Poor Friday the 13th, it has such a bad name. Bad things happen, unlucky people meet with unfortunate consequences, impending horrors, grotesque figures and evil characters that generally just want to eat your face for lunch. Well, thankfully in real life there are no zombies but certainly the fears are real at least in our own little twisted minds. For those who love the thrill of horror, the psychological tension or just plain zombie skull-bashing, they are sure to find some real gems in the list below. Do give a shout out in the comments if your favourite title is missing from the list.
The best way to enjoy these genuine spine-tingler games is to turn out the lights, put on headphones and have a spare pair of underwear nearby and oh, don’t try to sleep.
But before we begin with the game, ever wondered ‘Why is Friday the 13th considered unlucky?’
Did you know the fear of the number 13 has a scientific name: “triskaidekaphobia“.
As per “Western middle age history” and Biblical references, a lot of bad things have happened on Friday the 13th such as Eve biting the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, 13 apostles of Jesus on the last day of supper just before Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday, death of Gioachino Rossini the famous Italian composer of opera’s. As if that wasn’t enough, twisted human minds just created further crazy twists to popularize the myth in popular culture such as books, movies and games, and of course articles like this that shamelessly helps to further propagate these myths.
Until Dawn
Platforms: PS4 only
No don’t turn on the light, you never turn on the light
Until Dawn is an ultra-aware homage to horror and its tropes. It is serious, scary, cheesy, campy, and fun all at the same time. You have the dumb blondes, the jocks, the love relationships, the edgy crazy ones and of course the horrors that lay in the faraway cabin. Through the course of the night, your decisions on their behalf determines who lives or dies. It has very interesting characters, excellent voice acting, movie-like quality and plenty of genuine scares. Best played with friends around rooting for characters they love.
Outlast
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Linux, Mac OS
If you think you are safe, you are wrong
Outlast is a first-person survival horror game. Unlike most horror games, there is no fighting, you are vulnerable freelance investigative journalist whimp, Miles Upshur, who’s investigating a remote psychiatric hospital situated deep in the mountains of Lake County, Colorado. You just run and hide as fast and as quiet as you can, the only weapon is your trusty camcorder with night vision that keeps running out of juice. The game is incredibly atmospheric, expect to be crouched in a room hiding while a mad person hunts for you, he can hear you, he knows you are in the room but can’t see you. Only your night vision camera shows him looking towards you making his eyes demonic in the night vision mode, do you run or stay where you think you are safe? All the while nerve-shattering music that becomes eerily quiet and then suddenly breaks into deafening crescendo filling your ears and rattling bones.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 1,2,3
Platforms: PC, Android, iOS
This will make you throw out all your toys and figurines
If you hate cute cuddly dolls attacking you (Child’s Play), you’ll hate this game, and that’s a good thing for the horror game. You are a security guard that keeps a watch at a local pizza place. Your goal is simple, to stay alive till morning for Five nights in a row. Five Nights at Freddy’s is total jump scare mechanic or is it? Apparently you get a jump scare only if you mess things up and yes, you are going to mess things a lot. Interestingly there isn’t any gore, the animatronics just want to stuff you in an animatronic suit thinking you are without your suit innocently and if they succeed, its game over for you. All the different parts 1, 2 and 3 use different intelligent mechanics and puzzles to challenge you therefore avoiding the same boring game mechanic cliché.
Zombi (U)
Platforms: Wii U, PS 4, Xbox One, PC
Here comes a sixer you ugly duckling!
Meet Wii U’s finest title that actually used the controller well, is now happily available for other platforms. This game is Demon’s Souls with zombies, that should be enough to tell you what this game is about but we are still going to ramble on as it’s that good. You play as a random survivor in a playable cycle of life and death. You start out weak, poorly-equipped and always outnumbered, play fast and you die, play slow and you’ll probably barely make it out alive. You’ll find your zombified former self to get your stuff back, expect to love, hate and scare the shit out of you. Oh and you have a cricket bat as a melee weapon, go score a six on that zombie head.
Among the Sleep
Platforms: PC, OS X, Linux, PS 4 and Xbox One
As a toddler your best weapon should be your pee
Ever thought of life from the eyes of a little toddler? No we aren’t talking about the movie “Look Who’s Talking”. You are a two year old who’s trying to find his way to his mommy with Teddy the bear to comfort you, when you’re scared. It’s a psychological horror, everything looks bigger, you can hide in small spaces, sneak under tables, crawl faster than you can walk or run. You’re ill-equipped to cope with what’s going on around you, you can’t read language yet (entire in-game text is gibberish), but yet you must retrieve four precious memories of your mommy scattered across weird environments.
Alien: Isolation
Platforms: PS 4, Xbox One, PS 3, Xbox 360, PC, Linux, Mac OS
Zombies or not, I’m going to watch Mickey Mouse cartoons after all this
If you’ve had enough of zombies, how about aliens or rather a single alien which stalks a massive space station Sevastapol. You aren’t a badass with a massive gun hunting the alien unlike the later movies, rather like the first movie Alien, moving deliberately and as quietly as possible with only a motion tracker, you avoid the Xenomorph at all costs as it’s impervious to weapons and mildly annoyed by fire. The game nails the environments, the DOS based CRT monitors, violin-screeching orchestral score of the original 1979 Ridley Scott’s film very well. In fact, for a real surreal experience, try this on a VR headset. We dare ya!
The post Until Dawn, Zombi, Alien: Isolation and more: Best Horror games to play on Friday the 13th appeared first on Tech2.