Alone in the Dark 1
For anyone who doesn’t already know, this is the very first survival horror game every made. It first released in 1992 on floppy disk, 1993 on many Japanese computers of the time and on CD-ROM, finally releasing on the 3DO in 1994.
Before this review turns into a history lesson about the entire survival horror genre, I’ll get on with the game itself.
Positives:
Despite the character models looking very rough-around-the-edges today, I think there’s a certain charm to them.
Considering this is the first game of its genre, it gets terrifying at times!
– Real player with 11.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic 1990's Games.
Alone in the Dark 1 AKA the first game in the Alone in the Dark series is a classic horror game, it has its problems but let’s get into the story.
First off you can play as one of two people in this game Emily Hartwood the niece of Jeremy Hartwood or Edward Carnby a private investigator dealing with paranormal shenanigans.
Anyway after the death of Jeremy Hartwood, Emily Hartwood goes to the Derceto house to find out why her uncle killed himself.
Or you play as private investigator/paranormal investigator Edward Carnby, who was hired by Gloria Allen an owner of an antique store to go to the Derceto house to get an old piano with secret drawers.
– Real player with 8.8 hrs in game
Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice
What a mess! After playing Shadow of the Comet (I loved it! Read my review! http://steamcommunity.com/id/pointnclickster/recommended/389470) , I was looking forward to playing this. After ten minutes, my hopes were diminished, and after an hour, my hopes were dashed and by the end, I was a very very confused gamer.
Prisoner of Ice went backwards in terms of so many things. Trying to blend 3dish/claymation looking characters in 2-D settings just doesn’t work. The setting is right before WWII, and as far as Lovecraft goes, thats a little too modern for my taste. The story is an absolute mess, trying to loosely branch off of The Mountains of Madness, and serve as a kind of continuation of Shadow of the Comet…..within 3-4 hours (Steam says 6 hours, but I had long periods of being AFK). Thats right. Short. It’s so short, there is no time to care about really any of the characters, and those we do know from Shadow of the Comet, it feels like they threw them in so we could kinda care about somebody! Maybe if they had made this game longer, they could have developed the story a lot better, but they didn’t and we are now stuck with this. I honestly couldn’t even really explain to you the plot. I had to go to Wikipedia just to find out what in the world I just played. For those who know my reviews and what I play, that should definitely tell you something. Pixel hunting is back!…and man is it annoying. Shadow of the Comet threw pixel hunting out the window, and the graphics were all pixelated. Now in this mixed mess of a game, good luck finding the key you need in a timed puzzle. Oh yes, this game is full of timed puzzles. However, if you do die (you will), the game does autosave so you have a chance to quickly figure out what in the world to do.
– Real player with 5.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Story Rich Games.
I wanted to play this game since it’s release day back in 1995 but back then it wasn’t easy to find the game you were looking for, so the years passed and here i am finish my first playthrough 25 years later.
Prisoner of ice is a nice short adventure game to spend your evening.The game is interesting with a good atmosphere and story and manages to keep the tension on a good level, keep in mind though that if you are a fun of Lovecraft you will not find many elements that remind a lovecraftian story and writing here.It’s just a horror adventure game based on the mythology of Cthulhu and you shouldn’t expect nothing more than that.That doesn’t make it a bad game though.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
Alone in the Dark 3
წინებისაგან განსხვავებით ამან მაგარი გამაწვალა. ძალიან ბევრი თავსატეხი უბრალოდ უაზრობაა და ამოხსნის ლოგიკა ვერ დავიჭირე. პლუს ძააალიან ცუდი პოზიციონირება აქვს, ანუ მაგალითად ერთ ადგიალს გავიჭედე, მივედი მილთან ვცადე გახსნა, არაფერი არ ქნა, ვტრიალებ ერთი საათი წრეზე და ბოლოს გასვლა მოვნახე და ბამ, ის მილი უნდა გააღო, ოღონდ მილიმეტრით გვერდით უნდა იდგე. ძალიან გამაღიზიანებელია… ისტორიაც არაა ისეთი ძლიერი, როგორც პირველის იყო და მეორესთან პირდაპირ კავშირშია ამავდროულად, მაგრამ არაფერი განსაკუთრებული. ბევრს ვერაფერს დავამატებ, დიდად აღფრთოვანებული არ ვარ, ხანგრძლივობას მოუმატეს თამაშის მაგრამ ხარისხი საკმაოდ დაბალია (გეიმფლეის მხრივ) ჩემი აზრით.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic 1990's Games.
Probably the first survival horror games ever made and boy they done it right!
Great atmosphere, amazing graphics for the time, the sounds and music so creepy that it actually gives me chills till this day.
The stories are quite familiar and considered to be a classic horror stories taken from known books.
The puzzles are freaking insanely hard, and the games (1,2,3) as a whole are not easy at all to say the least.
I’m ashamed to admit that I never managed to finish any of them as a kid but oh man now that iv’e done it it was quite a ride, an epic blast from the past!
– Real player with 8.8 hrs in game
QUAKE
A very solid port and remaster. I personally prefer playing the game as it was originally meant to be played on Quakespasm, but this is the most easily accessible version of the game and it comes with a lot of awesome goodies. Machine Games & Nightdive are doing god’s work by not only maintaining this build, but adding on to it over time. Quake is one of those classics that just can’t be beat, and it’s fantastic to know it’s only getting more accessible.
– Real player with 61.0 hrs in game
An excellent port and remaster of the original Quake bundled with online multiplayer and brand new expansions (Dimension of the Past is the biggest highlight). The dark fantasy setting and visceral / brooding ambiance makes Quake feel very unique from contemporary First Person Shooters even two decades after it’s release. Even at full price there’s hours upon hours of content to enjoy, couldn’t recommend this enough.
– Real player with 39.8 hrs in game
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare
Alone in the Dank: The New Nightmare was 2001 reboot of the series, after a long pause. Seeing how Resident Evil took AitD1 mechanics and improved them directly, this reboot also rides directly on top of what Resident Evil did. Pretty much same controls and all. Spooky. Well, it’s not exactly a reboot, it can be seen as taking place in same universe as original, but mostly because “every 40 years new Edward Carnby is born” and that’s about it, no relationship otherwise. Yep, it’s a new Carnby, with fancy hair. Kinda sexy.
– Real player with 16.2 hrs in game
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare is a pretty good remake of a classic horror game series, but now let’s take about the story.
But before I tell you the story like all ways do, like the very first game you can play as two people but unlike the first game were only the opening changed, in this game you get to do more stuff to do like new puzzles to solve and more of the story, anyway back to the story.
It’s a dark and stormy night in Massachusetts as private investigator Edward Carnby learns that his best friend Charles Fiske is dead; his body found off the cost of an Island called Shadow Island, he was investigating the Island and some mystery tablets till he was found dead.
– Real player with 14.0 hrs in game
Call of Cthulhu®: Dark Corners of the Earth
OLD STYLE HORROR… Oh Yea!
Intro:
This game is based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, author of “The Call of Cthulhu” and progenitor of the Cthulhu Mythos. It is a reimagining of Lovecraft’s 1936 novella The Shadow over Innsmouth. Set mostly in the year 1922, the story follows Jack Walters (previously a police detective) and now private detective who is trying to solve cases even when there wasn’t any evidence. On September 6, 1915, he was called by the police to investigate a decrepit manor where gunshots were heard. A group of an unknown cult (Fellowship of the Yith) lived there and it’s leader, Victor Holt, demanded the police only send Jack in exchange for their cooperation. Strangely, Jack had never met or heard of Victor Holt before. As Jack entered the manor’s compound, all hell broke loose and both the police and the cultists started shooting at one another. You take it from here. All hell is about to break loose in the game.
– Real player with 35.6 hrs in game
I am a fan of both Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s fantastic literary body having read most of his work and also the Role playing game the Call of Cthulhu (the table top one not the new one). I very much enjoyed this game despite the glitches (should you wish to play without the glitches I would suggest that you either buy this game on good old games or install the patch that can be found online, and turn down the resolution for the very last bit of the game to the lowest setting).
I have to say that don’t go into this game expecting something akin to one of Lovecraft’s stories word for word, while it deals with the same themes and even one of the same characters this game is a bit of Lovecraft salad. You get bits from The Shadow over Innsmouth, The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow out of time, Dagon, At the Mountains of Madness and even some references to The
– Real player with 33.7 hrs in game
X-COM: Terror From the Deep
My personal favorite of the first two XCOMs. But that comes with disclaimers. The first is play it with OpenXCOM to deal with some of the bugs.
Good: UFO Defense had good music, the but the music here is insanely good. Creepy, ominous, and uses variants of the same thing. It has a creepy Cthulu vibe in general. Ion armor looks much better than power armor, and you can see the soldiers face’s in the inventory screen all the time.
Alien (sonic) weapons are much better balanced than UFO’s plasma tier because the sonic weapons all have clear strengths and weaknesses. So you have to bring a mix of them. The underwater maps look great. The underwater dungeons look even better.
– Real player with 191.8 hrs in game
Ok, before I get into the good, the bad and the ugly, I should say that I DO recommend this game, the reason I’m saying this is that my initial review may sound quite negative. I am writing this just moment’s after playing terror from the deep and I wanted to have a clear view of the game, so without further a due.
This is, without a doubt, THE MOST INFURIATING GAME I HAVE EVER HAD THE MISSFOURTUNE OF PLAYING!!!
This game did the impossible; it managed to be harder than UFO defence! HARDER!
Right, lets go through this in a bit more detail.
– Real player with 95.6 hrs in game
The Last Door - Collector’s Edition
Who would have thought that the next great horror game would be a pixelated homage to Lovecraft and Poe? I had been following The Last Door’s development since its Kickstarter roots, and as soon as it popped up on Steam the game was in my cart and my wallet $10 lighter.
The game starts off ominous enough; a suicide, a letter, and a friend vowing to uncover the truth of it all. Set in the 1880’s, our protagonist Devitt embarks on a journey through forgotten memories that threaten to lead him to the depths of insanity itself. That’s not exactly what I was expecting from this game, but I am certainly not complaining.
– Real player with 20.3 hrs in game
‘The Last Door’ is a classic point and click adventure game. So much so that you can play the entire thing with only the use of the mouse. The graphics are beautifully designed pixel graphics that never feel like you are losing atmosphere. The story is intriguing and interesting with a feeling of The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe and has been called “A Love letter to H.P. Lovecraft” by Penny Arcade.
The music composed by Carlos Viola is phenomenal. In fact I would say that it is now in my top 3 most loved video game soundtracks after playing this game and worth the purchase price by itself. You can download the soundtrack from the website (https://thelastdoor.com/index.php/soundtrack) , although they have plans to include it in an update at some point in the Collector’s Edition on Steam. Here’s a bit of a taste from the Chapter 1 OST, which should give you some feeling as to the atmosphere of the game:
– Real player with 15.0 hrs in game
DUSK
Christ! I’m not sure how to respond to this game. I’m iin my 30’s and i grew up on fps games. DUSK is possibly the best game I have ever played. I feel that the creator grew up playing, doom, quake, half-life and the like. The game is so perfectly created by someone who wished that he could create a shooter that took small parts from all of those games and put them together in a way that i would never expect. It is retro in a way that isnt jokey, but it incorporates all the best elements from every 90’s shooter. In conclusion, its not half-life, but it’s better than every other shooter that came before that. Honestly, one of the best shooters of all time.
– Real player with 72.9 hrs in game
Fantastic shooter and had me gripped from start to finish. If you like the retro style then this game is for you. Loads of secrets similar to doom etc. Gameplay is smooth and fluid. Runs like a dream at 120fps+.Such a simple game to play, it’s a no nonsense shooter. Updated on a regular basis and great value for money. Loving it.
Highly recommended. A++
– Real player with 32.1 hrs in game
Transient
I’ve betatested this game, and am now playing the full version for the first time. I may update this review after I’m through, but so far, this is what I can say about the game:
To summarize, this is a very interesting, story-driven, lovecraftian, atmospheric, cyberpunk adventure game, with great locations and attention to detail, that will appeal to any Lovecraft fan, and may just win over anyone who is not one already.
Now, onto the more detailed review:
This game is awesome. Once again, these developers deliver a truly lovecraftian story, set both in Lovecraft’s universe, and in the one they create and expand upon with each coming game. I’ve reviewed all of their previous games, and I never get tired of saying this: these guys know their Lovecraft. They really capture what was his most characteristic and interesting aspect, distilled into all of his tales: the atmosphere.
– Real player with 26.4 hrs in game
! Just in case anyone ever reads this, I’m playing on v0.140 for reference. I’m giving this a thumbs up in part for the genre combination, and for conarium, a good game without too much in the way of a downside. I’ve read a few negative reviews about the end, which i wouldnt mind so much if I got to see the protagonist actually float into the sky eye of nirvana, just end sooner, or something(or just tease a sequel or something, it doesnt have to be cyber, but why not?). I’ve more of a problem with the beginning, let me notice ive got no shaman cinnamon, load into my chair and go to that street with jovarium sunset bar first so I can take a cyber stroll down the punk street to get some meta saffron from the electro apothecary, and maybe swing by the dystopian 7/11 for some digital donuts, and holo-cigarettes. you could have me cyber holo summon up the supplies(or get them from the locker) when i unplug from my nifty padded hacker chair and then put it in my wicken blade runner pantry down stairs. I could avoid a cyber dystopian cop by keeping my distance so i know they want to keep the octopus truth hidden from me. Then at the end near the train station, have my guy go like “wow! nobody would ever believe this train thing! those corporate goons were hiding this all along!”, otherwise the whole cyber punk part falls by the wayside. If you don’t want to add a more cyber start, maybe have the plot dump orb, not immediate go into the thou, and thees. You gotta ease me into thees, lowes, and theretofores, I was just playing some gta, and its a nasty shock. Also the voice FXs on the mushroom headed guy needs another pass, go listen to the starcraft archon merging is complete track guy for reference. Also the first encounter with red mystic goat skull head guy next after the raven explosion friend needs a voice fx rework too, either more cybery, or go listen to the haunting ghosts from deadspace voices or something idk. Also maybe a little more concern on finding my clone whacked, or just some more text logs on that. Also check your text logs for grammar and spelling mistakes. saw a few:/ I’m just posting on steam, you’re publishing. On the upside though, pretty environments, fun mash up of two of my favorite genres, and neat mini games. cool scitar, wind chimes, and chanting music. Fun retro computer consoles, but dont over use antewhateverthat word was, and dont copy paste the same admittedly well done description of indescribable horrors(even if it is a lore acceptable copy paste). I think some of the problems in this game comes from lovecrafts horror often being so different from a lot of cyber punk in it’s fear of the unknown, knowledge, inevitability, slow creeping mutations and occasion body horror. Though cyber punk(and maybe i’m just getting dystopias confused with cyber punk here) are often concerned with conspiracy(hooded cults, big future organizations), inevitability or alterations of self by technology, the focus tends to be more meditations on the ills of technology as opposed to forbidden knowledge in general, ignorance of hidden costs, or dependence on technology. I think there is great potential in the meeting of of the genres, but I don’t believe that Transient really takes advantage of that. It’s a shame because there are some overlaps there, and it would be pretty awesome(get some lovecraft style descriptions of cronenberged cyber monsters, maybe dwell on wires/gears meeting gross flesh the way love craft did on tentacles? Maybe cyber punk lessons brought home with fish/lizard themed horror?) particularly with some occult in there. I had fun though, so even if I can see where it could have been way better story/message wise, thumbs up. I just like this neon, smokey, conspiracy, and occult combination a lot, but played great, zero errors.
– Real player with 15.4 hrs in game