Steam Screams / The top 6 terroriffic games on Steam

Hello kiddies, Welcome to this week’s VERY LATE installment from the Steam of Consciousness.  This (end-of-the-) week, we take a look at the top 666, I mean 6, dark or horrific video games currently being offered through steam. So, without further ado- here’s the list.

6. Bioshock

As beautiful as it is distopian, the first bioshock offers up a haunting atmosphere and some genuinely unsettling moments. The world of Rapture is, as its name suggests, a land of ruin. Rapture is an underwater city based on the ideas of extreme liberty and total independence from other human beings- but when every part of society breaks apart and the people go too far, the city becomes a crumbling nightmare that the protagonist must survive. Aside from the great atmosphere, there are some genuinely horrific parts in the game that sets itself apart from games made for the sole purpose of horror- when thinking of these moments, I am reminded of a scene in the surgeon area of the game where you come across a room where the lights shut off and you are shrouded in darkness, you proceed to wait as you hear footsteps and maniacal laughing until the lights quickly flash back on- you continue to hear footsteps and then, out of nowhere, a ghoulish looking gang starts to attack you. Heartpounding jumpscares like that were totally effective in this game because it’s not a game all about being scared out of your seat- it’s about immersion into this dark world. This game is truly exceptional in creating one of the best and creepiest atmospheres around.

5. Left 4 Dead 2

Ah, Left 4 Dead 2, a zombie-ripping good time. Developers Valve have put a lot of charm into this co-operative zombie shooter where you play as one of four zombie-apocalypse survivors. The team of survivors has one simple goal- to hack through hordes of zombies in order to get from point A’s beginning to point B which comes in the form of a safehouse or escape vehicle. Along the way, players fight countless zombies, super-mutant zombies such as the goo-puking spitter or high flying hunter, and a series of roadblocks/obstacles that must be cleared while fighting off zombies. While the game isn’t scream-out-loud scary, it’s very fun and constantly stressful. The best part about Left 4 Dead is the co-operative angle: the horror really comes from ensuring you and your team’s safety when running through the streets of post-apocalyptic New Orleans- the stress increases when you have to fight off a large group of zombies just to get to your teammate and save them near seconds before they die. Another part of the game that adds to the shriek factor is the special mutant-zombies- the scariest for me is the witch who cries and doesn’t attack unless you make loud sounds, shoot her, or just piss her off… god that scream she has is horrific.

4. Doom

Doom- good old Doom. ID software’s masterpiece was a revolutionary PC game then, and it’s still a ton of fun to play now. Without Doom, horror shooters wouldn’t be where they are today- the game is just that good. While games never age too gracefully in terms of looks, gameplay can often hold up over time and still be just as awesome as it was on day one of the game’s release- this is certainly the case for Doom. While doom hasn’t scared me, it has created an awesome looking hell-world with lots of well-designed demons. I enjoy the energy that comes from the gameplay in Doom- it’s full throttle demon slaying action and it never ceases to amuse. If gamers want good, fun, chatoic action over graphics, then Doom will prove to be a hauntingly good time.

3. Walking Dead: The Game Season One

Tell-Tale made an awesome heart-felt experience when they produced the Walking Dead video game (based on Robert Kirkman’s comics more than the show). This game is a sort of point and click adventure in a zombie-wasteland where you play as Lee, a man with a troubled past over the span of five episodes. This game deals more with loss and heartbreak more than it does screams- but there is some very well-done horror in this game. One of the best horror moments in this season was when a friend of yours goes missing and, at dinner, it is revealed that the farmers you’re with have made his legs into dinner which sits on plate right in front of you- a few scenes later and you find your friend without his legs trying to crawl for help. That scene was one of the most messed up and disturbing things that I’ve seen in games- this is impressive considering that the animation style could underplay some realistic scenes in the game, but they really don’t take much away from the reality of these horrific experiences. The Walking Dead game makes you really care about the characters and situations that you find yourself in when playing the game- it helps draw out the horror when you really get to know and identify with the other survivors who get taken by unforeseen consequences. On top of the possibility of losing other survivors- the game is built around decision making and really immerses the player by allowing them to make choices that affect the outcome of the story.

2. Alan Wake

Alan Wake is a great horror game- it draws inspiration from anything and everything in suspenseful horror from Stephen King to Twin Peaks and beyond. The game is about suspense/horror/mystery novelist Alan Wake who looks to escape from his busy life and visit a quaint town in hopes of escaping- but he is far from escaping when he finds himself living out a reality based upon the pages of his new manuscript. The game breaks up into ‘episodes’ and begins and ends like a horror TV episode- it’s a unique and unparalleled experience. Alan usually spends these episodes trying to delve deeper into the mystery of his manuscript while fighting off swarms of possessed townspeople who can be beaten with a combination of light and fire-power. While I wasn’t in love with the game’s ending, the journey there was fantastic and well worth playing. The game has good humor, good horror, and plenty of personality.

1. Amnesia: The Dark Descent

AUGHHH! God this game is scary. Amnesia is probably one of the scariest games i’ve ever played- and it’s not because things pop out at you (which is scary too), but it is one of the most psychologically taxing games I’ve ever played. The use of sound, insanity, the stretching of rooms, the nightmare creatures that actively pursue you, and the air of unknowing make this game so scary that I can only play for minutes at a time. You play as Daniel, an Amnesia ridden fellow who, through the use of documents and journal entries, slowly recalls events of his troubled past. The game is subtle and extremely effective in making you feel unsafe, followed, and insane- which makes it one of the most paranoid experiences in gaming. This game definitely merits a top spot as one of the scariest games of all time- It’s definitely worth picking up if you want some scream in your Steam.

REVIEW of “Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs” -despite the amnesia, I didn’t forget to scream.

Since the release of the indie-horror smash, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, it has been hard for me to forget the lasting impression that this survival-horror game has had on me- and any time that I try to go back to steam and play as the Amnesia riddled protagonist, Daniel, I’m struck with anxiety and dark forebodings because it is such a well-polished horror experience. With the level of trauma the game brought me, you’d think anything like it would turn me away for good, but something about being scared witless in the first game intrigued me to the point that I was drawn in to playing the new Amnesia game that released last Tuesday, September 10^th titled A Machine For Pigs on PC, Mac, and Linux. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a wholly fresh experience from new developers The Chinese Room, whose previous work includes an indie game titled Dear Esther, a well-received game that puts all of its emphasis on narrative as you walk around a mysterious island and are read letters by the narrator who wrote them. The development torch has been passed from original Amensia developers, Frictional Games, to The Chinese Room because the previous team is now working on an entirely new project. Passing this game on to The Chinese Room has resulted in an entirely new horror experience that acknowledges the overall feeling of helplessness found in the first game, but decides to take a completely different approach to this horror series by way of a dominantly horrific story. While hardcore fans of the first game will be less than ecstatic to find that some of the more in-game horror has taken back seat to a more unsettling narrative, other players will be completely swept away by the fantastic ambiance and haunting tale that this installment of the series has to offer.

spooky AND good looking

The story follows Oswald Mandus, a wealthy industrialist who wakes up in his own kingdom, an over-sized meat processing factory in London, on the final night of 1899- just before the turn of the century.  At the beginning of the game, found journal entries suggest that pigs are killed and processed into food for the common people here, but a little exploring and the pulling of a few levers reveal hidden passageways that suggest other goings-on in the factory that are not generally viewed as good business practice. Aside from discovering the horrid truth behind this factory, your character’s true driving factor in the game comes from a voice on the phone that suggests you do what he tells you, otherwise your children will die. In order to continue on through the game, you hold a lamp to light the dark corridors of the factory much like in the first game. While both games don’t allow you weapons and give you only a lamp to work with- this game makes the lamp more of a navigation tool than a necessary item. In the first Amnesia, players were forced to scrounge for lamp oil and constantly use their lamp or else be subject to insanity (via insanity meter) which would result in hallucinations and other un-fun events; In this installment of the series, The Chinese Room has purposed the lamp, which now requires no fuel, to illuminate a path through the ambient and dark environments and to flicker when you’re about to be hunted down by evil pig-men.  OH! DID I MENTION THAT THERE ARE EVIL PIG-CREATURES IN THIS GAME?! Yeah, like the first game, there are creatures on patrol in parts of the game that are pretty unhappy with you and are more than willing to chase you around to make you scream bloody murder. These segments are the most horrific parts of the game, but they unfortunately become less scary toward the end of the story.

You’d think evil pigs would behave in pig-church, but that’s not the case.

Perhaps my biggest complaint about Machine for Pigs is the wasted potential for being consistently horrific like its predecessor. Act one of the game was perfectly terrifying: some of the most haunting and well made environments like the mansion and church exist within the first act and some of the biggest scares are here, too. The second act starts out promising: but once you reach the floodgates, the game shifts focus from having terrifying gameplay and story, to just being a scary story. The second act promises the player great things when it shows infested waters with an invisible water monster sloshing around and narrow corridors that are PERFECT for being chased by pig monsters- but my anticipation of the scare was worse than the level itself: I never had to encounter the invisible monster and I was never chased down the winding corridors. WASTED POTENTIAL. While the final act of the story is very cool and the excitement levels run high, there is little that the game does to scare me and the pig creatures fail to make me scream because the story has unveiled the truth about them- yes they’re still scary-looking, but now I understand what they are and not being able to understand them was part of what made them scary in the first place.

How’s it hanging, pigs?

If you’re still unsure about picking up this title on Steam because of what I just said- it’s still worth playing. The game is still a wonderful piece of horror storytelling and the video-game medium allows the player to BE the character which is much more heart-pounding than watching a film where you’re constantly yelling “Look behind you!” to the protagonist in hopes that they will actually see the monster- if you don’t look behind you for a monster, it’s your own damn fault. I also really enjoyed the inclusion of controller-support- I played the game with the controller and it was very intuitive (it’s also nice because you can sit away from your monitor instead of getting face to face with pig monsters like you would with a keyboard and mouse). At the end of the game, I was satisfied with being able to experience the ambient environments, hear the great sound design and soundtrack (If you didn’t think opera was creepy, you will now), and step into the shoes of a troubled character and discover his story of desperation and madness. Players looking to scream and cry through a horror game will likely be disappointed with this game, but anyone up to hear a good tale of greed and evil will want to sit down and step into the twisted world of Oswald Mandus.

Full moon? Thank goodness it’s just pigs and not werewolves!

MY STEAM RECOMMENDATION: BUY IT

• Great atmosphere
• Nice story
• Some genuinely frightening parts…
• … But it could have been scarier