Peter James Mann
It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!
Halloween, or as I like to say it *clears throat* ”Haaaallllloooowwwweeeeeeeeennnnnn,” is here, and Resident Evil 4 just got re-released on Oculos Quest 2 as a VR survival horror game!
So I have returned, my children. Daddy’s home! And unfortunately, the house is possessed. I was gone for, what, a few months and I came back to this?
Good thing we got some horror cred on this site (Thanks, Dave)! Let’s grab some Green Herb and an ink ribbon in case we find a typewriter, because this week it’s Gamer Dad’s Top 10 Survival Horror Games!
10. Alan Wake
What if the studio who brought you Max Payne wrote a Stephen King novel and gave it to David Lynch as a Halloween special for Twin Peaks? That’s probably the best description you’ll get from me for Alan Wake, and it’s definitely a compliment.
Ugh, I know! I read Stephen King. I’m basic. Wait, wait, let me throw my pumpkin spice creamer in this coffee. Oh yeah, Super Basic!
A horror writer has a car accident on a strange backroad and ends up in a Twin Peaks-esque wooded town surrounded by evil shadow people and pages of a manuscript he had yet to write. Future Alan’s voice rings out from the void and narrates action and future plot beats, not unlike Max Payne.
With your main weapon being a flashlight, it brings in a great reference to the O.G. of survival horror, Alone in the Dark, without you having to trudge through them like a misery swamp with Atreyu. Most of them are…not great. But this is! Check it out if you get a chance.
9. Fatal Frame: Based on a True Story
This game came out at just the right time here in the U.S.: the height of Japanese horror obsession. This story and concept, based on a true story, feels right at home between The Ring and The Grudge. You’re a Japanese girl going into a haunted house with an old camera that can capture spirits.
You could run around in third person, but you wouldn’t be able to see or attack the spirits in the same way. You have to go into first person and look through the viewfinder of the camera. You charge up your flash bulb and shoot to your heart’s content. Their souls would be sucked into the camera and the room cleansed, for now.
It’s a cool concept that netted a couple sequels, but none really took off like the original did. Switching from third to first person in the same game for different modes and effects was a trend that I feel really started here. Even the Silent Hill series would borrow pieces of it for their 4th installment.
8. Slender: The Eight Pages
The game that would become a meme, a movie, and kind of a joke at the end of it all, Slender: The Eight Pages was part of a new subgenre of survival horror that prioritized immersing the player in the shoes of the eventual victim.
You are on a mission to collect eight pages about Slender Man while he stalks you in the woods. There are no weapons to fight back, no health items to heal, and no way to save. You can sprint for a little bit, but you’re super out of shape, and your flashlight is from a bargain bin.
So you’ll die a good amount.
The way Slender Man sneaks up on you, how the screen starts to get all staticky and the white noise just increases, it all builds to a giant crescendo of death every time. It always gets the heart pumping and, when you get away, you feel amazing.
7. Resident Evil 2
I had to throw some classics in! This was my very first survival horror game and it genuinely scared me back then.
In the sequel to the smash hit Resident Evil, we get to visit Raccoon City as the virus escapes the test facility on the outskirts of town and infects the populace. You can play as one of two characters: Claire Redfield, the younger sister of series protagonist Chris Redfield, on a search for her brother, or Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie cop in Raccoon City having a not-so-good, very bad transition into his new position.
There have been many anniversary editions and even an incredible remake that brings it in line with more modern titles in the series. Each one added more mythos to the city, playable characters, and awesome action.
6. Dead Space
What if Event Horizon and The Thing had a demonic, interdimensional baby? Welcome to Dead Space!
It is extremely hard to deny these two influences on this title; it’s all over their bloodied sleeves. You use untraditional, mining equipment as weapons against the Necromorphs. They can’t be killed by traditional means; they have to be literally cut apart limb by limb like The Evil Dead. It is the goriest Body Horror game (that’s still fun to play) I’ve ever played.
You’re Issac, a space minder with no voice and an estranged wife to find aboard a science vessel. Some amazing twists, turns, and psychological tricks make this game disturbing not just for the sheer amount of gore, but the genuinely creepy worldbuilding and (somewhat cheap) jump scares.
And like Most EA trilogies, I don’t recommend the 3rd one. But Dead Space 1 and 2 are fantastic. Issac’s descent into madness is a genuine treat to behold and experience.
I wish more movies were like these games. I even liked the animated prequel tie-in! I can’t wait for them to bring this back.
5. Alien: Isolation
What if Alien had a sequel that kept it in the exact same vein as the first movie? I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!
You play Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda, who joined up with Weyland-Yutani Corp. in hopes of finding out what happened to her mother all those years ago. So, when the Nostromo mysteriously shows up and docks at a space station, Amanda wants to be there. But hey, where’s everyone else? And what’s this weird goop? Is that blood coming from the vent?
The family might be cursed.
What makes this even scarier is that the developers decided to make the Alien nigh indestructible and gave it its own A.I. So it hunts across the station looking for you or anyone else to murder. It gives you even more of an adrenaline rush than Slender: The Eight Pages, but does two other things:
- You can defend yourself or distract the Xenomorph to an extent and get away.
- It can physically hear you if you don’t turn the microphone setting off.
Number Two means that you really have to pay attention to noise in your actual room or it will attract the Xenomorph to your position.
This game is great.
4. Outlast
Outlast is the final one from the First Person Survival Horror subgenre on this list, and it’s this high up for a reason: it’s freaking terrifying.
You’re someone who’s trying to get the scoop on this mental hospital where people keep disappearing. It turns out, there’s an insane “doctor” who’s performing murder-surgery. He’s done a consult, and he’s recommending surgery for you, too. And that camera. HEY, COME BACK HERE!
You see everything through the viewfinder of a camcorder on Night Mode and you’re as athletic as anyone from any of the other first person survival horror games on this list, which is not great. You’ll have to be smart to get away and stealthy to escape.
I should start running more regularly.
3. Resident Evil 4: VR
This is the new kid on the block, but also not really? Resident Evil 4 revitalized the series with a new viewpoint and gameplay style that made everything scary again.
But it also makes you feel like an action hero. I mean, did you see the commercial from Japan?!
If you’ve played Resident Evil 4 in the past, it’s the same story. You’re everyone’s favorite rookie, Leon S. Kennedy, back to save the President’s daughter and show everyone else they’re the rookies now! You’ll be fighting hordes of infected villagers and a brand new virus that turns them into tentacle-monsters! Or ogres from Lord of the Rings!
This is everything I’ve wanted a VR game to be from this system. I literally feel like I’m fighting for my life, that I’m surrounded, and that I need to think fast and act faster to survive.
This beats a gym membership. This and Beat Saber are worth the price of this system. Be on a lookout for my review of the Oculus Quest 2 closer to the Holiday Season!
2. The Last of Us
This game freaked me out so much more than I thought it would. And, on top of it all, it had a gravitas and emotional weight stronger than most shows, films and books I’ve seen. It had the tension of a stealth action game, the body horror of the infected, the terror of human violence and betrayal, all wrapped in a Western-esque tale of redemption between a surrogate daughter and father.
You’re both Joel and Elle in this game. Joel is a gun-runner and enforcer tasked with trafficking a little girl, Elle, across the country to the base of the Fireflies, a group of rebels trying to stop the apocalypse.
It turns out that Elle has been bit, but never turned. She’s the only human that’s immune to the zombie-mushroom virus that turns everyone into Shroom-Headed Runners from 28 Days Later. It’s up to them to stop this apocalypse in its tracks.
There is a major reason they’re making this a show for HBO and that the executive producer of the games is the same title on that very TV show! THIS WRITING IS INCREDIBLE.
I’ve never enjoyed crying so much playing a video game. Literally from the first ten minutes on it’s just sadness and pain for me. It’s incredible a video game made me feel that way again.
1. Silent Hill 2
And this was the first game to make me feel that way, but wrapped it in psychological, Japanese horror. This game scared the soul out of my body more than once, and most of it was not from jump scares: it was just from the slow build of dread.
While The Last of Us is impressive for its cinematic feel and television-like narrative, this is impressive in how it truly can only be experienced as an interactive story. There’s seven endings, and they all have different implications, all based on slight choices that butterfly out. For example, examining particular items, either once or multiple times, literally decide how characters come back into the story later on.
I’ve never been more paranoid about every decision. This title actually affected how I wrote short stories for years. I was always trying to nail a story like this and I never could. It’s my White Whale.
You are James Sunderland, a widower who just received a letter from his dead wife from their honeymoon spot, Silent Hill. It’s been a few years since she died of her terminal illness, so either this is a cruel joke or she’s not really dead.
There’s doppelgangers from his life, other people drawn to the town for their own reasons, and a strange fog creating monsters. How they all tie into his personal story of pain and punishment make you feel like you’re being dragged into Hell with him. There are rarely any jump scares or cheap tricks to do it, either. They challenged themselves completely to do this through atmosphere and tension-building.
It’s perfect.
Well, that’s it for this week! It was a blast to revisit some games and dive into a genre I’ve loved for a long, long time. See you soon!
