Horror Games - ranked by preference

Release Date: January 11, 2005 (NA)
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Action - Horror

Resident Evil 4 was a drastic change in the Resident Evil series, switching from a slow-paced adventure-style gameplay to a much faster, action-oriented gameplay. The result was what some call the best game to come out in the last decade. I wouldn't quite go that far, but it is easily in the top 5. Running from a man with a sack on his head wielding a chainsaw is the part I remember most from this game...The anxiety I felt was nothing like I felt in previous entries in the franchise's history...And the fact that it played like a dream only helped matters. If you haven't played it yet, do so. Without exaggerating, this is one of the best games not just on the Gamecube, but of all-time.

Release Date: January 31, 1999 (NA)
Publisher: Konami
Developer: KCET
Genre: Adventure - Survival Horror

After Resident Evil was released, a ton of sub-par survival horror clones were published by various companies....Then came Silent Hill, which at first glance may look like a Resident Evil clone, but Resident Evil is like Sesame Street compared to Silent Hill. This game is dark, demented, and relies on psychology to scare the player rather than cheap tricks like a dog jumping through a window. Many people think that Silent Hill 2 is the best game in the series...Personally, I prefer the original and would gladly journey through Silent Hill in the shoes of Harry Mason again today.

Release Date: February 17, 2010 (NA)
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Developer: Access Games
Genre: Adventure - Horror

Deadly Premonition is best described as a sandbox-style horror game, where you've got free roam of a quiet, little town known as Greenvale. I absolutely love this game, despite my rating for it. It's just so charming and interesting from beginning to end...It's hard, even with its faults, not to love it. The problem is that it does have faults, a decent number of them, most in the combat department, and that bogs the game down a bit, hence my rating for it....But I still love it, faults and all.

Release Date: November 17, 2008 (NA)
Publisher: Valve Software
Developer: Valve Software
Genre: Shooter - First-Person

Left 4 Dead is a first-person shooter with a focus on group survival in a zombie-infested city. Your goal, with three other players (whether they be friends, strangers, or the computer) is to have all four group members surviving by the end of each hour-long scenario. The game is fun enough when playing through solo with computer allies, but it really shines when you get three pals to play with you and you can enjoy trying to survive together. There isn't much of a story here - four scenarios about an hour long each - but it's fun enough to play where it doesn't need one to keep you coming back for more.

Release Date: August 12, 2014 (NA)
Publisher: 7780s Studio
Developer: 7780s Studio
Genre: Adventure - Horror

P.T. stands for "Promotional Teaser" or "Playable Teaser" (I've seen it listed as both, so I'll name both) and is called a demo...But in my opinion, it's not. Demos generally are a demonstration of a game with no end or goal, where as P.T. is a complete, albeit short, game and serves as a very good promotional tool to get folks ready for the new Silent Hill game with Hideo Kojima at the helm. It's been a long time since a game created this kind of creepy atmosphere in my opinion. If Silent Hills is only a fraction of what this amazing free game is in terms of scares and atmosphere, then I think the Silent Hill franchise will finally regain much of its lost popularity.

Release Date: July 1, 1999 (JP)
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Adventure - Survival Horror

I'm usually in the minority when I say this, but what the heck, I'll say it anyway - I prefer Dino Crisis to the first three Resident Evil games. I like Resident Evil and all, but when you take the Resident Evil formula, get rid of the slow-as-dirt zombies and replace them with lightning quick dinosaurs, it just makes for a more exciting game to play in my opinion. Yeah, the story and characters are kind of corny, but maybe that's where the game charmed me. I like corn.

Release Date: November 22, 2010 (NA)
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Genre: Action

This stand-alone expansion to Red Dead Redemption proves that zombies don't always make everything better. The game itself is just fine, but many of the missions feel less fun and more like a chore. That said, it is neat finding and obtaining the horses of the apocalypse and discovering all of the new cryptid creatures in the game, like the sasquatch. For a stand-alone title it's still quite an enjoyable experience, but the sometimes groan-inducing missions can take away from it a tad.

Release Date: March 13, 2012 (NA)
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Vatra
Genre: Adventure - Survival Horror

I have mixed feelings about Silent Hill: Downpour. I like it more than a lot of critics seemed to, but I also came across plenty of glitches during my time playing it...some were helpful like the glitch that causes enemies to flee from you, and others irritating like the glitch I got that left a path locked in the subway after I had unlocked all routes. Also, I've got to add that I HATE the "void" enemy. Whenever I had to deal with those sections, I just groaned. All that aside, I do enjoy this game as a whole...But I can't help but feel like it could have been better.

Release Date: July 31, 2003 (JP)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Deep Space
Genre: Adventure - Horror

I like this game. A lot. Hungry Ghosts is a first-person survival horror game - but not your typical one. You're equipped with a spear and a crossbow and make your way into the underworld to encounter ghastly creatures. Having a spear to stab oncoming enemies in the face is kind of fun. It's also fun using the spear to shatter any and all breakable objects in your path to see what you find inside. It's also interesting investigating things as you come across them, too. If you're into survival horror, then this is definitely a PS2 game worth importing from the Land of the Rising Sun.

Release Date: September 8, 2010 (NA)
Publisher: Frictional Games
Developer: Frictional Games
Genre: Adventure - Horror

Amnesia is a great example of a horror game without the need for a combat system or guns or whatever. In Amnesia, you fight by running away and hiding until the coast is clear. Taking away a means to fight back adds so much to the game in terms of anxiety, and having very limited resources in terms of using light to both see around you and replenish your sanity helps add to the atmosphere, too. It's well worth playing through for anyone interested in horror games.

Release Date: January 19, 2006 (JP)
Publisher: Atlus
Developer: Punchline
Genre: Adventure - Horror

Rule of Rose is very flawed in the gameplay department...Mostly in the way of combat. The combat is clunky and unresponsive. One could argue that since Jennifer, the main character, is a timid young girl that probably fights similar to how the game controls, the unresponsive combat is acceptable. If that was the case, I get it, but the unresponsiveness of controls in combat make it feel more like poor coding in development rather than a planned aspect to the game engine. That complaint out of the way, I love the story found in this game. It's dark and psychological with plenty of little subtle touches...And I absolutely loved the ending. There's a reason that this game has garnered a cult following - what it lacks in gameplay, it makes up for in story.

Release Date: September 14, 1995 (JP)
Publisher: Human Entertainment
Developer: Human Entertainment
Genre: Adventure - Point-and-Click - Horror

Clock Tower is a point-and-click horror game that is easily one of my favorite point-and-click titles that I've ever played. The game does an absolutely fantastic job of creating a creepy atmosphere...Like entering a steamy bathroom, opening the curtain, finding a hanging dead body in the shower...And the whole time, you can see the expressions in the face of Jennifer (the girl you control) change to worry and horror. If you're into horror games, this is a must-play title from the days before Resident Evil made horror games "cool."

Release Date: March 22, 1996 (JP)
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Adventure - Survival Horror

Resident Evil wasn't the first survival horror game, but it was definitely the first one to take horror games mainstream. The game itself is pretty fun to play, but as a fan of B-movies and lame acting, I can't help but love the live-action cut scenes found within the game as well. Fans of the action-based Resident Evil 4 and 5 may not appreciate the earlier games in the series as much, but this fellow is a pretty big fan.

Release Date: August 13, 1998 (JP)
Publisher: Agetec
Developer: From Software
Genre: Adventure - Horror

Echo Night is kind of a point-and-click adventure, but with the ability to walk around freely...Imagine a first-person style of gameplay found in the Walking Dead, and you've kind of got it. The downside to the game is how it controls...After playing through from beginning to end, I still felt uncomfortable with how to look up and down, a necessary aspect of the game. On top of that, the story, while interesting and different, is not particularly good. It kind of feels like a B-movie, which I love, but others may groan when playing. As far as horror goes, you spend most of the game on a haunted cruise ship, turning lights on as you enter each hallway or room, since bad ghosts avoid the light (but good ghosts have no problem in it, I guess). It's really not very scary, though sometimes you will find yourself frantically looking for a light switch or an exit to the room that you're in to prevent yourself from being murdered by a malicious ghost that appears. Overall, Echo Night is a decent game - not great, but far from bad. If you're a fan of point-and-click adventure games or games with a horror theme to them, I'd definitely recommend that you check this out.

Release Date: November 30, 1999 (NA)
Publisher: SNK
Developer: Sacnoth
Genre: RPG - Horror

Koudelka is a unique blend of survival horror-style gameplay with random, turn-based battles and a leveling up system found in most RPGs. The end result is a game that is simply average at both and not great at either. That said, it's got an interesting story to help push you through the game, and fans of the Shadow Hearts games should take note that they spawned from this title. In fact, Roger Bacon even plays a role in this game. But anyway, if the concept of a survival horror RPG sounds interesting to you, give it a try. I think there's a decent chance that you'll enjoy your time here.

Release Date: October 13, 2008 (NA)
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Genre: Action - Horror

Dead Space is a fun action game...But if you were to classify it purely as a horror game, it disappoints. The scares are predictable and the concept of dismembering your enemies really lessens any scare factor the monsters in the game have, since you know that you'll be chopping off their limbs shortly after you meet them. It's still very fun and worth playing through, but don't expect to get the willys when playing it.

Release Date: January 25, 2011 (NA)
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Visceral Games
Genre: Action - Horror

Dead Space 2, to me anyway, was just more of the same in regards to the first Dead Space. It's a solid action game, but predictable scares and a focus on totally dismembering your enemies really takes away any sense of fear that one might have. What exactly do I have to be scared of when I mutilate everything that gets near me? Just like the original Dead Space, it's a very solid action game and fun in that respect, but as a horror game it falls a bit flat.

Release Date: April 21, 2005 (JP)
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Adventure - Horror

I like Haunting Ground...I've heard people say they absolutely hate it, though. Never really understood why. In Haunting Ground, you play as a British gal who wakes up wearing only a blanket in a cage. The lass befriends a dog, gets stalked by a giant, mentally challenged lad, and all sorts of fun stuff like that. Sounds great, right? Well, Haunting Ground is decent, but not great. I'm a fan of the hiding elements and the use of the canine is kind of unique, but neither element makes this game really, really good...It's just decent. But, great, decent, horrible, whatever the general feeling on the game is - I'm still a fan.

Release Date: December 13, 2001 (JP)
Publisher: Tecmo
Developer: Tecmo
Genre: Adventure - Horror

When I was younger, I used to get creeped out so much by video games that I couldn't handle playing games like Silent Hill for more than 30 minutes at a time. Those days are long gone, however, and I rarely get creeped out by anything that happens in a game these days. The Fatal Frame series is one of the very few games that can still make me feel uneasy when I play. I adore it for that fact. The original Fatal Frame isn't the best horror game that I've played, and the sequel greatly surpasses it in terms of quality, but it's not bad at all for its time. Unlike most survival horror games, you're not equipped with a gun. You're equipped with a camera, which is the only way to get rid of the evil ghosts that try to kill you. It sounds kind of lame when you think of it, but when you play it, it works pretty well. As I said, later games in the franchise improve upon this game, but the original Fatal Frame is still no slouch, especially if you base a game on how much it can give you the willies.

Release Date: October 6, 2011 (NA)
Publisher: Phosphor Games
Developer: Phosphor Games
Genre: Adventure - Horror

If you liked Infinity Blade, but wanted more story and exploration, then Dark Meadow is the game for you. Dark Meadow, like Infinity Blade, is a point-and-click adventure game with combat that you control, via the touch-screen, in the style of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. While just as visually pleasing as Infinity Blase was, Dark Meadow forgoes the giant opponents in order to provide the player with more of a creepy atmosphere and an emphasis on story just as much as the combat. But, Infinity Blade mostly felt like a finished, polished game...Dark Meadow is littered with bugs and glitches that are sure to annoy some people. That said, if you can deal with the technical issues, Dark Meadow is easily a worthwhile game to play.

Release Date: May 14, 2010 (EU)
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Genre: Adventure - Horror

Alan Wake is a survival horror game that isn't overly great, but still a solid Xbox 360 exclusive title. The idea of using light to repel enemies was a fun aspect that helped add a little suspense to the game. I enjoyed the panic I felt when I was about to die and frantically tried to make it to a light source before the enemies around me finished me off. The story is a little faulty, but overall this is quite the good horror game, just short of great.

Release Date: November 18, 2012 (NA)
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
Genre: Adventure - Survival Horror

ZombiU has a pretty awesome premise to it - if you get bitten by a zombie, it's game over for the character that you're controlling. You then start the game again in the shoes of a new person, and you can actually hunt down the person you had previously controlled and kill their zombie form to regain items and the like that you once had. The game itself is good, but not great. The melee combat feels a bit clunky...And I found myself watching the map on the Wii U controller more than I was watching the actual screen, which probably took away from any creepy atmosphere that the game was trying to create. It's also hard to be scared when the game gives you radar to use, so you know when something dangerous is nearby. But those knocks aside, this is still a good and very playable first-person, survival horror title for the system.

Release Date: February 4, 2014 (NA)
Publisher: Red Barrels
Developer: Red Barrels
Genre: Adventure - Horror

Outlast is essentially a game of cat and mouse in a horror setting...Except unlike in Tom and Jerry, the mouse can't fight back. As you wander around the asylum, sometimes in complete darkness, you'll occasionally get attacked, in which you'll then have to run away and hide until they go away. You also have a trusty camcorder with you with night vision, but limited batteries to use, so it's necessary to wander around in the darkness at times in order to save battery life. It's well done in an atmospheric sense, but a few tweaks to the gameplay mechanics would have made this game quite a bit better as a whole. It's worth playing through for horror fans, but if you feel the need to shoot everything in sight in your video games, you may not appreciate what this game has to offer.

Release Date: May 16, 2007 (NA)
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Secret Stash Games
Genre: Shooter - First-Person - Rail

Touch the Dead is a fun (and difficult) rail shooter where you shoot up zombies while frantically re-loading in hopes that you can survive long enough to continue shooting down the undead around you before they undead you...I don't know if undead works as a verb. Oh well, it does for this comment. It's my comment and I'll do as I please, dang it. Anyway, Touch the Dead is surprisingly good, but also has a pretty high difficulty to it, so it may frustrate some players...I'm not particularly good at it myself, but I still enjoy the high difficulty attached to it - if I ever beat it I'll feel like I accomplished something nerdy that I can brag about.

Release Date: September 29, 1989 (JP)
Publisher: Kemco
Developer: ICOM Simulations
Genre: Adventure - Horror

If you know what you're doing in Uninvited, this game can be very short...Like 30 minutes short. If you don't know what you're doing, however, it can take hours (and mny, many deaths) before you see the credits roll. My main complaint in the game is that you can learn multiple spells to use in the game, but the majority aren't needed at all during the playthrough, leaving me scratching my head why they're there. That said, this is a fun game to pull out during the Halloween season even if you don't have any intent in playing through to the end - you'll likely find enjoyment in trying to make the character die in various ways, as each death has its own little scene.

Release Date: November 13, 2007 (NA)
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Cavia, Inc.
Genre: Shooter - Rail - First-Person

Want a condensed version of the stories of Resident Evil 0, 1 and 3 in the form of a first-person rail shooter? No? Well, Capcom gave it to us anyway, also adding in a few other story elements to fill in the gaps between the stories. As whole, the Resident Evil concept works well in a rail shooter environment, as there are plenty of zombies to fill with lead...But there's nothing here to make the game advance beyond 'good' and into 'great' in terms of gameplay. It's a good, solid rail shooter...But not much more than that.

Release Date: 1983 (NA)
Publisher: Wizard Video Games
Developer: MicroGraphicImage
Genre: Action - Horror

Halloween is not a bad representation of horror films, considering the hardware it runs on. The goal in the game is to find children in the house, take them by the hand, and walk them to safety while trying to avoid Michael Myers as he randomly appears with a giant knife in an attempt to stab you. Some rooms have flickering lights, resulting you in not being able to see exactly where Myers is...But that's ultimately the only danger you face. You can even pick up a knife of your own and use it to make Myers run away for a while. Unfortunately, the very slow pace and general ease that it is to avoid death hinder the game as a whole, but it's still not a terrible game to pick up and play every now and then.

Release Date: September 27, 2012 (NA)
Publisher: Rory Harvey
Developer: Rory Harvey
Genre: Adventure - Horror

Slender-Man is a very simplistic game, and yet it's also very atmospheric and creepy. Basically, you wander around while Slender-man creeps after you. The closer he gets to you, static builds up on the screen to hinder your vision, which only leads to more panic as you scramble to try and find an escape. The screen is usually almost completely black sans the poor light of your barely-working flashlight and/or anything that the dim flashlight light can pick up. If there was a bit more here, I'd be giving it a higher score, but as it is, it's still a solid choice for folks that want to be spooked on the go.

Release Date: October 26, 2007 (NA)
Publisher: Gamecock Media Group
Developer: Renegade Kid
Genre: Adventure - Survival Horror

Dementium: The Ward is a decent survival horror-style, first-person game that fans of both genres will likely appreciate. I really like what tried to be done here...But I found the control scheme to be very awkward. Even after clearing several chapters, I still wasn't fully comfortable with the controls. That said, for the hardware that the game is running on, I think they might have made the best control choice that they could have made. Folks who stick around long enough to adapt to the controls will find a nice little tidbit of terror-themed gameplay to enjoy...But I suspect that many will give up on the game before discovering its good qualities.

Release Date: November 19, 1998 (JP)
Publisher: Tonkin House
Developer: Will
Genre: Adventure - Point-and-Click

Juggernaut plays a lot like the very popular point-and-click adventure game, Myst...Except Juggernaut is much darker and based more in horror, as the game is basically about a woman being possessed by a demon, and a man who must enter her very soul to eliminate the demon from within it. It's not a perfect game by any means, but the story is interesting enough to push you through to the end. If you like point-and-click adventures, and if you like horror games, then Juggernaut is definitely one to track down and play.

Release Date: 1989 (NA)
Publisher: Horrorsoft
Developer: Horrorsoft
Genre: Adventure - Point-and-Click - Horror

Personal Nightmare is a mix of point-and-click adventure and horror that reminds me a bit of Chiller on the NES in terms of amusing death sequences and such...But, like many point-and-click adventure games, despite the amusement, you'll probably need a guide to make your way through it with seemingly nonsensical things to do...Mind you, they all make sense in the long run, but during your initial playthrough, you'll have no idea why you'd need secateurs...And then later find out that you've gotta cut the fingers off of a corpse to get a book. I also like some of the demented aspects in the game, like finding the diary of a child, and upon opening it, you discover that the kid covered his parents in petrol when they were sleeping and lit them ablaze. The ending is kinda corny, and there's not enough horror here to live up to the fact that it considers itself to be a horror game...But, if you're into point-and-click adventures, Personal Nightmare might be worth looking into.

Release Date: February 1989 (NA)
Publisher: LJN
Developer: Pack-In-Video
Genre: Action - Horror

This game isn't quite as bad as its reputation makes it out to be. It's not a great game, mind you, but it's one of those games where the more you play it, the more you grow to appreciate it. The particular aspect of the game that I enjoy is how you feel like you're growing stronger as the game goes on. The first time you battle Jason, you barely do any damage and may not even survive the encounter. The more you play, you'll learn his attack patterns and obtain more powerful weapons that help you take larger chunks of his life away or a nifty sweater that reduces the damage that the dude in the hockey mask can give to you. Discovering all of this does require patience, however, but when you've worked your way through to the end of the game, it feels like an accomplishment you should pat yourself on the back over.

Release Date: May 3, 1996 (EU)
Publisher: Kokopeli Digital Studios
Developer: I Motion
Genre: Adventure - Survival Horror

I want to like One-Eyed Jack's Revenge, but extremely clunky combat mixed with puzzle solutions that, and I say this with all the sarcasm I can muster, make all the sense in the world (like if you place a teddy bear on a camouflaged "X", that somehow gets rid of an "evil power" preventing you from sticking a coin in a jukebox-like thing...makes sense, right?) really just transform this into a game that I just plain got sick of playing after a while. I do enjoy the soundtrack quite a bit, I'll give the game credit for that...But even with enjoying the soundtrack, I can knock it for not being a good one for a horror game. This game does have its charm in parts that may convince some folks to continue to play, but I can't help but imagine that most folks will quit shortly after playing.

Release Date: December 4, 2000 (NA)
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Heavy Iron Studios
Genre: Adventure - Horror

When THQ announced that they had acquired the licence to produce games based off of the Evil Dead films, I was excited, yet also skeptical...afterall, many adaptions of television and film in the world of video games fall flat on their face. Still, I purchased the game when it came out...and was disappointed. While Hail to the King isn't absolutely terrible, it also isn't very good. The enemies are plentiful, but with limited ammo and gasoline, you're better off running than fighting...meaning that every fan of Evil Dead needed to refrain from chainsawing and shooting shotgun holes into everything they found, like they probably wanted to...and if they did so anyway, they found a very poor combat system that prevented any encounters from being fun. Hail from the King does well in telling its story, but when the gameplay is as flawed as it is here, most people won't bother to see the story through to the end.

Release Date: May 31, 1996 (NA)
Publisher: Vic Tokai
Developer: Millenium Interactive
Genre: Adventure - Point-and-Click

I know this game was released on PC, and I hope it was better than the Playstation version...Because I wanted to like this game, but it just feels so broken. Some of the things that you can click on have such a small target area that you may click on an object in an attempt to interact with it and get nothing, leading you to believe that it's nothing you need...But in reality, you do need it, you just didn't click on the microscopic target area. Every now and then, you'll enter a first-person light-gun-ish shooter sequence where you shoot down some evil folk...And while it's not horrible, it does feel kind of clumsy. This game does have a cheesy horror charm to it, though...And even with its faults, that may be enough for some to endure the often irritating gameplay.

Release Date: 1985 (NA)
Publisher: Domark
Developer: Domark
Genre: Adventure

I prefer the NES version of Friday the 13th by quite a large margin. The Commodore 64 version is totally different and really has no sense of danger...When "Farmer in the Dell" plays in the background as you try to hunt Jason Vorhees down, something is terribly wrong. It's also bad when you are the one doing the hunting in this lame game of hide and seek. I beat Jason to death with a stick without any troubles, so not only do you have to hunt him down, but killing this supposedly intimidating murderer is a breeze. If you don't like the NES Friday the 13th, play this game and you'll gain a new appreciation for it.

Release Date: 1990 (NA)
Publisher: American Game Cartridges
Developer: American Game Cartridges
Genre: Shooter - First-Person - Horror

Years before Sega released the enjoyable House of the Dead, Chiller was the horror-themed, light gun shooter available on home consoles...And the world was depressed by this fact. This game is just a mess. The only charm this level has is the fourth and final level where you execute people, whom I like to imagine are the development team behind this game. I say that this is charming before no matter how gruesome someone getting beheaded via guillotine may sound, it's mildly comical when seeing it in below-average, 8-bit graphics.