Postby the_wolfs_howl » Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:18 pm
I played a lot of games over spring break (most of which ended up being horror games, because I was in the mood):
Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Awesome game. I love the Penumbra games, and think Frictional understands true horror better than any other game company out there. I also loved the drastic change in style from a modern science lab to a Renaissance castle. It was absolutely terrifying to not have any weapons (like in Penumbra: Black Plague), but on top of that to know that you couldn't stay in the dark for too long or you'd go completely nuts. See, what I would usually do in Penumbra was hide in the shadows when I got scared, and hope the monsters couldn't find me. But that doesn't work in Amnesia, so I had to hide in the light and cringe, knowing I could be seen. I think that game does a good job approximating madness, because it makes you sort of OCD yourself, wanting to light everything in sight and stay in the light. I loved the storyline, too - I think I really like the kind of games where you have to piece together what happened and where you stand in relation to everything that's happening around you. I enjoyed that about Penumbra, and I'm realizing now that I also loved that about the Myst games. The twists and revelations towards the end of the game were chilling and sobering, but wonderful. This is a really great game for any horror fans out there.
Amnesia: Justine - Obviously I had to follow The Dark Descent up with this. It follows a completely different, much shorter, storyline about a really messed-up household. All in all, I thought it wasn't as rewarding or interesting of a storyline as The Dark Descent, though it was just as chilling and scary. Not being able to save at any point was rather frustrating, though, and destroyed for me the horror of
SPOILER: Highlight text to read: brutally killing innocents because of so much repetition.
Half-Life 2: Nightmare House 2 - This was a great, terrifying mod. It may have been the scariest game I played that break. It's about someone whose car breaks down outside a haunted house filled with zombies, and then after they escape from it they go completely nuts and end up in a mental hospital - which then gets overrun by zombies. It had a lot more jump-out scares than I tend to like, but they were really scary, and there was enough psychological messing with your head that I found it deeply horrifying in the way I like best. I could be wrong, but I thought the creators were drawing on The Grudge video game for inspiration; a lot of the scares seemed similar. That was a very rewarding game, even with weapons (which usually negates most of the terror for me).
Sword and Sworcery - This was a cute, light-hearted little game kind of making fun of Zelda. I didn't really get what the hype was about, but it was enjoyable enough, and the pixel art was beautiful.
Sanitarium - I'd been trying to play this game for a long time but had technical difficulties, so I was glad to finally be able to play it all the way through. I loved this game so much. It's older, and I didn't really find it terrifying, but it really made me think, and was fascinating to consider the nature of reality. You play as a man who wakes up in a creepy insane asylum, with no memory of how he got there. Then an angel statue comes to life and things start getting really weird, and you're never sure what's real and what's just in his head. (I'm actually of the opinion that the entire thing was in his head, but there could be multiple interpretations.) It was really cool to try to piece together what happened to put him in such a position, and to work out the fixations and obsessions this guy is dealing with in his messed-up brain. A very good, satisfactory ending.
SCP: Containment Break - I attempted this one, but I think I've actually found a game that's too scary for me. I probably would have persevered through it despite the terror, had there been more of a story and fewer glitches. You play as a prisoner on death row, who is put into an experiment with strange...things...and it all goes wrong and the things break out and start killing everybody. What killed my motivation to keep playing, other than the glitches, was this one thing that looks like a gigantic concrete baby doll, which you have to maintain eye contact with at all times or it'll kill you. The problem is...in this game, you blink. *shudder* So yeah, I gave up on that one.
Ib - Loved this game. A pixel horror game, who would've thought? But it actually managed to be really creepy, and I really grew to like the main characters too. It had some challenging puzzles, and I liked it enough that I played it over again to get the best ending.
Half-Life 2: Grey - Another mod. This one was really creepy, with really sick zombies, freakish baby dolls that eat your face, flying heads...you get the picture. It was quite scary, but not as psychologically subtle as Nightmare House, I thought. I gave up and just watched a playthrough when I got to the boss battle and realized it was impossible to get through it with the amount of health I had, so otherwise I would have had to play the entire game over again.
Mirror's Edge - A great way to end my gaming week. This was a great action game, doing a really great job of making you feel like you were actually doing the cool parkour moves. The story was simple and average, just giving you enough excuse to go through the levels, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had a really sharp, clean aesthetic that showed you how Faith views the world - in stark, contrasting colors. And I've loved the credits song for a long time, so it was great to actually see it in context of the game.
I also played a little bit of Rhythm Heaven and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.