The Mog Blog

Oh shi....

Halloween is right around the corner and while some of you are probably going to be dressed up in your fancy costumes (and hopefully not cosplaying as some random anime character… you know I’m talking about “you” people), some of you other people are going to be locked inside your house and celebrate the occasion by watching some horror movies or playing some scary ass games.

Need some ideas on what to play? Well, there are plenty of games to tap into with the current generation of systems but I feel that none of them really compare to what we had back in the past. So lets take a look back and look at games that aren’t of this current generation and find something to scare the pants off ya, shall we?

5. Enemy Zero (Sega Saturn)

Starting off our list is an obscure game for a system that didn’t do so well is Enemy Zero, a game created by the legendary game designer Kenji Eno. While borrowing heavily from the Alien movies, Enemy Zero has this really unique feature that will probably freak you out: You cannot physically see your enemies on screen. Instead, it uses sound cues to alert you of enemies that are close by. While you can attack these enemies and kill them with one hit, you will also die in one hit if they get near you and you’re not ready.

It’s interesting to note that Kenji Eno also made D and D2 (no, not Diablo and Diablo 2). Kenji Eno himself is a pretty dark guy and he did step on some toes just to get his games out. In an interview, Kenji Eno really wanted to get Michael Nyman to do the score of Enemy Zero. Here’s an excerpt of that interview:

…I like Michael Nyman a lot, and I like his soundtracks, so I was thinking that it would be awesome if I could get him to do the music. I thought, “That would be impossible, but it’d be great if that happened.” …then, there was a big earthquake in Kobe, Japan in 1995, and Michael Nyman was donating pianos to schools in the city. When this earthquake happened, he said that he wanted to check out how the pianos that he donated were doing, so he came to Japan. When I found out that he was in Japan, I invited him back to my hotel room and tried to convince him, for six hours, to come work with me. So, at the end, Michael was like, “OK, I’ll do it, I’ll do it. Just let me go back to my room.” So he went back exhausted after being convinced for six hours. We didn’t work out terms or conditions; he just said that he would do it.

Ballsy.

4. Sweet Home (Famicom)

I think I’ll let the Happy Video Game Nerd start it up. One of the main inspirations of the Resident Evil series, Sweet Home may not seem like something that could immerse yourself in at first but play the game for a bit and, holy crap, you’ll be feeling very uncomfortable quick. Not only does this horror RPG put you in a mansion where random stuff can happen to screw over your plans, you also CANNOY revive any party member that dies. Once they are dead, they’re gone and you’ll have to trek on without them.

Oh and 8-bit blood and gore, especially how it’s presented, is still not easy to watch.

3. Silent Hill 2

All the Silent Hill games are pretty freaky but if you had to play just one, Lissy would recommend Silent Hill 2. Featuring a story of a confused man trying to find a “dead” wife, you wonder around the town of Silent Hill, trying to find information about your dead wife and OH, you find another chick who looks like your dead wife when she was alive!

Uh oh.

If there’s one thing that this game taught me, it’s that the roaches in this game don’t mess around!

2. Haunting Ground

Taking a lot of influences from Clock Tower series with the whole panic system and being helpless the majority of the time, Haunting Ground is a great example of a blonde bimbo getting herself into trouble. Thankfully, she has a doggy companion who will later grow up to become Amaterasu!

Not really, but Haunting Ground is all about these crazy people wanting to kill the main character Fiona or want to use her womb to become uber. The game features four endings, with of course the bad one featuring her as a baby dispenser.

Yeah I just spoiled it. But how couldn’t I? You have to abuse the crap out of that dog and treat the poor thing like trash to get the bad ending! Forget that!

1. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly

I did post the intro picture as this so might as well point out why. As a suggestion by our very own OnesOwnGrief, Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly is but only the second game of the series of four. I’ve heard that the second one was the best of the official English ones since the fourth game was never officially released outside of Japan. Honestly, I don’t have the balls to even want to play this because hell, I’m already afraid of ghosts. Seeing ghosts with cut up and dismembered faces just feels a bit TOO real for me.

Plus I’m a pansy when it comes to ghost games… Oi!