07-23-2015, 10:01 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-24-2015, 11:06 AM by Mass Distraction.)
Since horror is my jam, my top 10 will be about horror games. Well, the one's I've already played, that is, since there are lots of horror games I haven't had the chance to play yet. That said, this list is a subject to change.
10. Dino Crisis The first horror game based around dinosaurs and still one of the very few in its very specific genre. Despite you being a special operative armed to the teeth this game makes you feel so very vulnerable. Health items are practically nonexistent and you will go through them very quickly. When faced with one dinosaur, that spells trouble, when you absolutely need to go through a hallway filled with raptors to progress, the dread is real. Don't forget to save!
9. Amnesia: The Dark Descent "Ooh, but Mass, that game's so overrated it's ridiculous! Why on earth would you pick a lame game like that?" Simple. There's a reason why it was popular. It's terrifying. It's good. It was one of the first games in ages that made me pause the game not wanting to continue. It's not just the fact you're unarmed, it's the situation you are in and the atmosphere that is serene yet you know there's something seriously wrong. Quite possibly the first horror game out there to get such universal acclaim.
8. Silent Hill The game that started a franchise Konami is slowly killing off. Not saying the latest games would've been poop, on the contrary, I loved Homecoming and Downpour. It's just that with how the company is now it seems the franchise as we now know it has come to an end. The puzzles that have you scratching your head for quite possibly hours, the unique enemy designs and a game that, despite it's graphical quality, is still scary to this day. Akira Yamaoka truly earned his name as a master of horror music.
7. Alan Wake I played through this game so fast it's ridiculous. The story is absolutely amazing and the gameplay itself is really well executed and fun. It's not really all that scary but just for the overall tone and storytelling it's one of the better titles I know. Still waiting for that sequel, American Nightmare kept me occupied only for so long.
6. White Day: A Labyrinth Named School The game its developers had to patch to be less scary since people complained they couldn't even finish it due to how insanely fucked up it was. Why can't we have more of these? The "main" antagonist with his baseball bat isn't scary at all but holy shit is the school itself a terrifying place to be in, with all the amazing effects put into it and the numerous ghosts and spirits roaming the place. The name might sound a bit strange but towards the end it starts making a whole lot of sense. Too bad it, and its developer, fell at the hands of early 2000s piracy. Even the rights to it have fell into obscurity.
5. Clock Tower Never knew an SNES game could be so terrifying. The brutality is unparelled on the system, as far as I know, and the tones are super dark, which I absolutely adore. The characters are interesting and the main character, Jennifer, is likeable. Figuring out the happenings of this old manor with a point and click style gameplay, complete with superb graphics and music, is one of my best gaming memories.
4. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis The best Resident Evil game in my humble opinion. I know, the REmake is good and all, but I just can't put it above Dead Aim and Nemesis. Nemesis as a character has burned into my retinas for all eternity and seeing him kill one of the original STARS survivors is a haunting scene not many games have since surpassed. For a PS1 game the graphical quality is top notch and the music is very good. Having the ability to run around the streets of Raccoon City the first (and chronologically final) time before its eradication is a real treat. Oh, and Carlos is still the best character in the series, no matter what people might say. PS: Always play on Hard, Easy is for pussies.
3. 5 days a Stranger The first game in the Chzo Mythos series by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. I don't like the guy or his opinions but damn does he make good games. A game that first starts up as a puzzle adventure game with mystery elements slowly gets darker and darker as more secrets of the mysterious mansion are revealed. The subsequent games continued the story and tied it up neatly, something that made me eager to keep going and see how the story unfolds. A very haunting game that you will surely remember forever.
2. Corpse Party: Blood Covered Found this game by chance and fell in love. The visual novel style storytelling mixed with ultra brutal scenes, horriffic tones and top down gameplay with cute character sprites is something you just can't replicate in the way Corpse party does it and succeed. The first title is also quite possibly the biggest rival to the first Resident Evil in the sheer amount of rereleases. I personally have only played the Repeated Fear (PSP) and Rebuilt (RPG Maker) versions but both were really solid games. I plan on playing through the entire franchise which actually consists of quite a number of games.
1. Sweet Home I may not have had the chance to finish the game but holy shit, I may have been surprised by Clock Tower's brutality as an SNES game but this just takes the cake of being them most brutal and terrifying NES game. And besides, a horror RPG? Yes please! Why haven't people used this idea again? Shadow Hearts is probably the only game that comes even close. The music is godlike, the battles and puzzles are awesome and the fear of losing a party member, forever, is something I wnjoy in this kind of game. Too bad it never got a sequel but it did kickstart the creation of my favorite franchise out there, Resident Evil.
Honorable Mentions:
The Walking Dead: It may not be a true horror game, being more of an adventure point and click game with a theme of zombies, but it still wins in all accounts. Superb story and characters, I can't get enough.
Castlevania: The game, the series, the legend. It was one of the very first horror themed games made and still holds its ground to this day, with more great titles being released all the time. Now, of course, Konami might screw this series over, too but I will forever have the ridiculous amounts of games they already released.
999: Again more of a visual novel kind of game with scary themes but still, such a great story and execution. Still need to play the sequel and finish the first game with different endings before the 3rd one is released.
Darkest Fear: The only true horror game within these honorable mentions, and not even one of the better ones, but god damn did it try. Before Rovio became synonymous with Angry Birds they made some interesting mobile games, one of them being the Darkest Fear trilogy. It only suffers from the fact that it was an early mobile phone game. Still, it managed to have scary tones, good gameplay and a story that was interesting to follow on top of that. For a mobile horror game, something not a lot of people would think of even being a thing, it did really well.
Resident Evil Dead Aim: The fourth Survivor game. Like a mix of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, this game is like getting the best of both worlds. The setting and style is very reminiscent of Silent Hill, which I absolutely loved, and the mixture of first person and third person gameplay was a really interesting change. The enemy animation and variety is really good and it really keeps you on your toes. The very next zombie you step on could jump into your face at any given moment. Also the setting is very nice, since at first you are trapped on a boat and stuck in the middle of an ocean on a monster infested boat, which slowly turns into a heroic mission to rescue the world without anyone even knowing you did anything. Bruce McGivern and Fong Ling even got the honor of appearing in Namco x Capcom as the franchise's representatives. I was sparing the "honorable mentions" for games that couldn't actually be categorized as real horror games but I revised the list a bit so something had to go.
10. Dino Crisis The first horror game based around dinosaurs and still one of the very few in its very specific genre. Despite you being a special operative armed to the teeth this game makes you feel so very vulnerable. Health items are practically nonexistent and you will go through them very quickly. When faced with one dinosaur, that spells trouble, when you absolutely need to go through a hallway filled with raptors to progress, the dread is real. Don't forget to save!
9. Amnesia: The Dark Descent "Ooh, but Mass, that game's so overrated it's ridiculous! Why on earth would you pick a lame game like that?" Simple. There's a reason why it was popular. It's terrifying. It's good. It was one of the first games in ages that made me pause the game not wanting to continue. It's not just the fact you're unarmed, it's the situation you are in and the atmosphere that is serene yet you know there's something seriously wrong. Quite possibly the first horror game out there to get such universal acclaim.
8. Silent Hill The game that started a franchise Konami is slowly killing off. Not saying the latest games would've been poop, on the contrary, I loved Homecoming and Downpour. It's just that with how the company is now it seems the franchise as we now know it has come to an end. The puzzles that have you scratching your head for quite possibly hours, the unique enemy designs and a game that, despite it's graphical quality, is still scary to this day. Akira Yamaoka truly earned his name as a master of horror music.
7. Alan Wake I played through this game so fast it's ridiculous. The story is absolutely amazing and the gameplay itself is really well executed and fun. It's not really all that scary but just for the overall tone and storytelling it's one of the better titles I know. Still waiting for that sequel, American Nightmare kept me occupied only for so long.
6. White Day: A Labyrinth Named School The game its developers had to patch to be less scary since people complained they couldn't even finish it due to how insanely fucked up it was. Why can't we have more of these? The "main" antagonist with his baseball bat isn't scary at all but holy shit is the school itself a terrifying place to be in, with all the amazing effects put into it and the numerous ghosts and spirits roaming the place. The name might sound a bit strange but towards the end it starts making a whole lot of sense. Too bad it, and its developer, fell at the hands of early 2000s piracy. Even the rights to it have fell into obscurity.
5. Clock Tower Never knew an SNES game could be so terrifying. The brutality is unparelled on the system, as far as I know, and the tones are super dark, which I absolutely adore. The characters are interesting and the main character, Jennifer, is likeable. Figuring out the happenings of this old manor with a point and click style gameplay, complete with superb graphics and music, is one of my best gaming memories.
4. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis The best Resident Evil game in my humble opinion. I know, the REmake is good and all, but I just can't put it above Dead Aim and Nemesis. Nemesis as a character has burned into my retinas for all eternity and seeing him kill one of the original STARS survivors is a haunting scene not many games have since surpassed. For a PS1 game the graphical quality is top notch and the music is very good. Having the ability to run around the streets of Raccoon City the first (and chronologically final) time before its eradication is a real treat. Oh, and Carlos is still the best character in the series, no matter what people might say. PS: Always play on Hard, Easy is for pussies.
3. 5 days a Stranger The first game in the Chzo Mythos series by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. I don't like the guy or his opinions but damn does he make good games. A game that first starts up as a puzzle adventure game with mystery elements slowly gets darker and darker as more secrets of the mysterious mansion are revealed. The subsequent games continued the story and tied it up neatly, something that made me eager to keep going and see how the story unfolds. A very haunting game that you will surely remember forever.
2. Corpse Party: Blood Covered Found this game by chance and fell in love. The visual novel style storytelling mixed with ultra brutal scenes, horriffic tones and top down gameplay with cute character sprites is something you just can't replicate in the way Corpse party does it and succeed. The first title is also quite possibly the biggest rival to the first Resident Evil in the sheer amount of rereleases. I personally have only played the Repeated Fear (PSP) and Rebuilt (RPG Maker) versions but both were really solid games. I plan on playing through the entire franchise which actually consists of quite a number of games.
1. Sweet Home I may not have had the chance to finish the game but holy shit, I may have been surprised by Clock Tower's brutality as an SNES game but this just takes the cake of being them most brutal and terrifying NES game. And besides, a horror RPG? Yes please! Why haven't people used this idea again? Shadow Hearts is probably the only game that comes even close. The music is godlike, the battles and puzzles are awesome and the fear of losing a party member, forever, is something I wnjoy in this kind of game. Too bad it never got a sequel but it did kickstart the creation of my favorite franchise out there, Resident Evil.
Honorable Mentions:
The Walking Dead: It may not be a true horror game, being more of an adventure point and click game with a theme of zombies, but it still wins in all accounts. Superb story and characters, I can't get enough.
Castlevania: The game, the series, the legend. It was one of the very first horror themed games made and still holds its ground to this day, with more great titles being released all the time. Now, of course, Konami might screw this series over, too but I will forever have the ridiculous amounts of games they already released.
999: Again more of a visual novel kind of game with scary themes but still, such a great story and execution. Still need to play the sequel and finish the first game with different endings before the 3rd one is released.
Darkest Fear: The only true horror game within these honorable mentions, and not even one of the better ones, but god damn did it try. Before Rovio became synonymous with Angry Birds they made some interesting mobile games, one of them being the Darkest Fear trilogy. It only suffers from the fact that it was an early mobile phone game. Still, it managed to have scary tones, good gameplay and a story that was interesting to follow on top of that. For a mobile horror game, something not a lot of people would think of even being a thing, it did really well.
Resident Evil Dead Aim: The fourth Survivor game. Like a mix of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, this game is like getting the best of both worlds. The setting and style is very reminiscent of Silent Hill, which I absolutely loved, and the mixture of first person and third person gameplay was a really interesting change. The enemy animation and variety is really good and it really keeps you on your toes. The very next zombie you step on could jump into your face at any given moment. Also the setting is very nice, since at first you are trapped on a boat and stuck in the middle of an ocean on a monster infested boat, which slowly turns into a heroic mission to rescue the world without anyone even knowing you did anything. Bruce McGivern and Fong Ling even got the honor of appearing in Namco x Capcom as the franchise's representatives. I was sparing the "honorable mentions" for games that couldn't actually be categorized as real horror games but I revised the list a bit so something had to go.