Video games are becoming an extremely saturated market and sadly due to many reasons many people skipped over some really cool games that should have been more recognized. The horror genre in games is also branching out and combining action with some horror elements and while I think that’s OK, some people think that’s bad (look at the reception of Resident Evil 6 or any newer Silent Hill game) – it’s a shame since the genre allows for a huge spectrum of sub-genres and play styles.
I’ve always been open minded and even if a game/movie/book/album gets horrendous reception I’ll check it out so I’ve ended up playing many underrated gems (and other games that aren’t even worth mentioning) and since I’ve always been interested in horror I’ve searched high and low for the next best thing.
Thankfully, I’ve mostly found great games and these are just some of the titles that got underlooked due to many reasons – they shouldn’t be that hard to find thanks to sites like eBay, Steam, GOG and Amazon, and a good chunk of the PC games in here should be easy to install and run even on older PCs, so hold on tight and let’s start this countdown.
Note: they aren’t arranged in order of importance or value, so no game should be considered better or worse…
10. Harvester – DOS
In the ’90s, FMV games were pretty common, but sadly very few ended up being good just because FMV’s limit gameplay harshly and while many of them only have some cheesy value, some of them tried to innovate and push the envelope in terms of content. Harvester was one of those games.
It’s a point and click/interactive movie/2D action game (?) where you play as Steve, who wakes up in the Lynch-like town of Harvester during 1953. He can’t remember a thing, apparently you are getting married and everyone is absolutely insane.
Every character is memorable and they all add to the game’s extremely creepy and disturbing atmosphere (Your “mom” is obsessed with a cookie sale and keeps your “father” locked in an S&M kind of dungeon with blood splatters everywhere, the fire department is mostly firemen posing topless, there’s a woman obsessed with wasps, etc.). However it starts getting darker and darker until it unleashes it’s gory visuals and they are extremely graphic especially for a 1996 game.
There’s also a combat system later on but it’s fairly limited and it’s extremely clunky as well. But at least they tried to pull something like that off in an FMV game.
Overall this is a game you play mostly for the disturbing atmosphere and visuals and it’s very entertaining but installing it can be very difficult due to the fact that you need to use DosBOX to install it and run it.
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4 Comments
Great list. Siren: Blood Curse literally the scariest game I have ever played. The disc is not that hard to find in Ireland. And I believe Amazon has a bunch too.
Omg Cursed Mountain. Yes. Freakin damn scary, i didn’t even finish it, i need to buy that again.
WOW echo night beyond…It brings back memories,i was 12 when i first played it,it was so damn scary i couldnt play it more than 10 minutes.Never finished the game cuz o that,havent tried after that either but hey this is a damn good article.In fact the best ive read in a while.Good job.
God Corpse Party… CORPSE PARTY! It has to be the scariest game I played, it doesn’t use cheap scares but it messes with you brain A LOT.
The story is the best horror story I’ve ever seen, the voice acting, the music and the sound effects are just amazing and utterly terrifying and let’s not talk about the wrong ends because they are just the most scary things in the world, just seeing a wrong end makes you stare at the psp with you eyeballs pooping out for what you just seen. It is truly a masterpiece of horror.