Top 10 Horror Games: #1 Fatal Frame

 

I know everyone thinks Fatal Frame 2 is the best game in the series. And you know what? It probably is. It has the best story and it's the first game to include a song by Amano Tsukiko in the soundtrack. But Fatal Frame was the first one I played and it will forever be my favorite because it's what introduced me to the series.

I first heard about Fatal Frame when I watched Stay Alive. Just the mere mention of it was enough to make me buy the game and I'm so glad I did because it became my favorite horror game of all time.

You play as Miku, who goes to Himuro Mansion in search of her missing brother Mafuyu. When she arrives, she finds the place overrun with ghosts, the result of a failed ritual. Armed with only the Camera Obscura, Miku has to survive until she finds her brother. The gameplay in Fatal Frame is really unique and a nice change from just going around and shooting enemies. Here, your weapon is a camera. You can unlock various upgrades that make it easier to capture ghosts.

Fatal Frame is one of the scariest games I've ever played. Demon Tag is an absolute nightmare, no matter how many times you play it. And if you spend too long exploring, you'll be attacked by random ghosts, so you never truly feel safe because each playthrough is different. The scariest thing, for me, was always running around and suddenly hearing Broken Neck's theme. She isn't that difficult to fight, but the music that plays whenever she shows up is terrifying and it gets me every time.

Top 10 Horror Games: #2 Shivers

 

Shivers is a point and click horror adventure game released for Windows 95. In the game, your so-called friends dare you to spend the night in a haunted museum where two kids disappeared years ago. Inside, you learn that spirits called Ixupi have been released, and you must capture them in their vessels if you want to survive the night. This isn't an easy task, as you also have to solve various puzzles while making your way through the museum. Some are easy, but others (the alchemy machine, Chinese checkers and the pinball machine) are extremely difficult and I've never been able to solve them without using a guide.

This is another game where the soundtrack really sets the tone. It's so unsettling that even though I'm now an adult and the enemies are cartoonish and not at all scary, I still jump into bed at night after playing it because I'm afraid of something grabbing me. The soundtrack is one of the creepiest things I've ever heard and I both love and hate it.

My favorite thing about Shivers is the lore. You'll learn about various myths and legends, unsolved mysteries and creatures that shouldn't exist. I've always wished that a museum like this would really be built one day.

Top 10 Horror Games: #3 Silent Hill 2/3/Shattered Memories

 I know. I'm cheating because I listed three games. Here's the thing though, I love all of them for different reasons and I can't choose between them because each one of them has something that makes them great. 

In Silent Hill 2, you play as James, a man who receives a letter from his dead wife, Mary, telling him she's waiting for him in Silent Hill. It's not the scariest game I've ever played, but it has a very emotional story and it will stick with you long after you've finished playing. My PSN name was even inspired by Mary's letter to James.

Silent Hill 3 has you playing as Heather, a teenager set on avenging her father's death. To me, this is the scariest game in the series. I may be lying a little bit, the ghosts in Silent Hill 4 stressed me out to much I couldn't even finish playing it, but I think it's unfair to compare unkillable enemies to a game that's genuinely scary without resorting to those tactics. Every time I have to go into Borley Haunted Mansion, I need to psych myself up for an hour. Silent Hill 3 feels much darker than its predecessor, amplifying the feeling of dread you get while exploring. My favorite line in the entire series comes from this game, when Vincent is talking to Heather about the enemies she's killed and he says, "Monsters..? They looked like monsters to you?" He claims it's just a joke, but imagine the implications if it weren't.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a reimagining of the original Silent Hill. Here, every action you take affects the outcome of the story. It changes the appearance of the enemies, characters you come across (in terms of appearance and personality) and Harry himself. Various therapy sessions throughout the game will also have differing effects on the environment. Once completed, based on your actions throughout, the game will profile you, giving you a detailed analysis of yourself. It's a unique experience for this series.

As a final note, throughout all of these games, one thing that is so integral to how creepy they are is the soundtrack created by Akira Yamaoka. I really liked Silent Hill Downpour, but without Akira Yamaoka, it wasn't the same. To me, he is Silent Hill.

Top 10 Horror Games: #4 Until Dawn

 

I was so excited for Until Dawn when it was released. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of games that are mostly cinematic (like Heavy Rain), but this was different. This was a horror game that had a fun story, where every decision you make really does affect the outcome. Everyone can live. Everyone can die. All based on some small action you perform that may seem completely insignificant at the time.

Until Dawn is about a group of friends who get together to stay in a cabin in the mountains. While they're there, they're forced to survive until the morning when they can be rescued. I refuse to spoil the game because I love the story so much, but I will say it didn't go where I expected it to, which made it even better.

The part in Until Dawn that stands out the most to me is when the game gives you the "Don't move" prompts and you have to stay completely still. It never occurred to me that I could just set the controller down, so I would stay perfectly still, not even breathing, which made the entire thing more stressful. It feels like you're really there, holding your breath so no one will hear you. It's extremely well done, especially at the end of the game when I felt like I was about to die from lack of oxygen.

Until Dawn also has a very special place in my heart because it introduced me to Brett Dalton, who played Mike. I liked that character so much (he saves the wolf!) that I looked up Brett Dalton's filmography afterwards and saw that he was on a show called Agents of SHIELD. I decided to watch it and that show is now my favorite show of all time, tied with Running Man. I've watched it in its entirety 4 times, I talk about it nonstop, I just...Fell completely in love with it and the characters. Without Until Dawn, I probably ever would have watched AoS because I'm not a Marvel fan, so I really love this game, not only because of how much fun it is, but because it introduced me to something that became very important to me.

Top 10 Horror Games: #5 Corpse Party

 

I knew nothing about Corpse Party when it was initially released for the PSP, except that it was a horror game I could play when I traveled. I brought it with me to Florida for Thanksgiving and played while I avoided my family.

When a group of students perform a ritual to make sure they always remain friends, something goes terribly wrong and they end up separated from each other in a rundown school, littered with corpses and haunted by vengeful spirits.

The music in this game is incredible. It's one of my favorite game soundtracks of all time. It's extremely unsettling and adds to the tension you feel as you explore the school. Corpse Party sets you up to fail, with multiple bad endings you'll probably see before you find the right path towards making it out of the school alive.

My favorite part of this game is the misdirection in one of the later chapters. You're lead to believe you are in danger from one thing, when actually, it's harmless. The true danger is right around the corner. It's one of the moments that stands out to me the most in any video game I've ever played, right up there with "Would you kindly?" from Bioshock and "They looked like monsters to you?" from Silent Hill 3.

Top 10 Horror Games: #6 Resident Evil Village

 

I almost didn't even include Resident Evil on this list. In fact, it was all the way down at #9 originally (with REmake being the game to make it on here). Not because I don't like the series, but because at this point, I feel extremely stressed out by the original games. I'm not a huge fan of 4, 5 and 6, and while I enjoyed 7, I thought the enemies and overall story were kind of bland. Resident Evil 8 was like a dark fairytale, with exciting new enemies, unique characters with different locations for each of them and a story that manages to connect to the original games when you wouldn't expect it to ever find a way to accomplish that. I mean, going from zombies to werewolves seems like a stretch, right? But they found a way to make a connection between both stories.

I'm not a fan of stalker enemies and I feel some burn out after RE7, RE2 Remake, RE3 Remake and now this game, I wish the developers would give it a break already. But even so, I really did enjoy Village. The worst part (in terms of having to flee from enemies) is in the castle. Unfortunately, that's also the longest part of the game...Or maybe I just think it is because it's the part I struggle with the most. 

I love the older Resident Evil games (RE0-RE CVX), but I don't want to play them anymore. I'm older now, I have less free time to spend on games. I've been spoiled by more modern games that are more forgiving by giving you a ton of inventory space, as many saves as you want and checkpoints in all the places you're likely to need them. It's difficult to go back and play older survival horror games now, even though I genuinely loved that formula, because I'm not as good at them as I used to be. So I'm really happy with the direction they've taken the series in with Resident Evil Village and I hope we get some new, exciting ideas with the next game, while still maintaining the horror aspect some of the more recent games were missing.

Top 10 Horror Games: #7 Kuon

 

Kuon is a survival horror game that was released for the PS2, developed by FromSoftware (yes, the same company that created the Souls series). I bought a copy back in the day for $18. Now, it will cost anywhere from $400 to $600 for a complete copy. I feel extremely fortunate to have picked up most available horror games back then, even the ones no one was talking about yet.

You play as multiple characters across three playthroughs, each with different abilities. While exploring the haunted manor, you'll encounter enemies that you can fight off with your character's weapons or by using spell scrolls. Running puts you at risk of being detected by monsters, so it's better to take your time looking around.

This is another game I had to stop playing for a while. The first time I turned it on, I thought I saw the tail of something that was watching me from the rooftops. It scared me so much, I turned the game off for years. When I finally went back to it, I was able to complete it only because I followed a guide. Something about Kuon was so unsettling that I couldn't play it without knowing what was about to happen.

Kuon is a lesser known horror game that definitely deserves more attention and though it's a longshot, I hope FromSoftware will revisit it one day so more people will have the opportunity to play it.

Top 10 Horror Games: #8 The Forest

 

Think of The Forest as Minecraft, but deadlier. After a plane crash, your son is taken away by some sort of creature and you have to survive by collecting materials to build a shelter that protects you from various cannibals and mutants. And I guess you can look for your son if you really want to (I never did).

Listen. I'll admit, I scare easily. Jump scares get me all the time. But I never screamed while playing a game, until The Forest. It was daytime in the game and I was working on a fortress with my ex, trying to keep the cannibals from attacking us at night. I walked outside the large fence to where he was standing and all of a sudden, when I turned back around, there was a cannibal standing right behind me. I screamed. The enemies in this game stalk you. They sneak around. You can see them running and hiding behind things. They can climb trees. I've read that they won't attack you unless you're aggressive first, but that is a lie. I can't predict what they'll do. That's what makes The Forest so scary.

And! The other thing that made it absolutely terrifying was the first time I went in the water to try to swim to a boat. All of a sudden, I lost health. I didn't know why. So I looked it up. There are sharks. I never went back in the water without a raft after that.

I rarely ventured out of the safety of the fortress we built, but on the rare occasion that I did, I was killed almost immediately. Once, I made it to a cave. That was awful, too. It's dark, you can barely see. I think I found bones in there. I did not survive. The Forest is an extremely difficult game. It's truly survival horror and I highly recommend it if you want a challenge.

Top 10 Horror Games: #9 Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

 

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a first person action/adventure game that combines stealth and shooting. Don't let the name fool you, much of the game is based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth, my favorite Lovecraft story. This game also features gameplay mechanics based on loss of sanity, but it doesn't make it quite as interesting as Eternal Darkness did.

You play as a detective named Jack, sent to investigate a cult, the horrors of which lead to Jack being committed to an asylum. Upon his release, he travels to Innsmouth in search of a missing person and from there...Well. Things get pretty bad.

This game is terrifying. This is a spoiler, but there's one part taken directly from The Shadow Over Innsmouth, where your hotel room is being broken into and you have to attempt to escape. It's one of the scariest things I've had to do in a game and I remember turning it off for days because I was too afraid to play it.

Top 10 Horror Games: #10 Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

 

Eternal Darkness actually used to be my favorite horror game and I would even say it was one of my top 5 favorite games of all time. Every now and then I'll list my favorite video games on Twitter and someone will ask why this is no longer one of them. The truth is, and I'm really not being mean or petty when I say this, I was dating a guy and I had to watch him play through the game and he was awful at it. One of the boss fights lasted over two hours (not because he died, because he ran in circles the entire time and refused to take my advice). And the last chapter where you play as Alex and basically repeat everything you did as Edward is tedious to begin with. Watching him try to get through it only made it worse. As a result of that, I have no desire to ever play Eternal Darkness again.

However. It really is such a special, unique game. You play as multiple different characters, spanning centuries, and your goal is to prevent the ancients from invading our world. It's an extremely Lovecraftian game, so if you enjoy his stories, you'll love it. The most notable feature Eternal Darkness has are sanity effects. As you play and encounter monsters, your sanity meter drains. When this happens, multiple different things can occur to your character, and even you as the player. Your character will see blood dripping from the walls and walk upside down on the ceiling. You'll see the volume on your TV go down and your save data delete itself (that's horrifying enough the first time you experience it). Gameplay isn't anything too exciting and it's a bit clunky, but it has a good story and the sanity effects make the game interesting.