDIT: Never mind, already moved.
Done. And just for future reference, you can now report your own posts. So if this happens in the future, just click the report button and someone will help you out.
I’ve played the game(s) six ways to Sunday. I know the levels inside and out. I know they’re functionally not very different from regular guards. But Thief’s Hammer Haunts still make me piss my pants.
The Big Daddies from Bioshock 1/2 also. If I’m consciously triggering them, they’re all right. Freakishly dangerous, but all right. However there are few things as unnerving as seeing one of those giant roaring freaks barrelling into you out of the blue because it took a bit of damage from a trap you laid down ages ago and forgot about, or it walked into in a wasp swarm.
The Licker jumping through the window in the interrogation room in Resident Evil 2. Also Nemesis in RE:3 jumping through a window/etc. and slowly trudging after you upon taunting with “STARRRS…” or something similar. Chilling.
I swear the first (and second…and third) times I saw that, I almost soiled myself.
Even on replays, I forgot when exactly it happens. It’s more of a “suspense” moment rather than a creepy monster, but alas…
For actual creepiness, I’d say the zombies that hurled their appendages at you in Quake 1. They kinda stood there, swaying about until you walked into range. All the while making ominous “Aughhh…” moans. Doesn’t do much anymore, but the game was released in 1996. I was pretty creeped out back then.
In the first Resident Evil for playstation, there was a hallway in the mansion where everything looked normal until some zombie dogs would crash through one of the windows and start trying to do what zombie dogs do to you…
Nearly shit my pants the first time i encountered this.
Not quite “jump”, but there are several encounters in WoW where you fight copies of yourself. If I’m half-asleep, I feel very strange shooting my own face; if I’m more awake or in a more absurd mood, I feel like raising my hands and saying “no, no, no, everybody stop, this won’t do, how about we stop wasting bullets and have some hot chocolate instead, hey? And then you consider yourself defeated and go back to whatever Hell you came from, but more chocolatey!” One of those encounters is in an instanced dungeon where each team member has to fight copies of the rest of the team; as people defeat their own pack of copies, they are moved over to assist their team-mates. When I move over to someone else’s fight and find my copy beating up on whomever, I always feel like I should apologize for being so terribly rude to them.
I’m currently in the usual pre-expansion lull in WoW and, having realized that I could (1), have reactivated my CoX account. There are a few baddies (ghouls) who drop from the ceiling; the first couple of times I almost jumped off the chair.
1: CoX’s safety features include having to use a credit card issued by a bank from the same country from which you’re trying to pay. I’ve had several jobs which were abroad but too short to justify getting a local bank account, so I stopped playing for a long time.
The Butcher in Diablo. “Ahh, Fresh Meat!” and then he rushes up and kills you in two hits.
This is completely stupid and silly, but you know those games you buy from, like, Walmart where you plug a plastic gun into your TV and shoot at deer? Not complicated, sort of a redneck thing to do at a party. So I was minding my own business, picking a new place to shoot my deer at, when HOLY SHIT A BEAR! I screamed, for real!
And from the kitchen my boyfriend yelled “Did you get the bear? The bear is scary!”
One of the Star Wars games: Mysteries of the Sith I think.
Giant devil-dog in valley of lost jedi - just jumped me.
Cougars in Red Dead Redemption.
The first one I encountered killed my horse and me before I even realized what was attacking.
(Rather than “me” I suppose I should say “John Marston.”)
The Hag from Thief 3: Deadly Shadows. Brrrrrrrrrr.
There was an extremely scary Alien mod for Doom; I’m pretty sure you didn’t see any Aliens the whole first level or close to it, but the atmosphere was really tense and creepy. I think I barely got through the second (?) level before I had to stop playing.
The last level of Wolfenstein 3D episode 1. When you open the last door and there’s a suddenly a guy right in your face and screams, “GUTEN TAG!” and then mows you down with his Gatling gun arms. My brother and I both jumped.
I also second the cougars, and add bears, to Knorf’s comment about Read Dead Redemption. Riding along on your horse thinking, “doop de doo, gotta go pick some wooly blue curls…what the… aw. damn cougar!”
Oh, and freakin’ Somnus the dragon out in Swamp of Sorrows in WoW. There I was, minding my own business (and killing smaller dragonkin) around the lake out there, when a big dragon head pokes in from the margin of the screen and eats me in two bites. Gah! Yeah, you bet I’ve returned to kill him a few times in revenge.
The “schoolchildren” in Silent Hill. If you’re not paying attention they can get close and kneecap you.
Pirate Ghosts in Metroiod Prime. They shriek, they turn the lights off and they’re invisible. Greaaaat…
The Omega Pirate in Metroid Prime. The first one you see, in the giant holding tank, I mean.
ETA: Also, just about everything in HL2.