Horror and Dark-Themed Games
 

Greetings, everyone. Brian here. Pleased to meet you.

I've been playing adventure games now for a long, long, long time -- my first was Zork 1 back when was 12. At 33, I've played a lot of 'em.

I took a long, long break from adventure gaming, and I'm pleased to see the genre still somewhat well represented, although mostly through the efforts of smaller publishing houses. I suppose we'll never see the likes of the Glory Days again, but hey -- there are obviously still great games out there to play.

I am a particular fan of horror-themed games (or at least supernaturally-themed) games, and I have picked up some recent ones -- Indigo Prophecy, Black Mirror, Dark Fall, Lights Out, etc.

I'd be curious to know your favorites in this particular genre, which seems to suit adventure gaming well.

My thanks for your kind attention and your answers. I await them eagerly.

Brian

Small Edit: Recent releases, in particular, are welcomed, but of course feel free to discuss your favorites. Being a Lovecraft fan, two of mine are the classic Infocom Lurking Horror and the stellar modern text adventure Anchorhead. :D

Welcome to the AG forums, Brian :)

Personally I've not played many horror AG's, but I'm pretty certain there are others lurking around these parts who have.

Sanitarium and the Gabriel Knight games are must-plays, IMHO. Both are delicious forays into psychological horror.

Bad Day on the Midway is another interestingly freakish game, although it might be difficult to track down a copy as it wasn't a common seller. (I'm also not sure it entirely qualifies as an adventure game, although it's closest to being an adventure than to any other genre, IMHO.)

Peace & Luv, Liz

"Zork-Nemesis"- A dark, creepy, and humorless departure from the rest of the "Zork" series, it's definitely not for the weak of constitution.
"Morpheus"- A good combination of SciFi and ghost story featuring some truly reprehensible characters and great vacation spots.

It's a pleasure to meet you, Brian. Welcome to the AG forum.

ScottMate

Still Life was very sadistic, from the way the victims were killed and the inclusion of the cookie puzzle :frusty:

I agree with Zork Nemisis, very dark, and not at all like the old Zorks.

The best horror games I've played were first person shooters like Realms of the Haunting, Undying and System Shock 2.

The japanese games in this genre are the most impressive imo. Fatal Frame, Forbidden Siren, Kuon... Pity they've only been released on the PS2.

Don't forget about Silent Hill series. I've never played them though cause I'm a scaredy cat

What about Shadow Of The Comet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Comet

I don't have much to add, so I'll just cast another vote for Sanitarium and the Gabriel Knight series. They're dated, but definitely must-plays.

If you're into Lovecraft, you might look for the various lovecraftian games that Infogrames did: Shadow of the Comet (which samIamsad mentioned), Prisoner of Ice (a follow-up to the former) and the first Alone in the Dark.

We also had a similar thread a few weeks ago; you may find other suggestions there. :)

Hey, a fellow old-school gamer!!! Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

lol, seriously, welcome to the best adventure forums in DA WOILD!

Have you ever played the Shivers games? The first one's set in a very atmospheric haunted museum, the second in a recently-deserted small town. Somewhat similar, thematically to the Dark Fall games, but much more vibrant colors, and moodier music.

There's a new action-y game I see getting good reviews, called F.E.A.R., but haven't played it personally. If you don't mind action, I'd add Alone in the Dark 4, The Thing, American McGee's Alice, and Clive Barker's Undying to the list of games you might like.

Other adventure games I found creepy include Bad Mojo, Post Mortem, Dracula: Resurrection, and some parts of John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles.

And to round out the list, if you don't mind some satirical horror, try Ghost Master. It's like the Sims mixed with the movie The Frighteners. Very amusing, but challenging as well.

Don't forget Phantasmagoria, and if you like Lovecraft games, then there's also Prisoner Of Ice :)

Might help: http://justadventure.com/articles/Ho...or_Top_10.shtm

If you like puzzles mixed with horror than try 11th Hour and Ripper. Ripper actually has some famous actors in it (Christopher Walken for instance), lots of vulgarity, and tons of disturbing scenes. Just keep in mind that with both games, the puzzles will disturb you as well with their difficulty.

I'm not sure if you can tolerate action games in the form of third person shooting, but if you can, then you'll definitely want to play Nocturne and Blair Witch Project Episode 1: Rustin Parr. The later is especially good at scaring the shit out of you and creeping you out.

Lastly...if you don't mind first person shooters...then you want to play Undying and Aliens vs Predator (the human mission). Both of those have several sequences that will put you on the edge.

If you can find Ripper at a decent price then I would be very interested to know.
Every time I see this game on ebay it sells for around £20:crazy:

I have been wanting it for ages but I'm not prepared to pay that much for a used game:frown:

I thought that was a comedy myself. ;)

Morelike..Don´t find it a bit scary..

All my favorite have been posted already, but there you go:

Darkfall, Black Mirror, Sanitarium, Zork Nemesis, Shadow of the Comet, Gabriel Knight 2.

Noctropolis isn't exactly horror-themed, but it's dark-comics-themed, and it's brilliant.

This is a great thread for Halloween, lol.....oh, be right back....

(wanders off to his dark kitchen alone, sans flashlight, only to find a chainsaw-wielding maniac hiding in his fridge. The rest ain't pretty...)

Wow. :)
 

Lots of responses, thank you all!

I love computer and video games in general, so I've played many of the aforementioned suggestions -- Fatal Frame, Silent Hill series, etc. I love FPS games, third-person action, pure "traditional" adventure games. Heck, I just love games in general.

I've got F.E.A.R., although I'm not sure how well the story is going to play out. The action is great, though.

Finished Indigo Prophecy this week. I'll post a full analysis of that as soon as I can. Moved on to Still Life on the adventure side of things.

Some of my favorite scary games from the past:
1. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. Whooohoo! :D One of my faves.
2. The Resident Evil Series, which actually has some genuine adventure game puzzle solving thrown in on occasion. And the bad acting is part of the fun!
3. Silent Hill 2. A deeply affecting game, with a wonderfully dark story and some genuine emotional heft. Fantastic music, too.
4. Fatal Frame. It sounds totally lame -- take your magic camera into the spooky old mansion to find out what happened to your brother. Well, you'll scream like a little girl the first time those ghoulies, ghosties and long-legged beasties start a-chasin' you! And yes, it does have adventure elements.
5. Lurking Horror. A text adventure, appropriate for a Lovecraftian game. Was the first game I ever played that I thought successfully channeled the HPL vibe. Superceded only by:
6. Anchorhead. If you think text adventures cant' be scary -- you are wrong. Oh, so wrong. As much as I enjoyed LH back in its day, Anchorhead is the epitome of the Lovecraftian horror game in its purest form -- text only.
7. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. An RPG with lots of bugs, now patched mostly thanks to a fan patch. But there's a haunted house scene in the game that I found absolutely bone-chilling. Also has many elements lifted from traditional adventure games.
8. The Suffering. Somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Surprisingly disturbing and enjoyable. Very action-oriented.
9. Darkfall. Usually I hate third-person adventures, but this one was surprisingly effective. A good story, fiendish (at times) puzzles. Lots of note-taking involved.
10. Half-Life series. Believe it or not, there are some great horror moments in HL1+2. In two, there's a scene where you're blasting reanimated corpses (complete with brain-sucking aliens) in a cemetery while a mad man of the cloth gleefully cackles near you, blowing them away with a shotgun and screaming over and over, "COME! COME TO REDEMPTION MY CHILDREN!," etc.

I could think of a lot more. And will later.

Games I wish I'd played (and still might):)

- Realms of the Haunted
- Gabriel Knight 2+3. The reason I didn't play these was not because of a lack of desire but because of poor timing. Both times the games came out, I didn't have a computer up to snuff to play them. By the time I got one, they were not widely available.

Thanks for the great adventure game tips. I managed to find both Dracula games in a single package at EB games for $1.99 (ha!), and I got Ghost Master for $3.99.

Keep those suggestions coming.

Brian

Speaking as someone who finally got a copy of Realms of the Haunting a couple of days ago, buy it. What little I've played so far is wonderful :).

I think all my favourites have been mentioned. Only two are missing (or I'm reading wrong): Amber and Lighthouse, very good and clear influences for the Dark Fall games.

Well never forgot to add following PC Games in Horror Gener.

1.) Erevos
2.) Dracula
3.) Vampire Diaries
4.) Ghostly Desires
5.) Ghosts starring Christopher Lee
6.) Resident Evil 1 + 2 + 3


Also brought "F.E.A.R" yesterday which looks Horror atleast the Directors interview and the making gives me creep. Its FPS not an adventure game, a FPS set in atmosphere of the movie "The Ring" LOL :D

I am sure there are many other strong Horror games as well. I will check my list and will update here soon.

Haven't gotten into the horror game genre. I might buy Vampire bloodlines and see what I have been missing.

Shadow of the Comet is THE best horror adventure, based on Lovecraft or not :)
Then there are

Dark Eye - great interactive novel based on Poes' stories
Gabriel Knight 2 - classical werewolfish horror
Personal Nightmare and Waxworks - both from Horrorsoft (the name talks for itself)
Alone in the Dark - the original one, not the lame sequels
Clock Tower - the one for SNES which I saw is what you need from original japanise horror story
Darkseed - something from Lovecraft, something from Giger.. Just dn't bother with the sequel
Esctatica - one of the best survival horror games I saw

I cant believe we nearly sold it at a Carboot sale.

I'm supriced nobody has mentioned Cosmology of Kyoto yet.

NcroManiac
I'm supriced nobody has mentioned Cosmology of Kyoto yet.

Wonderful, exiting historical tour mixed with national fairy tales.. But not horror :)
Still one of my most favourite games, and I'm surprised somebody mentioned it :)

Deamons, Ghosts, Death, Darkness....

Well, historical or not It's dark enough for me at least :)

And I agree, one of the best and most overlooked Adventure Expiriences of all time.

I've just purchased Silent Hill 2 and have been playing for the last few days and my god is it good. Graphics hold up surprisingly well for a three year old game and the realtime lighting is just supurb (Without straining your graphics card either). The scenarios are very creepy and some are outright disturbing

Spoiler:

The first encounter with Pyramid head was very creepy...

Unfortunately I'm getting a lot of graphical errors and am experiencing quite a few crashes resulting in my computers having to be rebooted multiple times to get the game to run again. (If anyone knows a solution the these problems please let me know. I have a Radion 9600 which I'm going to soon upgrade to a X850XT, and from what I've read the patches don't seem to solve my problems...

But problems aside a truly great game, even though I'm not that far into it yet.

I agree with that, loved it. It was the only game I've ever enjoyed playing twice.

Anyway, how about,

I have no mouth and I must scream.
Dark Seed 1
Dark Seed 2
The Dark Half
Harvester

and I'll say RAMA for those of us who cannot add up.:D

cookie puzzle
 

Hi
What's so sadistic about the cookie puzzle?

Because those who have never baked anything had a bit of a hard time with it.:)

What's baking *Confused*

Is that what they do before it gets to the supermarket.

You have this thing in your kitchen called an oven....

Spoiler:

And the bakery department at the supermarket has one too! :P

Is that like the Microwave. :)

What's a microwave? And how can you see it if it's a micro wave??? Do you need to use a microscope? :crazy:

And, we mustn't forget "the first adventure game to be directly inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft", Necronomicon (well, that's what it says on the box! :shifty: ) Stormy New England village setting, macabre atmosphere, biomechanical devices, references to ancient horrors... The ashes/herbs/gemstone puzzle is pretty chilling. Warning! Contains annoying unmappable maze near the end, and a very aggravating final timed sequence which can only be solved by trial and error! Ack! :shifty:

I love horror games, and my favorites are the old, text-adventure games like personal nighmare, veil of darkness and uninvited. Oh, and the Michael Zerbo text games Child Murderer, Severed Heads and Inner Demons. For the most recent games, I enjoyed 7th Guest/11th Hour, Dark Fall and Dark Fall: Lights Out, Jack the Ripper and Still Life. I didn't like Black Mirror that much though...

I actually had to read the walkthrough just for THAT cooking part.

Shivers, Silent Hill 2, Dead Space was pretty scary, but I quit playing it because it annoyed me towards the end. Dark Fall. Pac Man because being chased through a maze by ghosts sends my aggression level through the roof.

Dracula have several games. I personally only played the fmv adventure game "Dracula unleashed" and i loved it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBrg95kCX6U

4) Isn't Ghostly desires supposed to be a softporn title ?

5) Ghosts is more of a documentary than a true adventure game. You go around the house clicking on stuffs to hear and see some ghost clips or stuffs. It's kind of boring.

Harvester is kind of sick and twisted horror adventure/action game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpsQpnMLf6U

Not F.E.A.R but how about "The fear" ? :devil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Qob-DIYlQ