Halloween is upon us, and the list is almost done! Only ten to go after this lot, but time is short!
A few people have asked where's Resident Evil 4, or Silent Hill 2....well, I can tell you they aren't in this particular list! Great examples of horror games though they are, I've been trying to stay away from the more obvious games and go for some obscure stuff or games in a series that I think more people might not be familiar with....
That's why I look at Alone In The Dark on the Gameboy as opposed to PS2, or Dead Aim as opposed to Code Veronica...
Anyway, hopefully you've enjoyed it so far! Here's games 20-11....
20 - Darkwatch (PS2) :
Jericho Cross is having a bit of a bad day...the train he decided to rob turned out to be inhabited by the undead, the safe he was going to steal contained the body of Lazarus Malkoth, an ancient vampire lord...and upon opening it up, Lazarus decided to stick his fang's into poor Jericho's neck and go on a rampage to destroy all mankind! Not only all that, but his new found friend Cassidy has bit the dust and been resurrected as a spirit who now constantly harrasses him to do good all the time....
It's not all bad though! Lazarus's bite has imbued you with some funky vampire powers, and using these, along with a wide variety of weapons which all come with some groovy melee attachments like spiked handles or extra prongs to puncture enemies with, makes for some fun Old West style zombie-killing!
As a new memeber of the Darkwatch, you'll be able to choose which order to do your missions in as you try to put a stop to the evil vampire and his cronies, and along the way you get to indulge in a bit of horseback shooting and buggy-riding...apart from these brief sections though, it's ace first-person-shootery action all the way!
Having become one of the undead yourself, some choices have to be made...will you embrace your dark side and go around chomping on people willy-nilly, or will you try to stay a nice liitle vampire and free people's souls so they can move on up to heaven? Whatever you choose will affect not only the story, but also the special extra powers you can receive, as they come in Good and Evil varieties...
Making the choice even harder are the two ladies in your life these days....Cassidy the ghost, who wants you to be all nicey-nice and do the right thing, and bad girl Tala, a Darkwatch member who likes to keep things interesting by dabbling with the darkside...
The enemies you'll face are pretty varied too...some will charge right at you, some hang back and hide behind cover and dodge your bullets, some fly around your head annoying the hell out of you and some just explode in your face!
Summing it all up, it's a great FPS that really benefits from it's Wild West setting and vampire theme. It's filled with nice little touches, like your spurs jangling as you move forward for instance, and it'll keep shooter fans happy for ages. The moral choices help replayability too, as you'll want to check out the good and bad endings...
It's a shame that the sequel that was in production for new consoles got cancelled. I'd love to catch up with Jericho and see what he gets up to next.....
19 - Alone In The Dark - The New Nightmare (Gameboy Color) :
It was always going to be ambitious...trying to port a proper survival-horror game to the Gameboy. But Infogrames made an admirable attempt with this version of the popular Alone In The Dark, the series which many credit for creating survival horror as we know it today in the first place!
Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work...the graphics are really impressive considering what they're running on, but gameplay basically consists of wandering around static screens, trying to find your bearings as the screen changes really confuse you as to what direction you were moving in...then you'll come across a puzzle that need solving, which just requires you to find the right item somewhere else on the confusing playfield.
Combat takes place in isometric screens which pop up when you encounter a monster, and it's quite tricky to line up your shots...and there's none of the pretty cool use of the torch we see in other versions of New Nightmare..
All a bit disappointing then, but it is still worth a go if you want to see the graphics the Gameboy is capable of producing...it's just a shame they couldn't get the gameplay to match! Have to admire their effort, though....
18 - The Suffering (PS2) :
Another excellent scare-em-up on the PS2 next....As the rather violent Torque you've been banged up in jail for the murder of your wife and kids...and it's not entirely certain if you're guilty or not...but it won't matter to the evil entities which have sprung up from the pits of hell on this death-tainted island penitentiary....
Evil has been happening here for years and years, and with your arrival the suffering that's been caused has taken form and it's decided to spring forth on whoever crosses it's path. You'll be wanting to get off the island sharpish, then and try to get back to civilisation...
You can play in either third or first person (first was my preferred viewpoint) and fight your way through the various parts of the island, battling some wonderfully designed enemies throughout! Also, a few ghostly entities are judging your behaviour, especially a certain Dr. Killjoy, who used to have an asylum on the island...
Based on your decisions and how you interact with the few survivors you'll come across, the game will decide whether you did indeed kill your family, or whether you're innocent..and you can get one of 3 different endings depending on what you do! Also, if you get the sequel to this game, your decisions will have an effect on the way it's story plays out too if you save it on the same memory card....
It can be a really freaky game at times, with you receiving phone calls from your dead wife, having visions of your dead kids, and other odd images popping into your head to unsettle you...and again, it's another perfect game for Halloween! There's even a nice little extra documentary included on the disc about a real life haunted prison that you can watch for added scares!
17 - Clock Tower (SNES) :
What's great about the Clock Tower games is the fact that you have someone constantly stalking you throughout them...it's a feature that Capcom blatantly stole for Resident Evil 3 with the Nemesis hunting down Jill Valentine, and it really adds a different atmosphere to survival horror games, as instead of going for the kills, you have to leg it and hide!
The first game in the series is probably the best, and it sees you take on the role of young orphan Jennifer, brought to a new home with some other girls from the orphanage where she's stayed up until now. But, when she goes to find the lady who's brought her to this new house, she loses her other friends and has to search the mansion looking for them, whilst trying to keep her cool when faced with all the weird happenings and scary characters she's about to meet....
This SNES point-and-click is really atmospheric, and you'll genuinely panic when you encounter little Bobby Barrows, the evil Scissorman! Watch out for parrots that shout "I'll kill you!" too! If you've yet to experience the hide-and-scream gameplay of the series, this should be your starting point!
16 - Sweet Home (NES) :
Ah yes, this is the game a lot of gamers now recognise as being the real grandad of survival horror...Released by Capcom in 1989, this Japan-only release featured many game elements that the company would later re-use in their Resident Evil series....
The door opening animations, scattered notes, and safe rooms are just some examples of the stuff taken from this and updated for use in Chris and Jill's adventures in the Umbrella Mansion...one of the characters in this game could even be considered the first "Master Of Unlocking!"
The game plays quite differently though, being a 2D RPG than the usual 3D adventure...and instead of special police units, the protagonists are film makers trying to photograph some lost artwork created by the mansion's old owner..
It should definitely be played, if only to see how much the genre owes to the game...and if you can try and look for the film that was released at exactly the same time, with the same plot..It's awesome too! You can find an English subtitled version online if you look in the right places...
15 - Splatterhouse 3 (Megadrive) :
In this entry of one of my favourite horror game series, hero Rick must once again use the Terror Mask's evil powers to help him rescue his family who have been kidnapped by The Evil One...
The first two Splatterhouse games were side-scrolling hack-em-ups, where pretty much all you had to do was move from left to right slicing, smashing and smooshing all the freakish abominations that filled the games with the weapons you found lying around..
This game changes things a bit, and as well as moving horizontally, you can now move vertically into the screen... The masnion has a choice of doors to go through too, and you'll have to make speedy decisions as also new to the series are some pretty tight time limits! You'll get different endings depending on whether you manage to rescue your family before they become demon food or not....
Also new, is the ability to power up the Terror Mask's abilities even further by collecting the magical orbs you find lying around or that are left after you defeat some enemies. Collect these and you'll fill your Power Meter, which when full will allow you to inflict even more damage upon your foes..
Brilliant stuff, made even creepier by the cutscenes which now feature more lifelike representations of the characters. So if you only wear one mask this Halloween, make sure it's the one in this game...
14 - Eternal Darkness (Gamecube) :
Another horror game heavily influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, this Gamecube title was the first game to be published directly by Nintendo that featured an American M rating. It's more third person survival horror action, but this has a couple of cool features other games don't....
First of all, you don't just play as one character...As Alex Roivas, you enter your Grandfather's mansion after he's horribly murdered, and upon going through his stuff discover an old book called The Tome Of Eternal Darkness! Whilst reading this book, you get to control the characters that are central to the parts of the story being read! This is a great way to keep things fresh throughout the game, and it works really well in laying out the plot...
The other great feature is the Sanity Meter....as enemies close in on you and spot you, they drain your sanity. This causes all sorts of weird effects to happen while you play the game, such as making you think you've died when you haven't or convincing you that the volume on your TV is turning itself down...
I'm being a bit vague about the plot again, as it's another of those games that it's best to go into knowing not much about....The story is one of the games best points, and if you want to know what's going on, you'll need to find out for yourselves...and you really should, as this is a true horror classic!
13 - Parasite Eve 2 (PS1) :
Haven't really played this one that much...I've been holding off for ages while I try to find the first game cheap online. Parasite Eve was never released in Europe, and as such, starting to play this I always felt like I was missing a large part of the plot....but every time i bid on it, I'm winning until the last second then some numpty outbids me!
This second game was released though, and it plays more like a survival horror game whereas the first was apparently more of an RPG...you play as FBI operative Aya Brea, part of a special unit that hunts down creatures called NMCs, hideous mutations of normal creatures that are pretty damn creepy-looking....
As I've said, I haven't played the game nearly enough, but thought I'd add it to the list anyway, as what I have played seems pretty cool, and it gets a lot of good reviews...
12 - Cotton (Arcade) :
Funky shoot-em-up starring a witch named Cotton, who decides to help some fairies fight the Evils, so she can get her hands on some magical "Willows" that she really likes!
Nothing more needs to be said, just go play it and revel in it's witchiness!
11 - Silent Hill (PS1) :
As I'm running extremely short on time, and as any horror game fan worth their salt should know what Silent Hill is...and also as I plan to do a big Silent Hill feature for the Blog at some point, covering all the games...I'll say nothing more other than this...
If you haven't played Silent Hill yet, what the hell are you doing sat there reading this? Go...quick...run and play it! You've got at least another 12 hours before I put up the next, and final, Gruesome Games post !!
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