ORIG'S PROFILE

Horror games are the only kind of videogame I can really enjoy anymore. That and point-and-click adventures, but even then half of those are scary.

Barrow Hill is one of the best. I beat it in one or two nights, I was so engrossed. Dark Fall, Dark Fall 2, Outcry, Scratches, and The Lost Crown are also very good. They're all point-and-clicks. Barrow Hill is really atmospheric, but near it end it kind of loses its spark. Scratches and The Lost Crown are probably the scariest. Oh, wait, and Sanitarium! I almost forgot that. Man, that's the best bar none. The other ones are great, but, man, Sanitarium just has a special place in my heart. It's soooo screwed up, right from the beginning. In fact I might have to play it again...

Everyone has already mentioned Silent Hill. Those're always great. Except 4 and Origins, they were just okay. I liked 3 the best because I like Heather.

Clock Tower 2: The Struggle Within is a godawful abomination and should be ignored, but Clock Tower was decent, and Clock Tower: The First Fear (the SNES one) is arguably the scariest game ever. There's just something ridiculously unsettling about the premise: Teen girls get adopted, the family they are taken into is insane, shit hits fan. I must have played it through every ending. Sooooo so good. Plus Jennifer looks like Jennifer Connelly from Phenomena, which Clock Tower was loosely inspired by. :D Clock Tower 3 was fun when you were getting chased around by crazies, but the combat was terrible. I haven't played Haunting Ground yet but always wanted to.

Galerians I played a little of. The combat was seriously flawed but I remember it being pretty scary.

Echo Night holds another special place in my heart. It's not very good, not even very scary, but it had a charm to it, and the gameplay was interesting. I own Beyond but haven't played it much.

The Gabriel Knight games, while not necessarily horror, can be pretty disturbing, and the first one was a marvel of storytelling. While the sequels weren't quite as good, they were still fun. And Gabriel and Grace are such endearing characters.

Fatal Frame is definitely freaky as fuck. I hear the third is actually the best, but I haven't played it because it's like $50 used. But the first, while extremely difficult, was interesting, I'd say Crimson Butterfly was much better.

Now, the game that blows everything else out of the water in terms of survival horror is one most get turned off by: Siren. It's the hardest game I have ever played. There are a few dumb gameplay designs (having to play every level twice was a turn off for sure), but nearly everything has it's purpose. The music is haunting, the story, though minimalistic, is pretty interesting, and the characters, despite weird Japo-British accents, are defined. It's told in non-linear levels, as in you could just start the game a few levels in already be near the finale. There are only about nine maps, but they change over time, and it's cool seeing that. The best part of the game, though, are the enemies. THEY DO NOT DIE. You can knock them down, but they come back up a minute later. And worst of all, each and every one of the characters is becoming just like them. It's the utter hopelessness that really gets to you. It's so fucked up. Some of the endings are just disturbing as hell. And the stealth is nerve-wracking. One level you play as a little girl stuck in a house with three shibito. Everyone has this ability where they can see through the eyes of shibito, and you have to rely on that to memorize their patterns in order to escape. It's friggin' scary! It isn't very fun; it's more rewarding than fun. Like, "Oh, thank CHRIST I made it through that level." I hear there's a PS3 remake. You should buy it. Here's a good article on the series.



There might be more I'm forgetting... Oh, Obscure! Now, imagine a cheesy horror movie like Final Destination, and imagine someone turning that into a videogame. That's what the Obscure games are like. They are not fun by any means by yourself, but, man, I played them with my brother and it was crazy fun. It was only kind of scary, but still one of the more fun survival horror games out there.

Friends are for SUCKERS.

Well I'm definitely doing better than I used to. Like I haven't been writing stories about hopeless crushes, and I'm not thinking about it 24/7. This isn't so much a "holy shit you're so cute" crush as it is a "hey you might actually turn out to be interesting" sort of thing. He was the one to introduce himself in the first place! But I guess I should tone down on the affectionate thoughts. In retrospect that does nothing but depress me (and, erm, I guess you too).

Now to finish a story about teenagers drinking themselves to death...

Came for the fake women, stayed for the real men.

I dunno what that means and I'm glad.