It's been a long time since video-game consoles offered anything to frighten us — except for the price tags.
It's great to realize, then, that the latest generation of consoles have worked very hard to bolster my faith in software that scares.
Survival horror as a genre was on life support until the most recent wave. The trend of spooky games apparently reached its zenith with September 2001's Silent Hill 2, and really hasn't offered anything new that worked the way it was supposed to since December 2001's Fatal Frame (a fourth sequel hit Japan this year and is headed to Wii U, meaning no one will ever play it).
Even the elder statesman of survival horror, the Resident Evil series, has long since given up its supernatural and scientific savvy in favor of guns, guns and more guns. If it's not action, it doesn't sell, publishers seem to be saying. What a pity.
Luckily, the spirit of 2001 is alive today, thanks to a bevy of creepy titles. That's a nice switch for those of us not plugged into PCs, where horror games have continued to thrive. Here's a look at some of the best Halloween-ready console games of 2014:
Among the Sleep: This one is technically a PC game, but it does bridge the gap between PC gaming and consoles. Putting you in the britches of a toddler braving the dark with his teddy bear, Among the Sleep is being ported for PlayStation 4, and has made a major impression on gamers already. While your protagonist is braving the trials of an unseen force throughout the gameplay, the endgame realization that reality is much worse than pretend monsters is just as devastating.
Outlast: I'm obviously biased by this one, since the main character is a reporter, but this Red Barrels offering makes the most out of its premise. Set in a asylum full of mutated, insane patients and more, the presentation on PS4 and Xbox One is so good, you don't even notice that there's zero dynamic combat. This would be a good one to revisit when those holodecks finally get invented, because running from monsters would be quite a workout.
Alien Isolation: Speaking of running from monsters, this licensed installment adapting the venerable Alien movies makes players hide as a core mechanic, too. Playing as Ellen Ripley's daughter Amanda, who is searching for her missing mother after the Nostromo disappeared, Isolation apes the Ridley Scott movie so well you forget you're playing a game. There's nothing you can do to kill the xenomorph chasing you through the space-station setting, and not much else for the runaway android filler the stages have, but that's what makes it great. Plus, you can marvel at the glorious recreation of the late-'70s sci-fi design Scott used. It makes it all so old-fashioned and futuristic at once!
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Explore all your optionsThe Evil Within: This one could be called a rip-off of Outlast, except the player has the choice of fight or flight. This one reminded me a lot of the old arcade grossout Splatterhouse, which was scary more in a nauseating, what's-going-to-happen-next kind of way. Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami directed it, giving it all kinds of street cred. That also explains the hopelessly convoluted plot.
The Walking Dead: Season II: Last year I called Telltale Games' episodic comic book-inspired treatment of the popular zombie mythos one of the best games I'd played. Here we follow poor Clementine as she struggles to make it through southern Georgia on her own, although plenty of supporting characters show up to make things easier or more difficult, as the case may be. As a guy who grew up on Choose Your Own Adventure books, I can't resist more of the same, particularly when there are zombies involved.
One I don't recommend is Daylight, which came out this year and is a perfect example of what is wrong with console gaming in general and horror games specifically. It's a mess, nonsensical and hard to play. It's also set in a mental hospital, so now we're up to three. That formula really should change, and could at least be done well, if at all.
In the meantime, these five titles bode well for the next generation. There are other titles headed to homes in the next year, including favela zombie saga Dying Light and a ninth(!) Silent Hill game, the Hideo Kojima-directed Silent Hills. The latter, especially, is a major release featuring help from Guillermo del Toro and motion capture by The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus.
It goes to show, just when it looks as if all is lost, it's best to keep hope alive.
— Joshua Gillin writes about video games for tbt*. Challenge his opinions at jgillin@tampabay.com.