Liquidators
Never in my whole life have I been more terrified within the realms of a video game.
I believe a large portion of that comes from my intense phobia of nuclear power plants, but there’s also a huge variety of aspects this game nails in terms of horror. As someone experienced with music composition and production, the first thing I want to point out is the absolutely stellar sound design. Low, abstract drones bounce off of each wall, and you know it’s coming from… somewhere. But you don’t know where.
– Real player with 18.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Horror First-Person Games.
It’s a short but tense 3D exploration and interaction game, it happens in several rooms inside a nuclear plant. The story is based on an important fragment of the actual event Chernobyl Disaster.
- Graphics
Old story in 1986, then not the modern HD style. If you don’t accept pixel things, go to Settings- Video- Filter Strength, turn it Low or None.
- Music
Radiation detector sound and background noise in plant. No intentional extra sfx.
- Gameplay
1. There might be some bugs under fixing, but it doesn’t influence the experience if you like this kind of game. The developers are active in the pinned discussion so just ask.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
Murder House
From start to finish I knew I was going to love this game. At first it was just the pure novelty of a game that looked like something I’d watch an older family member play through while hiding behind a blanket as a kid. It only took a few minutes into actually playing the game to realize it would in fact make me FEEL like that kid too. The primitive textures and models give off such a familiar yet uncanny feeling. There’s so many horror games that look “conventionally” better than this, so why am I so off put by the appearance of the polygonal bunny man? Beyond the ps1 era influence, the atmosphere is just spot on. I was seriously impressed by the prologue because it was such a good representation of some vague nightmare I’m sure we’ve all had at some point in our life. After that, the main chunk of the game is where Puppet Combo’s love for Old School horror becomes so much more evident. News Reporters. VHS tapes. A Creepy House. A Psycho Killer. What more do you need? Even more terrifying than the visuals and set up though is the audio. Sometimes a sudden spike in distorted sound will be used as a mere jump scare (which I have nothing against), but what really gets you will be the distant drips and drops in the basement or the wind blowing against the trees outside as you cautiously avoid your predator. The lofi nature of these sounds just really get at your nerves, like nails on a chalkboard, but for some reason it just sounds so damn cool.
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Horror 1980s Games.
If you’re about to read this, let me first state that I actually did have fun with this game. I played it with 2 of my friends and we took turns controlling the player character,
! Emma, and we did enjoy the experience. The game also greatly captures exactly what it was going for in terms of ‘scary VHS 80s horror’ and it really does look like an old video game. It also had some genuinely scary moments that caught me off guard, and it was a fresh breath of air as compared to the typical indie titles that emerge.
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game
Resident Evil Village
The following review contains spoilers
Resident Evil: Village concludes the story of Ethan Winters in a most dramatic way, or at least this is how it seems with the data that we have so far. The story takes place a few years after the Baker house incident. Ethan and Mia, who now have a baby, a girl called Rosemary, are under the protection of Chris Redfield who, incidentally, has meanwhile differentiated himself from the BSAA for unknown reasons. At some point, Chris bursts into Ethan’s home, inexplicably shoots Mia dead and kidnaps Ethan and the baby. Something goes wrong however, and Ethan ends up alone at the snowy outskirts of a mountainous village in Eastern Europe, where he begins a desperate search for his baby, while at the same time trying to figure out why Chris, who was so caring and protective over him and his family, killed Mia in cold blood.
– Real player with 70.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Horror First-Person Games.
Nominated: Game of the Year 2021
Top tier survival horror with one man’s war against four Lords and their mysterious leader.
The Positives
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An unforgettable instalment in the franchise.
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Inspired by gothic literature, an example being that Castle Dimitrescu is reminiscent of Castle Dracula.
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A thrilling sense of adventure in what appears to be a more fantastical setting in Eastern Europe.
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Action-heavy for the most part, but there’s still variety in gameplay—explore, hunt, trade, upgrade while battling an assortment of enemy types.
– Real player with 68.0 hrs in game
Hello Neighbor Alpha 2
Hello Neighbor Alpha 2 is great because you can go into the console and type lots of commands, such as the “summon” command, where you can summon any item that you want. Also, It’s the most realistic HN build (with final art), none of that roller coaster, mounted windmill, crazy contraptions thing, but a subtle house in the suburbs, which you can explore. This is a truly fun game build that let’s your imagination run wild with the summon feature and messing with the neighbor. No need to download a console mod for the game, because it comes with one! I like this build very much and I highly recommend you check it out and do what you feel like doing, Hello Neighbor doesn’t always have to be about getting into the neighbor’s basement.
– Real player with 361.7 hrs in game
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– Real player with 51.5 hrs in game
Darkwood
One of the best survival/horror games I’ve ever played
– Real player with 69.5 hrs in game
At first i just grabbed this game for something spooky from the halloween sale (which needs to start oct 1st, not 2days before halloween!). After the prologue is wasnt very impressed but the steam halloween sale doesnt have many quality games this year so i kept on playing. Now i cant put the damn thing down, yes its that damn good! Yes its scary but more importantly its has a quality story and it becomes very addicting once you start finding clues and weird items, that you have no idea what they are for till later on. So glad i took a chance on darkwood, and the fact it takes place in the 80s is always a plus. Worth buying full price imo. Cant wait to see if there will be more content added or even a darkwood 2. Darkwood is an easy 8/10 for me and i havent even reached chapter 2 yet. Hurry up and buy!
– Real player with 63.1 hrs in game
Resident Evil 7 Biohazard
Probably my favorite RE game, it has amazing atmosphere and something to scare everyone. It loses the action and goes to full horror at the start, and your character slowly progresses from running from everything to fighting everything. This game is why the REmakes turned out as good as they did, and it helped change the primary action focus of 5 and 6 by returning to the series' roots. In a lot of ways, this game is how RE1 should have been, and it’d be an easy 10/10 if it weren’t for that boat at the end… for that, I must give it a 9 1/2 out of 10.
– Real player with 30.3 hrs in game
This is my first RE game, my first 1st person shooter game. For those who are wondering, I didn’t feel the need to play any other predecessors of the franchise. You might need to read a bit about certain characters once you finish the game and if you decide to move to the next game.
I was new to the first person shooter and after playing for a while I thought it wasn’t for me. Now that I’ve finished the game I wouldn’t say the same. Maybe it takes some time to get accustomed to the genre but I recommend to give it a try. I feel it’s worth it!
– Real player with 29.5 hrs in game
Dead Space™ 2
I differ from many people who believe that the Dead Space series started as Survival Horror and went on to become — and perhaps devolve into a much more action focused game. I believe it was always an action game first — with horror elements on top.
Overlooked for being derivative.
Back when Dead Space was released, it wasn’t that long ago that RE4 and Gears of War were introduced to the world. These horror/action games, where this over-the-right-shoulder camera was very newly being introduced. Not to mention they were horror games, lots of blood and guts and slightly monochromatic. It was easy to write off looking at screenshots.
– Real player with 27.8 hrs in game
A brilliant follow up to a great horror game, Dead Space 2 excels in almost every aspect from its predecessor while still delivering on intense combat, expanded story and improved gameplay mechanics to be one of the greatest video game sequels ever made.
The plot is set 3 years after the events of the original game, on an urban government facility called the Sprawl, where Issac Clarke has been held captive and experimented upon by EarthGov to extract the codes of the marker which had been implanted in his brain during his time on Aegis VII to create another marker. But all hell breaks loose when a new necromorph outbreak begins on the space station and Issac is forced to confront the traumas of his past experience while at the same time destroying the marker created from his brain scans to put an end to the nightmare. On his journey, we also get to see the some new and interesting areas which flesh out the backstory more which was missing in the first game, most important the origins of the Church of Unitology and the conflict between Unitologists and EarthGov and their beliefs over the existence of the Markers.
– Real player with 27.6 hrs in game
Obscure
I first got my hands on Obscure back in 2004, on PS2. Was quite surprised to see it on Steam. It’s one of the games which reserved a spot in my memory. I remember having a lot of fun playing it, and i got the same pleasure replaying it after 10 years.
Obscure is an old-school horror survival game which manages to entertain by offering a cheesy story, influenced by the Robert Rodriguez’s “The Faculty” movie. It uses the music from the movie and even contains a character based on it. Even though i heavily disliked the movie, Obscure succeeded in offering me a whole different perspective.
– Real player with 20.8 hrs in game
If you only plan on playing, say, ten or less Resident Evil and Silent Hill-styled third-person “survival horror” games in the course of your brief and precious time on this planet, you probably shouldn’t make this one of them. In fact, the best of the aforementioned franchises as well as that of the Dead Space universe should keep you more than rewardingly occupied.
If, however, like my unfortunate self, you are incurably addicted to games which remind you of that first-ever magical experience of playing the original Resident Evil on the Playstation 1, and have been seeking to recreate the unprecedented terror and freshness of that experience ever since, then you could do much, much worse than this particular game, ‘cause for better or for worse, it’s still one of the better Resident Evil rip-offs around.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
The Count Lucanor
This is a smart and surprisingly literate little game. There is some obvious jank in the controls and general presentation, but it does little to detract from the overall experience. The game really nails the dark and disturbing tone of its most obvious story inspirations, which are old fairy tales and moral fables. You won’t find much for jump scares and modern horror gore, but the whole affair just drips with heavy atmosphere and tone. So, if you’re into a more frenetic, slasher-thriller style of scare, this probably won’t be for you. But if you want something more deliberately paced and that builds a quiet horror by giving you nasty little things to think about and puzzle over, which is much more my speed, then I think you’ll find this a treat. Be aware, this applies to gameplay as well. There’s no combat in the game whatsoever, just avoidance. And your walk speed is fairly plodding. I didn’t find it an issue, as you never have much ground to cover to get where you’re going and the ambling pace helps to maintain the atmosphere. Others will find it slow. You’ll hopefully know your own tendencies well enough to know if this will be an issue for you, because the game is resolutely and deliberately stuck in first gear the whole time. Caveat emptor.
– Real player with 9.4 hrs in game
Review originally posted on Vox Ludicus - Review: The Count Lucanor . You can read it there with glorious formatting and images, or just the text (without image captions) below. DISCLAIMER: Game played on retail code provided by the developer.
Playing The Count Lucanor made me realize how rare fairy tale games are on the PC, and this game is very much a video game of a fairy tale. A tad on the grim side, perhaps, much like pre-Disney stories were, but a fairy tale nonetheless. With its pixel graphics and Bach’s works turned into chiptune as a soundtrack, as well as a few cutscene sequences that’ll remind you of a Studio Ghibli film, there’s little doubt that in the aesthetics department the game is well furnished – and what of the rest?
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Tormented Souls
[French below]
Pros :
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Really looks like to the old horror game we like so much (RE, SH, PE, AID…)
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Not too much talking for nothing and the introduction is short
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The difficulty (not too easy, not too difficult).
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The puzzles are very cool.
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The game isn’t short at all, it’s so cool, at first i was thinking “it’s gonna take 5 hours " but actually not at all. I stayed more than 17 hours on that game.
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Differents ending are possible.
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To me, the graphism, the global esthetism of the game are very pretty !
– Real player with 20.8 hrs in game
Spitting Image
Tis’ the season. Or rather it was. The moment November begins, pumpkins and ghosts make way for Santa hats and candy canes at a staggering rate. However, before my local shopping mall will inevitably set up a Christmas tree next week, I want to spare a backwards glance to appreciate the best game I’ve played this Halloween – Tormented Souls.
The game in question is an old-school survival horror, openly referencing Resident Evil (tank controls™ included) and Alone in the Dark as its inspirations. Fixed camera perspective, scarce resources, grotesque monsters, puzzles, and choking darkness – this title uses every trick in the old book, and more importantly executes them in a legitimately scary way.
– Real player with 14.2 hrs in game