Top 5 Scary Games For The Halloween Season

In the spirit of Halloween, I thought I might do my first top five. Now these are the top five games that scare, frighten, or creep ME out. If these games are not scary to you, the reader, are not scared, frightened, or creeped out by these games, then feel free to tell me. Now onto the list!

5) Five Nights At Freddy's

Overview:

Five Nights At Freddy's is an independent game where you play the night guard of Chucky Cheese's creepy cousin, Freddy Fazbear Pizza. You work every night to basically stay alive and keep the local animatronics from ripping your flesh off and replacing it with fur. You have to work security cameras and the doors to keep the creepy animatronic fuzzballs out and survive the night without running out of power.

Why It's Scary:

In terms of creepiness and messing with your brain, Five Nights as Freddy's, isn't true horror. The game scares you through admittedly cheap jump scares and the classic horror movie tropes like "The camera went out" or "scary noises" It also uses the classic scare tactic that Slender or Weeping Angels use, which is the monster moving only when you're not looking. It also uses the feeling of vulnerability and lack of safety through the power management system (doors require power to close for the sole purpose of the animatronics actually posing a threat to you) All in all not a truly horrifying game, but Five Nights at Freddy's is still very scary and stressful to play.

4) Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Overview:

An old game, but still scary (and maybe the tiniest bit overplayed) Amnesia puts you in the role of an amnesiac stuck in an old mansion, and you have to get out. Of course there are monsters and a whole dump truck full of psychological problems that ensue.

Why It's Scary:

This game pioneered the horror games of today, so of course it uses several methods of scaring you. The most notable one (and the one that is still used in games today) is the fact that you have no weapons. You cannot fight the monsters chasing you like a normal person, just run away. This instills a fear of everything into the player. because you cannot fight or react in anyway but running and hiding, the game can feel free to tip a jar over and watch you freak out and run for your life. The other main theme is your sanity. The game actually gives you a sanity level that decreases every time you see one of the many monsters out for your head, or after being in darkness for a long time. This means that even seeing these monsters might kill you. This creates an environment that does truly horrify. Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a pinnacle of the horror games industry.

3) Dead Space

Overview:

Dead Space, instead of the enemy being supernatural, takes the more H.R Giger route with the scary-as-balls alien, the Necromorph. You play as the mentally unstable Isaac Clark, an engineer upon a spacecraft that stumbles upon the most powerful evil the world will ever know. That's like a normal Monday for horror games though. And yeah, you have to escape.

Why It's Scary:

The game uses a lot of shock horror and mental horror to really terrify the player. This is the only game on this list that lets you fight the enemies, but that in no way makes the enemies any less terrifying. They can still gruesomely murder you at any given point. There is also the psychological horror aspect of Dead Space, which is the plot that Isaac, over the course of the game, goes completely insane. This presents a huge challenge to you and makes you untrustworthy of the story's plot. Even though the later games have slowly evolved into action horror, Dead Space original is still very scary and very good.

2) Year Walk

Overview:

You play as a man taking a Year Walk, a tradition where you take a year long trip into the woods (WHICH ARE HAAAAAUUUNTED... SPOOOOKY!!) And you encounter a whole bunch of messed up creatures.

Why It's Scary:

This game goes with the horror puzzle route. As in, solve a puzzle and your reward is SPOOKS! But in all seriousness, this game really does mess with you. You solve puzzles that slowly reveal themselves as horrible demonic figures. You also slowly reveal sinister plots and absolutely creepy monsters. The game has a really creepy atmosphere and although it lacks in jump scares, it does not need them to terrify you.

1) P.T (Silent Hills)

Overview:

From the horribly insidious mind of Hideo Kojima, this game places you in a seemingly infinitely rerunning hallway with a demonic... demon called Lisa, who chases you. This game is actually very cool in that no one knew that it was actually a promotion for the new Silent Hill game, Silent Hills. It was made under the fake guise of the company 7780 Studios. It is also the most messed up puzzle in recent gaming.

Why It's Scary:

The game itself is actually extremely complicated, even though only appearing as a simple walking simulator. The game uses the psychological horror aspects of the rerunning hallway with slight, terrifying variations to absolutely mess with you. The ghost demon Lisa, who will randomly kill you when you look backwards or open a door also adds to the effect. You also have eerie music and changing lights try to scare you. The best (and scariest) part of this game, is actually how in depth it is to simply activate the trailer for Silent Hills (which is the purpose of the game) To give you an example, to actually activate the trailer you have to: 

1. Collect picture shards hidden throughout the hallway

2. Wait for the in game clock to strike midnight

3. Wait for a "haunting" to happen

4. Say "Jarith" into your headset to make a baby laugh

5. Walk ten paces for another laugh

6. Find Lisa

7. Press R3 (right stick) on the radio

8. Press R3 on the phone

And only after all this will you here someone say "You have been chosen" and you can see the Silent Hills trailer. I can't even fathom this. But even if you don't watch the Silent Hills trailer, this is the scariest game I have ever played.

So I hope you enjoyed my first ever list, and please tell me what your favorite horror game is.

Game Review: Contagion

So I bought this game on Steam recently, and in the drought of games before August I thought I'd review it. The game was made by an indie company called Monochrome and it is a Source engine game based on Left 4 Dead but with a lot more realism. But can this little indie game make a name for itself in the world of DayZ and Left 4 Dead?

The first thing that grabbed my attention was the fact that this is only a source based Left 4 Dead mod, because the menus and graphics are at a base level the same. The graphics themselves aren't too impressive or spectacular, but running the game at the highest settings it looks like a newer title, which in it's self is impressive for a small indie dev. The art style on the other hand, was a little different in it's approach, changing from the Left 4 Dead almost comic book style to a simple film grain effect and a lot less light. This does achieve a much more creepy vibe when you are walking down a dark hallway with your flashlight off so you don't alert a horde.The HUD itself is different from L4D2 with just a small health and stamina bar in the top right corner and a four slot inventory on the left. You do have a phone that sends you texts for objectives or useful tips. The items in this game are much more subtle, with ammo and guns only glowing with a corresponding color when your cross hairs are directly over them and you can interact with them. Things like melee weapons and interactable objects like doors that do not open without a key don't glow at all and you have to be observant in order to not miss them. This adds a level of difficulty that boosts the limited supplies difficulty immeasurably that if it kept the L4D2 art style and objects glowed through walls, the game would be immensely easier, but with the combination of dark rooms and subtle item drops, you need to actually explore and be brave in order to survive. This is one of the reasons this game is wonderful.

The second thing that struck my interest was that there is no "story" to Contagion. There are singleplayer and multiplayer missions and game modes, but none of them have a narrative or plot other than, "You are in a zombie infested neighborhood/prison/medical facility, ESCAPE!" And I'm surprisingly OK with that. There doesn't necessarily need to be a story to a good game, especially in one with game play that makes you immersed right away. You feel like the playable characters, each with a short back story on how they survived. And then without a story, you feel more interested to hear your character say "I'm more scared of my ex wife than you," because it both gives you a little hint of back story while also stating emotion. There is no story to this game, but there is still emotions.

The game play in Contagion isn't like the base game L4D2 as much as it's a smaller, more concentrated version of DayZ. The zombies are slow but hit hard, your character can't really run and you have stamina for it and melee weapons, and the resources are scarce. So scarce that on the hardest difficulty you almost have to pick up a melee weapon because there is little to no ammo anywhere. The actual gun play and combat is satisfying yet difficult, with normal zombies taking several hits to the body or one instant kill shot to the head making combat a lot slower than other games, you can't just pump bullets into zombies or you'll die immediately, you have to line up head shots and keep retreating so as not to get hit by zombies. it makes it very tactical. Sometimes using a gun actually hurts you, because the zombies rely on sound more than sight, so firing a gun attracts way more zombies than either sneaking past or luring them with melee weapons. And you sometimes can even use the environment to your advantage, luring zombies into fire or electrified water to kill them for you. the weapons you use are varied as in L4D2, there are several types of pistols and a revolver, there are shotguns and sniper rifles, there are even some machine guns for sticky situations. Most of the guns only have iron sights except for the crossbow and sniper rifles, but for the aiming with iron sights you can be very accurate, I have several times both hit a zombie from across a courtyard and missed point blank. You have to be calm to aim properly, and in turn survive.As far as actual game modes go, Contagion isn't that special. it has a couple PVP modes, one is survivor v. survivor, one is survivors v. players controlling zombies, and there is an escape type mode, an objective based mode, and a horde survival type mode. In a multiplayer server, 8 people can join and in co-op the usual amount is 4 people. in a cooperative game mode, especially on harder difficulties, you really have to work together with your resource management and communication skills. it is because you can pick up ammo for someone else's gun and you can really only have one of each type of special item with room for weapons, it really makes you have to decide who has a key for the locked rooms and who has a fire extinguisher for the flaming areas. it is a really hard thing to do as a team, and that makes it super rewarding when you beat a level. On the opposite end of the team spectrum, is the PVP aspects, which makes the game a lot harder when not only do you have to kill zombies coming after you you, but you have to be quiet on the most part so another player doesn't sneak up behind you with a handgun bullet to your head. To top off the difficulty, when a player dies, if there is still more than one player left, he or she comes back as a zombie with the ability to summon a horde, move faster than normal zombies, camouflage itself as a normal zombie, and track players. The multiplayer isn't actually about killing the others so much as surviving longer than they do.

The game is currently 20$ on Steam and while I would say it's worth it, I think it's a little pricey. if it ever goes on sale though, I'd snatch it up in a heart beat. If you do have money to spare though, get this game, it is very good and always has new updates. Plus if you use Tunngle or Hamachi, you can use a LAN server over the internet to play with distant friends online.