Halloween Top 20 (4/4)

Halloween is just around the corner. Actually it’s tomorrow, so let’s wrap this bad boy up with a few more games.

Silent Hill: Homecoming (2008)

I seem to be alone in loving this game. Most fans who played this said it was an abomination to the series, shouting that the game has little to no psychology in comparison to previous titles, and that the plot twist should disallow the character to be so skilled in combat. Well they’re not wrong in those aspects. However, while the majority of the monsters don’t have to do with the protagonist, Alex Shepherd’s nightmares, the bosses do, and they almost make up for that. The bosses in this game are some of the best, scariest, most challenging, and powerfully psychological the series has seen thus far. As for Alex’s abilities, no he probably shouldn’t possess his expert fighting prowess, but then Harry, James, Heather, and Henry all possessed decent fighting abilities when faced with mortal danger, so what makes Alex any different? But now I’m rambling. Silent Hill Homecoming has a really chilling story with a nice amount of twists, and a good mix of pop-up scares with terrifying ambience. As most Silent Hill games go, it makes you wonder what the hell is going on up until the final revelation, but the graphics of the 360/PS3 really make for some impressive visual effects the series wasn’t even capable of until this point.

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (2003)

Fatal Frame as a series is a fantastically terrifying set of games. In my personal experience, they make for the scariest games out there. Fatal Frame II specifically follows the events of twin sisters, Mio and Mayu, walking around the woods until they stumble upon a haunted village. All of the villagers are dead and the village is cursed. Their salvation? They need to perform a ritual concerning twin siblings, where one twin has to murder the other, but surely these two won’t succumb to the village magic, right? Fatal Frame is your typical Japanese ghost story, but what sets it apart is the fact that your only weapon against these ghouls is an enchanted camera. Silly as it may sound, Fatal Frame takes a spin on the old saying of how a picture captures a piece of your soul, and uses this ideology to actually harm the ghosts. The better the picture, the more damage. This makes for an interesting parallax because it forces you to get closer to the ghosts, further terrifying the senses, in order to expel the creepy spectres. There are also a number of ghosts that aren’t hostile, meaning they won’t attack you, but you may still need a change of trousers after encountering them as they are no less scream-inducing. This game is beautiful when you’re not being haunted, surrounded by gorgeous Japanese-style visuals that will include zen gardens, wind chimes, and deer scares, with sound effects and ambience to follow. But otherwise the experience is in general horrifying as every corner you round could put you in mortal danger. 

American McGee’s Alice (2000)

Alright, so this game isn’t technically a “horror” title per se, though the environments fit it well enough. American McGee’s cult classic, Alice, takes a new spin on Lewis Carroll’s timeless novels “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”. The twist? Everything, as in the whole game is twisted. A young girl named Alice obsesses over the Alice in Wonderland stories. One night, however, a house fire causes her parents to burn to death while Alice herself barely manages to make it out alive. The event traumatizes her, and something in her fractures. She is sent to a mental hospital where they attempt to pick up the pieces and help her regain her sanity. That’s where you, the player come in. You play as Alice within her own deluded mind of what used to be a wonderland. In here, the Cheshire Cat bares a sinister grin, the Duchess is hungry for blood, and the Mad Hatter’s madder than ever. Murder is an everyday event for this new take on Wonderland, and the Red Queen’s tyranny must come to an end. This game has an incredibly interesting take on the various characters and locations of Wonderland, and the majority of your weapons, called “toys”, are just that. Demon Dice, Spiked Jacks, a Croquet Mallet, etc. After ten years, a sequel has been announced for the Xbox 360, so you’d better hurry up and play its predecessor l before this new one comes out.

Bioshock (2007)

This is the only title on my list that I haven’t actually finished. As such, I can’t say that I personally recommend it, but I’ve heard great things. Even though I don’t personally find first person shooters to have that same kind of scare that most survival-horror games possess. Plus the fact that it is a first person shooter by classification, and not a survival horror series specifically. In fact, I almost didn’t include this for those very reasons. But then I remembered the first time I played and pissed off a Big Daddy. He was really defensive over the Little Girl he walked around with, and I wasn’t sure how to progress any further, so I tossed a tin can at him. His yellow eyes turned blood red and he charged full speed towards me, drill at the ready, and I’ve never been more terrified in my life. I panicked trying to throw everything I could find at him, unleashing all the ammo I have into him, electrocuting him, anything I could think of but this guy was absolutely relentless. If the rest of the game is anything like that, I suppose it qualifies for recommendation. It was either this or another Silent Hill title (1 or 3), or Fatal Frame III, but I’m trying to keep it well rounded and not make the majority of the list split between three series.

Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale of Orpheo’s Curse (1994)

“Do you believe in magic? Is magic only an illusion created by a stage magician? Well, there’s an old saying, ‘seeing is believing’”. This is the opening line of one of my favorite childhood games. Based on the Nickelodeon show, the game centers around the midnight society inducting you as their newest member. But your test is to tell them a chilling ghost story. The story you tell involves a brother/sister pair entering an old abandoned theatre called “Orpheo’s Palace”. Rumored to have been shut down fifty years ago after it’s head magician, Orpheo, went mad and all of the staff, including himself, died during various magic acts, the theatre was shut down for good. Well it turns out those rumors are true, and you encounter Orpheo upon entering, and he’s still trying to get a magic act right, so he volunteers you for his next act. Tonight. The pair are separated, and you switch off playing as each, coming across the ghosts of the various assistants who perished long ago, including Felicia of the guillotine trick, Roberta who played the woman sawed in half, and the Amazing Aldo who escaped every trick but the water box. The music is chilling, and Orpheo occasionally stalks you or tells you how much he’s looking forward to your performance at midnight via the intercom. The environments are lush and there’s a ton of things to explore, though examining the wrong wax skeleton may initiate a chase scene, and you’d better know where to go if you want to live. There’s a huge amount of puzzles, a fair amount of chases (each with heart pounding music), and multiple endings depending on how much of the mystery you manage to solve. I doubt anyone reading this will actually have access to this game, and I realize it’s really old, but if you ever get the chance, please try it out. If for no reason other than to bring back nostalgia over the Are You Afraid of the Dark crew.

Making this list has really showed me something. Either I really haven’t played as many scary games as I thought I did, or maybe there just aren’t enough good scary titles that don’t already have day jobs of being a first-person shooter. But whichever the reason, this list was hard to make. But if you’re looking for a good, scary game experience, Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness, Clock Tower 3, Haunting Ground, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Fatal Frame II, American McGee’s Alice, Bioshock, and Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale Of Orpheo’s Curse, all fit the cut. Happy Haunting!