JOYSTICK: Ghoulish games and music for Halloween

Published 9:57 am Saturday, October 29, 2011

All Hallows Eve is the perfect time for games that go bump in the night. Whether it’s stopping a satanic cult or preventing a demon from destroying the world, there’s scary games galore for any Halloween season.

1.) Silent Hill 2

Widely considered the scariest game of all time, Silent Hill 2 comes from a series renowned for unsettling scares and a creepy atmosphere. James finds himself trapped in Silent Hill soon after the death of his wife and must discover a way to get out of town, but Silent Hill’s demons (and his own) won’t let him go so easily.

Email newsletter signup

2.) Fatal Frame 3

Really, any Fatal Frame game is good for a scare, but Fatal Frame 3 takes the cake. You play as scared Japanese 20-somethings who are trapped in a village full of ghosts armed with only a camera, which you must use to take ghost photos, which entraps the evil spirits.

3.) Resident Evil

The granddaddy of survival horror games, Resident Evil put players in a mansion overrun with zombies, zombie dogs and other horrific monsters. Since you can’t run very fast and your ammunition is limited, this game scares you through your own actions.

4.) Eternal Darkness

This Gamecube game is notorious for its sanity-altering gameplay. As you progress through the game, your “sanity” gets called into question as things go blurry and at times the game stops to make you feel like you hit it wrong. Very spooky gameplay too.

5.) Dead Space 2

You will jump when playing this game. In fact, you will jump a lot, especially at the beginning. This third-person horror game is truly creepy for a variety of reasons, not least being the gross aliens who seem to kill you without warning and with lots of spooky shrieking.

What game would be complete without the right horrific soundtrack? If you’re looking to geek out with some game tunes, give these game soundtracks a try:

1.) Silent Hill series

Silent Hill’s music is second to none when it comes to spooky sounds. Really, you can pick any soundtrack from the series to listen to, but I recommend the first four game soundtracks, when composer Akira Yamaoka helmed the series.

2.) Vagrant Story

With a thriller plot set in a dead and demonic medieval town, Vagrant Story’s music can’t be beat. Hitoshi Sakimoto is well-known for his sweeping RPG scores and this soundtrack is considered one of his best.

3.) Devil May Cry

Devil May Cry is more action than horror, but this demonic game has some rockin’ tunes and unnerving mood music. Though the series is more well known for its style than its horror, this is a spectacular shock-horror soundtrack reminiscent of Rob Zombie at times.

4.) “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night”

Castlevania is another series known for its frightening gameplay and incredible music. Aside from being one of the best Castlevanias, SOTN is fondly remembered as one of the best Castlevania soundtracks (though much of the music was rehashed by this point).

5.) Zombies Ate My Neighbors

You probably can’t find many Super Nintendo copies of this game anymore, otherwise I would tell you to play it this Halloween. This game has a fantastic and cheesy B-Horror flick soundtrack to go along with its horror-filled cartoon shooting gameplay. It’s sufficiently spooky and campy for any fright night festivities.