Halloween Horror! Frightening Games That Scared The Hell Out Of Me
As it’s now officially that time of year, when under-sized children wear witch costumes and fiend for sugar, over-sized children wear slutty witch costumes and fiend for Bacardi, and I invariably get stuck inside reading about international war law (who sets up a midterm for Nov. 1, I ask you!), I’ve decided to get into the “spirit of the season” and talk about some of my favourite video games, both classic and contemporary, that managed to scare the hell out of me. Though some of these titles may, by current standards, seem outdated, when I had gotten my hands on them they scared me shitless.
I’m also trying to focus on some titles that are somewhat “off the beaten path”, so to speak, in the horror genre, and I’m hoping to get away from the more well-known Silent Hill’s and Resident Evil’s in exchange for games you don’t always see written about ad nauseum during this time.
So here are, in no particular order, a couple of games that caused me to shake, shiver, and sleep with the lights on.
Dead Space (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
Alright, so I’m already going against my declaration of discussing games “outside the beaten path”, but I feel that discussing horror games without giving Dead Space its due would be a disservice to the genre. Dead Space has you playing as Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent to provide technical assistance to a giant planet-mining spaceship called The Ishimura. Once onboard, surprise of surprises, you find the entire crew onboard has been slaughtered and taken over by a parasitic alien lifeform, and you need to get the fuck off that ship, while hopefully finding a way to stop the aliens from spreading.
Dead Space hits the exact notes you need to make a horror game frightening; you have your confined, claustrophobic environment (a damaged spacecraft suffocated by the nothing-ness of outer space surrounding it), a limited variety of weapons to protect yourself, with ammo often at a premium, and terrifying creatures - the likes of which look like they came out of John Carpenter’s The Thing - constantly hunting after you.
I’m no longer able to get frightened by games like I once could in my early teens, but in playing through Dead Space there were a number of moments where I couldn’t help but pause, take a break, and turn the lights back on. And with it’s sequel coming out early next year, it looks like I have another horrifying experience to look forward to soon.
System Shock 2 (PC)
It seems that the theme of “sci-fi horror” is one that really gets me going, as the concept behind System Shock 2 is in many ways similar to that of Dead Space. You have your character trapped on a giant spaceship, as well as gross, parasitic life-forms infesting the crew and trying to end your existence. But there are a number of important differences which make this game a wholly unique horror experience. First off, the feeling of isolation and abandonment within System Shock 2 is paramount to the gameplay experience; you never actually see any other friendly living creature, and even those who talk to you over radio, giving you advice and direction, are not necessarily what they seem to be.
The audio is also incredible for its time, and one of System Shock 2’s highlights. You’re constantly hearing the groans and screams of the creatures trying to kill you, while the music heightens the feelings of solitude and desperation. The graphics may look dated for our current aesthetic, but in its time they were absolutely gruesome; the image of a partially robotic female corpse groaning in computer modulation is to this day a frightful thing to behold.
Though no third System Shock game was ever created, the series did see a spiritual successor in the wildly successful Bioshock, a game which in many ways managed to hit the same mood as System Shock 2, albeit with an entirely different theme.
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (PC, Xbox)
Ever read H. P. Lovecraft? If not than shame on you, as you’re missing out on one of the greatest horror writers since Edgar Allan Poe. With his stories of unspeakable monsters, ancient dead gods from beyond time and space, and the constant threat of madness overtaking the lives of seemingly ordinary people, it was little wonder that one of his works would eventually be turned into a video game.
Based on the short story “Shadow Over Innsmouth” (a spectacular read if you’re interested, by the way), you play a private investigator named Jack Walters, who ventures into the small port town of Innsmouth in search of a missing person. It soon becomes apparent, based on the looks and general mannerisms of the towns inhabitants, that not only are you not welcome in Innsmouth but that something truly fucked is going on, and you spend most of the game trying to discern just what that is, be it supernatural creatures from beyond our plane of existence, mysterious death cults, or just your run-of-the-mill fish monsters.
Dark Corners of the Earth had a number of interesting game mechanics that made it a somewhat unique horror experience, such as having the sanity of your character Jack be something that would, based on your actions or sights witnessed, strengthen and weaken. It was truly possible for your character to go insane and die if you saw or did something terrible, for example, which placed an entirely new and novel impetus on the player to not simply shoot his way past his problems.
Call of Cthulhu was a truly rare horror experience, the likes of which aren’t often seen anymore in mainstream gaming. To be fair it was also fucking difficult, often frustratingly so, which likely didn’t help it’s lack of commercial success and recognition beyond that of “cult” status. It can be found on Steam for PC now, however, so if it sounds like something up your alley I heartily suggest giving it a look.
They Hunger (PC)
While They Hunger isn’t technically a full-on game, so much as it was a free single-player modification you could download for the PC game Half-Life, it was in my mind one of the best horror experiences I’ve ever had in gaming. You take the role of a troubled writer traveling on vacation into the wilderness, in hopes of overcoming your writer’s block and to hopefully write your next great work. While traveling however you get into a car accident and crash into a river next to a local mausoleum, which is where everything starts going emphatically wrong.
It seems that, due to a number of reasons, the dead have begun reanimating, and have developed a craving for human flesh. While the general story may not exactly be the most unique horror concept ever told, the way the town gets so fully fleshed out, as well as the actions taken by the town’s inhabitants, the outside military, and even the seemingly unified undead force, all come together in a way that makes the story eminently intriguing. Plus, maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about being trapped in a pitch-black church whilst the dead punch through the walls surrounding you that is stark-fucking terrifying.
They Hunger was released, for free, in three separate segments, each one better than the last, and while by its culmination the game was less a horror experience than a zombie-action thriller, for some reason there has been no other game in my life that’s managed to scare the hell out of me as much as this free mod. If you’re willing to get through the now dated graphics, it is truly worth finding and playing.
And there you have it, a selection of some great horror games from the near and distant past. I know there are a ton of other games that I’m forgetting, but these four are the ones that usually come to mind for me when I think of games that haunted my dreams. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to return to studying.
Happy Halloween!
