It’s been said that every great story that we as humans are ever going to read has already been told and just gets recycled. It’s been said that no new ideas exist in the entertainment industry. But every once in a great while, someone will take something as simple as being afraid of the dark and manage to capture that terrifying feeling of being a kid after bedtime. It is in those moments, where our greatest fears are exposed and exploited, that we discover something truly unique and awesome in horror. With the advent of video gaming, it seems as though developers are searching for that next big scary game to put them on top. Here are ten games that are (or should be) psychological horror legends.
Slender: The Arrival
When you first start this game, you realize that it is not anywhere near up to snuff, compared to other titles in the genre. But what it lacks in modern graphics and gameplay, it more than makes up for in the way that it totally messes with your head. Let’s start out with the obvious. You are armed with a video camera and a flashlight. You cannot fight. You cannot even touch the Slender Man. All you can do is run. But then, the Slender Man can teleport right next to you. If you weren’t already terrified of Slender Man, you will be after playing this one. If only they’d fix the technical issues.
Siren: Blood Curse
When I first started playing Siren at the recommendation of a friend, I was very skeptical. The story was slow-starting and it took a while for anything terribly significant to happen. But once that first intense moment hits, everything else starts stacking in behind it. This game deals with all sorts of craziness up to and including human sacrifice. The story delves deeply into the mentality of humankind and how we define ourselves against the landscape of the universe. It deals with karma, betrayal, murder, intrigue and all sorts of other stuff that keeps you sucked in through the whole game. If you can get past the slow start, you won’t be disappointed.
Condemned
While marketed as a brawler, there is something altogether dark lying beneath the surface of Condemned . This game gets into your mind and makes you start to reassess your feelings about human life and at what point we have gone too far to be worth saving. Beyond that, it also tests your convictions. It will put you in uncomfortable situations that will make you see how you feel about certain types of people, simply by how they look and talk. You will literally murder your way through a city full or crazies to track down a serial killer. Starting to see why this game is messed up? If you are looking for a game to make you think twice about yourself, then Condemned is one you should play.
Miasmata
The premise of this game is pretty simple. You are a doctor. You have been infected with a disease that is going to kill you. You hope to be able to gather the things you need to fabricate a cure within the forest. There’s just one problem. You are not alone. There is a monster lurking in the very same woods. It seems very simple. Find the parts to make a cure from the flora and fauna. Avoid the monster lurking just out of sight. Don’t get eaten. Cure yourself. It seems easy enough, but believe me, when it all comes down to it, there isn’t much you can do bur run and hope for the best. The entire development team was committed to bringing gamers a frightening and gut-wrenching experience, and they succeeded.
Indigo Prophecy
Quantic Dreams struck gold with this intense thriller. Before there was Heavy Rain , there was Fahrenheit – the title that would become Indigo Prophecy . You play as Lucas Kane, an everyday dude with a not-everyday problem. For example, the beginning of the game features you coming out of a trance in a diner bathroom in New York. You have blood all over you and a bloody knife in your hand. Oh yeah, and there’s a body on the floor. This story is gritty and gut-wrenching as you leave a trail of bodies of those that try to help you along your journey. This interactive narrative is an exquisitely pieced together story with several endings – all of which are worth playing through.
Heavy Rain
This PS3 gem literally blew my mind the first time I played it. Heavy Rain is the game that changed the way developers make story-driven games. Its beautiful visuals and gripping, twisting, and mind-melting storylines gave gamers an immersive experience that was more like being able to control what happens in a movie than it was playing a video game. It was that feeling of omniscience that drove gamers on. Well, that and some well-placed sex scenes. But they were placed in the game to help move the story along and progress the plot, right? No matter what niceties were present, no one can deny that Quantic Dreams scored a home run with this game.
Dead Space
The first game in this series is one of my favorite survival horror titles ever. But it isn’t just the fact that you have to battle your way through hordes of necromorphs to try and get what you need to fix your ship and leave the station that makes this game so amazing. It’s the fact that there is virtually no music present in the game anywhere. It is that desolate quality that helps to sell the hopelessness that Isaac is feeling. You are very much alone. Your compatriots are dead at the hands of the necros. But you have a mission to complete, and you must complete it without losing every last shred of humanity that you had going into it.
Silent Hill 2
This game was my introduction to psycho-thriller video games. Up until I played this game, I was completely unaware that there was a whole world of frightening games out there that I would one day grow to love. If it weren’t for the fog, the monsters, and the completely convoluted and jacked up plot of this game, I may never have known how awesome it was getting my brains scrambled while trying really hard not to get slaughtered by crazy, twitchy monsters born from the realm of nightmares. Oh, and then to find out that you were the bad guy all along? Just an awesome game.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
I remember the days of the Gamecube fondly. I played tons of games on it and enjoyed nearly all of them. But then my friend Shawn insisted that I play Eternal Darkness . He said it was the most messed up game he’d ever played. Finding it hard to believe that there was actually a messed up game on the Gamecube, I had to check it out. He was right. Eternal Darkness is one of the most insane and absolutely awesome titles that never comes up short on thrills.
P.T. (Silent Hills)
I can tell you without doubt that there has never been a game that made me as unsettled as this mere demo for the upcoming Silent Hills . I kid you not when I say that I was physically bothered by what I was seeing on the screen. I could feel my adrenaline surge at times and ultimately, that surge is what kept me playing it over and over again. Here’s hoping that Kojima’s breakup with Konami doesn’t keep the full game from coming out.