Has something ever made you "pause" for a sec or two?

[StreetFighterRyu]

I don't mean, press start to pause the game. I mean like something actually just made you "freeze" for two seconds 'cause something scared you. lol This happened to me once.

I was playing F.E.A.R. killing soldiers, and was about to go up an elevator. So I was there, waiting for the elevator to go down, then I saw this big thing in front of me. I litterally just stood there for like two da three seconds, couldn't move a muslce. The whole time I was staring at it, I slowly was saying, wtf. Then he started firing at me and I actually dodged it. And to be honest, I almost had a heart attack. I couldn't stop laughing afterwards. It was just too much. It was like I was in an action movie or something.

So, have somthing like this happened to you?

[Spidey-kid1]

I was playing Constantine and I was on the level where I had to escape from the police station. I walked into this room and there was a mirror on the other side of the room. Then the lights behind the mirror turned on and turns out it was one of those 1 way mirrors in police stations. The people on the other side of the glass where nailed to the wall and the demons who did it walked out of the room on there way to my room. I just stood and stared at the criminals nailed to the wall and the first words out of my mouth were "Holy shit...". Actually, I've had a lot of times like that on Constantine.

[Thorlief]

when playin Clock Tower for the Snes I actually paused myself for several years before replaying it

[CJ Lentze]

Quake 2 on the N64. Say what you want about the N64 version of this game, but at one point I first met the enemy 'Tank'. Now, as you may know, this is one big sucker, armed with a rocket launcher, a blaster and a machine gun. There was this one instance, dunno which stage it was, but I entered a door or rounded a corner, looking backward. So Tank had been standing in wait there, and I only saw him when I turned around. Normally, enemies get activated when they see you, but in this case there was a slight lag, so he made no noise when I entered walking backward. And when I did see him, he activated and all I could say was 'Oh, crap...' and stand there. I must have scrambled two seconds later. I think he even killed me.

[Shellhead]

Vampire: Bloodlines. I was in the haunted hotel, starting to walk down what turned out to be a deadend corridor. I hear this sound like whispering wind behind me (that's what it sounded like with stereo headphone on) and whipped around my character to see what was going on back there. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a fading ghost, almost like seeing something from the corner of my eye only to have it disappear before I could face that direction. It was spooky.

[Jmacq1]

Bioshock has had several little moments where I've taken a short pause and/or run quickly in the opposite direction (in-game). Between the atmosphere and the sparse use of highly disturbing music right at the points where they want to spook you, it's a surprisingly creepy game.

Ah, and they do lots of tricks with flickering lights, too. The best one I've found so far is:In the medical wing, there's a room on the lower floor where you're going through a narrow tunnel and can see the shadow of a splicer on the wall in front of you. As you approach, the lights flick off completely, leaving you in pitch blackness for a few seconds. If you continue forward, the lights come back on, revealing only a corpse on a hospital bed. As you explore the little area again (specifically the desk at one end of it), the lights flick on and off again, only this time if you turn around you find yourself literally face-to-face with a Splicer). That about scared the heck out of me (and led to a rapid expenditure of machine gun ammo as I blew him away).

There are similar instances throughout the game, and doggone it they still manage to creep me out even if I partially expect them now.

[I Must Break U]

the ending of metal gear solid 3

[HectorP]

Silent Hill 3, when climbing the ladder before the Hospital turns into the Otherworld version.

[livin_target]

AVP, whenever you played marine and you heard the scuttling of a face hugger.

[lalalei2001]

I was playing Kirby 64. It was late at night, so my nerves were non existant. Kirby was crushed by a pillar and died, and the loud music coupled with his sudden death made me pause for several minutes.

[Jack Zodiac]

"Bioshock" and "Half-Life" are two of the most suspenseful FPS games I've ever played, especially "Bioshock." Every time a dead splicer jumps off the ground screaming and shooting at me, I get a little freaked out; but the worst are the early game Spider Splicers creeping around the ceilings.