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What is "scary" when it comes to a VIDEO GAME? This is a question pondered for decades by now. However, the concept isn't impossible; just very, very hard. It has been done, though; just look at the companion list, of Top Ten Best Halloween Games, and see what I mean...

This isn't to single out just games, however; it's hard to make decent thrills in just about any entertainment product. What Lies Beneath comes to mind, as a ghost story that was a big disappointment. However, Mimic stands firm, as one of my choices of The Most Under-Appreciated Thrillers. Just one opinion. 

The Biggest Blunders in 
"Halloween Games"...

A Techtite Feature Commentary

Thrills in a "mere" video game is an inexact science. However, this is exactly what is attempted every year around Halloween time (or at least that's when such games are noticed on store shelves). Here are some of the titles whose preventable mistakes outweighed any "scare" factor.

Phantasmagoria (Sierra, 1995) One of the first four games mentioned in my "What Went Wrong?" column; I will always feel Phantasmagoria was the definitive four-million-dollar blunder that ruined the original Sierra Online game company for all time. Soon after this game's release, everything "Sierra" was sold to various other companies, with its original game design teams, and its renowned game designers, seemingly forced into "early retirement." All this, because Roberta "King's Quest" Williams wanted to tell a horror story. Why? She clearly was better at being the "Walt Disney of gaming" than the "Clive Barker" of gaming. Yet how could the same woman who gave us such wonderful King's Quest tales, make so many game design blunders, here? For one thing the game is on seven discs, with no option to install the whole game on a hard drive. This made disc juggling very tedious...especially in a game which lasted for little more than one short afternoon. There was no clear reason for the 7 discs, either. The house pretty much stayed the same, and "Adrienne" doesn't even change her clothes, day after day, throughout the game's story! Yet the really big blunder this game made was not the fact that its "gore" led to it being one of the first big reasons for the ESRB ratings system as we know it today; the fact is, the ending just plain sucked, making Adrienne forced to slaughter her newlywed husband and then exorcise the demon...after he's dead. Yes, that was the "best" ending of the game, as she stumbles away with bewilderment wondering what could've happened here. That makes two of us.

Darkseed 2 (Cyberdreams, 1996) Was there really a need for a second Darkseed? Most people never really found much use for the original. Indeed, a game with graphics scanned from the art of H.R. Giger is an intriguing concept. However, this game's puzzles, and overall storyline, was not. Top it off with one of my choices for The Worst Game Endings Of All Time, and you're left with a game that was "scary" for all the wrong reasons.

Seventh Guest (Trilobyte, 1993) The music was great. The CGI artwork, in an age when such art was fresh and "new," was also great. It just wasn't terribly scary. When the idea is that six guests entered a now abandoned, "haunted" mansion and died; how "scary" is it, that the thrills just weren't there? As a puzzle game this game was unmatched; as a story, it fell a little flat. Then again; the date of release should account for some of that; CGI just hadn't advanced to the stage of being "frightening" yet. In fact, getting this CD-ROM game to work on a 1993 "base level" PC was as scary as the game could get. Then there's the ending, which many gamers will try to figure out, "now...and forever!"

Clandestiny (Trilobyte, 1996) The last game ever made by the now defunct Trilobyte company, which three years earlier made Seventh Guest into a publicity machine juggernaut, flawed game or not. Three years later, they'd release this animated horror-comedy, which didn't seem to know whether it wanted to be creepy, or a Scooby Doo ripoff, or a Seventh Guest for the kiddies. This lack of direction translated, apparently, to the Trilobyte company itself at the time, which went out of business soon after this game's release. Regardless of numerous flaws, however, this game could have at least had a decent ending; your fiancée breaks off your engagement, practically screaming "NO!" when she does. Then the mansion ---the "hero's" entire family legacy!--- is reduced to a pile of rubble. What was the point of such a disappointing ending? As for the 12 ghosts you encounter in the game; they're less scary than The Count on Sesame Street. Ouch!

Nocturne (1999) "Turn off the lights" was the ad slogan for this game. Early byuers of the game in game stores were even given a free candle with purchase, held within a nice candle holder with the game's logo on it; neat! So why is the game on this "worst blunders of all time" list? Simple: the game just wasn't that scary. Its X-file type hunts for vampires, witches, and zombies just didn't have the kick of earlier horror classics like Alone in the Dark. The ending didn't help, which wasn't an "open ending" as much as an abandoned one. It was like the game designers said to the gamers, "Look; it's late, and I need to get paid, so buy this game enough and maybe we'll finish the story in a sequel." They never did; the game's reviews were abysmal, and I can only guess, so were the sales. It wasn't the worst "horror" game of all time, exactly; just not scary.

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