*You wake up chained to a radiator in a basement. In front of you a bigscreen T.V. and every gaming console in existence. A distorted voice begins to speak to you over a hidden intercom* Good morning little Mary Sue, let’s play a game, shall we? What’s that, you ask? Is it a fun game? Oh my dear child, no. This game is a game of pain. A game of horror. A game that shall teach you the meaning of suffering. Do you still want to play? NO? Too bad.
The rules are simple, I am going to give you ten horror games to play. And you must complete them without complaining once. If you do, I will let you go free. If you should fail however, I will leave you in physical condition similar to the financial condition of the gaming studios that developed these hideous titles. Do you understand the rules? Good, let’s begin. After ranking the five best horror games in history, here are the ten worst horror games we’ve ever played.
Agony
First we’re going to play a little game from 2018, that takes its name from the emotion that players are filled with when they are subjected to it. The most horrible thing about the game is that, at a cursory glance, one would think it would actually be good. After all, it looks like a rather creatively designed romp through hell, does it not? Unfortunately, the Agony game designers were a little too good at mimicking the torments of the inferno. The voice acting is torturously bad. And indeed, there is so much gore that one becomes desensitized to it. If you had to eat chocolate cake at every meal for the rest of your life, it would stop being delicious, no? Playing Agony is akin to eating chocolate cake for every meal, except the frosting is blood and the batter is the remains of a desiccated corpse. One grows nauseatingly weary.
Blade 2
Ah yes, the Blade franchise. Do you remember how awesome those movies were? Well, the Blade video game series is as mind numbingly terrible as its source material is cool. The combat system is simply bad, turning the source material’s beautiful dance of death into an awkward polka of frustration. What’s that? You’d like to know what the attack button is? Silly child, there is not attack button! You have to flick the right analog stick and simply pray that your attack goes in the right direction! At least you may be able to find some sort of grisly satisfaction in listening to the voice acting. Sometimes bad acting is fun, no? Who doesn’t like watching The Room?
Friday the 13th
A cursory glance at this game is all you need to know that it should have never been made. A game like this is suited to join the Pantheon of Bad Games, the worst of which being the famously atrocious E.T. title. I’m sure right now you’re wishing that Jason would pop out the screen and murder you instead of the camp counselors. Tell me that’s true, and I’ll be sure to put you out of your misery.
Lifeline
“The path to hell is paved with good intentions”, truer words have never been spoken with regards to this game. The game designers intended to make a good game by utilizing a creative idea. The player would use voice controls to guide a young waitress through a space station infested with monsters. A capital idea. But the Playstation 2’s voice recognition technology simply wasn’t good enough for it to work. What’s that? I don’t think she understood you when you said “FUN AWAY YOU DRUM FOUR”. Try again!
Night Trap
This game consists almost entirely of sitting and watching surveillance footage. Doesn’t that sound like something to get the blood thumping? And what’s on that surveillance footage? Scene after scene of sexual violence towards women. How revolting. Night Trap was so poorly received that it was on the subjects of a United States Senate committee hearing addressing violent video games in 1993. The game was subsequently pulled from the shelves of many retailers, but I managed to track down a copy after digging around in a landfill. Lucky me, unlucky you.
Death Race
Here’s another game that a simple glance at will tell you all that you need to know. The game was meant to be an edgy sort of title where one controls a reckless driver who loves mowing down pedestrians. Sounds like some good old Grand Theft Auto fun, no? The problem is, that whenever you hit a pedestrian they are replaced by an impenetrable tombstone that have to avoid for the rest of the game. That’s a bit like if you were haunted by the ghost of every person you murdered in GTA. The screen would get full quite quickly. No fun at all.
Chiller
This game is a little arcade-style shooter. But what are you shooting at, you ask? Hordes of glitchy zombies? Poorly voiced acted vampires? Far worse. You are shooting at apparently innocent people who are already restrained in medieval torture devices. Your job is not to kill them before they kill you, because they are unable to escape. No, your objective is to figure out a way to murder them as quickly as possible to get a high score. The game was so poorly received that arcades simply refused to buy it due to its serial-killer creating content.
Ju-On: The Grudge
Does blindfolding yourself and failing around in an abandoned building sound like fun? That’s a bit how playing this game feels. The game was inspired by the famous Japanese horror film The Grudge, and no doubt the developers of this game wanted to make something as awful as the original was excellent. What’s that? You can’t see anything? Use your Wii-mote as a flashlight? Still nothing? Just brightly lit darkness? Walk around a little bit! I’m sure that you’llāoops, you died! The ghost got you! You’ll have to start all over again. Maybe stumble blindly in a different direction this time?
Grabbed By The Ghoulies
This game concerns a middle schooler named Cooper who has to fight his way through a haunted mansion to rescue his girlfriend, which is perfect, because this game appears to have been designed by middle schoolers! What’s that? You just entered a room that looks exactly the same as the others and have to fight the exact same monsters in the exact same way? Yes, that’s intentional. It’s meant to build frustration. That way you’ll want to figure out the god-awful controls just so you can grab a ghoulie and shake it to death in order to vent your anger. Go ahead. Start yelling. Say how much you hate it. It will feel good.
Illbleed
This last game is my least favorite, because it takes my favorite thing in the world, a good trap, and sucks all the fun out of them. What do you have to do in the abandoned amusement park that the game throws you into? Why, look for traps! Yes, yes. Walk around a little bit. Did you find any traps? No? Try over there? Still no traps? My, this is getting boring. Just keep walking around, eventually you’ll find a trap that you can disarm. Oops! Looks like you found one! But I said disarm, not trigger! Oh what’s that you said? “This game is shit”? YES IT IS. BUT NOT AS SHIT AS THE SHIT I’M ABOUT TO PUT YOU THROUGH FOR LOSING OUR WAGER.
You’re going to have to play each one of these games again.
Then you can go home. Even I’m not cruel enough to subject you to a third play through
(Featured image: AQ Interactive)
