october means a month of horror games

[Ack]

Ok folks, I will now present a list of horror-themed games to interest you for the coming days of October. Every day you can look up information on a different game in the list, post gameplay footage or trailers, or just generally discuss the game. Keep in mind, the list is roughly in chronological order, so it starts with an Atari 2600 game. Also, while I intentionally kept off Resident Evil since it's the Together Retro, and I avoided many of the most well-known titles, I did include the first releases in certain mainstay series to gaming's horror genre. So here's a look at the list for you to check out:

October 6: Haunted House (Atari 2600)
October 7: Sweet Home (NES)
October 8: Darkseed (PC, Mac, Amiga CD32, Saturn, PS1)
October 9: Mansion of the Hidden Souls (Sega CD, Saturn)
October 10: Alone in the Dark (3DO, PC, Mac)
October 11: Phantasmagoria (PC, Saturn)
October 12: Clock Tower: The First Fear (Super Famicom, PS1)
October 13: D (PS1, Saturn, PC, 3DO)
October 14: Enemy Zero (Saturn, PC)
October 15: Hell Night (PS1)
October 16: Parasite Eve (PS1)
October 17: Echo Night (PS1)
October 18: Silent Hill (PS1)
October 19: Blue Stinger (DC)
October 20: Illbleed (DC)
October 21: Eternal Darkness (GC)
October 22: Fatal Frame (PS2, Xbox)
October 23: Siren (PS2)
October 24: Curse: The Eye of Isis (PS2, Xbox, PC)
October 25: Still Life (Xbox, PC)
October 26: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (Xbox, PC)
October 27: Condemned (Xbox 360, PC)
October 28: Penumbra: Overture (PC, Mac, Linux)
October 29: Siren: New Translation (PS3)
October 30: Nanashi No Game (DS)
October 31: Ju-On: The Grudge (Wii)

I tried mixing it up a bit with games of various styles, across multiple formats, and in different regions, so a lot of folks in different places could participate. Also, the final game has not been released yet. Yes, I know it's based on a film property we likely all have heard of, but it looks like it might actually be a film adaptation worth playing, so I just couldn't pass it up.

[dsheinem]

http://www.videogamecritic.net/halloween.htm

This is a nice list that is currently featured on a site I frequent somewhat regularly.

[BoringSupreez]

I've been playing Katamari Damacy and Mercenaries this October. No need to play horror games just because of Halloween, although I do enjoy them.

[nickfil]

ack you are a madman.

[noiseredux]

Luke, did you play Nightmare?

...

[Luke]

On topic:

It only took me about fifteen minutes to figure out how to get into a building. Doesn't say much for me or the game. Like I said, it's not awful.

[noiseredux]

oh man! I actually started typing to you yesterday the whole deal with the building order being random... and then I was like "nah! He'll know what to do!" haha.

How far did you get?

[Ack]

ack you are a madman.

Don't I know it.

Anyway, as you can see, it's time to discuss Haunted House for the Atari 2600:

From Wikipedia:

"Haunted House is an Atari 2600 video game, first released in 1981, in which the player (represented by a pair of eyes) must navigate the haunted mansion of the late Zachary Graves to recover the three pieces of an urn. The game was one of the first home video games to feature scrolling graphics and a multi-level playing field, and has been identified as one of the earliest examples of the survival horror genre by a GameSpy article."

Screenshot:



Ah, the early days of horror gaming. Personally I've always felt the genre got its oldest roots on the Magnavox Odyssey, from a game with the same name, Haunted House. But many people feel that this is really where it got going, as gameplay could get a bit frantic, especially in later levels where everything became blacked out(including the walls) unless you lit a match. We've come so far graphically, sure, but I still want to spend some time playing this game.

[noiseredux]

were there any ports of this game to another systems?

[Luke]

So the buildings are random. I couldn't figure out where in the hell to go, so I watched the avgn video review, and thought,"OH, I need to go into THAT building", and spent around five minutes trying to go into the wrong building. I even reformatted my controls because I thought my controller was not responsive.

I didn't give it a fair shake, I played for around 20 minutes or so, then my wife came home, so I turned it off, made dinner, watched some Sopranos. I'll give it another shot tonight. So far though, it's much better than 13th.