I like horror games in general, but I find that damn near every one of them gets the formula wrong; they mistake blood and gore for "fear". And then typically give you a big pile of guns to blow away obvious monsters. Most of them do nothing for me.
What does it right for me is a freaky and sometimes mysterious atmosphere, a general sense that there's danger lurking everywhere, even if you cant see it, or evidence of dire threats that you cannot possibly hope to fight (where's the horror of a monster when you can blast it with a rocket launcher?). Often, an unstoppable, constantly advancing foe will do the trick, even if there's only one of them. Sheer absolute bizarre and creepy weirdness can also do this.
The games that get me for this:
Five Nights at Freddy's: Talk about an unstoppable threat. No guns, no weapons, no manner of fighting. The animatronics are simply too strong for that; nothing can actually defeat them.... your only hope is to deter them instead, but it's always only temporary. And they're ALWAYS there, somewhere nearby, so your character is stuck in one location and cannot leave. And there are things other than JUST the normal animatronics as well, since there's a supernatural aspect to the whole thing. Add in the deeply messed up story, and I think this one is a winner.
Spooky's House of Jumpscares: This one isnt what it sounds like. It's actually fairly short on the jumpscares... it has other things in store for you. It has a very innocent-looking exterior, and looks downright cute at first glance, particularly Spooky herself. Your only goal is to get through 1000 rooms in her very bizarre mansion, and deal with what you encounter there. Naturally, there are various things that inhabit the place, and just like Freddy and his gang, you cant defeat them. In this case, for most of them, you cant even deter them. All you can do is run, but they never give up, and simply keep coming after you. The sense that they're always somewhere nearby, following and watching you, persists through the entire game. And the monsters can be pretty messed up. The game drops it's cute illusion fairly quickly. Spooky herself never changes in appearance, but the more you see of her, the more you realize that she might be the most messed up thing in that place. Every monster has different behavior, and different freaky lore and ways of killing you. A couple of which are... decidedly unpleasant to see. Like Freddy's, the game does not need blood or gore to accomplish it's effect.
Crypt Worlds: Your Darkest Desires, Come True: long name, yes. This one subscribes to the "sheer freaky creepy utter weirdness" method. Nothing is an obvious threat, but.... there's just something deeply disturbing about every single aspect of it, even if you're not entirely sure just what that is. And it's *strange*. In a freaky way. It's something of an adventure game, with goals to go after and puzzles to solve, though they work nothing at all like, say, Telltale's games. This plays NOTHING like those or other popular adventure games, which is exactly why I got into it. I also just love the atmosphere of it. It can be a bit hard to figure out some of the game mechanics, but not too tough. And the dialogue, just.... WTF.
29 Oct 2015, 5:09 am
