By Kyle Parker
Staff Writer
kyle.parker8154@mb.rctc.edu
While others may have much more eventful nights ahead of them. Perhaps Halloween parties, going out to trick or treat or just staying in to watch scary movies, I am sadly not one of them. Between the homework I have and the homework I am going to get, I stick to computer pretty firmly. However, that does not mean I don’t enjoy these creepy months ÷ before Christmas comes and swallows it up anyway.
Here are a few video games that fit the autumn and Halloween season well.
Dead by Daylight
For those that enjoy the slasher genre of movies, here is a relatively new horror asymmetrical game to get the blood pumping. Created by Behavior Digital Inc. and Published by Starbreeze Studios, this game is best played with friends. For good and bad reasons.
The reason it is called an “asymmetrical” game is because you and three friends are working together getting a series of generators started so that exit gates can be opened and everyone can get out. However, there is a fifth player as well. They play the “Killer.” Their jobs are to hunt, find, attack and hook the bodies of the other four players. The “Survivors” can do very little to the Killer, short of annoy and slow them down at times. The best they can do hide quietly, fix quickly and keep an eye on each other.
The only clues survivors have that the Killer is getting close is via a heartbeat and that only tells how close they are to the Killer. Thankfully, the Killer has no such perk, but armed with anything from bear traps to a chainsaw to even paranormal powers, they do not need it.
So this game is a good fit for the season. Whether you are trying to or not be ÷ Dead by Daylight.
BloodBorne
To be unnerved is to be someplace you don’t understand. To see things that just feel a bit off. This is the game that is Bloodborne, created by FromSoftware. From the very beginning you and your character are thrown deep into the mix, with only the goal of a possible cure in ÷ that general direction. Between you and this “cure” are other “Hunters,” malformed monstrosities and eldritch creatures.
This is not a game where you can come to understand the what and whys right away. The feeling of being unnerved, unprepared and in over your head can leave you howling much like the twisted wretches that wander the city of Old Yharnam. It might not as scary as many horror movies can be, but you won’t be able to settle down, not knowing what might be out there waiting for the next foolish Hunter to come.
Darkest Dungeon
Let me ask you a question, dear reader. What do you consider a hero to be? The brightest and best of us I’m sure. The people that went through hell and came out the other side unscathed. So let me ponder this ÷ did they really?
The Darkest Dungeon is a gothic rogue-like dungeon Crawler created by Red Hook Studio. In this game you, fittingly, send up to four adventurers into areas of your twisted estates. Simple enough really. But you keep sending them ÷ over ÷ and over again. Into the darkness, where crazed madmen decry the party’s doom, the corpses of the poor fools sent before them hobbling toward them once more driven by unholy abominations.
Again and again these men and women are sent down there, until their fears start to show. Their greed clawing at their minds. Their hate, gluttony and cowardice comes to surface. But there are those that can rise above such things at the worse pitch of things. “For there is no Heroism without Madness:” A very fun setting that cannot readily be made in a movie.
One cannot make a good a connection to a group of random characters in a hour and a half. The same can be said for even for books. A game means you decide what happens. You send them into the dungeon. You decide how they defend and fight ÷ and it was your choices if not all of them make it back. Spooky, creeping and rasping, The Darkest Dungeon reminds us of the dread that fear that does not come from being startled by something in the dark, but by the cost of surviving it ÷ then being thrust back into its black gapping maw.
Crypt of the NecroDancer
Bum-Bump ÷ Ba-Bump ÷ Ba-Bump ÷ Ba-bump
A young woman stirs, having fallen into the collapsing earth. The graves sites shifted and swallowed her whole
Ba-bump ÷Ba-Bump ÷ Ba-Bump ÷ Ba-Bump
The earth around her is warm, but her body runs cold. And in the distance she can hear it
Ba-Bump ÷ Ba-Bump ÷Ba-bump … Ba-bump
Her heart, stolen away. Now drives her forward, like everything else in this Crypt, everyone and everything is driven by the rhythm set by the NecroDancer
While a lot of Halloween games are meant to be scary or startling, Crypt of the NecroDancer feels more like that Halloween party that uses the aesthetics of monsters and creatures to make the party setting all the more enjoyable. Brace Yourself Games and Klei Entertainment have brought this wonderful rhythm based Rogue-like dungeon crawler to life. The players need to move about the level to the tune of the music. Skeletons dance, slime hops, Zombies groove to the music as well as giving the whole setting a feeling of a party. However, being a Rogue-like means there is only once chance through this level. Run out of life and the level shuffles and changes so the next time through, everything is different.
A good game for any season, but the tunes, the monsters and feeling of a good party make this game a need to play during the October season.
Costume Quest
Why do people put on costumes? To be someone else. To be someTHING else÷what if that could actually happen?
Double Fine Productions brings this perfect Halloween game. From the story where you need to trick or treat to advance to the set dressings of adults wanting to go to bed and bake sales being wrapped up. Everything about this game has the feel of Halloween. Not scary in the least, nor all the long either, but this spooky season. Take your friends, get your candy and change into what your wearing. Have a robot costume? Fight the Grubbins as a missile-launching rocket punching robot. Have a trash can lid? Become a might Knight to slay those that want to bring misery to this wonderful season. A must play for every Halloween.