So Halloween is upon us and maybe you have parties to go to or like me you live in the middle of nowhere hours from anything and need something to occupy your time. Well never fear I have a list of the top survival horror games to zone out to for the next week. Top of the list is Resident Evil 4, some people can deny it all they want but it is the best Resident Evil. The early resident evils were slow and looked funky; although with recent remasters they may have improved dramatically. Resident Evil 5 is alright but kind of goes up and down a lot and I still can’t bring myself to try 6 or Raccoon City again. Dying Light is another interesting zombie game with an emphasis on survival. While it was very broken at first I’m glad to say most of that has been fixed by now and the game is really good. While some parts of the plot don’t make perfect sense it is still worth a try.
Next is the Fatal Frame series which emphasizes Japanese horror. Recently a new version was released on the Wii U and while I have not played it myself it seems to have a lot of promise. Also in the line of Japanese horror is the game Kuon; a PlayStation 2 game that may be a little hard to find or it may be in the digital library. Either way it is worth a play, play as exorcist sisters who brave a haunted mansion in order to find their father. Of course though they end up finding evil spirits and an evil ritual; both Kuon and Fatal Frame offer plenty of jump scares and evil spirit surprises.
Of course if you are in to more gore I have a couple of recent titles. Until Dawn offers all the gore, mystery and suspense you could hope for and it doesn’t look to bad either. Truly embodying the concept of the theatrical video game it is more like a horror movie with the ability to control it than anything; you just have to make it past all the talking. Corpse Party, the series in general, is also a good gore fest if you can stomach it… that and the endless dialogue. I would suggest starting as early as possible in the series in order to get the full experience but sometimes you just have to do what you can.
If you want more action though you could always try Dead Space. Personally I prefer Dead Space 2 but I have heard people argue for number 1 and even number 3 as well. If fighting hordes of aliens or zombies isn’t you thing though you can try Silent Hill. More of a psychological horror the original couple of Silent Hill games are still an easy win. Personally I always liked Shattered Memories on the Wii because of the psych profile feature but it is kind of hit or miss. If PT still existed I would suggest that but hopefully around this time next year we’ll have Alison Road and maybe even a new Jason game.
On the lighter side there is always MediEvil, the goofy game where you play as the undead Sir Daniel in order to save the land from evil. With controls and puzzles much like a Zelda game you must use whatever you can to save the day…including your own arm if need be. A more obvious choice is the Ghostbusters video game but I suggest playing on the Wii. Yes the PS3 and 360 versions would look better and have more content; however the problem with saves being deleted on the PS3 and 360 versions were never fixed and it happens a lot. Also for you trophy hunters, the servers shut down years ago so the platinum is impossible to get ever again.
While I’m sure there are plenty of other horror style games, like Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, Ghost N’ Goblins and god forbid Dead Island that people could name these are my personal suggestions. To each their own but I know from experience how great most these games are.
