Czernobog wrote:Ack wrote:Smile: I recently discovered that a hardcopy version of Amnesia -The Dark Descent- exists! The price was slightly higher at $20, but for an official disc and box art, I don't really mind. It looks good sitting next to my copy of the Penumbra Collection.
Ticked: Unfortunately Amnesia doesn't support the integrated graphics card on my laptop. Damn you Intel!
I'm glad I saw this before purchasing the digital copy. Definitely worth the extra cost for a hard copy in my eyes. I consider Amnesia a pretty important addition to the horror game collection I'm starting to build up and I want to be able to display the game properly.
I've got a quick question for you Ack - I've read your (very enjoyable) article on Survival Horror and I've always been a fan of the genre so my knowledge there is fairly decent - but I was wondering if you know of any more obscure (or common too-plenty of common games out there I've never had the chance to try) horror games that really play with the fear of the unknown or let your imagination do a good chunk of the scaring in sort of the same vein as Amnesia or games that play with/break your expectations of reality - either in the way Eternal Darkness did or even within the confines of the game you're playing.
Ho, that's a good question. Mmm...well, I've written quite a bit about some of the survival horror titles that I've enjoyed the most in various threads. There's a thread from Halloween 2009 in which I started discussing a horror game a day. Here's a link:
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... n&start=40
Now that should take you straight to the beginning of what I talked about, but if not, it starts at the top of the fifth page in that thread. It's a bit out of date now, and I didn't do a similar thread for 2010, partly because DS started a good thread on what horror games folks were actually playing, and partly due to personal concerns which far outweighed video games. That 2009 thread was also the basis for my blog, which has been slow to update but has more in the way of personal reviews.
Anyway, there's a few titles to keep you salivating, but I figure now I'll cut straight to the heart of things. First, if you've played Amnesia, then you've played the best survival horror in recent years, and what some consider to now be the scariest game ever made. I apologize, because it's not going to be easy to come up with titles that will interest you as much. You've pretty much already hit the cream of the crop. There are quite a few games though that I consider stand outs, worth checking out as long as you keep in mind the timeframe of their release (shouldn't be too hard for you considering you're on this website).
First, Frictional's Penumbra Trilogy. If you're interested in Amnesia, then you've probably had some experience with Penumbra, but if not go check them out right now. As I showed in that post above, there's a hardcopy release of the entire trilogy on one DVD if you prefer it that way. If there's one "Indy" company that I want to be successful, it's this one, hence why I'm willing to pay them more for these releases.
Second, the Echo Night series. They're more mellow and revolve around ghosts in various locales, many of which can't hurt you, but those that can...dear God. Every hostile ghost is a full-on deadly threat, and these games will force you to race past them. Having to rush through an area I know is haunted by one of those guys is quite a rush, and you can never be quite sure of exactly where they are until they're near enough to kill you. I've spent the most time (and showered the most praise on) Echo Night Beyond, but they're all worth checking out.
If you're interesting in games like Amnesia, where all you can do is run, Haunting Ground and the Clock Tower games may appeal to you (though the earlier Clock Towers are point-and-clicks, and I find it really hard to get past this, Clock Tower 3 moves away from this control scheme). The whole survival horror subgenre of these games are great, where you're typically an unarmed young girl being hunted by all manner of psychos or serial killers. Because it was never released in our region, I haven't been able to play Hell Night, but I hear it's a stellar title. Haunting Ground is really disturbing, especially when considering how subtly rape has been entered into the story. If you're a Silent Hill fan, Shattered Memories is similar to these games.
Speaking of which, as far as the mainstream is concerned, the Silent Hill games are still king to me, though they've lost a lot of their punch over time. The first three are still pinnacles in the genre, and I find I compare many things to them in various mediums, not just video games. 3 is a personal favorite, but 2 is often touted as the best (I'm sure you already know this though).
You might be interested in Rule of Rose, if you can get past the poor combat system. It's the plot that really makes that game freaky, focusing on how abusive children can be towards each other.
Oh, and if you like sanity effects such as occurs in Amnesia when you stare at a monster, try out Eternal Darkness and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Both games have the player driven mad over the sight of some hideous beasts...but then again, both games are Lovecraftian in design, much like the original Alone in the Dark was heavily based on Lovecraft.
If you're an FPS fan, Doom 3 will likely interest you, though a lot of people have a love/hate relationship with that game. I didn't care for it, but I know there are some folks around here who did. Prey isn't a bad game with some freaky moments, if you can overlook the lack of dying, like in Bioshock.
But the FPS games that take the cake for me (and the series that I consider the best new series of the last decade) is hands down S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It's not all horror, but the subtle suspense of that game will get to you, and it's terrifying to turn around only to realize you're about to set foot in an anomaly or there's an invisible bloodsucker only a few feet away from you. I once witnessed what must have been a pre-scripted event in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky(I'm still not sure), in which a random patrol out in the middle of nowhere suddenly got assaulted by one of those bastards. It literally stepped out of a mass of reeds, grabbed one guy by his face, and hauled him off in the blink of an eye. I emptied a full AK magazine after it before I realized I was screaming. I had a lot of great "OH SHIT" moments in those games.
Anyway, sorry, I meant this to be a brief rundown. I really love horror games.
Oh yeah, if you like Twin Peaks, check out Deadly Premonition. Just understand that it's a little...odd.
