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Halloween Special: Horror Highlights

Editors from across the network pick out their favourite horror games.

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With Halloween and a weekend of scares just around the corner, editors from across the Gamereactor network have chosen their scariest and most fondly remembered horror titles. In a journey between past and present, taking us through different environments and worlds, we've chosen eight games that each holds a special place in our cold, lifeless hearts. Maybe it's a good time to dust off the cobwebs from an old classics, or even dig one up (from a shallow grave) and try a game you have yet to play.

Ricardo C. Esteves (Gamereactor Portugal): Dead Space, Dead Space 2, Dead Space 3 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)

The Dead Space trilogy (not counting spin-offs, comics and movies), is an amazing horror experience, with great gameplay, good graphics and spectacular audio design. The first game surprised players with claustrophobic corridors, high tension sequences, terrifying monster design, interesting lore about an alien artefact called The Marker, and the fanatical religion it spawned, Unitology. The sequel tried to find a neat balance between terror and action, and while some players disliked this approach, Dead Space 2 was still one hell of a ride, almost literally. The third game received mixed reviews, venturing even further into the action genre, adding co-op on the way. But if it lost some of its scary elements, Dead Space 3 made up for it with a great science-fiction story that came with a hint of mystery and some intense set-pieces. If you enjoy space horror and want something to keep you on your toes during the Halloween weekend, you can't go wrong with the Dead Space trilogy.

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Tor Erik Dahl (Gamereactor Norvay): Alan Wake (Xbox 360, PC)

I've never considered my adventures in Bright Falls as fitting neatly in the horror bracket, but at least it's a psychological thriller with some horror aspects. This will, however, do just fine for someone like me; notoriously avoiding horror in books, movies and games alike. Alan Wake captured that Twin Peaks-like feeling of something being very "off". Of course, battling shadowy creatures by wielding a flashlight and a gun was obviously supernatural, but all the way through you keep thinking that this is somehow just in the author's head. I mention Twin Peaks because there's no way around it. Bright Falls is close to being a replica of the small town in the iconic TV series, but developer Remedy has built their world with more than enough love and respect for their source material. The dark forests and the thick fog combined with unsettling noises made my skin crawl over and over. My tip for Halloween is to fire up the old game and give it a go (or play it again), I promise you'll never look at lumberjacks and street lights in the same way again.

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David Caballero (Gamereactor Spain): Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii, PS2, PSP)

It might not be my favourite horror game of all time (there's Alien: Isolation, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 4, the first F.E.A.R. and many other candidates to consider), but one game that retains a special place in my heart will always be Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. If you can look past its naturally outdated graphics, the alternative story in this remake of the first Silent Hill is totally worth your time, and there's tense moments aplenty (especially on the Wii version with some nice motion controls and creepy in-hand speaker, although you can also play on PS2 and PSP). But the best thing about the game (Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack aside) is Sam Barlow's masterful scriptwriting, the climactic ending, and the mysterious narrative style with its interesting exploration and game-changing player decisions based on interactive cutscenes at Dr. Kaufmann's counselling clinic. An inspiration for Until Dawn? You bet.

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Magnus Groth-Andersen (Gamereactor Denmark): P.T./Silent Hills (originally for PS4)

Silent Hills will never see the light of day, and the only remnant of the promising collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro is the playable teaser, or P.T., which was released on PS4 and has since been removed entirely. It was, still, one of the most effective, terrifying and well-designed horror experiences in my book, and deserves to be treated as its own entity. There isn't much game there though, as P.T. is a clever one hallway loop, though it comes with subtle and terrifying variations in between to constantly keep you on your toes. Whether it's a moving ceiling lamp or a creaking door, P.T is all about details, and from start to finish it's a captivating experience that demands your full attention, despite the fact that you're constantly hiding behind the sofa and peaking through your fingers.

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Fabrizia Malgieri (Gamereactor Italy): American McGee's Alice (PC, Mac)

If Tim Burton had played American McGee's Alice, he would have found more interesting and useful ideas to use when writing his disappointing movie, "Alice in Wonderland". Despite being enriched with dark and gloomy environments, and characterised by crazy, scary characters (among these, by far the most memorable being Mad Hatter and the Red Queen), what most disturbs in American McGee's Alice is the loss of innocence of a character that symbolises a carefree childhood. Alice (a young dreamer with a vivid imagination as told in Lewis Carroll's book) is here portrayed as a turbulent character, a victim of the magical world she was enchanted with a few years earlier, the same world that led her to madness and forced her to return where the madness began, trying to restore order, both in Wonderland and in her soul. The strength and beauty of Rogue Entertainment's game lies not only in the eerie and surreal atmosphere offered by the different environments and the characters we meet, but also in the ominous soundtrack composed by Chris Vrenna (Quake series) and by the sense of dread that follows the player from the beginning until the end of the game. Although more than fifteen years old, American McGee's Alice still gives us the creeps!

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Mike Holmes (Gamereactor UK): Alien: Isolation (PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360)

As a huge fan of the original Alien movie, Isolation was a big deal for me, and I was delighted when Creative Assembly delivered such an exciting story campaign, especially after the disappointment of Colonial Marines. What impressed me most was the way that CA were able to stay faithful to the original IP while still telling a tense and exciting story, and the audio-visual design of the game was one of last year's highlights as far as I'm concerned. But beyond the lure of the IP, and the impressive level of detail, it was the heightened atmosphere that really sold me on Isolation. Never before had a game held me in its icy grip the way this one was able to; it had me praying not to get discovered by the Xeno as it patrolled the nearby vicinity, and numerous times I had to force myself into action, pushing the younger Ripley out of the relative safety of whichever access tunnel she was hiding in at the time. And the moment when I first discovered that I wasn't even safe when hiding in the lockers was horrible; it was then that I realised that nowhere was safe.

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Christian Gaca (Gamereactor Germany): Spec Ops: The Line (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)

It's not classic horror, but it was one of the most horrible experiences that I've endured in a video game. When I think of Spec Ops: The Line I see one moment in my mind's eye; a woman and a child etched in my memory. They sit there, huddled, a mother holding her hands protectively over her child's eyes. They're both completely charred, burnt by a mortar attack. While the image is shown more than once, alternating between that and a stunned soldier's face, slowly but powerfully a sense of disbelief spreads through my brain. And then the inevitable question: do you have to show that in a video game? Well, perhaps the question should be turned around. Why not show it? Civilian casualties are part of war, whether it serves liberation, self-defence, or a pre-emptive attack. War remains war. People die, not just soldiers. If you make a war game, it's cynical to omit these moments. It's just uncomfortable and inconvenient to confront your audience so directly. But this is Spec Ops: The Line, a game that forces us to think and rethink our actions.

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Bengt Lemne (Gamereactor UK): Bioshock (PC, Xbox 360, PS3, iOS)

Sometimes it's not what's in front of you that scares you the most. It's what you don't see or what you don't know. And sometimes your greatest fear is finding out who you truly are. While not strictly speaking a survival horror experience, the world of Rapture did offer one of the most oppressive and psychologically disturbing game worlds in recent memory. The deranged Splicers, humans like ourselves not long ago. The menacing Big Daddies and their symbiotic relationship to the Little Sisters. The cheerful and positive messages adorning the walls of a fallen utopia that the ocean looks set to reclaim as its own domain. Somewhat familiar yet warped. It's easy to remember Bioshock for its action, particularly since both Bioshock 2 and Bioshock Infinite leaned more towards that end of the spectrum, but there were a lot of suspenseful and atmospheric moments in the original. So much was drenched in mystery, and it truly felt like you were exploring something unknown with potential dangers around each corner.

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Horrified that we didn't mention Resident Evil or F.E.A.R.? Found it disturbing that we didn't dissect Amnesia: The Dark Descent or Soma? There's so many fantastic horror titles out there, and even more games that include moments that have scared us without fitting snuggly in the horror genre, and thus it's impossible to write about them all. Please feel free to share your own shocking experiences in the comments section below, and have a happy Halloween.



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