Considering Halloween weekend begins today, in this week’s Game Freak I’m going to talk about all the great games you can play to spook up the night if you choose to stay in.
Not everyone decides to go out on Halloween night and there are plenty of more low-key ways to get in the spirit than going to a rager. Sure, there will probably be a severe lack of half-naked women around, but there are worse problems. Not a lot, but some.
First world male problems aside, here’s the list of things to do from the comfort of your couch this Halloween:
Immersive horror
Video games are one of the most frightening forms of entertainment on the market. They’re worse than horror films because a) they’re not — always — ruined by hammed-up acting and b) you’re the one making the choice to go see what the noise upstairs is. No saying “Don’t go in there!” this time — it’s up to the player.
A game that is likely to get your heart racing is “Bioshock,” published by 2K Games. It follows the silent protagonist Jack on his adventures in the underwater dystopian society of Rapture, after a plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic.
Rapture is, for the most part, a vast abandoned city made all the more frightening because it is inescapable thanks to its being miles below the ocean. To make matters worse, most of the people who do remain are deranged and violent. To make things even worse than that, those berserk psychotic people are only afraid of one group of things — a group of things constantly encountered in the game.
These are the Big Daddies: mutated, massive, genetically altered people grafted into a diving suit, armed with heavy weapons and massive drills for arms.
What does the player get to fight all these people with? Not much, to start. A wrench is the first weapon the player gets, along with some special powers like shooting lighting. Guns come into play later on, but it is still never easy to kill large waves of deranged degenerates or a Big Daddy.
The main reason for this, however, is not the difficulty — it’s the mental factor. After all, you’re walking through this place virtually alone, in the dark, with creepy sounds coming from everywhere. It’s easy to get unnerved and lose your cool.
The game, for those interested, is pretty cheap these days since it came out back in 2007. Gamestop.com lists the price at $9.99 for a pre-owned copy, which is a steal for one of the most critically acclaimed and frightening games of recent history.
Scary movie drinking game
This is aimed at the college student who is chill but still likes to party, invite a small group of friends over for a classic horror flick and break out the booze. Any film will do, whether you want something legitimately scary or something a bit campier — remember, the point is to drink.
There are all kinds of lists to be found online, but for easy reference here are some basic ones to follow.
Take one shot if: you can see the killer but an actor can’t, there is a false death scare, someone survives a deadly fall, there’s a boob shot, someone in the film is drunk or stoned, an allusion to another horror movie comes up or someone screams something in a dramatic fashion.
Take two shots if: a cop shows up but is useless, a victim trips and falls like an idiot, a boob shot ends up being a sex scene, anyone intoxicated winds up dead and if the killer manages to come back one more time after they were supposed to be dead.
Finish your drink if: someone dies in a completely implausible way or the killer totally botches an easy kill.
Bearing those last two in mind, it’s probably not a good idea to watch “Final Destination” or “Scary Movie” unless you want to black out.
Love some more Lovecraft
Ever heard of H.P. Lovecraft? He was this author back in the first quarter of the 20th century. Most of his stories deal with terrifying and unknowable horrors, ranging from maddening gods slumbering deep underground, waiting to destroy or enslave the Earth’s inhabitants, to alternate dimensions where maddening gods try to reach Earth to destroy or enslave its inhabitants. Okay, that’s not all he wrote about, but it is the most relevant point for this next game.
This one is a bit more expensive, but it’s a worthwhile investment for the strategy-minded person. The board game “Arkham Horror,” made by Fantasy Flight Games, is a complex adventure game where players work together to keep a variety of maddening gods from reaching Earth to destroy or enslave its inhabitants. Starting to see a common trend?
Anyway, there are lots of other monsters roaming about the city of Arkham, where the game is based. Why is this so scary though? Well, that’s where the story comes into play. Every component to the game reveals more of a progressive story, and they’re usually pretty scary circumstances if one has a good imagination. It’s important when playing this game to get immersed and try to imagine what it would be like if this were real. Just don’t get nightmares — or your hopes up for that matter. The game is notoriously hard to win.
— Jason Krell is a junior studying creative writing and Italian. He can be reached at arts@wildcat.arizona.edu.
