Fatal Frame III & V

I am unable to play part IV, also known as Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, simply because it only got released in Japan. Therefore, I am focusing on the remaining two main titles instead, and I might, just might, play IV one day.

The Tormented introduces a new cast while old characters return from Fatal Frame and Crimson Butterfly. A new sinister location named the Manor of Sleep binds the main characters Rei Kurosawa and Miku Hinasaki, and they will have to work together to uncover what is happening.

Fatal Frame III is a faithful sequel with similar mechanics, themes and gameplay, while the premise focuses on dreams and nightmares, while the obvious main enemy remains ghosts. The Camera Obscura continues to be a fun tool to use.

The scare factor has turned up the jump scare factor higher than other titles, allowing for a more tense experience. It's a long journey where confusion might come as to how to progress further, but it's worthwhile to reach the end.

Rating: 7.8

The fifth installment, a central suicidal theme is playing, and plenty of ghosts’s death scenes can be seen when touching them after defeat. The character models are impressive, the personalities, not so much.

A very repetitive pacing and gameplay, underwhelming lore and frankly too much lying notes hinder Maiden of Black Water. The countless amounts of doors and door animations to be seen and clunky camera controls when looking around also add lots of fuel to the fire.

Still, the gamepad functionality is used well and the atmosphere is good although not as dark at II, nor are the ghosts really scary, except for during the Thirteenth Drop chapter.

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is still worthwhile in the end, but the game’s flaws, length and pacing will turn many gamers and even fans away.

Rating: 7.5

The House of the Dead

 

Ah, this brings me back to my youth.

As a kid, I have gone to Spain for vacation with my family for many years, to the point that I got sick and redundant from it, reflecting back on it as a teenager. Still, there were plenty of reasons to find enjoyment in the south, such as beaches, food, girls and arcades.

That last one in particular filled me up with excitement with regards to my eyes getting visually stimulated of all of the machines performing their magic, such as pinball machines, fighting machines, racing machines and shooter machines, or more specifically, light gun machines.

The House of the Dead is one of two on-rails based shooters from the arcades of which I have fond memories, the other one is Time Crisis. The first part is your typical entacklement onto the zombie phenomena in that there is a mad doctor who wants to unleash his hellish experiments.

Two agents track down his mansion and basically walk through it and the subsequent areas in order to rescue and to stop the madness. Gameplay consists primarily of shooting your enemies on screen, while reloading with the gun controllers off screen.

There are multiple routes to takes, and the game has alternative endings. It's a modest and fun attempt at combining horror with on-rail shooting, and I like it. The sequel towards it however remains the most popular, and even now, I discovered it being playable in Tokyo, Japan.

2's plot takes us beyond the horror of the first, by introducing more variants of zombies, and new enemies and bosses such as Strength and the Emperor, while the final boss The Magician returns for more challenge. Goldman as the villain is infamous for his terrible voice acting, actually the whole game is.

It remains my favorite to replay through as there are again multiple routes to take, and I felt that co-operation mode in here is the most entertaining and engaging, as The House of the Dead 2 is easily one of my most cherished arcade memories.

The House of the Dead III is set in a post-apocalyptic future and features different implementations of branching paths, reloading and obtaining bonus points and extra lives. The art style and graphics aren't as effective as the previous two.

III feels more faster paced and removes the concept of saving civilians, which is too bad, but on the other hand it features a final boss where my thumbs would literally go numb from hitting the shooting button so much, which makes it an endurance fight.

As for part 4 however, I have never played it, as I don't own a PS3, and I have never seen an arcade machine for it save for my trip in Tokyo, but I simply had no time for it then. I'm sure that it's a fine addition to the series.

Finally, there is also The House of the Dead: Overkill. It takes a new approach regarding style and substance, and it really felt like a grindhouse movie, except in the form of a video game then, with elements reminding me of Quentin Tarantino movies.

Overkill has easily the most enemies to kill and a high score system to accompany that, but it also made it a very repetitive game despite the game's various locations you will undertake. It's still the standard on rail shooting formula.

The game's vulgarity and black comedy jokes make up for this redundance though, and since it feels so different from previous entries, Overkill remains a recommendation, and for some it is a favorite in the series.

The House of the Dead as a franchise is experienced the best at the arcades, but can also welcome players back at home with platforms such as the Personal Computer, the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 3. I'm also aware that there exist bizarre spin-offs such as The Typing of the Dead.

Don't Breathe

 

When three young burglars decide to rob a blind and sick army veteran of his wealth in order to escape their current established lives, the job seems almost too simple at first hand, but then they discover that you should never judge a situation by it's looks.

Don't Breathe is a suspenseful and thrilling movie which felt like a combination of the horrific Collector movies(The Collector and The Collection), and a touch of the Home Alone films, except that it's easily the most realistic.

Having been co-produced by Sam Raimi, the film is well edited and has creative turns of how the plot starts getting more tense, while making sure that you will get to see the full tour of this small and apparent abandoned house.

Victims will be made, and there is a darker side surrounding the army veteran, and it's not just because he is hunting on the thieves. Sound is an important factor for it involves avoiding a blind man, but eventually the choreography gets worse.

Don't Breathe has various genres including crime and thriller, but it involves enough horror for it to be included on this year's october. It lives up to the objective score it gets from critics and viewers, and it shouldn't be missed.

Rating: 7.0

Phantasmagoria

 

A creative and ambitious horror project from the mid 90's, designed by Roberta Williams, who is the co-founder of Sierra Entertainment. Phantasmagoria is another memory as a young kid which used to haunt me.

Combining 3D graphics with live action, similar to The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, the caliber regarding the overall quality however is better in my opinion. This point and click adventure might look dated today, but back in the day, it was a controversial entry.

Sex, gore and general spookiness made it a memorably video game, especially when one looks at plenty of the dead scenes involved, plus there's enough foreboding, cat scares and mystery to keep you company.

Granted, it's a short playthrough, especially when you know what to do, and the easy puzzles plus the really helphul red skeleton in the corner who can examine items and spell out hints for you makes this a casual invitation from a gameplay experience, but I liked this.

It oozes a 90's feeling with the silly acting, the presentation and the silly music, plus there are several ways to deal with puzzles and the climax towards the ending can vary too. The story is basically about stopping an evil curse and the demon it emits inside possessed bodies.

It's also easy to go unnoticed of various scary events including more death scenes and supernatural stuff, so it's advisable to explore and backtrack to rooms as you go through the chapters, they are worth seeing.

Phantasmagoria is effective, uncommon and nowadays both goofy and gory to experience. It certainly is a well known title of the 90's, at it stands out as both a comedy and a horror, depending on the player.

Rating: 7.0

A personal guilty pleasure of mine, A Puzzle of Flesh as a sequel is not canonically connected, but improves upon the formula with a better user interface, better acting, a more sinister story and a more evil soundtrack.

It's especially a special case to me, as my brother used to scare me as a kid while showing off some scary and bloody scenes. Your playable character this time is Curtis, a technical writer at a conspiracy company who happens to be bisexual and many people like him.

The story unfolds as Curtis starts experiencing strange hallucination scenes and other oddities while performing his daily routine of work, home and several romances. Meanwhile, mysterious murders start happening, and 1 co-worker has the tendency to go completely wild.

The scares are many, varied and better in my opinion, ranging from hallucinations and evil voices, to supernatural alien activity and gory deaths. The climax is neat as it features 5 scenes where you will have to act quickly, or else you will die.

That final scene is the one I remember the most as a kid, as a young Curtis tells his insane mom that he loves her, and starts hugging. Other than that, the story went too crazy with it's alien elements, but I liked the rest of the plot.

A Puzzle of Flesh might actually surprise you with the amount of content, secrets and easter eggs it provides during the short stay you will be at WynTech. It's an FMV horror game that isn't shy with showing off with more sexual and gory content than it's predecessor.

Rating: 7.2

Stranger Things

 

Main Theme

The latest horror hit is Stranger Things, whose inspiration clearly comes from science fiction and adventures like E.T., X-files, Stand by Me and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, while it's direction is a mix between Stephen King and Stephen Spielberg.

Rendering a true homage and throwback to the 80's in general, I definitely loved the great horror movie poster references like The Evil Dead, Jaws and The Thing appearing over the private rooms, and I felt the same with the main theme, which is like a lost John Carpenter song with heavy synthesizers.

The acting of the young kids is very impressive as I felt immersed by how much they cared about each other and the world they live at Hawkins, Indiana. Winona Ryder also played a compelling role as a worrying mother.

It's too early to really consider it as a great TV series seeming as I only saw season 1 for now, but I can't wait to see more! The supernatural environments and the creature design are well done and the "Carrie" effects kept me watching, especially that one moment when a kid was floating in the air!

 

Jim Hopper played a supportive and determined role of uncovering the conspiracy and the supernatural, while the same goes for Charlie Heaton and Natalia Dyer too. But the true stars of the show are of course the 3 boys looking for their lost friend, and Eleven, the mysterious girl.

Toothless in particular stroke me as a character, really being energetic, caring and such while maintaining a balance between rational and irrational remarks throughout. Cursing and swearing around each other during tense times is clearly the cool thing to do around 1983.

Stranger Things feels nostalgic in a modern take from a bygone era from which I was born, and it's one of those television flicks which is very easy to watch through because it's so wonderfully directed and filmed and acted by the people behind and in front of the camera.

Rating: 8.0

Thriller

Might just as well take this horror opportunity and proclaim that Michael Jackson is the only musical figure so far which has truly impressed me with his career and his political messages he gave towards them.

Thriller as an album remains the best selling one in the history of the music industry, for it has world favorite songs including Beat It and The Girl Is Mine, but seeming as we are in the month of October, let's concentrate on the namesake song Thriller.

Having been produced as an obvious horror setting, it features Michael in a narrative feature, before it changes into a choreographed dance routine song with the genres Disco and Funk popping out, while director John Landis handled the music video itself, most well known for An American Werewolf in London.

The zombies following Jackson's lead is the most famous moment of the whole deal, and it's a nice touch that Vincent Price also included his voice with one of if not the most famous evil laugh in horror history.

Furthermore, the lyrics, the effects, the sounds and themes all support of it being a thriller night, a tenseful scary nightmare happening, and it ends with a questionable ending for the narration, revealing that Michael was a werewolf all along.

Thriller is a brave direction for somehow making it all work impressively without giving the impression that it's a comical situation we are dealing with here. It's also at this moment the very first song I have ever reviewed.

I'm not sure even sure how to rate songs or albums yet. Will I go for 4 stars(****), a scale from 1 to 10, or something different? Who knows, I just might start reviewing even more mediums in the future.

Five Nights at Freddy's 3

Jump scares. Why not make a rapid whole franchise consisting of them, and make a profit? As I previously said last year, I congratulate Scott Cawthon for his success, but at the same time, I think that it saturated and hurt the genre.

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 branches in a new direction regarding gameplay in that you do not only have to monitor a security camera system now(of which there are 2 this time), but you will have to use audio as well to track the animatronics, and keep the ventilation system in check, or you will experience hallucinations.

The game takes place at Fazbear's Fright, which is a former Freddy Fazbear Entertainment restaurant capitalizing on the incidents which happened in the two previous games, which is of course actual animatronics going nuts.

The fact that you gotta monitor and be on standby for several subsystems arguably makes part 3 a more psychological stressful situation simply because there are more options. Unfortunately, the systems can also crash, so you will have to reboot them in order to keep things running smoothly.

Of course, the impending and effective approach of the animatronics and the phantoms is present. The unknown factor has thus deepened, and the game keeps the tradition in place with making players uncomfortable.

Aside from developing a lore(ish) environment and being perfect material for streaming Let's Plays, Five Night's at Freddy's 3 is actually more tame and stale in the scare factor compared to 1 and 2, and despite being a more sophisticated experience, by now, the overall quality of the series is going down.

Rating: 7.3