Op/Ed- Retroactive (post Halloween) Spooky Special

RESIDENT EVIL Developer: Capcom Playforms: PS1 - PC -  Gameboy Colour [Serious.] and later ported to Nintendo DS and Gamecube Resident Evil was not the first "survival horror" type game to grace our monitors and TV's, but it was certainly a game changer and one of those games that made gaming suddenly cool. The story kicks off with a special operations team called S.T.A.R.S going to a mansion in the hills above "Racoon City" to investigate a series of grisly murders- which we are to find out is part of a much larger biological research facility owned by the megacorporation known as Umbrella. The original Resident Evil was full of cheese, with the first versions on PC and the PS1 featuring some badly acted full motion video sequences, but was still easily able to pump the gamer with terror as they are walking down silent corridors, only to have zombie dogs burst through the window, spiders jumping down from the ceiling and zombies suddenly appearing around corners. DOOM Developer: iD Software Platforms: PC (Dos/Windows/Mac), PS1, SNES, Sega Saturn, Sega 32X, Xbox Live Arcade, iPod Touch/iPhone Dark corridors are the name of the game here, filled with all manner of demons and super soldiers. You are a marine sent to Mars after assaulting a superior officer, to a boring outpost owned by the United Aerospace Corporation. The UAC has recently been dabbling in teleporation technology to go between the moons of Mars, but unwittingly they manage to instead open a gateway to hell. A crack team of operatives is sent in to attempt to clean up, while you're left guarding the hanger. Suddenly your comrades start making odd noises, and you radio hisses with panic stricken screams of everyone on the base. Your friends are now possed by demons, and you are the only on left alive to clean up the mess. The atmosphere in Doom is brilliant, and possibly one of my most played games. Twisting corridors, monsters creeping around (but not knowing where they might be, only to have them suddenly appear begind you) and excellent music and sound too boot. I've owned it on several platforms and am still yet to beat it on Nightmare mode, but for some twisted reason I keep coming back. In a few week's im going to have a more in depth look at Doom, and the modding scene it spawned, that we now take for granted in modern games, as well as how you can get it running on more modern machines. THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD Developer: Sega Platforms: Arcade, Sega Saturn, PC (Windows) Found at the back of many arcades in a large stand up cabinet was this behemoth of a light gun game. Unlike many games up to that point, this on rails shooter was fully 3d rendered and able to have alot going on at once on screen and still run smooth. Zombies were many, the bosses were huge, the light guns were just the right weight in your hand. As one of two police officers you receive a phone call from the fiancee of a one of the players characters saying there have been some mysterious happenings at the mansion of the deranged Dr. Curien. As you arrived the undead have taken control of the Mansion and it is your job to get to the bottom of the mystery and stop Dr. Curien from causing even more trouble on the city. House of the Dead was also one of many movies to get a big screen edition- though not up to the class of the likes of Resident Evil and Tomb Raider. German Director, Uwe Bolle managed to get the rights and went on to make a movie about a group of teenagers who catch the last boat to a rave on a small island, only to find it deserted apart from the festering undead roaming the island. The movie is intercut with clips from the game- but still manages to have absolutely nothing to do with it. THE 7TH GUEST Developer: Trilobyte Platforms: PC (Windows/DOS), Mac, Phillips CD-i The first graphical adventure to be released solely on CD-Rom, The 7th Guest places you in the shoes of an amnesiac who attends a party of the owner of a haunted mansion (so many haunted mansions in games) who ends up being tasked with finding out why the owners toy's he sold at his toy store were slowly killing children of the nearby town. You break through the story via a series of puzzles, cut scenes and voice overs. Scenes in the game are acted out by live actors (filmed on blue screen and inserted into the game) with much of the pointing and clicking happening on pre rendered 3d backgrounds ala Broderbounds "Myst" and "Riven" games. Two million copies were sold, and thoroughly enjoyed, solidifying the CD-Rom drive as a much needed piece of PC hardware, and giving The 7th Guest it's place in horror gaming history. Unfortunately I have to give some full disclosure- it's been a long time since I have played the 7th Guest, and have been unable to run it recently on WindowsXP or Vista without major issues. If someone works out how ot get it running in DOSBOX please do let me know! Thats it for this update- other games that didn't make the on time for this are Alone in The Dark (PC) and Clock Tower for the SNES- so have a hunt around and play those games too!