Favorite Horror Games by Console - PC: Shivers

 

I've talked about Shivers so many times now, but I'm going to do it again because this is one of my favorite games ever. Shivers is a point and click horror adventure game released for Windows 95 and I still have my copy from 1995. I never lost it or got rid of it because I loved this game so much. Even when I no longer had a PC that was capable of running it, I held onto it. Thankfully, GOG made it available through their website and it will now play on my computer.

In Shivers, you're dared to spend the night locked inside a supposedly haunted museum. Inside, you learn about the disappearance of the man who owned the museum and two teenagers who went missing when they snuck inside. You're tasked with capturing Ixupi, evil entities that will steal your life essence any time you get too close to them. It's not that simple though. You'll have to complete many puzzles, some that are infuriatingly difficult (that I could never have solved without the use of a guide).

Truth? The Ixupi are cartoonish and not scary at all. The thing that still makes me feel so on edge when I play Shivers is the music. There are some tracks that are downright terrifying and I find myself rushing through certain areas so I won't have to keep listening to the music. What I enjoy most about Shivers is the museum itself. It's filled with exhibits based on myths and legends. I always wished a museum like the one in this game existed in real life. Minus the murderous spirits, of course.

This wraps up the month of horror games! Next month I'm going to try to stay on theme with winter/Christmas, but I can't make any promises.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - PSP: Corpse Party

 

Before their friend moves away, a group of kids decide to perform a ritual to ensure that they'll always remain friends. Unfortunately, they screw it up and end up being transported to a haunted school filled with vengeful spirits. Corpse Party is terrifying. The music. The Victim's Memoirs. I think the graphics make it 100 times creepier. You never know which decisions you make will get you killed (because there are a lot of ways to die in this game). And then there's the whole "Run, rabbit, run!" thing which ONE HUNDRED PERCENT caught me by surprise because I was so worried about the other thing instead. Without a doubt, Corpse Party is one of the best horror games I've ever played. There's a lot of reading, but it's not strictly a visual novel. There's still exploration and figuring out where to use key items. This is a game I would highly recommend playing if you're in the mood to be scared.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - PS5: Resident Evil Village

 

I had kind of given up on Resident Evil prior to RE7. I wasn't a fan of RE4/5/6 and the direction the series was going in. Resident Evil 7 was a step in the right direction, but it still felt kind of bland. The enemies weren't very interesting and neither were the locations. But Resident Evil Village? The entire game felt like a dark fairytale. Vampire-like enemies and werewolves? A creepy doll house? Something that looks like it swam out of Innsmouth? This was new and interesting. Each location felt very distinct, so the game never seemed repetitive. Honestly, I hate stalker-enemies so the castle is always awful for me to play through (and it feels the longest because I have to psych myself up to keep going), but it's nowhere near as bad as RE7 was with that. I really hope the series continues in this direction. It still felt a little too action-oriented at times, but it's infinitely better than previous games and I love it.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - PS4: Until Dawn

 

Let me start by saying I don't really enjoy games that are mostly cinematic. Like Heavy Rain. But Until Dawn is one of my favorite games of all time. A group of friends go to the mountains, where they believe someone is trying to murder them. There's so much more to the story, but I don't want to spoil it. Until Dawn does what other games always promise to do, but never actually do--It makes your choices matter. One tiny thing you decide to do in the beginning of the game can affect your chances of survival later on. Character interactions change based on how you treat your friends. Everyone can die or everyone can survive. Any number of characters can live depending on how you play the game. The most anxiety-inducing thing I've ever experienced in a game is the "Don't Move" prompts where if the controller is moved even a bit, you could get caught. I would actually not breathe during those segments (not purposely, I was trying not to move the controller and would notice afterwards), which made the entire thing even worse. Until Dawn has a ton of replayability and it's a really fun horror game with a good story.

Oh yeah. Don't forget to high five Josh.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - PS3: Dead Space 2

 

I spent more time playing Dead Space 2 than I did the other games in the trilogy. Was it as scary as playing the original game for the first time and hearing necromorphs crawling around in the vents? ...Yeah, actually. It was. Dead Space 2 begins with Isaac in a straitjacket, completely defenseless against the necromorphs that are after him and it ends with a Regenerator chasing him around a tiny room that he has to hack his way out of (this is after you have to stab him in the eye with a needle, which was another nightmare to play through). I played on hardcore difficulty because back then, I had the patience to die over and over, and it was a challenge. On the PS3, you're only given 3 saves to complete the game and there are so many areas where you can die to something stupid. And I did. I can't tell you how many times I had to sit through that 10 minute unskippable opening cutscene .(I don't know if it's actually 10 minutes, it felt like an hour and it probably was by the time I reached my first planned save.) Later on, after you get the Contact Beam and you can use its secondary fire, the game becomes a lot more manageable.

It's not just the main campaign that's fun to play though. This is one of the rare cases where I felt the multiplayer was enjoyable, too. It's a 4 vs. 4 match where one team plays as the humans and the other team plays as the necromorphs. Unfortunately, team kills are a thing (and I have a story about this that's unbelievable, but true), so don't be that person.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - PS2: Fatal Frame

 

Here it is! My favorite survival horror game of all time, Fatal Frame. You play as Miku, who is in search of her brother. She travels to Himuro Mansion, the site of a ritual gone wrong, now haunted by vengeful spirits like Blinded and Broken Neck, the source of all my stress and anxiety in this game. Blinded is a nightmare during Demon Tag and Broken Neck's theme scares the hell out of me whenever she shows up somewhere unexpected. (Yeah, random ghosts are a thing if you take too long exploring.) Your only weapon is the Camera Obscura, which can be used to capture ghosts. It's a nice change from shooting things or hitting them in the head with a wooden plank.

I know most people consider Fatal Frame 2 to be the best game in the series. And if we're talking about the story, they're right. But Fatal Frame was the first one I played and it will always be my favorite. Plus, the ghosts are scarier. It doesn't actually matter which game is the best though, they're all great and worth being played.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - PS1: Silent Hill

 

Let's start off with something I probably shouldn't admit, but I'm going to anyway. I have no idea what the hell happens in this game. I understand that Harry is looking for his daughter in Silent Hill and that there's a cult. But the entire cult storyline confused me when I played it, so for me, this game is one of the weakest in terms of story. That being said, in my opinion, there are no bad Silent Hill games (I didn't play Book of Memories and as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't exist). Gameplay wise, this is a standard survival horror game. Explore, gather key items, solve puzzles, kill monsters. It's everything I loved about horror games when I first started playing them. It's a classic. And it led to so many other incredible games in this series. So for that, it deserves its place on my list.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - 3DS: Spirit Camera

 

Okay. So here's the deal. As a game, I feel like Spirit Camera is kind of...Barebones. There's not a lot to it. It's a spin-off of Fatal Frame which is awesome, but it's on-rails, so you don't get to explore and on top of that, the story is forgettable. So why is this my favorite horror game on the 3DS? Because it's innovative and it gave me something I didn't know I needed/wanted from the Fatal Frame series. AR. Augmented reality. You see the ghosts in your reality. I used to play this game on my breaks at work. I would hide in the non-fiction stacks and fight ghosts with my Camera Obscura 3DS and I had so much fun seeing them haunt the library. The game itself is unremarkable, but the use of AR was brilliant. I already said it when I talked about Fatal Frame 5, but Nintendo's gimmicks worked really well for the Fatal Frame series. They opened up all these new possibilities for it and I would love a proper Fatal Frame game in AR one day. Or VR. Can you imagine if they remade Fatal Frame in VR? And you had to fight Blinded? Absolutely terrifying.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - DS/DS Lite: Nanashi no Game

 

The Nameless Game was never released here, so I had to cheat a little, like I did with Clock Tower. The plot is basically The Ring, but with a video game. Anyone who plays the game will die in 7 days. (Why even risk it?) There are two parts to Nanashi no Game. The first is the MC's life outside the game, involving exploration and trying to end the curse. The second is the reason I was so interested in the game in the first place--the 8-bit RPG. I really liked the idea of a game within a game and it's even better that they look and play so differently. It offers a really unique experience and I wish developers would take more chances like this.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - Game Boy Color: Resident Evil Gaiden

 

Listen, I'm going to be honest. Resident Evil Gaiden is only here because I've never played another horror game for the Game Boy Color. I don't even know if another horror game exists for it. What I do know is that this game is absolutely ridiculous and I suck at it. But I have been fascinated by it since way back in the day when I used to read plot summaries on GameFAQs (specifically these two) 100 years ago. I remember one of them saying after the events in Gaiden, Leon was "replaced" and I really wanted to believe it. I wanted it to be canon after playing RE4 and having to listen to Leon's one-liners. In my mind, it is canon. I don't care what anyone says, I've accepted it as fact. (Same goes for Agents of SHIELD.)

Gaiden takes place on a cruise ship where, surprise, there's a viral outbreak. What else is new? This BOW can shapeshift and (SPOILERS) at the end of the game, it's revealed that Leon isn't actually Leon, he's the shapeshifting BOW, hence why I like to pretend this game is canon. The gameplay is...I don't even know. Atrocious? I mean, someone might like it, but I didn't. When you're in combat, there's a bar that moves across the screen and you have to attack at the right time to damage the enemies. I'll give Gaiden points for trying something new. It's a handheld game, I think they did the best they could at the time. I also give them credit for trying to get rid of Leon. And I genuinely enjoy the soundtrack, I set the menu theme as my ringtone for a while. So it's not all bad.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - Switch: Yomawari: The Long Night Collection

 

This is technically two games. In the first, Night Alone, you get your dog killed and your sister goes to look for him, thinking he ran away. Then you have to go look for her because you didn't tell her you threw a rock and your dog chased it into the street and got run over. The graphics in this game look cute, but it's actually really creepy. You're chased by weird spirits and your character's heartbeat will speed up as you get closer to them. Some ghosts can only be seen in the light. You have to carefully navigate each area because if they catch you, it's a game over.

Midnight Shadows begins with you throwing a rock AGAIN and your dog getting stranded on a cliff after the board covering the gap falls. Why does this series hate dogs??

These aren't long games and there's not a ton of story to them, but I don't always need a game like Silent Hill, you know? Sometimes a simple game is what my mood calls for and honestly, the shorter it is the better because the older I get, the more stressed out I am when I play horror games. It takes me 5 minutes to psych myself up every time I have to open a door. That's not to say Yomawari isn't scary. These games definitely are and on top of that, they're extremely unsettling because the spirits are so bizarre. If you want to play something creepy and atmospheric, this is it.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - Wii U: Fatal Frame 5

 

I bought a Wii U specifically so I could play Fatal Frame 5. It was worth it. All of the Fatal Frame games involve a ritual gone wrong, resulting in the deaths of many people, leaving hostile ghosts haunting each location. I'll be honest, the first two games are the only ones that have stories I clearly remember, even though I spent a significant amount of time playing the other three games, too. It's like I said though, they all have the same basic premise. I don't mind that, learning about each ritual is always interesting. It just means that I tend to mix them up. So, story aside, the biggest draw to this entry in the Fatal Frame series is the use of the gamepad as the Camera Obscura. I'm not really into gimmicky things, but this was brilliant. As happy as I am that Nintendo doesn't have exclusive rights to the series anymore, I have to admit that everything they did with these games was impressive and innovative. From the motion controls in Fatal Frame 4, the use of the Wii U's gamepad in Fatal Frame 5 and the use of AR in the 3DS' Spirit Camera, it's made me view the series in a completely different way. There are so many things that can be done with this series and I'm really hoping that if there's a Fatal Frame 6, it will be released in VR.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - Wii: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

 

All right, let's get this out of the way first...The motion controls in Shattered Memories absolutely infuriated me. I love the game so much that I can overlook that though. This was a really imaginative horror game and while some Silent Hill fans didn't enjoy it, I loved seeing a new take on the original game. Shattered Memories was never meant to replace Silent Hill, it was just meant to offer a new experience inspired by the first game and I had so much fun playing it. (I got every ending, something I rarely bother to do unless trophies are involved.) You still play as Harry Mason, who is searching for his daughter, but there is no cult. Instead, there are monsters who change form depending on the actions you take throughout the game. In fact, the entire game will change based on what you do while you're exploring. At the end, you'll even be psychologically profiled. Between Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack, the locations/characters and the different activities you have to complete throughout your therapy sessions, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories feels like a fresh take on something familiar.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - Gamecube: Eternal Darkness

 

Eternal Darkness...My once favorite horror game of all time. The only video game to ever give me nightmares. This game spans centuries, with the Tome of Eternal Darkness detailing accounts of the many people who have encountered it throughout that time, beginning with Pious Augustus. Unknown to him at the time, Pious sets off a chain of events that leads to one of three Ancients being set free (by the end of the game). Many good people die trying to prevent this from happening and you're tasked with summoning another Ancient to try to stop the one Pious has aligned himself with.

Here's the thing with Eternal Darkness. There are two chapters where you have to do something extremely repetitive and tedious. You'll be going through the same areas on multiple occasions, at different times throughout history, so it never really feels boring except for in this one instance (spoiler, it's when you play as Edward and then Alex at the end of the game). If not for that, I think Eternal Darkness would probably still be one of my favorite games because I like how Lovecraftian it is. Having to go through that area twice really ruins it for me now though. But it's still worth playing! This game has a really fun sanity system in place. The more sanity you lose, the more strange things begin to happen, both to your character and you. Your character may sink into the floor or see blood dripping from the walls, while you'll experience your controller dying, the TV muting itself and a blue screen of death. Eternal Darkness is really unique in that way and it makes it fun to play to see how many of the different effects you can get.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - N64: Resident Evil 2

 

Okaaaay...So I never played Resident Evil 2 on the N64, I played it on the Gamecube. It still counts, right? In RE2, you play as both Leon and Claire, in the aftermath of the zombie outbreak in Raccoon City. It's Leon's first day as a rookie cop (talk about bad timing) and Claire is looking for her brother, Chris. Each character has their own puzzles and bosses to fight, creating a timeline that fits together perfectly (unlike in the remake, where you go through the same Birkin fight with both characters). Resident Evil 2 is a fan favorite in this series, and for good reason. With multiple scenarios and extra mini games, plus an interesting story and new characters, the second installment to the Resident Evil series had a lot to offer.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - SNES: Clock Tower

 

I had to cheat a little to play this one, since it was never released on the SNES over here. I believe this was the only survival horror game released on the Super Nintendo (at least, it is according to the Super Nintendo Anthology). It was, however, released in Japan in 1995. You play as Jennifer, an orphan who is adopted by the Barrows family. Throughout the game, you're stalked by a killer known as Scissorman (if you ask me though, the bird is the most dangerous thing in this game, it was the first thing to kill me). Clock Tower's controls don't feel great. This is essentially a point and click game that requires you to run and hide from enemies so it should be a little easier to, you know, point and click. There are multiple endings, giving the game some replayability. Listen...Clock Tower is on this list because it's the only actual horror game on the SNES, but if I'm being really honest, the first person sections in Jurassic Park are 500 times scarier.

Favorite Horror Games by Console - NES: Monster Party

 

I have such fond memories of Monster Party and I don't even know why. I never beat the game when I was a kid, I didn't know what to do. I'm not sure I ever made it past the first level. But it's on this list because I know I spent a significant amount of time on that first level and I never forgot it after all these years. You play as Mark, a boy recruited by a very nice monster named Bert, to help get rid of evil monsters in his world. It's a weird game. Seriously. You fight fried shrimp as a boss. But there's nothing quite like playing through the first stage and reaching a tree, where the entire stage warps into a nightmare realm.

Favorite Horror Games by Console

 This month, I've decided to focus on video games, since last month was all about movies. Each post will be about my favorite horror game on each console I've owned. If I don't include a specific console (like the Gameboy/Gameboy Advance/anything related to Xbox), it's because I either 1. Never played a horror game on that console or 2. I never owned that console. These posts are also going to be shorter/less informative than the posts I wrote for my 31 Days of Halloween posts last month because I've been posting a lot and I'm tired and it's time consuming. I'm writing these posts in advance in October and this month (last month by the time this goes up), Alan Wake Remastered, Corpse Party, House of Ashes and Fatal Frame 5 are all being released, so I'm trying to make sure I leave myself enough time to play all of those games.