Archive for Horror Games

« Older Entries

Review: Tattletail (Video Game)

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2017 by Lilliandra Winters

tattletail

Furbies were fucking everywhere. I mean everywhere. You couldn’t get away from them. If you didn’t have one, then you knew someone who did and that was that. They were adorably creepy and I can’t tell you how entertaining I find it that my mother was constantly jump scared by mine. I remember they weren’t allowed to be in most places because they held the ability to record. Fast forward and those of us who find dolls terrifying now have a reason to fear furbies, or Hatchimals, if you want to be more current.

So, it’s days before Christmas and you wake up in the middle of the night to go peek at your presents and discover that you are receiving a Tattletale, the hit toy for the holiday season. You are so eager that you open it up and immediately play with it, but the Tattletale is much more than it seems. The Tattletale is increasingly demanding, requiring grooming, actual food and charging at its station in the basement. Also, don’t forget about Mama.

This game is fucking terrifying. It combines several fears together and shoves them into a child’s toy. After the first night, I am constantly wondering why you would go back but it seems like these fuckers, once unleashed, will NOT go back to sleep. Every night, you have to deal with this tiny demon, feeding, brushing and charging. However, Mama doesn’t like you. (THEY NEVER SAY WHY, SHE JUST DOESN’T, LIKE A JUDGEMENTAL BITCH!) You are sent on these crazy quests, having to take Tattletale with you (who WON’T SHUT UP). (I KNOW YOU LOVE ME, SHUT UP ALREADY!) However, there is a reason for the chaos. You realize that shit is much worse than previously thought, it is creepy as fuck once you figure it out. Don’t forget to collect all of the eggs for the ‘good’ ending.

This game is amazing. The concept is terrifying. It’s well written, the art/graphics are incredible, and the music/sound creates so much anxiety on top of what you already have to go through. Panic on top of panic is how you want to play a horror game. An extreme sense of urgency makes it easy to forget that you are a terrified child just trying to survive your own Christmas toys and make it the joyous holiday of gift giving. I can’t give this enough praise, the fear is real, the ending is almost perfect and I’m setting every Furbie I see on fire. Play it for yourself, FFS it’s only $5! Prepare for some jump scares and have fun sleeping!

Leave a comment »

Review: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2016 by Lilliandra Winters

Game by: Michael Lutz
Platform: PC

The Uncle who Works for Nintendo is a weird choose-your-own-adventure horror indie game. Unlike most games that I adore, this is visual novel. I avoid these like the plague since they’re not as interactive as I’d like video games to be.

What’s it about?
Diving into it, you are a kid sleeping over at your best friend’s house. You have dinner with his parents, play video games with your buddy and unravel the weirdest tale possible.

What did I think?
The artwork is sketched backgrounds, beautifully simple and effective, with a few sound effects and some creepy atmosphere that only intensifies the incredible story. A story about a night at your best friend’s house and their uncle who works at Nintendo.

I’m not going to go into the story, but it’s perfectly written and free, so I urge you to play. It has 5 endings and a hidden one that takes some work to get to, but I have faith in you. You’ll get it.

It’s incredibly creepy, completely worth your time and very, very creepy pasta.

Maybe I need to stop giving visual novels a bad wrap?

Do I recommend it?
Play it, thank me or yell at me. Tell me what you think.

WintersOver4

Leave a comment »

Review: Dead End Road (Video Game)

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on July 24, 2016 by Lilliandra Winters

Dev: DDD Wares
Release Date: July 8, 2016

DeadEndRoad

What the fuck? So, nevermind that the graphics are old school pixels, I don’t care about that. Some amazing games are pixel-based. I even enjoy the premise: you are trying to complete a dark ritual to achieve your ultimate goal. I’m down. Deal with the devil. Crossroads pact. I get it. How you are magically teleported across the county is confusing, but okay, I’m trying to follow your logic here. So, you have to drive to different cities to find a book, a bell and a candle and something to light them with? Okay, I’m still with you.

Why the hell does the middle feel like a driving simulator from hell? I get the point, it is very obviously a challenge to make sure you are worthy or have the strength of whatever cliche you want to throw at me. That’s fine, but it could make a little more sense. It could be structured better. It would be amazing if every time you screwed up, you didn’t have to start the whole fucking game over again! What bullshit is that? You could just start at the last town back or something like that instead of having to start the whole annoying process over again, especially since the last drive makes going to hell seem like a simple task.

And please don’t get me wrong, I am all for hard. Make me work for it, don’t just hand me the ending, I want to earn it. By the time you finally get to the end of this game, you would rather throw your computer out the window because that would feel a shit load more satisfying. It took every ounce of my being to not type that out all in caps and I am sure you appreciate that I didn’t, but HOLY SHIT did it feel impossible and anti-climatic when the game was finally beat. Two of the endings I encountered were both disappointing and making me wish for all that time back.

Let me know what you think. Am I utterly wrong or filled with righteous rage quit?

WintersOver4

2 Comments »

Review: Dead Man’s Journey (Video Game)

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , on July 17, 2016 by Xander Woolf

Dev: Turnvex
Release Date: April 9, 2016

139776-amdm9vqf

You’ve done something horrible. You are dead and stuck in purgatory. You are greeted by the voice typically used in the Saw movies and kidnapping videos. After a bit of a confusing start, you are ushered into a P.T. Silent Hills type of industrial area. Dark and ominous, there is only emergency/flood lights to guide your way. Quickly, sounds begin off in the distance and the jump scares are well deserved.

As you venture further, you receive a night vision camera so that you can continue on your journey. You also realize that they could have used an editor or at least spell check. Notes and news clippings appear, attempting to explain the story of what happened when you were alive and why you’ve ended up here, in purgatory. The voice will chime in all judgmental and better than you. Each loop reveals a new part of the story, which just becomes more and more confusing as you continue on. Just when you think the voice is going straighten the story out, that fucker only makes it more confusing. If you play the game, for the love of the maker, explain the fucking story to me.

The ‘thing’ that you keep seeing is a bit confusing in its form. It doesn’t look like you’d expect, which only adds to the confusion. You are eventually guided to make a choice, not that choices ever really matter in horror games.

I enjoy the concept of this game. The graphics are great; the atmosphere is stellar, but there are plenty of plot holes and story confusion. I can’t call this a good or a bad game. It has some awesome elements that would make for an excellent game if not for the poor story line. Give it a go and tell me what you think.

WintersOver4

Leave a comment »

Review: Outlast 2 Demo (VIDEO GAME)

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2016 by Lilliandra Winters

Developer: Red Barrels
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One
Release Date: October

banner

Firstly, I have never played Outlast, so jumping head first into the demo for the sequel was interesting.

This demo throws creepy at you from the start. You are one of two investigative journalists following up on the murder of a pregnant woman, Jane Doe.

The first thing I noticed, besides the stellar graphics, was the fact that you are using a camcorder. I know it has been used in other games before, but it is still a wonderful mechanic. The night vision afforded by the camera is both helpful and eerie, creating a more terrifying environment than you can imagine. One thing I love, which apparently is an addition in this sequel, is the camcorder’s ability to determine if sounds are coming from the right or left of you, which I am sure will be instrumental when hiding.

You are wondering around in the woods, after your transportation crashed, looking for your counterpart. You come across a ‘town’ in the black of night, which is where the night vision comes in. Exploring this ‘town,’ you come across dead bodies, a load of flies (well done on the insects), screaming, talking and people walking about in the creepiest fucking manor possible. It looks so incredibly cult-like that you feel you have some idea what’s going on.

That is, until you are dragged into a well.

This lands you in an air duct that drops you in a school? What the hell. Walking down the halls of a school at night is enough to fill your nightmares, but they found a way to make it worse. Running from things you can’t see, lockers opening and slamming closed (don’t forget to keep getting batteries for your camcorder). There are enough jump scares to give you heart problems. I do love how, when things get really intense, you get all out of sorts, just like in Amnesia.

You are thrown back into the ‘town’ that you previously escaped from, as if you are in shifting realities. Running from what I can only imagine are rednecks from hell, you stumble through a cornfield, trying to hide and escape all at the same time. The cornfield was an amazing touch and stirred all my memories of Children of the Corn in a wonderful way.

Of course, horror games throw rules out the windows. So, I am interested in seeing how the shifting realities pans out in the long run. It could be an amazing way to keep you on your toes or rip the rug right out from under you repeatedly. It seems that, in the ‘town,’ your enemy is the people, but, in the school, there is this unknown force that is chasing you. I know not every demo reflects how the finished game runs and they want to give you the best bits of the game and keep you salivating for more; however, the ending of the demo is amazing and a must see.

Outlast 2 is due out in October of this year. I’m sure we will catch more of a glimpse at E3. Right now, I have to check out Outlast.

WintersOver4

Leave a comment »

On the Cancellation of Allison Road

Posted in Opinion with tags , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2016 by Lilliandra Winters

I sit down at my computer with a huge case of insomnia.allison I am disappointed to find out that another amazing horror game has been cancelled. Allison Road, a first-person horror game, has been tossed out the window. I am still trying to recover from having my heart ripped out by the loss of Silent Hills and it begs me to wonder, what the hell is happening to horror?

Mind you, I share a very different view of horror; we all have our personal descriptions of genres. However, with the exception of Layers of Fear, I am hard pressed to find horror games that are the next masterpiece, the next Nightmare on Elmstreet of the gaming community.

Two games that looked to be my very nightmares come to life (both with playable trailers/demos) have been ripped out of our grasps and I feel like we should have pitchforks and torches in the town square demanding answers or a dead werewolf at least! We have nothing to show for all of our excitement and wonder. For both demos, I was a terrified child in a wonderland of horror and fear that threatened to frighten me to death! Now my hopes and dreams are broken and I wonder why.

At the moment we know that…
1. We lost Silent Hills cause people can’t play nice, so we can’t have nice things.
2. Allison Road was the ‘spiritual successor’ to Silent Hills P.T.
3. Allison Road has been cancelled; as of now we have no idea why.

And that information is depressing! These games spoke to that primal fear that resides deep down within. Something that so rarely happens. You can ask Xander, I don’t scare easy, but holy hell were these both terrifying. I’m sure that someone is screaming to me in the comments, ‘But there are other amazing horror games!’ and I’m sure there are but none that evoke the same emotions in me.

It’s like that scene you see so common in horror movies (and some games) where the protagonist is in some dark/desolate/desperate place and they hear some tribal like music and sound and fire is usually involved and they feel some ancient Deity stirring under it all waiting to be released, only to do horrible things you could never imagine and they have no way to stop it. THAT! That terror right there was at my fingertips and is now torn away from me, from us!

Maybe this is just a rant and I’ll go read some conspiracy article about the coincidence of them both being cancelled and finally get some sleep, or maybe I am just depressed and disappointed that something that looked so incredibly amazing was shut down.

It is a true shame when fantastic artwork and hard work is gone to waste, like it was here.

I hope someone changes their mind. I hope egos are dropped and fences are mended and we get two terrifying games instead of more disappointing news.

Is there a horror game I’m missing out on? Let me know in the comments.

WintersOver4

3 Comments »

Review: The Plague (Video Game)

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2016 by Lilliandra Winters

Dev: Slothy Games
Platform: PC
Status: Early Access

Feature-Graphic-GameJolt3

It’s the 17th century and the Great Plague of London is running rampant. You are a child who wakes up in what looks like a church to find someone in a doctor’s mask eating another person.

This game is pretty simple. You are stuck running around a graveyard, collecting pumpkins to keep your candle lit. You are looking for a key to unlock the gate and following signs to escape. While you are running around, you have to avoid the “Plague Doctor,” who is hunting you.

The Plague is a fun, quick game. The graphics aren’t great, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy. Sometimes simplicity is the best. The fog, weird blinking and the chance of your light going out is enough to freak you out. It reminds me of the Slenderman games, where you’re running around hunting for things while trying to avoid the big bad.

If you like quick horror games, then you should definitely give this your time.

WintersOver4

Leave a comment »

« Older Entries