SPOOKY G4MES: The Ghost Dimension
It’s heeeeeeeeeere
Welcome, welcome, guys and ghouls, to the fourth year of my Spooktober reviews! If this is your first haunted rodeo, I play and review 31 horror games for the month of October, one every day. They’re not all necessarily horror games, either, because I often mix in some creepy or Halloweeny titles in there too. What’s important is that they’re all in the spirit of the season, pitting you against monsters or ghosts or your own personal demons. If you’d like to see last year’s roundup, it’s right over here.
This year the lineup is another grab-bag of classics, big names, and indie joints that range from goofy to downright terrifying. The name is accurate for once because my collection this time leans heavily on ghosts, but also zombie and action titles. In fact, I have enough of some sub-genres to do themed weekends, so keep an eye out for those. There’s sure to be something for every one, no matter how jaded or green you are when it comes to horror.
Reviews will go up here on the website every day at 8 am PST, linked from a list I’ll be starting below, so check here first if you can’t wait to see what terror I’ve subjected myself to now. Sometime after that I’ll have the review up on Steam and everything proper linked from here, so even if you show up late you should have no problem finding the good stuff. At the end of the month I’ll break down all my discoveries by good and bad, and single out some singular titles for recognition.
And so, my little goblins, are you ready for this year’s tour de frights? If so, read on at your peril…
4. Left in the Dark: No One on Board
5. Daily Chthonicle: Editor’s Edition
6. Eleusis
7. Dead Effect
10. Dead End Road
11. Goetia
12. EMPORIUM
13. F.E.A.R.
14. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
15. F.E.A.R. 3
16. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
17. Bloody Streets
18. Layers of Fear
22. Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh
24. IMSCARED
25. Detention
26. Coma: Mortuary
27. Disturbed
28. CAYNE
29. Blameless
30. Firewood
Compared to previous years, I went hard on indie games this time and it shows. Horror is a notoriously hard formula to get right and many titles default to low lighting or obnoxious jumpscares to make up for tension and atmosphere. Walking sims like the Doorways series or Slender are perfect examples of this, completely ignoring key elements of narrative and game design in favor of dark halls and stiff enemies. The stand-outs this year were the ones that forged their own paths, either by reinventing their genres like Daily Chthonicle or Dead End Road did, or going deep into their symbolism as Detention and Yomawari did.
There’s a pretty even split between good games and bad or borderline ones this time, so let’s break it down into lists and then single out a few games of note.
GOOD – You can purchase these games fairly confident that they will entertain or spook you in their own special ways
5. Daily Chthonicle: Editor’s Edition
10. Dead End Road
11. Goetia
13. F.E.A.R.
14. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
16. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
24. IMSCARED
25. Detention
27. Disturbed
29. Blameless
EHHH – These are conditional recommendations, and I strongly encourage you to look into them further before putting down money for them
17. Bloody Streets
BAD – Plenty of games didn’t make the cut this year, and they’re all here to be spurned
4. Left in the Dark: No One on Board
6. Eleusis
7. Dead Effect
12. EMPORIUM
15. F.E.A.R. 3
18. Layers of Fear
22. Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh
26. Coma: Mortuary
28. CAYNE
30. Firewood
It’s hard to pick bests for genres or features because so many of the good games this time around were unique in those aspects, so I’m just going to drop a top 5 for the month and encourage you to poke through the others for titles that really appeal to you. Also don’t miss the buyer’s guide I put together with good games and prices all in one place.
5. Dead End Road – It’s short and simple, but the creativity of a roguelike driving sim can’t be denied and goes a long way towards keeping it interesting
4. Daily Chthonicle: Editor’s Edition – Seeing what craziness the game throws at your intrepid reporters is half the fun, and figuring out how to best it is the other half
3. Yomawari: Night Alone – I’m a huge fan of Japanese horror and the mix of cute and utterly bizarre here was more than enough to get me past the annoying parts
2. IMSCARED – This thing is absolutely terrifying, and an incredible accomplishment for managing that with low-res graphics and a simple premise
1. Detention – Dark, beautiful, and different, this horror adventure can only be faulted for not being longer so there’s more to enjoy
That’s it! I’m done! I reviewed 31 games for you this month, what more do you want? Tomorrow I’ll post a little something about the schedule going forward and my plans for November and December, but for now let’s all bask in the spooky afterglow. Happy Halloween, and thanks again for reading!
Gold-Plated Games 