As I was filling up my shopping cart with digital copies of old X-COM games to inevitably lose at and the wonderful Moonstone: A Hard Day's Knight (a game that routinely fetches second hand prices I can only describe as offensive on Amiga or PC) while browsing GOG in the hope of purchasing some Good … Continue reading Home is where the horror is
Category: _Survival Horror
You are being watched. You are being judged.
Hungry Ghosts opens not with a context-free FMV montage of epic events yet to come nor an attention grabbing intro neatly ending as your own adventure begins but something far more ominous - a simple text message addressing you directly, warning of all the difficult decisions ahead that cannot be undone. This then seamlessly drifts … Continue reading You are being watched. You are being judged.
Second Siren lucky?
The first Siren was a divisive experience; praised by some, loathed by others, and I... well, it's probably best you read about it for yourself. But whether you view the original as an unflinchingly brutal nightmare played out within a dense tangle of plot or nothing more than a deeply unfair game loosely attached to a string of indecipherable … Continue reading Second Siren lucky?
FFScinating
Until a few days ago I hadn't played Siren - or Forbidden Siren as us PAL gamers called it - since it was new. Isn't that weird? I love horror games, and I love the PlayStation 2 - why wouldn't I have played this since 2004? Ah. I hadn't played Siren for almost two decades … Continue reading FFScinating
Pray or prey?
I really wasn't expecting the overlooked and often negatively reviewed Dark Messiah, known in PAL regions as Hellnight, a game I painfully remember passing on for all of five pounds, fifteen years ago (complete UK copies now seem to be worth at least ninety), to be as close in spirit as it is to Warp's … Continue reading Pray or prey?
Devotion
[Before we go any further: If you've ever enjoyed any horror title of any sort you really must buy this game. You'll love it. Now then, about this article: You can't talk about Devotion in any meaningful way without also addressing many of its key plot points, so while I won't gleefully go out of … Continue reading Devotion
A small dose of the G-virus
Resident Evil 2's availability on Tiger's "Still better than Tapwave's Zodiac " Game.com isn't the huge surprise it may initially appear to be: Tiger already had a long history of acquiring big game licenses and releasing their own portable reinterpretation (everything from the reasonably doable Altered Beast and Gauntlet to the wild ambition of LCD … Continue reading A small dose of the G-virus
A house of the dead
It's worth making this clear before we delve any further: Yes, this is that Resident Evil running on Nintendo's Famicom. And yes, it's about as official a product as a gold-effect "Rolex" briefly seen hanging from the inside of a snap-close briefcase held by a man who only accepts cash and will definitely not be there … Continue reading A house of the dead
Resident Evil’s other prequel
There are no doubt bacterial growths living ten miles under the surface of Mars that are well aware Sweet Home is the game responsible for setting out much of Resident Evil's successful survival horror framework by now: The tension-building creaky door animations forcing players to briefly live through the eyes of these unlucky souls, the … Continue reading Resident Evil’s other prequel
That is not groovy
If there's one thing that's always the same in every Resident Evil game, it's change. Capcom's survival horror series has proven time and time again it is prepared to try absolutely anything, from intensely terrifying single player horror to co-op combo-scoring action, and whether these attempts have ended up being resounding successes or well-intentioned cock-ups … Continue reading That is not groovy