Horror games you can play on Halloween

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter
INQUIRER.net

THE NEXT two days will be a pretty long vacation for most Filipinos who will be visiting their dead during All Saints Day and All Souls’ Day. It’s going to be a four-day long weekend and for most, it will be a time to relax and catch up on some oft-put-off activities. For some giddy gamers, though, four days of doing nothing other than praying for the souls of their dead could be boring and it may be time for them to catch up on the video games they missed for the past few years.

Just to stick to the season, here’s a list of video games you could play during Halloween. Basically, all of the games listed here are in the horror-thriller genre so if you’re easily frightened by the idea of ghosts and goblins, better play something else.

Resident Evil 4 (GC, PS2, Wii)

Of course, the big daddy of all survival-horror games would be on top of the list and its latest incarnation is perhaps the best. RE4 has been modified from the original gameplay but it has sincerely kept the goal of getting past and surviving undead and frightfully malevolent creatures. RE4 is a cross between a third-person shooter and an adventure game. You play Leon Kennedy, one of the survivors of the Raccoon City incident that created zombies. His goal is to save the daughter of the US president somewhere in Europe. The storyline, while very basic, is still engrossing as it mixes up some elements of drama and romance (between Leon and another character, Ada Wong).

Resident Evil 1 (GameCube remake)

It all started in a quiet mansion somewhere in the forest of Raccoon City. This was where the Umbrella Corporation experimented with the T-Virus that created the zombies that will haunt the protagonists of the Special Tactics and Rescue Service (STARS) for years to come. The original RE1 was first played on the PlayStation 1 in 1996 but it was in the GameCube remake in 2002 where the real visceral horror really took place. The GC version was an entire port of the original but the pre-rendered graphics and animation were redesigned to suit the GC’s processing power. Now you can see not just pixels of blood and gore but nearly the real thing. Players of the original will still find the GC version quite gut-wrenching, to say the least.

Fatal Frame II (PS2, Xbox)

The Japanese are perhaps the scariest storytellers in both the movies and in video games. The language and the plot is somewhat indiscernible but they use image as a method for telling the story — and scaring the hell out of their audiences. Fatal Frame II is the scariest in the series. It plays somewhat like the original Resident Evil but the protagonists’ weapon is nothing more than an outdated camera obscura which is used to capture ghosts. The spirits appear randomly but it’s the manner in which they appear that would scare the player to almost letting go of the controller. Even in daytime, the ghosts can scare the s**t out of you. Be warned, this game is not for the faint of heart.

Silent Hill series (PS2, PC)

If there’s one game that you have to play from the first game to the last, it’s Silent Hill. The first two games are continuations while the third and fourth are with different protagonists. One central theme in the game is the obscure town of Silent Hill where a mysterious cult meddles in the lives of the protagonists throughout the game. The monsters in this game are not quite like the zombies in Resident Evil, but some of them would make you come closer to the screen just to view exactly what they are. The storyline in Silent Hill is also one of the best in the survival horror genre though it is recommended that the game be played from start to finish as there are connecting plots across all four parts of the series. Just imagine a four-part horror novel, only it’s a game.

Alone in the Dark (PC)

Go as far back as the 1990s and you’ll find out that the horror genre actually didn’t start with Resident Evil. Alone in the Dark was the first to use three-dimensional images for the horror genre and basically set the standards for survival-horror games. The first AITD in 1992 was a good mix of horror and problem solving. The plot is set in 1923 and the player assumes the role of either a police investigator or a young woman, both of whom are looking for a mysterious piano hidden somewhere in the sprawling mansion called Derceto. Once inside the mansion the player has to survive the hordes of monsters while trying to solve traps tricks and traps set throughout the mansion. The next incarnations of AITD were created differently but they all stuck with the same survival horror gameplay that has remained successful until this day.

Doom 3 (PC, Xbox)

This game is not so much a horror game as it is a first-person shooter, but it does give players heart attacks with its eerie environments and lighting, not to mention killer sound effects when monsters jump out from nowhere. While the original Doom was more action-oriented than horror, Doom 3 was a surprise change and it did a very good job in becoming a true mix of FPS and horror. You play a futuristic soldier trapped in a crumbling military facility in the planet Mars, along with an army of mutant monsters and malevolent apparitions. It’s dizzying to play for first-timers especially when struggling to reload an empty gun while a 20-foot mutant mutt tries to chomp on you.

Clive Barker’s Undying (PC)

Few would remember this game and very few would even know it existed, but Clive Barker’s Undying is perhaps one of the best games most people have never played. The story goes that World War 1 veteran Patrick Galloway has to help his friend, occultist Jeremiah Covenant, from falling into the hands of the demonic Undying King. Covenant believes that his family is cursed and that all of his siblings have become monsters and Galloway will be facing off against them. Undying is a first-person shooter game and Galloway will be equipped with human weapons, as well as demon weapons to ward off more powerful monsters.

Condemned: Criminal Origins (Xbox 360)

The Xbox 360 is lucky to have great exclusive titles. It’s also lucky to be such a powerful machine that developer Monolith was able to fully utilize its graphics prowess to make the horror-thriller game Condemned: Criminal Origins visually stunning. It’s a first-person shooter that adds a good mix of action and problem-solving. The game’s plot is similar to events in the film “28 Days Later,” wherein the local population is transformed into violent psychotics by an unknown force. You play an FBI forensics investigator looking for a serial killer who seems to be behind all of the violence. At your disposal are not just guns and grenades but also forensic devices that’ll help you find the killer and solve the mystery of the “crazies.”

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (GC)

This is like the “haunted book” Necronomicon becoming a video game. People familiar with H.P. Lovecraft would certainly feel right at home with Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. The plot is about the protagonist Alexandra Roivas who is investigating the murder of her grandfather. She finds a book made out of human skin and bone, reminiscent of the Necronomicon. The game is very unique in its method of using the “Sanity Meter;” just like the health meter, it is depleted overtime as the player fights against monsters or goes through various areas that are affected by malevolent spirits. When the Sanity Meter goes low, there are dozens of “effects” that will make a player go crazy. Some of the effects seem so out of place that the player, unfamiliar with the game, will think that there are technical problems with their TV or their GameCube. Eventually, the player would think their equipment is possessed or haunted, though in reality these “glitches” are part of the game. For example, the game’s sound goes low so that the player has to raise the volume, then all of a sudden the sound explodes as if the volume has been turned up by an unseen spirit. This game is played best with a large-screen TV and a surround-sound speaker. Better not play this game at night, or at least alone.

Do you have a favorite horror game that’s not on this list? Tell us all about it.

Share This