Best Vidya Jump Scares

What sort of meme is this?

Don't click this image.

=FUCK YOU=

FUCK YOU NIGGER

don't alt-tab

I have a better jumpscare.

Only a shit deals in absolutes.

I was expecting one of these to be donut man

there is no such thing as a good jumpscare
same as there is no good qte or battlefield game after Bad Company 2

I got you fam seriously though, don't open it if you're using windows

untrue you uncultured swine

Well, not since Sonic Forces will be releasing.

You underestimate my power.
Jumpscares are cheap in that they do not indeed "scare" an individual. They are associated with the fight or flight adrenaline shock that is necessary when encountering a sudden shift in the environment. The fear is what happens afterwards that leads to the evolutionarily necessary need to stop doing what it is that causes that shock as it wastes the body's energy. That state of shock leading to "fear" is not true trepidation nor is it any true representation of fear. People may believe they are being scared, but in essence, they are experiencing the aftereffects of their own body telling them, "Fucking stop making me do this, idiot." True fear is different. True fear is knowing what is ahead and refusing to do it. True fear is trepidation and hesitation because you are aware of what will happen if you continue, and it is no shock when it does. It is not shock that happens when the fearful thing occurs, it is terror. Terror because you know what is happening, and you were fully able to escape it, but you did not.

idk man, I've opened that before, I'm on windows, and nothing has ever happened to me. Does it not work with Chrome? Is it being blocked by my antivirus?

Fucking hell we desperately need one of these.

Sure, I understand if you're talking specifically about the tacky FNAF-esque "someone shows up in front of your face with a loud noise" shit, but a lot of people seem to think horror games should just be creepy atmosphere where nothing ever happens. The real kicker is when I hear shit like:

Which completely misses the fucking point of them. The point of jump scares is that they make the rest of the game scary. It's a bit like the phrase "bark is worse than its bite". If you know that a dog doesn't bite, its barking no longer become frightening. Knowing that a game is willing to do jump scares means that everything else the game does has some weight behind it. Saying "but muh imagination makes the game scary" is an awful excuse that falls flat if you already realise that the game isn't going to actually deliver on what you're imagining.

I just went over that. It's not an actual scare by that sense, it's a jump-shock.

So, something like how Pyramid Head was introduced in Silent Hill 2. Just staring at you from across the grate before lumbering off to do his business. You go through the rest of the dungeon with the thought in the back of your mind that he’s in there with you somewhere, but you keep going anyway.

Not even the best one from that game.

You mean after 2142, shit eater.

wait, what's the deal?

Yes, and then you're paranoid of those jump-shocks for the rest of the game, even if no more occur

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I don't get it.

You're right man, a good scare at the beginning of the game ratchets up the tension for the rest of the game. In RE2 after the licker in the window and the arms in the hallway you'll be dreading every room that seems benign at first glance, even if it is just as normal as it appears
There is one room where you find the magnum that a dead officer is laying bloodied and face down, and you fully expect him to jump up and grab you because the game has already instilled that fear in your mind, but nothing happens. It scares you without doing anything because it set the precedent beforehand.

Somehow I managed to approach that thing from behind and I still rationalized it as real

That one fucking dinosaur in VTMB gave me quite a scare

Fuck…

Say what you will. You rarely expected the jump scares because the game gave you incentive to explore dark areas where nothing would happen.

the game gives you the option to continue without saving or delete your file data at a save point. Look up the game if you want to understand why that is.

The one actual jumpscare of the game is that fucking solo cubicle sandwiched between two combat area.

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I saved a copy about 2 fucking years ago on my windows machine. Malwarebytes sees nothing, I have no virus, it's all bullshit.

It's not an option, it actually takes over your controls and chooses to delete all your save data.

Well if I said that I'de be spoonfeeding to much about the game wouldn't I? That's a game that only works if you've never seen anything about it.

Honestly, The fact that nothing ever moved in Decay, made the sparse bits of movements that DID happen utterly terrifying.

Essentially, back in the day, someone managed to uploaded a virus to an image file somehow. This virus would then install a screamer on your computer if you downloaded the picture. It doesn't work anymore to my knowledge.

Bloodlines really had a lot of really great jump scares. So I find it kind of ironic that the one that sticks out the most is a fake out.

I remember the first time I saw that. I actually fell out of the couch. Only game that made me do that.

didnt know the lake monster would attack you like that

And no one has ever provided even a lick of evidence of it happening. Not one person has even described what the screamer might even be.

Only those of us that wanted to shoot some poor innocent fish off the dock for fun know the lake's vengeance.

Bampu

Fine, jumpscares do serve their purpose of shocking people and setting up an uneasy atmosphere. They're a legitimate way to provoke the fight or flight reaction through surprise, and that's an element of horror.
They do not invoke terror however. Terror is apprehension and trepidation, something that's lost when something is unexpected. That's what is lost when jumpscares are relied heavily on. Not knowing when the next jumpscare is going to occur is terrifying, yes, but the element of surprise that must be established is counter-intuitive. If you repeatedly try to jumpscare an audience, they'll become less and less shocked after each attempt– it has to be timed and the audience put at ease after each one. That is where it begins to fail– the realization behind jumpscares being nothing more than a basic reaction rather than a psychologically impactful event sets up a mood that constantly attempts to make the audience lower their guard. If the atmosphere is terrifying, the audience will expect something horrible, making an actual jumpscare less impactful. The fallacy behind a "good" jumpscare would imply something entirely different however.
And it is this fact: jumpscares do not need to be unexpected to be "scary". For instance: smelling blood as you're walking down a dark road is terrifying, tripping over a decaying body is not unexpected– but it is horrifying. The discovery of the dead body is predictable due to the smell of blood, but it was scary nonetheless because of the fear of finding the body.
That brings us to cheap jumpscares. They're almost always unexpected and almost always cause some shock due to how it is set up: there is no atmosphere, there is nothing indicating that it will occur, and when it does– it is so obnoxiously loud and/or contrasting that it elicits the fight or flight response. There's no element of tredpidation beforehand because the jumpscare is just there. There's no scary element associated with it other than it's loud and obnoxious; there's no terrifying element to it because it's unpredictable. That is why it is cheap: it doesn't need to be written into a terrifying situation. It just needs to be loud, obnoxious, and unexpected. That is why there is no good "jumpscare", because all the actual good jumpscares are not usually classified as jumpscares at all. They're simply scary.

And the fact that the spookyness was broken up with high octane action made you feel strong and comfortable until the jumpscares just popped up in your face again.

Oven man always gets me because you have to pass it multiple times and I always forget which time you pass it that he bursts out.

Sure thing, bud.

The manneqiuns scared the shit out of me

As much as I hate to admit it, this part actually made me jump. Don't worry, I pirated the game
I do remember the first bioshock had a scare like this where an enemy is placed behind you at a part where you naturally turn around.

Dude, you mention the mannequins, but ignore Mr. Tibbits?

That was foreshadowed too well, since there's a crash from downstairs and the music stops. You know something's coming. What I DID NOT fucking know was that Nemesis will follow you to other screens and THAT was a fucking jumpscare for me, hearing STARS and the motherfucker runs at mach speed towards you. Bricks shat etc.

Oh yeah how could I forget about that one

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I should also give Underhell a mention. Especially The House. The way jumpscares are semi-randomized makes you dread every phone call, every visit to the attic or the basement, every night spent outside. The fear of jumpscares keeps you tense even when you've spent hours in The House. Sure, you will easily figure out which events 'can' trigger a jumpscare, but it's always a guess whether or not it will.

Would be interested to hear experiences in games where people are almost too scared to press on. I'm tempted to say that the underground labyrinth in Silent Hill 2 where Pyramid Head is roaming around randomly and you MIGHT run into him or might not is a part I usually don't even want to play because it's just so fucking scary to me, but I have to do it anyway.

RE3:Nemesis was this game for me when I was younger. Those moments where Nemesis is standing right outside a safe room and you know he is going to clothesline your ass the moment you peek out made the game absolutely unplayable for me.
I would boot the game up, dick around in the safe room building up courage, take one step outside and NOPE right back in when I saw him sprint at me. Thankfully I replayed the game more recently and can fully appreciate how awesome it is now without the soul crushing terror I felt as a kid.

I had a similar issue with Nemesis, but the first time I killed him at a random encounter I got over it. Plus you get some good gear by killing him enough times.

Unfortunately I played on easy back then and you don't get anything for killing him outside of hard.

You might laugh, but I genuinely quit half-life when a heaadcrab teleported in front of me. Didn't play the game for years after that. Alien incursions were a novel and unexlpored concept for me.

that's because everyone that saw it is dead

tfw I had it like that when I first got to play HL on some dudes pc and I genuinely thought it was a horror game or similar, spooked as fuck climbing that elevator shaft where you meet the first zombie that's up and about.

Besides that I really think the HL zombies, and aliens in general look a lot more spooky than HL2s. The zombies for example, displaying their claws, making their silhouette a lot more intimidating than the ones in HL2 that look like they're wearing a straight jacket.
I guess it's a sign of good game design, even the part where you first meet houndeyes, it was kind of spooky back then, because you actually feel hunted, something that's severely missing from today's games.

worst FEAR, anonkun

Probably because you feel ridiculous afterwards for getting scared by that. It doesn't move, even in game its just a prop, and by that point things had been pretty grounded as far as what you were facing. So getting scared because you thought a dinosaur was about to kill you is a bit ridiculous. If it came up after facing some of the shit you do, it probably wouldn't be as memorable.

Ye', I understand this now. There's a difference between horror, terror, and obnoxiousness.
If the jumpscare is related to the atmosphere and imagery, then you could have prevented yourself from experiencing the scare by simply not going forward through the terrorizing atmosphere.
If the jumpscare isn't related to the atmosphere and is just there to take you by surprise, it's absolutely obnoxious.
Having a jumpscare be related to the environment and relayed by the atmosphere makes it less of a "jump" because it is foreshadowed and on the audience's mind; therefore the only things that can be considered a "jump"scare is if they're out of the blue– therefore obnoxious.

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Who says the best jumpscares are in vidya?

comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn;jsessionid=DFE55885608402A21CE3B09A49AF6B8A?titleId=350217&no=31

And let's not forget the good furnace scene from scratches.

Dead Rising 2. The fucking ending is funny as fuck in hindsight. A zombie jumps out at the CAMERA instead of the player character and scares the shit out of you and it's hilarious since zombies are barely even a threat.

I miss when there was this kind of attention to detail in OC. Eternal Darkness is awesome-

Biggest flaw in that game is its worthless attempt at horror
Fuck you, give me back control you piece of shit game.

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Wouldn't even call it a flaw. It was a theme that worked.

What game is Decay?

Sometimes something slightly offset in our reality can be the creepiest of the things

It really does fuck with your anticipation. Which is the best way to go about it really.

nope

Every
fucking
time

do you even vidya?

Probably the best part about this is that due to the doors being pre-rendered like the rest of the background, they couldn't show Nemesis going through a door. So he only went through doors you didn't see and all you heard was a door smashed open and loud footsteps.