The Jewel Case of Horror: Spooky Games for Halloween: Features

Axel opens the vault for some spooky game gems to be enjoyed as our thoughts turn to vampires, the walking dead, and a crashing economy.

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The Jewel Case of Horror: Spooky Games for Halloween

Some of us have probably gotten a little old for trick-or-treating. Some of us aren't big on costume parties. And some of us are just not in the mood to blow a wad of cash on one of the many semi-professional "haunted house" attractions that pop up this time of year. But we can still get into the Halloween spirit with some really well made computer games. Chances are they can be found just about anywhere, though you might have better luck on GameTap or CDProjekt's new Good Old Games site for some of the older titles. Here's a list of some oldies and a few more recent titles which will help curl your hair and make you want to play with the lights on.

The 7th Guest (PC) - Yes, it's one of the early FMV "interactive movies" from the mid-90s. But it does have a wonderfully creepy atmosphere and well done storyline. M. Night Shymalan could learn a thing or two about twists from this game.

Phantasmagoria (PC) - More FMV-type game, but you have to give Roberta Williams props for trying to inject not only good film techniques into FMV sequences, but mature themes into what were notionally considered diversions for children and teenagers.

Ripper (PC) - This one brings out the best and the worst of the FMV interactive movie genre. On the plus side, you had a big name cast of actors and a decently written script that didn't seem terribly campy. On the minus side, some of the

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puzzles were absolutely byzantine and it might well destroy any affinity for Blue Oyster Cult you might have once had.

Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams (Xbox) - I missed out on the original Silent Hill, and I didn't have a PS2 when the sequel was released. This was the expanded version that came out for the Xbox with the additional side story for Maria. While Resident Evil is good zombie killing fun, Silent Hill 2 is more intimate

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and disturbing. It's a character drama with a lot of horrific elements and it's well worth playing.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (GameCube) - This game did for Nintendo what Roberta Williams did for PC gaming with Phantasmagoria, albeit not quite as graphically. Eternal Darkness takes cues from sources like the Cthulhu Mythos and anthology movies like Creepshow to give us a wide ranging narrative and characters that we alternately love, pity, and despise. Plus, the various "sanity effects" mess with your head in ways that no game has really done before or since.

Eternal Darknes (left); Onimusha Warlords (right)

Onimusha (PS2/Xbox) - Some may wonder why I'd pick this over Resident Evil. With the RE series, you're following a trope set by George Romero: stand back and shoot at the zombies until they overwhelm you or you escape. With Onimusha, you have to get right in the zombies' brain-chewing faces. That's a far more scary prospect.

Sanitarium (PC) - Probably one of the best explorations of psychological horror out there. When you mix themes of identity, insanity, and redemption with more visual metaphor and symbolism than you can shake a copy of Jung's The Interpretation of Dreams at, you have yourself a beast of an adventure game.

Siren (PS2) - I imagine if you mixed Ringu (the original Japanese film remade as The Ring here in the States) with Eternal Darkness, you'd get something similar to Siren. A diverse cast of characters, non-linear storytelling, and a sense of helpless dread that's hard to shake off.

Fatal Frame (PS2) - Forget challenging things that go bump in the night with crucifixes, garlic, silver weapons, shotguns, pistols, or anything of that nature. Nope. Your weapon of choice is...a Nikon. It's a neat play on the idea that taking a picture captures a part of the subject's soul. And when that's your only weapon, it motivates you to get real good real fast.

System Shock (PC) - One of the key elements to good horror is creating and maintaining a feeling of isolation that seems paradoxical at times. On the one hand, being the only living human on a spacecraft light-years from Earth would get most anybody feeling a little lonely. On the other hand, being surrounded by the reanimated corpses of your crewmates and taunted by the deranged artificial intelligence that got them up and shambling again reinforces that feeling and heaps on a layer of despair. In System Shock, somebody can hear you screaming in space, and they're probably getting off on it.

Fatal Frame III (left); BioShock (right)

The Witcher (PC) - While you spend a lot of time battling creatures of darkness, you also have to deal with the horrors lurking underneath the friendly facades of seemingly normal people, and how you personally intend to handle them. If nothing else, the first chapter after the prologue levels serves as an excellent story just on its own about the evil that men do and the lengths to which they'll go to perpetuate it.

BioShock (PC/Xbox 360/PS3) - An excellently rendered story of what happens when you undertake genetic experiments with the mindset of "the end justifies the means." Much like System Shock, there's a sense of isolation, particularly when you're looking out a window into the murky waters covering Rapture. And while there are people around, you're probably the only sane person in what has quite literally become an insane asylum.

There are other titles out there, but these are some of the games that do justice to the genre. Remember, it's only a game.

- Axel Cushing

(October 28, 2008)