When it comes to classic survival horror games, there is no other developer with the same pedigree as Capcom. They arguably invented the entire genre with the Famicom movie licensed game Sweet Home back in 1989. In 1995 Capcom would publish Clock Tower for the Super Famicom, with the series being developed by Human Entertainment. Its sequel, Clock Tower 2 would later be released internationally by ASCII; who would soon rebrand themselves as Agetec, as just Clock Tower. The international releases of the second and third Clock Towers followed the absolute explosion of the popularity of horror games, but would not be able to ride that wave themselves.
After Capcom's highly successful remake of their classic survival-horror hit Resident Evil 2 last year, fans have been asking for a remake of the third entry in the series. With REmake 3 feeling like an inevitability, rumors of the game started circulating around the web, and it was officially announced late last year alongside the multiplayer experience Resident Evil: Resistance. Although both games came bundled together in one package, this review focuses solely on the Resident Evil 3 Remake and not the multiplayer portion.
Released worldwide on April 3, 2020 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Resident Evil 3 is an action/survival-horror title. Developed and published by Capcom, it is a remake of their 1999 title Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. It was packaged alongside the online multiplayer game Resident Evil: Resistance. The game has received mostly positive reception and successful sales numbers.
While I certainly remember the hype behind The Blair Witch Project and the marketing campaign that led many to believe the film was found footage of real events, I never watched the movie back in the day and truthfully have still never seen it. However, as a huge fan of the survival-horror genre, I couldn't help but feel intrigued when the trailer for a new Blair Witch game was first shown last summer. Thanks to the game being easily available to play, I didn't wait long after its release to give it a try, and I was pleasantly surprised overall.
Death Mark is a horror visual novel released in June 2017 in Japan. It was released in the West on Halloween in 2018. This game was originally released on the Playstation Vita and had later released on the Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch in Japan. When the game came to the West, the game launched simultaneously on all three of those platforms, followed by a later PC release in April 2019. A few months after this PC release the title was rebranded and became Spirit Hunter: Death Mark. Due to the confusion this could cause, the original name is being used for this review.
Death Mark was developed by Experience Inc. an obscure Japanese developer that was founded after another obscure developer named Michaelsoft went bankrupt. Michaelsoft developed a couple of Wizardry dungeon crawling spinoffs in the mid-2000s on the Playstation 2 before they folded. Until Death Mark, Experience had also only made dungeon crawlers, with their most successful game being Demon Gaze for the Vita.
Posted on Nov 18th 2018 at 01:00:00 PM by (Pam) Posted under video, scary, horror
Halloween is over, but scary video games never go out of season. Through the years, games have scared me in many ways - there are creepy atmospheres, horrifying monsters, existential dread, and jump scares. Here's a look at 7 moments in video games that have scared, startled, or terrified me the most.
What are some of the moments that have scared you the most?
The World of Darkness is a trio of settings for supernatural and horror tabletop role playing games. It was originally developed as the background setting for the original 1991 release of Vampire: The Masquerade. The series gained some popularity in tabletop circles as an alternative to a rather scant selection between an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu and the Ravenloft setting of Dungeons and Dragons. While Ravenloft is medieval and Call of Cthulhu is set in the 1920's, the World of Darkness is mostly our own modern world with plenty of supernatural details added into the recipe, with some spinoffs set in various historical eras.
Vampire: The Masquerade is the most popular game set in the World of Darkness, but some other popular releases include Hunter: The Reckoning, Mage: The Ascension, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The naming convention becomes easy to identify quite quickly. Multiple video games have been released in the World of Darkness, including three focused on Vampire: The Masquerade. The first one was an action RPG developed by Nihilistic Software and released in 2000 called Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption. This game was a modest success, enough to greenlight a sequel. Troika Games developed this sequel, called Bloodlines, with Activision publishing both Redemption and Bloodlines, both exclusive to PC.
This October included some more back-to-back love for the PS4 as hosts, Rich (singlebanana) and Shawn (GrayGhost81), once again fired up their newly acquired systems and played through Supermassive Games interactive, survival horror title, Until Dawn. In this episode, the guys discuss the gameplay, the story, the characters, the game's graphics and environments, and whether this game truly offers the player as much freedom of "choice" as it seems to advertise. Which endings did the guys get and were they able to save the characters they liked most? What did they think about the game's ending(s)? Would they recommend this game to others? And what's with their love of snarky women? The answers to these questions and many more in this month's episode of the RF Generation Playcast. You won't want to miss it!
As always, we are happy to hear your thoughts on this game on our discussion page (linked below). We will respond to your comments and are always happy to discuss the game more. We hope you enjoy our show. Please be sure to rate and write a review of the show on iTunes to help us increase our listenership. Thanks for the listen!
Back in 2006, a game known as Prey was released for the Xbox 360 and PC. While it was met with positive critical reception, it has been mostly forgotten about over the 10 years since its release. Truth be told, I rented Prey back when it first came out, but I was very hasty to decide that I didn't like it and returned the game without investing much time into it. I have always wanted to go back and give the game a proper try since it contains some unique gameplay mechanics, but I have never owned a copy and likely wouldn't have gotten around to it even if I did.
Fast forward to June 2016, a reboot of Prey was shown at E3, and I was immediately intrigued by the trailer. It instantly reminded me of the original Half-Life, one of my all-time favorite games. It also contained glimpses of some very interesting gameplay mechanics that I was excited to experience for myself. Since this new game is not a proper sequel to the original, I had no qualms about jumping right in without playing the original. Make no mistake about it, this new Prey has virtually nothing in common with the original Prey from 2006, save for the name and a general sci-fi theme.
Galerians is considered a bit of a hidden game for Sony's first Playstation. The game was released in 1999 in Japan, and the following year in Western markets. It was developed by Polygon Magic, published by ASCII Entertainment, and carries the Crave logo for distribution. It seems to have been hidden as a result of the game's late timing on the system, coming just as the hype for Playstation 2 was in full gear. It's also a game that does little to advance the survival horror design formula, other than giving you a different story and weapons that fit the story.
Most people know that I am a huge fan of the survival-horror genre, particularly the Resident Evil series, so I was immediately intrigued when The Evil Within was announced back in 2013. This was a brand new survival-horror IP directed by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, and it promised to bring the genre back to its survival roots rather than the action-oriented approach of more recent horror games. While I still enjoyed more recent horror titles that have been given the label of 'action-horror,' the prospect of a modern title that recaptures what made the old-school games so unique and interesting was exactly what survival-horror fans had been hoping for.
Jump scares and gore have become commonplace in modern horror games and films, but Home: A Unique Horror Adventure avoids all of that to create a creepy journey full of revelations.
Welcome back to a world of horror and fright. You may remember last year when I did a review of a game (Thief: The Dark Project [http://www.rfgeneration.c...The-Dark-Project-2639.php]) that many would not consider when pondering their options to step into a good atmosphere that sends chills down your spine and squeals up your throat. The real "horror" came from the masterpiece's years spent in "Development Hell" where its focus was changed about a half dozen times. In contrast to a jumbled mess of juxtaposed design and experimentation that somehow worked brilliantly, this year I bring you D. Just "D." The letter "D." No more. No less. "D."
Old Man Stauf built a house, and filled it with his toys Six guests were invited one night, their screams the only noise Blood inside the library, blood right up the hall Dripping down the attic stairs, hey guests, try not to fall Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy, sick, AND MEAN!
The great PC puzzle game/interactive haunted house The 7th Guest, like it's distant cousin Myst, is considered largely responsible for the then expensive CD-Rom technology taking off with consumers at large. Considered an instant classic upon release over 17 years ago and selling over 2 million copies, it still holds a nostalgic sway over those of us who were there at the dawn of 'multimedia'. Consisting of brain teasers and devious puzzles, where even learning the rules of the game are a part of the challenge, gameplay in The 7th Guest has aged much better than it's PC counterparts. And while the pre-rendered 3D environments and early FMV work are comically dated now, the incredible musical score and attention to mood and menace help keep the game worth playing even in the days of HD and Blu-Ray.
I have quite a history with this game, a game with quite a development history all it's own, and both are horror stories befitting the games' own darker themes. First up is mine:
As a gamer growing up, I was very fortunate in that my dad was an early adopter in the PC market. Once we had our fancy CD-Rom installed, we had to have something to play, and the magazines sure talked up the showpiece The 7th Guest. Even to this day, I think the only games my dad ever bought for himself were really just to check out hardware. Worked for me! So, my friend Ben and I were soon up night after night, trying to conquer each devilish puzzle, entranced by the graphics and video, and the haunting music echoing in my living room. By the end of the summer, we were stuck on the infamous 'microscope' puzzle of Reversi/Othello. We thought the worst part of the game was pitting two 15 year-olds against a computer AI on Reversi with the difficulty set a notch above "divide by zero and then display the mathematical properties of a black hole on a pocket calculator while counting to infinity twice." We thought the game's most evil moment had to be past us.
We were wrong.
One room left, the mansion's attic. Where a summer's worth of head-splitting mind-bogglers solved would finally culminate, one puzzle that had to be easier than that stupid Reversi game. Almost finished.
The door wouldn't open. Okay...maybe we missed something. Another puzzle? Nope. We tried everything. We went back and played every puzzle, even restarted and re-saved. No attic access.
We were stumped, frustrated, and driven to extremes. That's right, we called the 1-800 tip line in the instructions. Ben and I, the guys who didn't even use the in-game hint system. We had too.
After a detailed (and expensive) conversation explaining where we were stuck, I heard a knowing sigh from the voice on the receiver. We had a defective game. A copy from a print run with a known glitch that keep the game locked from the finale. Seriously. We'd have to mail in the second disc and a copy of our proof of purchase, and they'd mail us a working disc. In four to six weeks. Seriously.
Worse, dad couldn't find the original box. We had no proof of purchase, and so we were completely out of luck. Say what you will about how online patching allows developers to kick games out the door unfinished, back then it would have kept two teenagers from building an assault robot in metal shop and destroying Virgin Interactive and most of the UK. Just kidding: my school didn't have a metal shop. I just played too much Battletech.
Years later, I bought another copy and tried to install it on our newer computer, only to be hit with DOS driver errors that kept it from booting. I wouldn't play the game again for over a decade, and I've still never gone through it again, only seeing the ending on youtube.
The game is/was truly evil.
But my hate/love experience with The 7th Guest must pale in comparison to co-creator Graeme Devine's.
Mr. Devine is truly one of my gaming developer heroes. The guy went from porting Pole Position for Atari when he was 16(!) to helping develop Quake III Arena, Doom 3, Age of Empires 3, and Halo Wars. The guy was lead designer/programmer/producer for more than 40 titles on NES, Genesis, Gameboy, PC, Amiga Commodore 64, Atari ST and standalone arcade games. If I could take anyone in gaming culture out to a steakhouse, Graeme would be at the top of the list.
He and Rob Landeros formed Trilobyte and created The 7th Guest, and became immediately successful. However, the co-founders each had different views on where to take the sequel. The story goes that Graeme walked over to the FMV filming for 11th Hour and
"There the actress stood, dressed in black tights, with a spiked black collar girdling her neck and no clothing on her upper body. In her right hand she held a silver metallic chain attached to a German shepherd. Devine walked onto the set, and as Rob Landeros remembers, "You could clearly tell he was concerned about the content."
Landeros was interested in immediately pushing the content for more adult oriented material. "I told Rob, 'This is just not a comfortable direction,'" explains Devine, who says he "thought about what I was going to tell my wife we were making at Trilobyte."
The divide between the two creators ended up bringing about the fall of the company, as detailed in Geoff Keighley's "Behind the Games" feature:
And what began as a promising game company on the bring of new technology dissolved from creative differences, financial mismanagement, and hubris. Not every scary game has an even scarier backstory.
So this Halloween, fire up the emulator and give Trilobyte's success a whirl. Just remember to get a patched version, or you'll face a real horror story.
It's October again! And that means horror gaming! While noiseredux is really going above and beyond the call of duty with his excellent blog, with an ongoing featurette for this month covering the console and handheld world of horror, I figured I'd offer him some backup with another entry on that most terrifying of genres.
Extermination has the honor of being the first survival horror title released for Sony's PlayStation 2, beating out Silent Hill 2 by several months and Resident Evil: Code Veronica's PS2 port by just two weeks with its March 8, 2001, NTSC-J release date. The title was published by Sony Computer Entertainment and created by a team of developers that included several creators of Resident Evil. Reminiscent of the genre's flagship title and games like Carrier, the game has also drawn comparisons to the films The Thing and The Abyss.
The story revolves around Dennis Riley, a Sergeant in the USMC Special Forces Recon. Riley is one of a team being sent to infiltrate Fort Stewart, a secret research base in the Antarctic which formerly housed some of the United States' nuclear stockpile. With the end of the Cold War, the installation was converted into a research & development facility. As Riley's team approaches Fort Stewart via airplane in an ice storm, they receive a distress call from the base requesting it be the target of an air strike. But before they can respond, the plane malfunctions and crash lands, spreading the marines across the base. Riley and his combat buddy Roger Grigman are then forced to sneak into the base and meet up with the team.
While the Marines in the game come off as ballsy bad asses, the dialogue ranges from decent to absolutely terrible, and the quality of voice acting fluctuates throughout. Riley's voice is particularly bad, and at times he sounds like a whiny high school kid. The subplot involving his dead friend Andrew and Andrew's girlfriend Cindy also feels tacked on and unnecessary.
Riley must navigate the facility, facing strange mutations and living water puddles with his modular SPR-4, or Special Purpose Rifle. That weapon represents one of the most interesting elements of the entire game: instead of finding new guns to use, the player instead switches out attachments on the fly, so your weapon can always suit your situation if you have the parts. And those parts range from a sniper scope to an underslung grenade launcher, a forward grip with flashlight, enemy detector, night vision scope, and much more. The player can also switch between single round and 3-round-burst firing modes.
The ammunition system is also innovative: an infinite amount of ammo is found in dispensers through the facility, but only a limited amount can be carried, based on the number of magazines Riley happens to be carrying. If you want more ammunition, find more magazines scattered throughout the base. But the dispensers will not give ammunition for the variety of modular weapons to attach to the SPR-4, so once you're out of grenade rounds, shotgun shells, napalm juice, or whatever else you're using, you're out.
Adding to the action emphasis, the game features the use of a laser target, four years before Resident Evil 4 would implement its usage. And while The Ring: Terror's Realm predates Extermination with its laser sight by slightly over six months, Extermination offers far better control. Players can aim in third person perspective, moving the pointer around until it passes over a creature, generally auto-aiming at that target. But those that want to go for more precise shots can also enter a first person perspective which doesn't feature auto-aim. Unfortunately Riley can't move when his weapon is raised, and the sensitivity is too low to make it a truly effective tactic in close corners, but it's a great means for popping enemies from far off. The game also features two knife buttons, resulting in a slash or a stab, which don't require the weapon to be raised.
While this sounds like a good design on paper, it does suffer from some serious flaws. First, enemies are bullet sponges. Though that's not so bad considering there's ultimately infinite ammunition, dispensers are few and far between. To make up for this, enemies have glowing weak points that can be hit to drop them faster. Unfortunately they were designed to be hard to hit, and the third-person auto-aim feature does not automatically target them, making it difficult to kill some of the tougher varieties of mutants at close range. Aiming with the knife can also be difficult, so slashing minor enemies at one's heels can be a pain.
The camera also doesn't help as it can't be effectively manipulated, so the player can't swing it quickly to look around the corner or see an enemy right behind him. Instead, the player must turn and then either raise their weapon or press a button to center the camera behind them, wasting precious time.
The game's health system is also interesting, though cumbersome. The player has health, based on a 100-point numerical value, and an Infection rate. Every time an enemy hits the player, their infection goes up while their health goes down. And most healing items will not lower one's infection rate. Instead, the player must use vaccines to bring down infection, and the field-use variety aren't very common. If Riley's infection rate hits 100%, his max health decreases from 100 to 60, he takes damage over time, his character model changes, he starts taking damage from sources that previously didn't hurt him, and he can only be cured by using the MTS vaccine, which can only be administered at MTS beds...so if you wander too far from one and become infected, you won't make it back.
Extermination also features an unusual save system, revolving around battery power. Forget the ink ribbons of yesteryear, save stations now require batteries, which can be recharged at special power stations similar to the ammunition dispenser. And larger batteries will be found throughout the facility, so don't sweat saving. It's also a good idea to save often, as the game doesn't allow continues. Die, and you must reload.
Extermination is a decent game with some solid ideas that never really rises to greatness. Horror fans who enjoy such titles as Resident Evil, Carrier, Dino Crisis, The Thing, or non-horror games like Syphon Filter and Metal Gear Solid will likely appreciate this game more than those looking for experiences similar to Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, or Haunting Ground. It's something I would recommend to players who have experience with the genre's big names and are looking for something more obscure. And while its ideas aren't always successful, they are interesting enough to warrant a look. Another nice perk is the game's low price tag: not including shipping, it can be found on eBay for as little as $2.
For those interested, here's the introduction to the game:
