100 More Gruesome Games For Halloween ( 85-82 )

Owww....as mentioned in my last blog post, still recovering from Dental surgery! Still not 100% through the pain yet, so might have to make another visit to my dentist tomorrow to check things out....As such, I'm going to pretty speedily run through this next lot of games, as time marches on and we're halfway to Halloween now!!

85 - Blood (PC) :

Blargh....seen enough blood this week to do me for a lifetime! Still, in this release from 1997, we fill the boots of undead gunslinger Caleb as he goes on a vengeance mission against the evil Cabal cult and it's demon master Tchernobog! Haven risen to the highest rank in the cult, Caleb and his buddies were executed by Tchernobog for "failing him".....this understandably left Caleb feeling a bit miffed, as one of the other Chosen members was his squeeze, Ophelia!

So, for level after level we take control of our freshly-risen friend, and blast all the baddies back to hell in a Doom/Duke Nukem style first-person-shooter! It has a lovely range of weapons with which to do this too, featuring pitchforks, spray-can flamethrowers, voodoo dolls, dynamite.....loads of interesting things that are a bit different to your usual assault rifles and shotguns...although they are also there for some more usual slay-age! And as you can probably tell from the title, these kills are particularly bloody...with heads getting shot off and lying on the ground waiting to be kicked and bodies going up in flames that just keep running in for the kill!

The game was initially developed by 3D Realms, before being sold on to Monolith, and like that other great 3D Realms title Duke Nukem 3D, this game is littered with movie and pop culture references, mainly from the horror genre....For instance, the Morningside Cemetery from Phantasm makes an appearance, and a lot of Caleb's quotes will be strangely familiar to Sam Raimi fans....

It's all a huge load of fun, and whether you're a fan of horror films or shoot-em-ups or presumably like most of you reading this, both...you should find enough here to keep you entertained into the wee small hours! Just be aware that it can be quite tough, and if you're going to play it, either play the original disk release or get it from http://www.gog.com/ for the best experience!

84 - Manhunt (PS2) :

Never being ones to shy away from courting controversy, 2003 saw Rockstar Games launch Manhunt to a  games playing public hungry for more GTA-style shenanigans after the wonderful Vice City...the public would soon discover that this game would take inspiration from a rather darker side of the eighties though...the video nasty!

As Death Row inmate, James Earl Cash, players awoke to find themselves escaping execution thanks to the mysterious Director... a strange chap who communicates with Cash via a headset and keeps an eye on him with various cameras positioned throughout Carcer City, the dark and seedy backdrop for what is about to become a really bad night for James.....

The Director informs us that we can only be free if we indulge his sick taste for snuff movies, and roam through the streets assassinating various vicious gang members who similarly are all out for Cash's blood! Not having much choice, he (and therefore we!) are forced to hide in the shadows, popping out every now and then to bump-off a baddie and try to find some form of escape from all the madness....

Using plastic bags, shards of glass, baseball bats, crowbars....basically anything with at least one pointy end...you sneak up behind one of the low-life gang goons, lock on with one of the shoulder buttons and let go to unleash an execution. Each weapon has 3 different attacks, depending on how long you hold the button down....the lock-on cursor changing from white..through yellow..to red, with that being the gruesomest execution and therefore the one that bags you the biggest brownie points from the Director!

You have to stay in the shadows though, as walking out into the light sees load of enemies all ganging up on you, making it very difficult to fight back unless you can run away quick enough to find more shadows to hide in! It's this lurking in the shadows that takes up the biggest part of the game, and means that people with no patience won't do very well with this, as sometimes you'll need to learn the enemies paths for the best way to kill them and this can take ages....

Thankfully, being a Rockstar game, all of the enemies are blessed with some great dialogue, and whilst they seek you out you'll hear them complain about being hungry or losing their shoes or what they're going to do to you when they find you for making them stand in the cold for so long! You'll encounter quite a few different gangs too...from the racist Skinz to the totally bat-shit crazy Smileys, all with their own relevant rantings to keep you entertained while you wait for the opportunity to bash their brains in....

About halfway through the game, just when you've got used to sneaking about using the bats and knives, guns are introduced and you discover just who it is putting you through all this crazyness, and decide to go pay them a visit! Having hold of these weapons changes the pace of the game slightly, meaning it never gets too stale and keeps you interested!

One extra element people sometimes forget to mention when talking about Manhunt, is the ability to use your Playstation's headset and mic to influence the game...Plugging it in, you hear the Director's voice directly in your ear making it feel like he's actually talking to you! And, any cough or sneeze you happen to let slip during play will actually alert the hunters in game, and have them coming to find the source of the noise! So best not to play this way if you happen to suffer from allergies, but it's an awesome addition to an already impressive title....

Understandably, all this murder and mayhem had various censors and retailers worried about putting the game on shop shelves...this was made even worse when the game was linked to the murder of Stefan Pakeerah, although it was later noted that it was Stefan who owned Manhunt and not his murderer...

Back in 2004, I was working in the Virgin Megastore's game department, and was told to take Manhunt from the shelves and place it under the counter...We were still allowed to sell it, but only if it was specifically asked for! Needless to say, the publicity from the tragic case above... and the fact it was banned in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Germany...only helped sales of the game, and almost every 5 minutes I had people coming in to the store asking if we had any copies left....

It's a game that's definitely not for the squeamish, and it is very graphic in its display of violence...but as usual, the media surrounding its release made it seem far worse than it actually is! Although not for everyone, I recommend you give it a try though, as it's one of the best stealth titles out there...and having to hide in the dark as some psychopaths from the local asylum try to hunt you down and poop down your neck makes for some of the most truly suspenseful and scary gameplay in this entire list!

83 - Night Trap (Mega CD) :

Yet another game to come under fire from censors and get banned for a while in several places, this Sega CD game had you taking on the role of a member of SCAT ( Sega Control Attack Team), who have been called in after mysterious happenings at the Martins' household where several girls disappeared...Now a new bunch of girls, including an undercover SCAT agent, are arriving and it's your job to keep an eye on various cameras and activate traps to stop evil vampires called Augers who appear to murderalize the aforementioned lovelies...

You do this using a control panel at the bottom of the screen, flicking between the various cameras to keep an eye on proceedings whilst simultaneously watching for the vampires who might be creeping into any of the rooms in the house ready to hunt down one the girls...

Often rated as a classic of the FMV genre, I have to say that whilst trying to play this game I had no idea what the hell was actually going on most of the time, and it just frustrated me greatly...You're either forced to watch some incredibly bad acting and horrible script, or try and fumble about with the controller to try and trap the vampires, which sometimes completely fails to work despite you seeming to have done all the right things....

Wrongly accused of being a game where you trap and kill women, rather than actually being about saving the women from attack, and despite not featuring any nudity or graphic displays of violence...Night Trap actually caused Congress to rule that videogames should be rated and instigated the forming of the ESRB, which is actually a far more interesting subject than the game itself.....

Have a watch of the documentary that came as part of the package for later releases of the game on other systems, laugh at the stupidity of censors, critics and politicians once more, and then forget about Night Trap and go and play something else instead......

82 - Dancing Monster (C64) :

Dancing Monster might not be your best bet for the next game to try though! This weird game sees you taking pot shots at a bizarre elephant-style monster, who jigs around the screen to In The Hall Of The Mountain King, while you shoot whichever part of the monster the on-screen prompts tell you to!

Whilst not entirely unpleasant to play, it's fairly easy and it shouldn't take you too long to transform the monster back to the Princess she once was! This probably would have worked better as a lightgun game, and would benefit from having at least another few monsters to shoot...Unfortunately, it doesn't, leaving it as a nice little curio for people to load up on their Commodore 64 to amuse their kids or nephews, nieces or whatever.....