Friday 28 October 2011

100 Gruesome Games for Halloween (45-31)


Right, not long left now..so here's a blast of 15 games with minimal info about them, so I can get down to a slightly more manageable 30 games to do in 3 days!

Having said that, putting these 15 games on the blog has taken me pretty much all day anyway, so I'll still have my work cut out...but yeah, let's get on with it!

Oh and before we do, just a quick note that these games aren't in any particular order of preference! It's just a list of 100 games, not a top 100! It's just that this has been causing some confusion with my placement of games in the list....well, fret not! I'm well aware Dead Space is better than Demon's World !!! Hehe...



45 - Bogey Manor (Arcade) :



Groovy little arcade game that you won't have a clue how to play at first, which is frustrating, but once you work out you can stop the ghosts with your Bee-Gee-esque disco moves, thus allowing you to smack them with your stick, it becomes a lot more fun! Anyhoo, run around smashing the mystical orbs and defeating the baddies and bring Bogey Manor crashing to the ground! Some nice platformy fun...




44 - Zombie Nation (NES):



Odd little game that features a comet called Darc Seed (no relation to Dark Seed - see earlier post!) crash landing on Earth and deciding to turn the USA into a nation of undead creatures!

You appear to take control of some sort of giant samurai's severed head, and destroy buildings and planes and things, all full of zombified Americans! You do this by shooting laser beams from your eyes and spraying projectile vomit at them...yes, vomit... and you can then rescue the people who fall from them and de-zombify them somehow! And then you have to fight a Medusa-haired Statue of Liberty, which has somehow been brought to life by that nasty space-rock!

Plays sort of like a cross between a shoot-em-up and that old building smashing classic Rampage! Totally bizarre, but worth playing just to see how weird it really is...




43 - Dark Tower (Arcade) :


This one blatantly steals graphic from other games (Ghosts 'n' Goblins, Black Tiger), nicks the music from Double Dragon and puts them together into something that plays very much like Bubble Bobble, only instead of capturing the baddies in your spit balloons, you smack them over the head with a club! Nothing special, but alright for a go or two...



42 - Ghost House (Master System) :


Another funky little platform game, this sees you trying to destroy vampires, bats, mummies and other nasties so you can lay your hands on the family treasure! You'll have to dodge or kill everything that moves...touching lights will stop monsters in their tracks, and you can pick up a sword so kicking monster butt is made easier! Some great spooky shenanigans...go play it!



41 - Ghost Sweeper Mikami (SNES) :


Groovy little side-scrolling whack-em-up based on a Japanese anime! You take control of the "Ghost Sweeper" Reiko Mikami...basically she's a ghost hunter..and traverse the levels trying to rid them of all the spooks which have been displaced by overcrowding and overdevelopment of Japan! As usual, there are power-ups scattered about to help and it's all fairly decent and enjoyable stuff....



40 - Frankenstein's Monster (Atari 2600) :


This one has you trying to collect bricks from the bottom of the screen so you can take them back up to the top and brick up Frankenstein's latest attempt at a Monster before he's brought to life by the lightning storm! You'll have to jump over or avoid the beasts and ghosts out to stop you, and also be extra careful not to fall into the acid pool...

It's a great little game, with the best bit happening when you lose...The Monster awakens and stomps menacingly forwards, footsteps getting louder, and getting nearer and nearer till he finally fills the screen! Terrifying stuff!



39 - Monster Bash (Arcade) :


1982 Sega arcade game where you have to light candles to activate a magic sword, which you then use to defeat the villians of the piece....Dracula, Frankenstein and the Chameleon! Be careful though, as they have minions such as spiders and werewolves who'll try to get in your way too...

Simple, addictive gameplay and some spooky sounds make for another classic horror game experience...


38 - The Wicker Woman (ZX Spectrum) :


Kevin McGrorty has been toiling away for the last two years to bring you this text adventure on the ZX Spectrum! It's a pseudo-sequel to the 1973 film, The Wicker Man, and manages to capture the same sort of feel as that horror classic! You play the part of the fiance of Sergeant Howie, who has travelled to Summerisle to try and find out why the policeman has disappeared...

Cue lots of puzzle solving and odd experiences as you traipse around searching for answers, talking to the weird and wonderful folk that populate the island and making choices which will determine exactly how this tale will end!

Another new Spectrum release, you can download this game for use on an emulator from it's World Of Spectrum page...and when you do, be sure to type in the command "CREDITS"...you might recognise the name of one of the playtesters! :-)




37 - Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday (SNES) :


You enter the dreams of cartoon legend Porky Pig in this game, as he has scary nightmares of different locations..which include but aren't limited to a haunted forest, a spooky western ghost town and an abandoned mine...and you must help him through these nightmares until he can wake himself back up again!

This of course allows for all sorts of spooky platform japes, and you'll be kept busy dodging bats, leprechauns and other weird creatures. The environments are far from safe too, and you'll need to look out for swinging balls-on-chains, spike-filled pits and other obstacles...

Get your trotters onto this one sharpish, anyway....it's piggin' great!




36 - Nightmare In The Dark (Arcade) :


More Bubble Bobble/Snow Bros type stuff with this game, although it's a bit better presented than Dark Tower! Very similar gameplay-wise though, as you shoot fire at the baddies until they become a ball of flame which you can then send bumping around the levels to hit other baddies!

It all looks suitably spooksome, and if you like any of the other games mentioned in the paragraph above, you should find this pretty enjoyable too!




35 - Spooked (ZX Spectrum) :


We're ghost hunting yet again this flip-screen adventure, but also indulging in a bit of spellcasting for which we need to collect up all the little bugs zipping about the screens. Ghosties have tricked you into coming to an address so they can bump you off y'see...so you'll have to indulge in a bit of magic to keep them from sending you to an early grave!

These spells are "letter spells" apparently, and when you've dropped enough ingredients into the cauldrons lying about, you'll face the Spooky Old Man in a game of hangman, which you'll need to win to put a stop to all this haunting nonsense....

A decent enough arcade adventure, it's only occasionly annoying when you get bounced constantly around the screen by the little skull or ghost enemies without being able to stop them...stick with it though, and you should have fun going through the (apparently) 384 screens!


34 - Halloween (Atari 2600) :


This is a surprisingly fun little conversion of the movie Halloween, and as Laurie Strode you must rescue the children from the mad Michael Myers, who is stalking you through the building with knife in hand, and take them back to the entrance and freedom..

Whenever Michael appears, the Halloween theme kicks in...and if he manages to capture you, he lops of your head! This, and the killing of the kids if he catches them, actually caused a mini-outrage on the game's release due to the graphic violence and spurts of blood, so most shop keepers didn't display the game on shelves and kept it under the counter...thus meaning it didn't sell very many copies...

It's a shame, as it really is quite addictive...and although it's all very simple and the graphics are pretty laughable these days, it's still worth putting on...even if it's only to hear that theme tune played Atari-style!




33 - Mutation Nation (Arcade) :


It's time for another wholly-unoriginal-but-still-perfectly-decent scrolly beat-em-up! This one has you battling against some evil mutants that have been created by some nasty scientist chappy....you'll know what to expect if you've played any side-scrolling beat-em-up ever!




32 - Frank N. Stein Rebooted (ZX Spectrum) :


27 years ago, Colin Stewart released Frank N. Stein for the Speccy..and it was a great little game! Colin however, had wanted to add more features but just never got round to it....

Years later he discovered there was still interest in Speccy games, and so he got back to working in his his lab and created this little beauty! The same brilliant game as before, but with some funky new features..

The evenly numbered levels now play more like Donkey Kong, and you have to jump barrels thrown by the monster as you try to reach the top of the screen and destroy him...

As usual with this new Spectrum stuff, if you head over to the World Of Spectrum site, you can find the game in the Archive...or you can go pay Colin Stewart a visit at his own site, and download it from there!




31 - Demon's World (Arcade) :


This one's a freaky-deaky, side-scrolling shooter that sees you come up against various monsters and ghosties, and even features what looks like Jason from the Friday The 13th films...

Your character seems to be loosely based on the Ghostbusters, and you can get various different weapons to shoot the baddies with, including 3-Way-firing guns, Bombs, Laser guns, etc....

Again, it's fairly funky and filled with enough beasties to make your Halloween gaming sufficiently scaresome, so go give it a go!

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