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by JustNaz~
Video game horror has come a long way; from the days of being haunted by pixelated ghosts to seeing every slimy tentacle, every blood stained fang and every rotting zombie in high definition plastered on our screens and creeping into our nightmares.
Of course, only good graphics don’t make a good horror game, in fact most of my favourite horror games are from the PS2 era. One of them being Fatal frame 2 which has a remake coming out this year! Fatal frame has got to one of the scariest set of games I’ve played so far. I will never forget the feeling of claustrophobia and terror I felt wandering the haunted halls of the Himuro Mansion in the first game. The dark rituals that happened there followed by the ghosts that then haunt the mansion and endlessly chase you whilst you try and get their photo to exorcise them. Stress levels were high. The second game was a huge step up from the first although not as scary. The environment, the ghosts, the story. Everything was perfect and it quickly shot up to a spot in my top 5 games of all time.
Corpse party is another favourite horror franchise of mine. Although the latter games became sillier in their approach to the story, the first few games had some genuinely messed up moments. My favourite being SPOILERS one of the main characters admiring the body of his girlfriend splattered against the wall whilst talking to her ghost on the phone not knowing it’s her splayed out in front of him. I mean the whole game revolves around little ghost children ruthlessly murdering little non ghost children. Torturing and murdering. But as I said the later games definitely fell down in quality and scares but the first game will always be top 10 for me.
On the topic of scary, we of course cannot forget the two big guns of the genre. The foggy streets of Silent Hill and Capcom’s zombie infested Resident Evil. The latter (specifically Outbreak) was a game I spent many hours on as a child. From Outbreak on the PS2 to Resi 4 and 0 on the Wii, I had plenty of fun blasting away every zombie and other abomination the game threw at me whilst trying to escape the area through puzzle solving and inventory management. There are so many iconic moments in the franchise. I mean who can forget their first encounter with the Regenerators or their first glimpse of the lickers? The franchise also bought us iconic characters that have lasted throughout the franchise including Leon, Ada, Claire and Jill without a doubt the Resident Evil franchise is the most fun I’ve had playing horror games and if I was writing this piece a year or 2 ago then I would have declared it my favourite horror franchise however with the revival of the Silent Hill IP in particular with the Silent Hill 2 Remake and more recent Silent Hill F, I was reminded of why I love Silent Hill so much and why ultimately it is my favourite horror franchise of all time (who’d have guessed)
So if you know me, you know that Silent Hill 2 is my favourite game of all time. I originally got to the apartments and as soon as I saw my first enemy in those dark and cramped hallways, I shut the game off and didn’t touch it again until years later. The feeling I felt in that moment was definitely what I call dread. Facing off with enemies that are so uncanny and unnatural. Almost human but distorted enough to make you uneasy.
But behind the fleshy nightmares and foggy roads there’s something deeper that makes Silent Hill scary. That is the play on real human emotions. Compared to the other games I’ve mentioned so far, Silent Hill games are (mostly) grounded in reality. A widowed father looking for a missing child, a grieving husband searching for his dead wife all whilst the titular town mocks them, preying on their most vulnerable emotions. Guilt, loss, fear and anger. I think Silent Hill 2 was the first game that ever made me cry. To this day, Mary’s full letter read out in the credits makes me ball like a baby. To this day I still enjoy the lore videos to the Silent Hill games and am still discovering new things about the games. Silent Hill has my whole heart, its my comfort place, its my childhood and I absolutely love it and that is why it is my favourite horror franchise of all time.
Mind you, I still have a giant backlog of games yet to play, I still haven’t played Dead Space or Dino Crisis, I’ve only played one of the Siren games so far. So if I were to write this article again in a year or 2 as I get through more games, my answer to the question may change but for now it is Silent Hill.
