Everyone loves spooky games at Halloween. However, anyone looking for something different this witching season should put aside their Five Nights At Freddy’s and Outlast’s and take a butchers at this selection of twelve alternatives.
1. Rule of Rose
Rule of Rose was a game known in the west primarily for its controversy. I was always curious about this title, it had a Resident Evil/Silent Hill vibe. The odd story follows a young woman who is kidnapped by a group of cruel children called the Red Crayon Aristocrats and she is held aboard an abandoned airship.
The controversy surrounding the game was arguably more interesting than the game itself. Rumours in the press were rife: in France three deputies requested the game be banned and incorrectly stated that the goal of the game was to ‘rape, beat up and kill a little girl’, Italian magazine Panorama erroneously published an article which claimed the winner of the game was the player who buries a young girl alive. This poor press was enough to see the European release cancelled.
2. Gregory Horror Show
Gregory Horror Show was one of the lesser known PS2 games in Europe. The game sees our antagonist lost in the woods and forced to take refuge in a guest house called Gregory House, which is run by Gregory, a creepy mouse. In order to escape from the guest house you must steal the soul of each of the guests. This is achieved in various ways, stealth is important and finding each guest’s weakness is imperative. The cast of characters are as weird as the guest houses’ owner, from a Mexican cactus to a pink dinosaur nurse obsessed with taking blood. Gregory Horror Show is a unique game that really deserves some Halloween love.
3. Echo Night Beyond
The PlayStation 2 was a fantastic console for hidden gems, probably the last console to offer quite frankly so many unusual titles. Much like the aforementioned Gregory Horror Show, Echo Night Beyond was released in Europe, but I’ve no idea why. The Echo Night series didn’t have much of a following here so why pay for the translation and release? Still, I’m glad it did or I’d never have played it.
Echo Night Beyond is a first person adventure game aboard an abandoned research station on the moon. A ship crash has disturbed something and released spirits which now haunt the station. Far from fighting them you have to appease these sometimes angry spirits through decision making and puzzle solving. All with a creepy, eerie atmosphere.
4. Ripper
Back in the 90’s, FMV games were the way forward. However, for some reason, games like Night Trap are remembered as being the sort of games that represented these new interactive movies with games such as Tex Murphy and Psychic Detective being quietly forgotten. Ripper was another of these quality FMV titles.
Set in New York in the year 2040, the story follows Detective Vince Magnotta who is investigating murders by ‘The Ripper’ a Jack the Ripper copycat. The game is a FMV point-and-click affair but Rippers differs slightly to the usual FMV based games out in the mid-90’s, because this game has a fantastic cast. Paul Giamatti, John Rhys Davies, Karen Allen and none other than Christopher Walken himself as Vince Magnotta. This title is worth playing for the cast alone.
5. Harvester
Harvester’s tagline is ‘the most violent adventure game of all time’. It quite possibly isn’t considering the competition, but Harvester is full of disturbing imagery and was censored in Europe and even banned in Germany.
Harvester follows Steve Mason, who wakes up in the town of Harvest in 1958, a town with a very low population. Steve has amnesia and no memory of how he got to Harvest, whenever Steve tries to tell the anyone about his loss of memory they all act as if he is joking and all the townsfolk seem more like satirical stereotypes as opposed to real people. Another FMV based point-and-click affair, the undertones in Harvester can be quite disturbing. The game received fairly negative reviews when it was released in 1996 but these days has a cult following and currently has ‘mostly positive’ reviews on Steam.
6. The Path
When I first delved into the depths of indie gaming on PC, it was still very much in its infancy. The Path was one of the first games that caught my eye. It had a very heavy Tim Burton-esque art style to it and a unique look. The game is exploration based and only gives you one rule; ‘Go to grandmother’s house and stay on the path’. then again, rules are made to be broken.
You can explore the woods and find items, the game doesn’t rush you and doesn’t really give you any more information. You can meet ‘the wolf’ on your travels and he appears differently to each character dependent on which one you choose to play as. The game is more of an experience, a feeling of an art piece. The Path is worth giving a go if you like something experimental, it’s just a shame that The Path’s developer, Tale of Tales, is no longer making commercial video games.
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