Comments: 0 (Go to Comments)
Categories: Commentary
Tags: if, lists, lovecraft, survival horror, zombies
As good as F.E.A.R. is, and I’m not saying that it isn’t a great game, it didn’t live up to its name in the scare department. Maybe it’s because the main character was one of those army-of-one types who had access to an arsenal of weaponry and could slow time down. Anyway, here are some of my recommendations for games that know what fear really is.
Anchorhead (PC)
Interactive fiction games come in many forms, but Anchorhead is the closest to a hard-hitting horror novel. Set in a decaying seaside town, this homage to Lovecraft gets under your skin in ways that graphical adventures can’t. The main character is an author’s wife who is trapped in a town that is slowly going insane. And murderous.
Blair Witch: Rustin Parr (PC)
Looking back, pairing a fading franchise with the notorious Nocturne engine probably wasn’t the wisest idea, but this first of three Blair Witch budget titles hits its mark. You know how you never, ever saw anything in the Blair Witch movie? Well, it’s all here: malevolent totems, bizarre creatures, and a dimensional shift barely hinted at in the little picture that could.
Clive Barker’s Undying (PC/MAC)
But I did play this, you say. Really, then why don’t I have a shiny copy of Undying 2 and why is poor Mr. Barker hanging around SciFi? Anyway, Undying is a unique twist on the age-old cautionary tale warning against making blasphemous pacts with beings from eldritch planes. Either that or it’s a kickass horror adventure featuring a six-shooter-wielding mage in a haunted house.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (GameCube)
Aside from Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness is the best reason to steal your little brother’s GameCube. Boasting killer insanity effects (long before Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth), Eternal Darkness gets in your head, your TV, and your stereo. There’s nothing like having your television shut off during combat, watching your character’s head explode, or being tricked into believing that you deleted your saved games.
Fiend (PC)
An early work from the team behind Penumbra, this freeware top-down shooter keeps up the pressure. You’re a government agent trying to work out a land contract only to find yourself in a cursed town overrun by killer wolves and worse. The retro style might lead you to underestimate Fiend, at least until you learn how determined the wolves are.
5 Days a Stranger (PC)
The problem with a generic adventure game program is that most users simply churn out generic adventure games. Not so here. This award-winning AGS game finds master thief Trilby trapped in a mansion he and five other guests cannot escape from. With each passing day another “guest” is butchered. Can Trilby escape the hell house or is he in deeper than he knows? Available as freeware, but cough up $5 bucks for the premium version, you cheap bastard.
Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green (PC/Xbox)
It’s not your fault that you didn’t play this; every major media outlet told you how bad it was. Sure they were right, but you still missed a cheap, killer zombie shooter with wicked locational damage and spine-chilling sound effects. The sniper levels alone are worth the more than reasonable price of admission.
Realms of the Haunting (PC)
Well ahead of its time, this old school genre-blender combined Doom-styled shooting with adventure game inventory puzzles and surprisingly well acted FMVs. Sure, the core story of a son dealing with ancestral issues was unoriginal even at the time, but the main character’s role in a grisly war between good and evil makes this a terrifying entry.
Scratches (PC)
You haven’t missed Scratches yet, but you probably keep passing it up since it’s one of those point-and-click first-person adventure games. Set in and around an aging Victorian manor, this game is an atmospheric chiller that accomplishes more with audio than most games do with visuals. Of course the visuals are great too, and just when you think that Scratches is yanking your chain it runs its fingernails down your spine.
Siren (PS2)
What do you get when you combine J-horror with a stealth sneaker? A game that’s as hard as it is horrifying. This fractured scarytale follows several storylines in the remote Japanese village of Hanuda where the villagers have turned into zombies. Since shooting them only slows them down, you’ll want to take your time to ease past these undead. Good thing your characters have a mental connection with them.
Honorable Mention:
WhiteDay: a labyrinth named school (PC)
Forget about games you haven’t played, here’s one you can’t. WhiteDay apparently never saw a release beyond Korea. Still the concept’s intriguing: a boy sneaks into his school at night to leave a chocolate for the girl he’s interested in. Unfortunately he witnesses a bludgeoning accompanied by the laughter of children and spends the rest of the game fleeing assailants, human and otherwise. Did I mention that he’s weaponless, too?