Just a few more days left and people are busy coming up with ways to be spooked. But for gamers, nothing is better than turning the lights off and playing the most horrific videos on your PC. The sound volume is maxed out to intensify the creaking of doors or the rattling of chains while being alone gives that feeling of some entity watching behind you, slowly eating away your sanity.
Even with just the PC platform, the horror/thriller genre is saturated. However, none of them can compare with the scare and shock value of the games we compiled for you. Most of the games here are sequels of game titles that have certainly shaken gamers for a couple of years already. But these sequels are even better.
Left 4 Dead 2
The story of Left 4 Dead 2 focuses on four new characters to love (and hate). Nonetheless the same gameplay exists: players take control of the four survivors and must band together against hordes of the infested as they traverse across different locales to be rescued. In just a few weeks after the original story’s timeline, new mutations of the special infected are haunting the survivors and add a whole new challenge.
Cooperation is key in this game, something that developer Valve has emphasized in survival horror — a new genre they introduced. Every man is not for himself ; wander off too far from other survivors and no one will be there for you when you’re pounced by a Hunter, mutilated by a Witch, or strangled by a Smoker. But, rushing to the rescue (a helicopter or boat) can be the opposite.
Dead Space 2
At times, the most horrifying moment is not when your in the heat of the battle but before it even begins. Games like Deadspace 2 spread fear even when you don’t ask for it. Try walking down a shadowy corridor and surely a monster suddenly comes out rushing to you. To make matters worse, you don’t have the luxury of unlimited ammunition to fend off monstrosities.
Nor do headshots or explosions provide relief either; body parts can still cause havoc even with their heads decapitated. Add the fact that protragonist Isaac Clarke is losing his sanity. Continuing the story where the original Dead Space left off is surely one hell of a spacey ride.
Resident Evil 5
The warmth and brightness of day won’t be enough to calm your nerves if bloodthirsty zombies are coming from all directions. If anything, the gruesome detail of occasional bosses will be even clearer. But dark claustrophobic areas such as damp caves are just as forbidding if the sole source of light you have is carbide lamp carried by your partner.
Yep, the fifth installment of Resident Evil brings back the first RE protagonist, Chris Redfield, along with a partner known as Sheva Alomar. If you don’t have the guts to play the game by yourself, you can have a friend play as Sheva on a multiplayer co-op session and together apprehend an arms dealer selling a bio-weapon on the black market.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
While weapon ammo is ever precious in game series like Dead Space and Resident Evil, you don’t have to worry about them in Amnesia: The Dark Descent — because you don’t ever get to find and use any. Just like what many horror movie characters can do, your only protection from what thrives in evil is to run and hide. But the problem does not stop there.
Your character is suffering from dementia. Stay in the dark for too long and hallucinations jumps in to the point where creepy crawlies swarm your screen. But if you’re exposed in the light, evil creatures can easily see and prey on you. Sure enough, staying alive is difficult as you try to uncover how you were brought into the place.
BioShock 2
Imagine a place where everything is as bad as it gets. In the Bioshock series, that would be Rapture. You take on the role of Subject Delta exploring the underwater dystopia on a mission to search and rescue his daughter. Along the way, you’ll encounter psychotic Splicers — the remnant of what was once humanity in the city.
Even Subject Delta is nothing short of being scary himself. He’s one of the Big Daddies, staggering giants whose organs and skins are patched into their diving suits. What sets him different from the others is that he’s got some sentience left in him, whereas other Big Daddies are as mindless as they can become.
Dead Island
We don’t care if people are calling Dead Island a complete rip-off game of Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising. Let me explain: like L4D, you band together with three other survivors (playable characters in multiplayer co-op) and, like Dead Rising, you can equip yourself with the most unusual of weapons. On the other hand, as long as the game contains zombies, blood, and gore, it’s going to scare the heck out of us.
Yet again, there’s always the theme of the mysterious outbreak of a pandemic that’s turning everyone into flesh-hungry undead. But this time, your character can level up and improve his Zombie slaying skills. What you formerly once were — a survivor clinging for dear un-undead life — would become something the Zombies themselves fear.
Doom 3
Doom 3 will scare you not because of horror and psychological torment; it’s going to make you fall off your chair thanks to its cheap thrills and unexpected surprises. Even if your computer system can’t run the game on highest settings (although this may not be the case anymore; it’s 2011!) for a remarkable detail, lower graphics levels are surprisingly good enough — ergo, shockingly fun.
The story of Doom 3 disregards the continuity of previous installments and begins an entirely new one. The year is 2145 and a secret research base in Mars funded by a military-industrial organization has developed advanced tech such as advanced weaponry and teleportation. But the latter tech has accidentally ruptured what separates our physical dimension from Hell, ensuing a massive demonic invasion.
F.E.A.R. 3
Some critics have pointed out the rough and generic experience that you get during the first few levels of F.E.A.R. 3, but wait until you continue into the later part of the game. Maybe its game developers wanted to build some sort of suspense, unlike others who immediately shove into your attention some suspense until it all goes bland and boring in the end.
F.E.A.R. 3 brings back the Point Man and Paxton Fettel, the protagonist and antagonist of the first game, respectively. Continuing where Project Origin left off, these two characters form an uneasy alliance to try and defeat Alma and her mental powers. The game has two endings, good and bad, that depends on which character you control.
Penumbra: Black Plague
Black Plague is the sequel of Penumbra: Overture and picks off where the latter has ended. Protagonist Phillip leaves the abandoned mine – the first game’s setting – but got knocked out by an unidentified being. When he wakes up from his deep slumber, he finds himself in an underground research base full of infected zombie-like creatures.
The Penumbra game series takes some inspiration from horror novelist H.P. Lovecraft and his stories, so you already know what to expect. Unlike the previous game, Black Plague relies more on stealth tactics and fleeing to survive. After all, having to fight for your life with less weapons and traps is more of a challenge.
Alice: Madness Returns
Game developer Spicy Horse re-imagines Wonderland that it wouldn’t be fit to be a children’s fantasy world any longer. The events of the first game has caused protagonist Alice Liddell to become insane. Now she thinks she is the character Alice from Lewis Carroll’s novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Even with psychiatric help, she relapses into madness and continues to hallucinate.
While there’s Wonderland to be explored, the game will also pull you back into reality as Alice stops a scheming doctor from erasing her memories. In the end, reality and fantasy will intertwine that Alice lives in both worlds at the same time.
