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Halloween 2007 Special Feature
- The 11 Ghosts of Bouncybhall
There are two things on this
planet that are guaranteed to give me the willies. One is old man Jenkins the
caretaker of the abandoned Sega World round the corner from the Consoles and
Conkers offices, and horror based gaming. With films concerning horror it is
easy to make you jump, but it is also easy to not be frightened, but with a
good, well designed game you are concentrating so much on one aspect, i.e.
moving from A to B that Monster X jumping out of Cupboard Y will always ensure
you crap in Trousers Z. So join us as we look at my little run-down of some of
the all time scariest games, and some filler material that was purely spooky
related. If it were Halloween I may have said, ”It’s that time of year
again, as groups of young people go around scaring older people, and demanding
goodies in return for their safety. No, not Saturday night, it’s Halloween! In
tribute to the event I decided to plumb the depths of my gaming collection for a
night of unbridled terror. After sixteen changes of underwear and eleven Prozac
tablets I present for you the top eleven spooky games for Hallows Night.” But
it isn’t, so just enjoy my ordeal as best you can. The rules were simple, pick
out eleven games from my collection, and play each one for half an hour. Yo
she-bitch. Let’s go!
11. Friday the 13th (NES)
Few movie licenses lend themselves so well to a game than the Friday the 13th
franchise. The murderous exploits of the Voorhees family (and a copycat) make
for a great concept, but in a stroke of genius/madness the developers of this
infamous NES title decided that rather than concentrate too much on the
plotlines of the films they would feature young people being chased by people
who can be felled with pebbles. Occasionally Jason would appear, but that was a
rare occurrence in comparison to numerous trips into cabins to try and light
fires. I sat for my allotted half hour and failed miserably. This game is very,
very hard, and quite dull. In fact watch this video and save yourself the pain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfyDRb0apjE
10. Decap Attack (Mega Drive)
Another contender for ‘It’s just a cut 'n' paste remake’ after Oogie’s
Revenge, Decap Attack was a spooky themed Western port of Magical Hat Flying
Turbo Adventure, replacing a flying had with a decapitated head. Nice! The game
plays incredibly close to a great cartoon platformer fused with a horror edge.
Nothing too scary, but a lot of fun and more importantly, the main character is
called Chuck D. Head. Total undeniable utter genius. Oh, and I feel I must also
point out that he was in Sonic the Comic. Can’t say that about many Japanese
hat-throwing people. (Japanese people that throw hats, not people throwing
Japanese hats). Odd Job does not count, he was from Korea, and was not even
remotely in Sonic the Comic, so take your pretentious know-it-all-smug-git-face
and “Get orf moy laaaaand!”
9. Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast)
Don’t even dare start off on a ‘Come on!! How is Sonic Adventure 2 a horror
game’ as I pre-empted that and will answer with the heavily planned response.
Piss off. Cast your mind back to the horrendous Knuckles missions where you
would search for shards of the Master Emerald, then think of one particular
level, Pumpkin Hill. Yes, I know, you have caught on now. Well done you, have a
Jelly Baby. The level was a multi layered Halloween themed adventure level, with
ghost trains, crypts, tombstones and pumpkins that make for a fantastic treat
for the eyes, and yet the sheer annoyance of having to hunt down the shards,
with only a Colonial Marines-issue scanner at hand. The thing is certain ghosts
still make me jump. Yeah, sad. Vodka was needed to continue. Yay alcohol! Nectar
of the Gods.
8. The Nightmare Before Christmas – Oogie’s Revenge (PS2)
OK, I admit that officially this is a Christmas game, sort of, and it is a
carbon copy of the Devil May Cry series, with added Burton, but as a Burton geek
I am going to plump with this one. Sure Dante fighting demonic puppets is
spooky, but the sight of Jack Skellington attacking numerous Burtonesque ghouls
with his Soul Robber is a joy. Following the film as a semi-sequel the only
major issue in the game is not the Devil May Cry rip-off, but the decision to
bring back Oogie as villain for the piece. Now I know you can’t keep a good
bad guy down, but surely there is enough creative genius involved to come up
with a new villain for the game? Ah well, who cares, “I AM THE PUMPKIN
KING!” And Oogie’s Revenge strikes the chart at number nine. (It must also
be noted that by playing my half hour I then had to go back and watch the film
again. Dang…).
7. Splatterhouse 2 (Mega Drive)
The Splatterhouse series is what the Friday the 13th game should have been, and
unhinged psychopath in a hockey mask ploughing through anything in his way. My
first knowledge of the game came from seeing it on a promo poster that came with
my Mega Drive, with Sonic the Hedgehog on one side and a pile of screenshots on
the other the name, the visuals and the images my corrupt mind conjured up led
me to hunt it down. I didn’t succeed, but have emulated versions that have at
least allowed me to realise that my imagination was spot on. Splatterhouse 2 is
the best of the series, and features enough blood to make Peter Jackson envious.
Nothing too frightening, other than my maniacal laughter as I split monsters in
half repeatedly…
6. Godzilla Save the Earth (Playstation 2)
Every week I watch a Godzilla movie, as an ardent Kaiju fan, and a lover of men
in rubber suits I find that some cheesy Japanese sci-fi horror always sets me up
well for the night, so I decided it would be foolish not to include a Godzilla
game in my night of terror. The best of the recent Godzilla games Save the Earth
pits Godzilla in a fight to the death in various cities until you beat down the
aliens responsible for the Earth’s peril. OK, I can concede as a proper gamer
it isn’t a truly great game, not much has changed in terms of gameplay since
Godzilla Generations on the Dreamcast, and admittedly many of the Kaiju featured
are from vastly different generations of film, but ultimately it is a game about
giant monsters on the rampage, and nothing suits a boozy afternoon better.
5. Carmageddon (PC)
After all that Japanese indulgence it was time for a slice of very Western-built
maimage. What better than the granddaddy of violent driving games, Carmageddon
on the PC? Carmageddon crashed onto the PC in the mid-nineties and left blood
streaks across the monitors of gamers across the world. Horror related? You
betcha! From pedestrians being mowed down in their bathing costumes to bully boy
police officers in tricked out tank-cars everything about the game was excessive
and exciting. So why is it on a horror list? Well as the game took inspiration
from the movie Death Race 2000, and that of course being a Roger Corman flick,
what better pedigree could you ask for?
4. Dead Rising (Xbox 360)
I know we are a retro site, but we also know a good thing when we see it, and
Dead Rising is to the world of horror related video gaming as attractive
teachers are to puberty. Taking a cue from the Romero directed classic ‘Dawn
of the Dead’ the game sticks you in a mall full of zombies, and allows you an
insane amount of personal choice. I could go on for hours about its amazing
weapon choices, or the sheer joy of hitting marauding undead with a teddy, but
you know already. I will summarise my experience within the half hour. Splat!
Smack! Thwack! Blam! Chop chop! Clang! You get the point, and so did the
zombies. I would like to take this opportunity to say that one popular culture
reference was missed, Good Cop Bad Cop, with Robert Hays and Pamela Anderson, in
which a villain is dispatched with a huge novelty dart. Take note Capcom for
Dead Rising 2. The usual fee applies.
3. Silent Hill 3 (Playstation 2)
When I was a young lad I thought abandoned places were amazing. Little did I
know of the potential threat from junkies, hobos and psychotic clowns that could
have frequented the local zoo that was abandoned in the sixties. Instead we
played in the animal enclosures, staged epic Star Wars battles in the Penguin
Pool, standing in for Hoth’s icy surface. But one day David Tanning
disappeared, and all that changed. It turns out his parents divorced and he
moved away, but that information was never made available to us, and we assumed
he was dead in that park somewhere. From that point on I was a little wary, so
imagine my despair when I was faced with a seemingly abandoned and nightmarish
Lakeside Amusement Park at the beginning of Silent Hill 3. Brooding shadows
flickering across the area, bloody mouthed pink rabbits that may, or may not, be
alive and the threat of walking along a roller coaster line while being
assaulted from all angles was enough to induce a series of nervous farts. Not to
mention that the entry fees are horrific! Imagine the fear you get when you
realise that you may have left your well-thumbed copy of Bigger Butt Lovers 4
under the pillow of your bed on laundry day, well the sense of dread as you
approach your front door is what Silent Hill 3 installs into you as you play. OK
there’s no Pyramid head to pursue you, and many people will cite Silent Hill 2
as more horrific but there are plenty of other horrors awaiting you in Silent
Hill.
2. Resident Evil 4 (Playstation 2)
The Resident Evil series has provided many scares over the years, from Zombie
Dogs crashing through windows, to nemesis... nemesii... nemesises... what's the
plural of nemesis? Ploughing through brick walls. But top of the list has to be
Resident Evil 4 for pure inventiveness. From Doctor Salvador, the sack wearing
chainsaw fanatic, or El Gigante, the Cave Troll-alike abomination against nature
the game consistently throws more and more at you throughout the game, no
repeated Zombie attacks here fact-fans. For my half-hour I wandered around the
lake and tried to shoot some fish at the end of the pier to replenish some
health. I didn’t end up with a health bonus, just a soggy seat as Del Lago the
lake’s mutated fish thing leapt out of the murky depths to eat me whole. The
bastard. The game is near perfect, and will remain a firm favourite of mine for
many years to come. Accessible and interesting from the start any Resi 4 fan can
be made to smile with a simple phrase “What arrrre ya buyin’?” Any game
that can do that deserves a trophy, but I don’t have one, so it will have to
suffice with second place on the list.
1. Condemned: Criminal Origins (Xbox 360)
“Holy shit!” or “Fucking hell!” Learn these two phrases well, as they
come in very handy while playing through Sega’s rather splendid FPS detective
game, Condemned: Criminal Origins. An Xbox 360 launch title, and often dismissed
as yes another generic shooter this title has enough horror to fill 217.6 teen
slasher movies. For my night of grueling horror I decided that the only level
that I should play would be the abandoned department store, a store trapped in a
perpetual state of Christmas consumerism which is terrifying enough, were it not
for the serial killers, madmen and Auton-like mannequins stalking you. Your
first encounter with the mannequins comes as you walk into a shopping area and
notice some rather creepy mannequins stood modelling clothing for an eternity,
but then one seems to have gone. Next thing you know BAM! You have been smacked
in the face with something, as a mannequin has ‘come to life’ and attacked
you. But this isn’t fun, like the Kim Cattrell character Emmy from the 1987
movie ‘Mannequin’ this is a brain-damaged madman dressed up, with a plaster
mask covering his normal face. The fear we find for a mannequin is similar to
that or robots, as detailed by the roboticist Masahiro Mori as the ‘Uncanny
Valley’ effect. The more something becomes like us the more we fear it, until
it is identical, then it is fine again. This explains it, but does not prepare
us for possible the most unsettling moment in any video game ever, and that
includes Rise of the Robots. Two thirds through the level you notice a line of
dummies in an adjacent room, when you turn back to walk on there are more in
front of you, then everywhere you turn there are rows of silent, still figures
facing you, making you doubt yourself, fearful. Then they are gone. And you are
left with a similar feeling to that of waking up next to Vanessa Feltz after a
boozy night out. Condemned is a great horror game, and with plenty of other pant
soiling moments to come, but I won’t spoil it. Instead buy it, rent it, go
around a mate’s house and play it. I guarantee that you will have a good time,
having a bad time. With an all-purpose Youtube link for good measure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbhIIicW2MI
Bouncybhall
15th June 2007 (Uploaded
30th October 2007... sorry mate - CC)
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