Scorn was worth a shot if you’ve already played Soma and RE. The mechanics are… Fine. The art is jaw-dropping. It’s like Amnesia if H. R. Giger had been the art director.
Call of Cuthulhu dark corners of the earth is amazing up to the point where you get a weapon, but gets really bad after. Still worth playing up to that point.
Alien isolation is really scary, especially on higher difficulties since the alien acts differently on higher difficulties. It’s just too long and drags pretty hard in places.
As someone who hates horror but loves SF: Alien Isolation is pretty nuts. I legit threw my controller when the AI outsmarted me and caught me in a doorway face-2-face. I couldn’t play again for months.
Right off the bat, the Dead Space series is pretty good. Crazy as it sounds, Dead Space: Extraction (a wii game that no one talks about, although it is also on the PS3) is probably my favorite in the series.
You can’t go wrong with the Silent Hill series, and another possibly unpopular opinion is that Silent Hill 4 : The Room is probably my favorite. >
Now a real oddball pick. Is it the best game? No. Does it have an amazing story? No. But Obscure and Obscure 2 were a lot of fun of you’re cool with “this is like a really low budget campy horror flick” kind of games. Played them with a buddy a few years ago and it was the most fun co-op experience I’ve had in ages.
There are a ton of great horror games, but I’ll give some lesser known titles that made an impact on me.
Dollhouse: a film noir, old Hollywood themed constant pursuit game. Very cool soundtrack, and gameplay that’s unlike anything I’ve played. It has an interesting mechanic where you see through your pursuers eyes to locate objectives, but I doing so give away your position. It suffered from development hell and a ten year hype train that ended in review bombing it never recovered from. Give it a chance though, it’s great.
Lost in Vivo: a silent hill inspired first person horror game with a lot of clear inspiration and references. You have to save your emotional support corgi who gets washed down a storm drain into sewers full of ghosts and monsters. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and has a lot of goofy jokes, but is solidly scary as well. It’s made by akuma kira, known for spooky’s jumpscare mansion.
Dread X collections: several games comprised of mini projects by students and developers that fit into the horror genre. For a low price you get several games that range from confusing first attempts to unique art projects and solidly fun games. The first few are narrated by the guy from receiver 2, and there’s a few szymanski and kira games included. It’s been a while since I played through them, but I think 2 was my favorite.
Year walk: a point and click exploration horror based on Scandinavian folklore. Interesting, almost construction paper aesthetic, and lots of good puzzles.
Anyone into horror has to already be aware of RE7, Silent hill, Dead space, outlast, alien, hunt: showdown, and hellblade, but if not, check those out as well.
That’s right! The sanity effects were so well tailored to that era of CRT TVs and the type of game crash errors one could get from a corrupted c save file. I would absolutely love to see a modern horror game give this kind of effect a serious shot.
Loved Dead Space 1&2 and the Resident evil games (the remakes and 7, 8). In terms of story, Silent Hill II is probably my favorite and i’m eagerly awaiting the remake
EDIT: idk if Bloodborne counts as a horror game really, but that is probably the best Lovecraftian game i’ve played
Haha, well I won’t spoil anything, I’ll just say that the reveal you are referring to isn’t meant to be a “big reveal”. For me at least, I saw it coming a mile away as it’s extremely foreshadowed by the first act of the story (ie. The first NPCs you find at the very beginning are convinced they are still in their meat bodies, there is no other reasonable explanation for how you travelled to the future, etc.). The real story is about how you can still serve a purpose in spite of that revelation.
i couldn’t get myself to finish alien isolation when it came out, it was that constant fear of that smart alien coming out of nowhere haha. always thought of trying it again though.
Add comment