I never thought that I would have so much fun with a chore. There are various curated threads online about watching power washing. It’s satisfying to see someone turn an incredibly dirty surface into a sparkling clean one like wiping a window with a squeegee. There are many jokes about missing a spot and everyone in the comments losing their minds. r/powerwashingporn is a popular subreddit dedicated to these videos. FuturLab has done an incredible job of making this chore feel fun and satisfying. There’s even a silly story that’s evolved over the course of the Early Access phase involving gnomes.
Every surface is covered in dirt, rust, mud, or some type of grime. You get a power washing nozzle and you spray things down until they turn clean. You can decide what to spray, what direction, and in what order. That’s part of the fun. Tackling each area in a certain way is satisfying and fun for you. Your tools include various spray nozzles that have different widths as well as spray liquid for getting tough areas, but this stuff is expensive and limited. You also have a spray gun that shoots various distances. These can be bought and unlocked with money by completing levels. You are paid at the end of a level and you can see a sped-up replay of your work. There are also cosmetic items such as your suit and gloves.
Some levels are multi-storied so you get step stools, ladders, and scaffolding that can be moved around and put wherever you need it. There are a few levels that have some frustrating buildings to clean such as the giant shoe level. There is a meter on each surface that shows how complete it is and sometimes it can be hard to find that one dirt spot that’s keeping the surface from dinging. Thankfully there is an illuminate dirt button that turns all dirt a golden yellow for a few seconds so you can see what you’re missing. Getting down the last percent in each level can get annoying as you’re just hunting down that last dirt spot. There is also a list of each surface and the percentage that they’re cleaned, so you can at least eventually narrow it down.
There isn’t any background music. You just get ambient noises like birds chirping or cars driving in the background. It’s a very silent game. You’re best just playing your own music in the background as this is a very zen game where you can veg out and not think about much. I also appreciate the control scheme on a controller too. It’s easy to control and you don’t have to move your aim camera back and forth like you used to in Early Access. You can now press a button to move your sprayer within the frame of the camera. This can reduce motion sickness and overall irritation. It wasn’t a big problem on a PC with a mouse, but it was unbearable with an analog stick. Most levels can take you 1-3 hours to complete depending on how big they are. There are smaller challenges that involve just cleaning a vehicle like an RV, alien spaceship, Mars rover, or bicycle. Levels get more complex as you go on with more small objects and more complicated surfaces. Things like planes, boats, helicopters, and the previously mentioned shoe house can get really busy. I would end up doing some levels in multiple sessions. The longest level I spent time on was nearly five hours.
Again, you have to like this kind of thing to see an appeal to it. The visuals are bright and colorful, but rather basic and simple. There is no raytracing, AI anti-aliasing, or anything complex rendering-wise. The game can technically get very repetitive, but that’s actually the point of this game. I feel many may mistake this game for a business simulator when you only do the power washing and buy upgrades and cosmetics. I had a blast (no pun intended) with this game and FuturLab is still putting out content that I need to catch up on. Overall, PowerWash Simulator is one of the most relaxing and satisfying games I’ve ever played.
This is probably the most iconic and memorable handheld system for anyone over the age of 25 today. The Game Boy Advance was an unstoppable juggernaut of a system and one of the most anticipated in video game history. It sold like gangbusters, and Nintendo couldn’t keep up in the beginning. The first Nintendo handheld with a horizontal orientation and their first 16-bit handheld system that could create SNES-quality titles, and boy did it The Game Boy Advance has one of the most beloved and expansive handheld libraries out there. It’s also a good middle ground for being playable today without any hardware mods.
So, let’s address the elephant in the room. There’s still no backlight on the screen. This was largely criticized back in the day, and for a 21st-century handheld, it is mostly unacceptable. While the LCD is clear and crisp, you still need a bright light to see anything. Thankfully, many people still held onto their worm lights and got good at hiding under blankets at night by this point. Outside of that, I would say that’s the worst thing about the system.
When it came to power, the GBA delivered. It could recreate SNES-style 2D games and do rudimentary 3D games, which weren’t really seen until later in its life. The added shoulder buttons helped with the ergonomics and allowed deeper gameplay. We still didn’t get much I/O outside of the usual Link Cable, and the infrared was gone with this system. Overall, the system feels good in your hands. The slightly rounded back helps fill out your palms, and reaching around to the shoulder buttons makes the system sit well in your hands. It’s a great-feeling system, and many prefer it to other re-releases of the GBA.
In today’s age, the best thing you can do is upgrade the GBA to a modern LCD. It’s a drop-in mod and pretty easy to do, but there are so many mods for this system. Amplifier boards, USB-C upgrades, shells, buttons, silicone pads, lenses—you name it. Many people run shops dedicated to modded GBAs, and they can be quite beautiful. I have a nearly one-of-a-kind mod myself. The person who made mine no longer runs a shop and UV prints his own shells. Some people even add speed hacks via a hardware switch. It’s an amazing system to customize.
We all judge these older systems by their libraries, and the GBA is one of the best—some might say the best handheld library to date. While there was a lot of kiddie shovelware, there is something here from every genre, including first-person shooters. We’ve got Doom ports, many SNES ports, and games from many favorite franchises like Final Fantasy, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Pokemon, Mario, Prince of Persia, Tetris, Lord of the Rings, and many more. This was an era where many console games were better on the GBA because developers were forced to redo the game and think outside the box. Some terrible console games wound up having great GBA ports in the end. There’s something here for everyone. There are hundreds of games to choose from, and many are quite good.
Overall, the GBA is a fantastic and iconic piece of hardware. While the internals aren’t impressive today, having a portable SNES was something everyone dreamed of. The GBA library is what most people remember over the hardware anyway. Many people’s childhoods are wrapped around this system. While I never had the original model growing up (my parents couldn’t afford one), I still saw people with them and envied them for it. I love my GBA today and play it at least once a week.
The GameBoy Color wasn’t something I had growing up. My parents couldn’t afford one. I had the DMB GameBoy, but that was it until the GBA SP came out. I did play some of my classmates’ GBC in school here and there and did experience Pokemon Blue a few times, but my GBC experience has mostly been as an adult, and mostly in the last few years. See, the GBA SP could play GameBoy games, but I always felt they were “old and dumb” being 8-bit titles. I had very little money growing up, and I didn’t want to waste it on older titles. I only owned a single GBC game, and it was The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX, which I never finished.
Fast forward over a decade later, and I appreciate the system a lot more. While I have a modded GBC with a modern backlit LCD, RGB buttons, and USB-C charging, I still remember what the system was like as stock. One thing that kept me from wanting one was the lack of a backlight. The GameBoy Lite had a backlight; why couldn’t the GBC? I understand it was a budget system as the hardware inside was dirt cheap to produce at this point, but come on, Nintendo! You still needed a flashlight or had to play with a flashlight under the blankets. This makes playing today nearly impossible and unbearable with all of the modern LCD display technologies we have. Some like this and get a more nostalgic feeling from it, but I didn’t play my original DMB Gameboy much because of this when I got it for my 7th birthday back in 1997.
Not much else is improved over the original model. The Gameboy Pocket had already been released at this point, but it did feel lighter and was slimmer than the original model. However, the screen was smaller at 2.3″ compared to the DMG’s 2.6″, but it was in color, so there was a trade-off. It did have more RAM, which was needed for the wider color palette, and the sound was slightly improved, but we still had the same 10-year-old processor. We got square wave channels, which made the system less “bleepy” than the original model, but not by much. The only other I/O was an infrared receiver, which could be used to beam digital data across to other consoles. The battery life was also cut by 1/3 due to the color screen.
Some might say there are more drawbacks and improvements, but just the color alone was incredible. Many later DMB games were released with GBC compatibility, and later, hundreds of GBC-only games were released. The system still feels great to play to this day. It’s clearly the best Gameboy to have, as it can play original games with a slightly better screen. However, if you own both, the slightly larger screen for the original games might be preferred. It’s all down to personal taste, to be honest. We mostly judge these older systems on their libraries, and the Gameboy and GBC libraries are some of the best. Classics like Tetris, Wario Land II, Pokemon, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario Land, and many more are engrained in millions of people’s minds. As for the original hardware, the only setback is that screen. I wish it had more improvements, and it feels like it could have had more, but at this point, the GBA was probably deep in R&D and only a few years away.
If you get one today, I suggest getting an LCD upgrade at the bare minimum. USB-C and any other mods are optional and not really needed because the system has great battery life already. You can do the mod yourself or buy one custom-built from many shops online. There are so many aftermarket shells, buttons, silicone pads, and even sound mods for these handhelds that have blown up over the last 5 years. It will get to a point where you will have trouble finding someone with an unmodded Gameboy.
Many people use video game reviews to determine how to spend their hard-earned dollars. While as an adult I don’t take this as seriously and I now make my own money I am more forgiving of games that aren’t perfect. As kids or teens, we have limited money and are usually picked through gaming magazines to determine if that one game was worth the money because we only got a few a year. For me, it was only during Christmas time that my parents bought games. I mostly rented mine throughout my childhood and teen years. Even for rentals, I was picky as I didn’t want to be stuck on my weekend with a dud of a game. Even a 7/10 or 3.5/5 would be considered a waste of time. This was the last generation in which AAA title after AAA title would be considered fantastic and with so many exclusives it was hard to keep up with. The HD era of gaming would see budgets balloon to insane heights and game releases slowed down as a result.
In my eyes, 7/10 or 3.5/5 games are mostly ignored. These aren’t always considered hidden gems either. Some are, but some are just considered forgettable. Not awful or good, but just passes under everyone’s radar. These aren’t the “so bad it’s good” games either. A few of these games have cult followings; a few I had only heard of while compiling this list and some I played myself growing up. I compiled this list from Metacritic with games between 74-70. I feel that’s the true blue 7 range. 79 and 78-rated games usually only have about 25% of the critics giving it a 7 to bring an otherwise 8 score down some. These games are at least rated by half the critics as 7/10. While I know many people don’t listen to critics and some might feel this game should be rated higher or lower is subjective. Like it or not, critic reviews drive sales and it may be the reason why you might find a few games on this list you’ve never heard of, thought was talked about worse than you remember, or something along those lines
Marble Saga: Kororinpa – 2009
The second and final game in the Kororinpa series, Marble Sagaadds enough that is new to make it feel worthwhile. It’s really addictive and fun despite the bland visuals. It has plenty of modes and a level editor as well.
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz – 2006
The game doesn’t evolve much here. The mini-games grow tiresome and most of the overall content can get on your nerves, but the multiple control options really help.
Most Recent Entry: Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania – 2021 (NS, PS4, PS5, XONE, XSX, PC)
The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces – 2010
Motion controls were well done here, but in the end, the missions aren’t very exciting. It’s a good-looking arcade-like dogfighter on Wii, but don’t expect anything exciting.
Naruto: Clash of the Ninja Revolution 2 – 2008 Naruto Shippuden: Clash of the Ninja Revolution III – 2009
Simplistic gameplay really hampered the experience here, and the story is lame, but the online play really bolstered the longevity of the game and added challenge.
Most Recent Entry: Naruto X Boruto Ninja Tribes – 2020 (AND, iOS)
Lit – 2009
A unique horror game that used the Wii remote like a flashlight. The shadow puzzles were fun, but the game is forgettable due to a lack of a compelling story or world.
Dive: The Medes Islands Secret – 2009
A good-looking platformer that was mostly generic feeling and average. While it was fun and wasn’t bad in any way it just didn’t provide anything to stand out.
Just Dance 2 – 2010
The series was birthed on the Wii. The second major outing didn’t approve of the first very much. It’s exactly the same as before with a new song selection and slightly better visuals. The series has lived on to this day.
Most Recent Entry: Just Dance 2022 – 2021 (NS, PS4, XONE, PS5, XSX)
SSX Blur – 2007
The series made it to the Wii with motion controls and all but was hampered by cutesy visuals that clashed with the signature look and dumbed-down gameplay. The control scheme also had a steep learning curve. The series would eventually die out with a final reboot in 2012.
Most Recent Entry: SSX – 2012 (PS3, X360)
WarioWare D.I.Y. Showcase – 2010
To be accompanied by the DS game, Showcasewas the classic WarioWare gameplay, but didn’t have enough content to keep people coming back for more. The connectivity to the DS was great and added some small replay value at least.
Most Recent Entry: WarioWare: Get It Together! – 2021 (NS)
The second and final offering on the Wii it went out with a fizzle and splat. The series was growing stale at this point only changing one thing for the good and screwing up something else. The boards felt like you were too often at the mercy of chance and the content was lacking.
Most Recent Entry: Mario Party Superstars – 2021 (NS)
Pandora’s Tower – 2013
This game has a pretty nice cult following. It’s a beautiful and unique game on the system that pushed it to its limits. It’s often compared to Shadow of the Colossus and Castlevania. A little bit of each. It just has really repetitive combat and there’s lots of it.
Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party – 2008
The penultimate release of this weird series that no one asked for. While the Rabbids are always fun to see on screen their games are just smatterings of mini-games and slapstick humor. This game uses the Balance Board on top of the Wii remote to make you do dancing numbers. It gets old quickly and is most fun with other people around.
Most Recent Entry: Rabbids Go Home – 2009 (PC)
Animal Crossing: City Folk – 2008
Wow, wait! An Animal Crossing game?! Well yeah. The series was pretty much not doing much around this time. Not much changed from the GameCube version and many long-time fans complained about this. You can skip this game in the series and not miss anything. It’s a great jumping-on point for newcomers, however.
Most Recent Entry: Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 2020 (NS)
Art Style: Cubello – 2008
The Art Styleseries was short-lived but pretty popular with puzzle fans. This game was considered unique and easy to pick up and play but became too complex and difficult too quickly.
Most Recent Entry: Art Style: Rotozoa – 2010 (WII)
Disney’s Epic Mickey – 2010
Warren Specter’s (Deus Ex, The Sims) colossal failure stemmed from poor controls and an awful camera. Diehard Disney fans were able to look past this, and if you do too, there’s a genuinely good game under all of this. The sequel was so desperate to turn things around that it moved away from its Wii exclusivity.
Most Recent Entry: Disney’s Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two – 2012 (WII, VITA, PS3, WIIU, PC, X360)
Fast – Racing League – 2011
The surprise Wipeout meets F-Zero game came out of nowhere and surprised many racing fans. It looked good and had a great sense of speed but flew under everyone’s radar. The series then launched on later systems garnering more coverage and love from fans.
Most Recent Entry: Fast RMX – 2017 (NS)
Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party – 2007
Pick one DDR game and you’ve played them all. Unless you want new songs there’s no reason to buy anything else. The series never changed up the dance mat, and this game had a small amount of content and didn’t change the formula up much. It was business as usual here.
Most Recent Entry: Dance Dance Revolution II – 2011 (WII)
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles – My Life As A Dark Lord – 2009
The Crystal Chronicles series hasn’t received much praise after its GameCube outing. The Wiiware versions were fun tower defense games but had a lot of paid DLC that could have been included. This game is considered one of the best in its genre for the system.
Most Recent Entry: Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles – Remastered Edition – 2020 (AND, iOS, PS4, NS)
Talk about a ho-hum launch title. While Excite Truck had a great sense of speed and looked decent enough, the track design was very generic feeling and there was a serious lack of content including online play.
Most Recent Entry: ExciteBots: Trick Racing – 2009 (WII, WIIU)
Chick Chick Boom – 2010
A really fun party game that was praised for its visuals and fun factor, but didn’t have much overall content. It’s also best played with other people leaving solo players alienated.
Endless Ocean – 2007
Praised for its bravery in trying to create a living breathing encyclopedia, but lambasted for having zero gameplay and frustrating controls. It’s worth playing if you just want to relax and enjoy the sights. The series would get one more entry before calling lights out.
Most Recent Entry: Endless Ocean: Blue World – 2009 (WII)
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games – 2009
No game in the series is bad, but they are very simple and don’t provide enough to come back to. Many issues were addressed from the first outing, but the game is overall too simple and easy to challenge adults.
Most Recent Entry: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 – 2019 (NS)
Deadly Creatures – 2009
A super weird game that surprised everyone with how good it was. It featured AAA actors for some reason too. The creatures themselves were realistically created and felt like their real-life counterparts. This adventure game got really hard though. I personally rented this and loved it. With a bigger budget a sequel could have been awesome, but alas this game didn’t sell well.
Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage – 2009
Trying to capture that Tony Hawk magic Shaun White rode on the coattails of the legendary skater for years. With a quick succession of releases using motion controls the games were serviceable, but low effort. World Stage used the Balance Board and had clumsy controls, but was fun nonetheless.
Most Recent Entry: Shaun White Skateboarding – 2010 (PS3, X360, WII, PC)
Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars – 2008
Mushroom Men was a series I hoped would get better. There is a lot of potential here and it’s one of the most visually striking games on the system. Sadly, it feels dated and gets really repetitive. One last try squeaked by on PC to never be seen again.
Most Recent Entry: Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble – 2015 (PC)
Dr. Mario Online RX – 2008
A remake of the SNES game RXonly brought online play to the table. It’s the same gameplay without any interesting modes and won’t hold your attention for long. If you have any other version you don’t need this. Especially since the servers are shut down.
Most Recent Entry: Dr. Mario World – 2019 (AND, iOS)
Super Swing Golf – 2006 Super Swing Golf Season 2 – 2007
I loved PangYa on PSP. It was one of the best golf games on the system. The series is clearly aiming toward the Hot Shots Golf crowd with cutesy visuals. However, the was little content to keep people coming back despite being one of the first golf games on the system.
Most Recent Entry: PangYa: Fantasy Golf – 2008 (PSP)
Shiren The Wanderer – 2010
This roguelike looked great and had potential at every turn, but just felt a bit too repetitive and formulaic to be remarkable. It’s still a visually unique game for the system. A sequel eventually bore fruit to equally mediocre results.
Most Recent Entry: Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice Fate – 2020 (NS, PC)
Spectrobes: Origins – 2009
The final game in the short-running series. This seemingly lifeless and generic action game is actually rather good. It’s a monster collecting game with decent visuals on the Wii and is great fun despite the lack of any challenge.
Driift Mania – 2009
A fun call back to 16-bit top-down racers, but the lack of solo content really hurt here. The game was designed with multiplayer in mind. Many also didn’t care for its generic-looking visuals either. However, it controlled well and had a good sense of speed.
The Munchables – 2009
A fun game with cute visuals, but this time the game does have some challenges. It gets repetitive fairly quickly, but many felt the game was worth pushing through. The controls also needed some work.
Magnetica Twist – 2008
A fun puzzle game if not ugly. This Zumaclone was hampered by poor controls and no online play despite the price point. If you can get a hold of this game you’ll have a lot of fun at least.
Let’s Tap – 2009
One thing that was common with unique Wii games that were experimented with is the fact that these games always came to packed light on content.Let’s Tap only has four mini-games and a visualizer and must be played with others to fully enjoy. The whacky nature of the whole thing makes this one of the most interesting games on the Wii.
The Kore Gang – 2011
A fun and lighthearted platformer with zany characters. Switching between them allows some form of variety, but the overall experience is let down by a short run time and some fiddly controls.
NASCAR Kart Racing – 2009
A surprisingly good game despite the license. The game has great controls and a fun track design but has no online play and the visuals are really dated. The online part might not matter anymore so it’s probably even better.
Most Recent Entry: NASCAR Rivals – 2022 (NS)
Jett Rocket – 2010
A fun and addictive game but gets repetitive fast and lacks any depth. It’s also very short clocking in at just a few hours, but it’s a fun time at least with quality design choices.
Most Recent Entry: Jett Rocket II: The Wrath of Taikai – 2013 (3DS)
Excitebike: World Rally – 2009
This did a good job of updating the original NES classic but had no local multiplayer which was a real shame. However, it didn’t advance the formula much if at all and that brought it down some.
Most Recent Entry: Excitebots: Trick Racing – 2009 (WII, WIIU)
Pearl Harbor Trilogy – 1941: Red Sun Rising – 2010
Considered one of the better dog fighters on Wii, the game was praised for great controls and mission variety but was insanely challenging. This wasn’t a pick-up-and-play arcade game at all.
Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition – 2010
Yes, these are good ports and play exactly like you remember them…but that’s it! No fancy extras, no remake of any kind, no HD remaster, just the same NES and SNES games slapped onto a disc. It felt like overpriced Wiiware.
Most Recent Entry: Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury – 2021 (NS)
The 8-bit era of Atari was before my time. I started the next generation with the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo as a young toddler. I still respect and have enjoyed iterations and ports of Atari 8-bit games over the years. What hasn’t been done well is anything outside of bundles of seemingly random collections. They’re nearly countless at this point and have spanned nearly every console imaginable. Atari anniversary collections, various Atari-themed packs, and various retro packages with fancy UIs or presentations However, no single retro package has been as cohesive or beautifully created as the Atari 50. Even Sega’s recent Genesis Collection, with its retro 90s bedroom and bookshelf display, can’t beat this.
The entire game is presented like an interactive history lesson. You go through four timelines. Atari’s origin story and their arcade routes You get to see photos, printouts, commercials, and interviews with various Atari developers and industry veterans such as Tim Schafer (Psychonauts) and Cliff Bleszinski (Gears of War). These are presented in chronological order. A game is presented when its release comes up in the timeline. Some games have cover art, photos, and even comics underneath them to view. As you advance in the timeline, you get the feeling that you’re playing an interactive museum tour. There are no fancy 3D menus or anything, but the clean and simple UI works well. There are a few surprises peppered in, like unreleased prototypes and Digital Eclipse’s own recreations of iconic games like Yar’s Revenge and Haunted House.
As you advance to the home console and PC timelines, things get more interesting. You will eventually get to the Atari 5200 and 7800 games, which are a bit more advanced. You will also get to play a few PC games for the Atari home computers. Then you will finish up in the 1990s with the Atari Lynx and Jaguar. Sadly, there aren’t many games in this timeline, and the biggest issue with this entire game is the lack of third-party titles. You only get to play Atari-published and owned games. That’s very limiting, and while I understand this is Atari’s own history, there are many games that helped make their systems great outside of internal developers. The few Jaguar games range from Cybermorph to Tempest 2000 and Missle Command 3D. They aren’t great, but they are interesting to dive into. That’s another thing about this whole collection. Very few games are fun to play for longer than five minutes. Some are pretty clunky and bad. This isn’t a “greatest of” collection, which I really appreciate. You will most likely go back to the more fun games like Missle Command, Centipede, Millepede, Tempest, or their latest versions in this game. You get special bezels, backgrounds, overlays, and control options for every game as well. You can also select various modes, and some games support save states, which is cool. You also get a digital view of every manual for the game, including the arcade operator’s manuals. They didn’t leave anything out.
By the time I spent around 5 hours in the game, I got to the end of the timelines. You can go back and play any game in the library view and pick your favorites. These games run really well and look great, but many gamers who didn’t grow up in the 80s will probably find this nothing more than a history lesson. Even more, will find pretty much every game boring or uninteresting. However, that’s not a knock to the games, but just a warning to younger audiences. Anyone younger than 30-35 will most likely not find this game interesting or fun. If you have a curiosity about Atari’s history or games then this is the best place to get that. If you have an itch for trying out 8-bit games or want to go back without emulating anything then this will give you nearly 100 games. I also appreciate how few ports and copies of the same game are in here. Each game was hand-picked and placed with relevancy.
Overall, the Atari 50 is one of the best retro packages you can ever play. Telling an entire developer’s history with games placed in their correct time slots and even including unreleased games and reimaginings of some is just fantastic. The videos are entertaining and interesting, and you will learn a lot. There are so many details added from commercials, print ads, posters, manuals, customizable controls, save states, and more. It’s a complete and cohesive package for Atari lovers out there. Just be warned that there are no third-party games and less of the 90s stuff.
What would happen if you combined Resident Evil with Silent Hill? Probably a game with crazy enemies, creepy music, inventory management, and tank controls. Well, that’s exactly what Signalis is. It combines the best of PS1 horror and shoves it into a nice retro package with great controls and animations. Developer Rose Engine might be a bit on the nose with its inspirations, but it does a good job of making it feel more modern with a retro flair.
The weakest part of the game is its story. I will get that right out of the gate. While most PS1-era horror titles had convoluted and messy stories that usually made no sense or were open for player interpretation, Signalis is very cryptic, but the overall journey has a twist ending that is pretty eyebrow-raising. It will leave you stunned a bit and is a great payoff outside of the fact that there is almost no world-building or lore to get into. You get the occasional note, similar to Resident Evil, that tells a little snippet of what happened just before the current event. See, you’re some sort of AI controller robot in some dystopian German world. That’s all I really got out of the story and the few cut-scenes peppered throughout the game.
Just like the horror games that inspired Signalis you have limited inventory space, very little ammo for your weapons, fewer healing items, and lots of backtracking. I will praise Rose Engine for making backtracking in Signalisless painful than games of the PS1 era. There is a good map system that even marks puzzles that require items. The final area of the game has no map, but you will learn to remember landmarks. The level design in Signalis is fantastic. A game with a lot of backtracking needs good landmarks so you remember where every room is. If you are familiar with the 32-bit era of horror games this style of progression won’t bother you. There were some puzzles that had me write stuff down (math puzzles) or take photos of diagrams. You get a radio about halfway through the game and you can use the frequencies to help solve puzzles. I will admit that inventory management is a little too tight here. You only get 6 inventory slots and there are no upgrades in this game. I wish I had at least eight. I constantly had to leave healing items and ammo behind to dump puzzle items and backtrack a couple of times. At least in my first playthrough, I was able to preserve quite a bit of ammo. I didn’t even end up using two of the weapons. You can easily run from most enemies which I recommend later on when you enter rooms with four or more enemies.
You can only shoot enemies while standing still. There is an aim button that auto-locks, and you can fire. Enemies will fall down, and you have to stomp on them to temporarily kill them. Yes, after the first area, you get thermite, which will permanently burn enemies and keep them from rising. This is why I recommend only killing enemies in main corridors that require you to frequent them often. Most rooms have a one-time entrance. You run in, grab everything, and leave. Rooms with puzzles and save rooms don’t have enemies, so this helps. Just like games of this genre, you will eventually unlock shortcut doors to get back to the main puzzle areas or save rooms, which help cut down on a little bit of the backtracking.
The enemies themselves are very Silent Hill-like. Almost exact copies. There are EULR enemies that look exactly like the Bubble Head Nurses from Silent Hill 2. The STCR enemies look like the Closer enemies from Silent Hill 3 or the Siam from Homecoming. Everything aesthetic and atmosphere-wise is very close to Silent Hill. Even the music is similar. The entire game looks similar to the Otherworld from Silent Hill as well. I have to say I like it a lot. We need more Silent Hill, and this is the closest you will get. There’s a little cyberpunk infusion with the AI robots and dystopian world. It’s a great fusion, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
I didn’t find much of the game frustrating. Puzzles are fairly straightforward. You may have to look up one or two, but the solutions were mostly right in front of me, and I just didn’t see them. There are only two boss fights in the game, and they are pretty fun but not very challenging. The challenge in the game’s combat arises from getting swarmed. As long as you run, you will always be safe. Enemies usually have to stop to swing, and unless you’re backed into a corner, you won’t get hit. The variety of weapons helps, and you can store everything in your save room chests and go back to get what you need. I did finish the game with plenty of healing items and ammo. I can’t express enough how much running helps in this game. There were occasional rooms that needed my flashlight too.
Overall, Signalis nails the feeling and atmosphere of Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The monster designs are great, the music is haunting, and the level design is done in such a way that memorizing the layout of an area isn’t that hard, which is key for games that need a lot of backtracking. Puzzles aren’t insanely vague or obtuse, and it’s obvious what items go where once you find both. I just wish there were more than six inventory slots. It just adds artificial fluff to the playtime by constantly having to go back to your storage chest and dump off items. I also wish the overall story and world-building were better. The game is only about 6 hours long, so there isn’t much time or room for character or world-building anyway. Thankfully, the atmosphere, enemy design, tight controls, and well-designed areas are all tight. This is easily the best retro horror game to be released in the last couple of decades.
As time goes on, I’ve learned to appreciate engaging casual games that don’t require intense focus. Small adventure games that only take a few hours to beat, relaxing puzzle games that don’t really have an ending, and anything in between are fun to enjoy and veg out on. It has the same effect on me as binge-watching a show.A Little to the Lefttries to be that. It has engaging puzzles and serotonin-squirting organization puzzles, along with cute visuals, but it does come with issues.
The game’s puzzles start out fairly simple. There are around 75 puzzles in the main game, with 365 daily puzzles. Puzzles start out with just straightening photos on a wall, putting cat toys in a basket, arranging a dinner set, aligning colored pencils in a certain order, stacking rugs, etc. These first dozen puzzles are relaxing and really give you a taste of what this game could be. Yes, I said it could be, as the game quickly ramps up the abstractness, and even with a full-on guide and accessible hint system in the game, it still doesn’t make sense. The arrangement puzzles are the absolute worst. These are abstract shapes that don’t snap together but instead are arranged in a specific pattern. The patterns usually make no sense since the pieces are so far apart. These puzzles will frustrate most players and lead you into a false sense of relaxation and simple organization and stacking.
That’s not to say I don’t like a challenge. One puzzle has you sliding a mirror to the left and right and arranging the objects according to the reflection. Another has you stacking cat food cans in colored columns that match. These puzzles were enjoyable. My favorite was the organization puzzle. Put all the junk in the correct cubbies. That’s a lot of fun with the process of elimination. Sadly, there are only about four of those puzzles, and I wanted more. The difficulty is all over the place, but it’s artificial difficulty. The puzzles are just so obscure sometimes that most people may quit the game.
I also found the snapping system pretty broken. Sometimes you place an object in the right spot, and it will snap into place and make a faint ding sound. However, abstract pattern puzzles require two symmetrical objects in the same spot in the scene before they will snap into place. This hinders progress, as there are no tactile hints that you are making progress. There is a hint system that shows you the solution by erasing and uncovering. This was nice, as I would try to just erase one part and still be able to solve the rest on my own. However, even the hints sometimes make zero sense.
Thankfully, you can still move on with the “Let It Be” system, which skips the puzzle for you. There are some puzzles that have two or more solutions, such as sorting from highest to shortest, then by color, and then by matching an image on the same object. While the first solution may seem easy to spot, the additional solutions can be insanely abstract and obscure. I really tried to solve as many as I could on my own, but in the end, I solved maybe a quarter of the puzzles by myself. There were just too many that were frustrating, and I felt I wasn’t making any progress. Some were just me overthinking the puzzle, but some were just poorly designed.
The visuals are cute. It has a pastel, minimalistic look. Lots of colored pencils, charcoal, and watercolor art designs The music is great and relaxing to listen to in the background; it’s just too bad the game isn’t as relaxing. In the end, A Little to the Leftis misleading in its first dozen puzzles and quickly ramps up the abstractness and obscurity too much, requiring too many puzzles to be skipped. The most enjoyable ones are too few. This isn’t a bad game at all. There are fun puzzles peppered throughout the bad ones, and the overall cat aesthetic is enjoyable with great music.
A Plague Tale: Innocence was a massive surprise hit for me. I didn’t expect much from it coming from an unknown indie studio. It seemed pretty, and that’s about it. I was shocked at the fantastic acting, gripping story, well-designed enemy encounters, and unique combat system. Requiem does what sequels normally do. Improve in some areas and step backward in others. While it’s not as shockingly impressive as the first game, it does deliver an even better story with insanely good acting and a couple of new characters. Amelia, Hugo, Beatrice, and Lucas are still trying to cure Hugo’s macula and stop the plague from spreading further. A lot more details arise, and we learn the true origin of Macula and Hugo’s fate.
The first third of the game takes place in the new town that Amelia and co. have settled down in. One thing I love about this series is that there’s one thing that always lingers in your mind when playing. Lose all hope. Hope is something that doesn’t exist in this world. Amelia and Hugo are constantly betrayed in this game, and it isn’t always apparent. You might think they finally settled down in a nice town or met nice people who would keep them safe and love them, but nope. Not in the world of A Plague Tale. There’s constant dread, pain, and death, and it’s wonderfully portrayed thanks to the amazing acting on screen. I do want to mention that while the acting is amazing, the facial animations are really lacking, including lip-syncing being stiff. That’s a minor complaint, but overall the story is awesome and it has a satisfying ending.
That’s the game’s strongest point outside of its amazing visual presentation. The first game was well-loved for its well-crafted enemy encounters. Each area felt like a puzzle, and it was the perfect difficulty. Not too hard, but not so easy that you would just run straight through. I always felt like I could figure out where to go and how to get around each enemy. It was so good that I played that game twice. Requiem adds a lot of new layers to the slingshot and alchemy, which makes it a bit overcomplicated. There are more elements added in, such as being able to hold pots and a crossbow. The crossbow is obtained shortly after the halfway point, but you can add four different alchemic elements. Tar, fire, and rat-attracting crystals This can make fumbling around to change your weapon and add the right alchemical property cumbersome on the fly. The tar can be used in pots to slow down enemies, but it can also be set on fire with the slingshot fire. So this requires switching to the pot, and then tar, and then switching to the slingshot and equipping fire. I died a lot trying to fumble around and figure out what to do on the fly. This becomes infuriating during open combat events in which I had to restart one section nearly two dozen times because I ran out of materials and had to figure out how to preserve everything in the right order.
Guards come in more variety this time. There are helmeted guards who can’t be killed with the slingshot. These need to be avoided or taken out from behind, which causes a lot of noise, and the animation is very long. You will, more than likely, always be seen. You get to hold disposable knives that are used to get you out in a pinch. There are guards with shields now that require being blinded with powder, which is another element to flip through. Fire is still a big gameplay element here, and you have rat sections that are also mixed with guards. I found these sections with rats more fun in this game because I could be more creative. You can put the guard’s flames out with the powder and watch the rats. Then there are puzzle sections with just the rats, and these were the most fun. I really enjoyed these sections, but there aren’t enough of them. Thankfully, combat in the game is spread pretty far apart, with entire chapters of just storytelling thrown in between to give you a break.
It’s a shame the combat went from perfectly balanced to overly difficult and cumbersome. The puzzle sections use the new elements as well. There are now different types of fire, from haystacks that only last a few seconds to fire bolts that stick to wood objects. You have unique partner abilities, such as Arnaud’s shield that bolts can stick to and Sophia’s crystal that can refract light. These are new changes I really liked and fit in. You can throw tar on flames to increase their brightness for a bit and spread light out more to solve puzzles and reach extra chests. This was the stuff I really enjoyed. Flipping through all these items and alchemy stuff during combat was just too much and hurt the already perfect flow from the previous game.
The last thing I want to touch on is the upgrade system. It’s been simplified and almost seems pointless now. You need tools and parts to upgrade, but they’re so rare and hard to come by that I barely upgraded a single skill to the max by the end of the game, and this is a 15-hour game. It takes a new game plus to continue maxing out your skills, which can really help if you can get to them, but it takes so long that I never relied on these. Even if you found every hidden chest, you wouldn’t be able to upgrade much.
With that said, the pacing of the game is all over the place. Going from entire chapters of combat to entire chapters of walking around and letting the story play out. An hour or two would go by with no combat or puzzles, or you would get an entire hour of puzzle-solving with 10 minutes of combat. I also didn’t care for the open combat sections. This combat system isn’t designed for running around and taking enemies out in droves. The first game did this well by just letting you slingshot enemies. You now have to run around and fumble with the weapons and elements to decide which enemy needs what thing to take it down. It’s incredibly frustrating.
The game looks fantastic, at least. This is the first “next-gen” game, I think, that’s been released so far. It’s not on previous-generation consoles, and sure as hell, it wouldn’t run on them. My 3080ti struggled at 1440p with maxed-out settings with DLSS turned on. It did dip down into the 40s at times. While it’s not perfectly optimized, anyone outside of an RTX GPU won’t have a great time running this game. It really is a next-generation-looking game. I can’t stress enough how amazing the game looks. Beautiful vistas, lots of color, and tons of dark visuals as well. It’s a sight to behold.
With all that said, Requiem does a lot of good in the story and visuals department but falters when it comes to combat and pacing. I enjoyed the puzzles and sections where you had to get through rats, but the open combat is infuriating, and fumbling through all the elements
I really like the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series, but they are insanely long and challenging. These are hardcore JRPGs, not meant for casual players. Most won’t have the stamina needed to sit through 150+-hour games, and the PlayStation Trophy data shows that. Less than half of all Persona 5 players finished the game. Thankfully, for people like me, Atlus put me in an extra-easy mode called Safety that let me finish my first-ever Persona game. I tried the third and fourth games several times and just couldn’t do it. While I eventually did well in battles, the games were too long. The story in Persona 5 is fantastic, and there are plenty of great things about this game, but a few key issues may drive most players away, even more casual JRPG fans.
The story is insanely deep and detailed. There are plenty of mysteries, twists, and turns that kept me trucking on because I wanted to see what happened next. The characters are compelling, well-written, and very likable; however, you still need to like anime to enjoy the characters in this game. There are some typical anime tropes that leak in, but I think people who play JRPGs are already aware of this. Your character is Joker, a teenage boy wrongfully convicted of assaulting a high-profile individual for just trying to save a woman from harassment on the street. You end up living with someone who volunteered to take in a convict and watch over you so you can get rehabilitated. This game plays just like previous persona games, with a time limit, days going by, social rankings, and acquiring personas.
The game will introduce things to you throughout the entire game, and I mean throughout. 40 hours in, I was still getting tutorial messages. The game is an incredibly slow burn. I didn’t get to do any battling until the fifth or sixth hour. This was all story and world-building, introducing the idea of personas, your purpose, and your back story, and showing you how to go about the day-to-day. The game is mostly dialog, to be honest. Out of the 80 hours it took me to finish the game, maybe 25 of those were spent actually exploring the dungeons and fighting. There is a lot of character-building and slice-of-life stuff in here. You also have a time limit to finish every palace, which is the main dungeon in the game.
When you’re not battling, you are living your everyday life. You need to go to school, and the day is broken up into sections such as early morning, which is reserved for dialog you hear on the train going to school, talking to friends at the train station, etc. Morning and afternoon are reserved for things happening at school during the week or random quizzes that you can answer to increase your social stats. These stats are knowledge, proficiency, charm, kindness, and guts. These are needed to finish confidant arcs and max out that persona category, so you can get stat boosts when using that type of persona. These stats can be increased by doing certain activities like watching movies, playing games, doing chores, and other everyday activities. It’s important to use your downtime to increase these stats, as the game is balanced by not just level grinding but having these extra stats for each persona type.
After school time is reserved for doing things around the city, such as said activities, and getting together to enter Momentos, which is a secondary dungeon with a few dozen levels that you need to descend to complete requests from people. In the end, it’s required to descend fully for the final dungeon, but before that, it’s optional. I recommend doing these late-game activities so you can just barrel through the levels at the end. The evening is reserved for nighttime activities and jobs, even to earn more money. After the activity is done, you advance to the next day and do this all over. Some days are interrupted by story elements, scripted scenes, and other events. It’s important to hang out with confidants when you get texts from them to advance their persona ranking. These are where the side stories for each character are held. They can be long-cut scenes too. Usually, you get 30 odd days between each major palace to fill the time. This time period can take hours to finish.
When you do actually battle, your persona is based on finding the weaknesses of your enemies. This can be both good and bad. If you find the weakness, you get one more turn. This can be elemental or physical. The downside is that the entire game can be over if you don’t find these quickly. It’s trial and error as to finding the weakness, and some just don’t have one. You waste precious turns trying to figure this out, and it can make some boss fights grueling. You can save within these palaces and return to the real world to buy items and increase your persona rankings more, but if you don’t find the treasure and beat the boss by the deadline, it’s game over. I’ve always hated this about the series, and it makes the game more difficult and frustrating than it needs to be. You can capture personas by talking to them when they’re weak in battle. If successful, they will join your ranks. It’s important to keep a good variety of personas leveled up and acquire new ones with better skills. You can fuse and itemize them in the Velvet Room, as well as sacrifice weaker ones to strengthen others.
While you can use multiple personas, your party members are stuck with one. Every few levels, they will gain new abilities for their personas, and you have a limited number of slots, so it’s important to keep them balanced. Inside these palaces, you can acquire items, treasures to sell, and powerful equipment that you can buy in the airsoft shop. These palaces are huge, with multiple levels, and can take hours to complete. I played the game on safety difficulty so I could beat each palace in a single sitting, but if you need to level grind and fuse personas, you could take the entire time limit. Each palace has a different theme, and they look cool, but the weak puzzles and labyrinthine halls of some of them are really annoying. Enemies walk around in real-time, and because you are a thief, you can get behind cover and dash around them stealthily or take them head-on. Some palaces are a really confusing mess, and I found some just went on for too long.
Those are your two main parts of the game. Battling in Momentos or palaces and living your everyday life to increase social stats and play mini-games I personally don’t like the trial and error of exploiting weaknesses to win each fight. The graphics are decent, while stylistically they look great with lots of flash and color, but technically it looks like a typical JRPG and borderline last generation and not too much of a step up from the PS3 version. While it seems there is a lot to do in the game, there actually isn’t. You’re so focused on visiting confidants and maxing out social stats in the real world that it feels like a chore after a while. You have to realize there are nearly 250 in-game days you have to get through on top of the palaces and moments. The game just feels like it never ends. 80 hours to finish safety difficulties, and it can take 150–200 hours for higher difficulties. I had to dedicate every free minute I had over the last three weeks to finishing this game and not playing any other games in between. I wish there was a warning at the beginning of the game letting players know how long the game can take on average, or even put it somewhere on an official source of information for the game. I have played and bought many JRPGs, not realizing just how long it takes to beat them.
Overall, I don’t want to talk too much about the story because I can easily spoil something. The Phantom Thieves and trying to change the hearts of criminals is a great story. It can be very dark at times when talking about child exploitation, abuse, murder, money laundering, and many other crimes. It’s a dark game, and I felt it had a very memorable story, but it takes way too long to tell it. Many will balk at the trial and error of weakness exploitation to win battles, insane amounts of grinding, and the constant need to micro-manage your personas to get a well-balanced, always leveled-up arsenal, which might seem like too much. That doesn’t include dozens upon dozens of hours of reading dialog and watching cut scenes. I recommend this only to the hardest-core JRPG fans. This game is not to be taken lightly. While I complain about some of these things, fans of this genre embrace it, and that’s okay, but for only around 40% of players to have finished the game says something about the length.
We all love a good scare, right? Horror games are some of gaming’s greatest past times. Usually booming in October, horror games from the past and present are played all around the world. The problem is, there just aren’t a lot of them made, and the best ones are far and few between. Usually, this is a great time to dig up old classics rather than trudge through recent crap. While the PS1/PS2 era was the golden age of horror games, the HD era, or the seventh generation of consoles, struggled and was probably the most anemic when it came to horror games, especially the good ones. There’s a reason why some of the rarest and most coveted physical games are horrors. It’s the genre that’s been the least explored and not done well enough most of the time. If you can look past clunky controls and awkward gameplay, most retro horror games do provide good scares, atmosphere, creepy monsters, and good visuals. I’ve compiled a list of the best and the worst.
American McGee is well known for his dark interpretation of the Alice in Wonderland series. The first game, American McGee’s Alice, was clunky mechanically but was a visual treat. The same goes for the sequel. It’s a gorgeous game with a lot of dark themes dealing with mental illness. The enemies are fantastically designed, and the levels themselves are living art. Despite the incredibly repetitive gameplay, this one is a blast to play through.
A lot of people didn’t like Homecoming due to its more action-oriented combat, but I actually quite liked it. I feel it was the last good Silent Hill game in the series, and it still retains the creepy atmosphere and insane creature design. The haunting music is still present as well. While it’s not as tense as the original trilogy, Homecoming does have better combat, despite being the wrong focus here. This was the first game in the series that was part of the jump to the next generation. The next game in the series, Downpour, would be considered the worst in the series, and I personally hated it. These would be the last games in the series to date.
Metro 2033 and Last Light were some of the best horror games to grace the seventh generation of consoles. While they played and looked best on PC, the console versions still looked great and did a good job giving us scares. The post-apocalyptic horror series had an intriguing story and a tense atmosphere, along with crazy creature designs. The final game in the trilogy, Exodus, would be on next-generation systems and receive mixed reviews.
While not inherently designed to give you nightmares, Shadows has a lot of horror elements in its design, such as creepy enemies and an overall atmosphere of dread. It’s more of a comedy-horror title, but it has tons of style that helps make swallowing the shallow substance a bit easier. It’s also not very good-looking, on a technical basis, but the art is awesome. Most of Suda 51’s games were one-shots and never saw sequels. SotD never saw high enough sales, even if he wanted to do a sequel. To date, it hasn’t seen a remaster, remake, or port.
Condemned Series
Condemned: Criminal Origins really showed us what next-generation visuals could look like. The E3 2006 demo blew me away, and it was one of the reasons I got an Xbox 360. This was one of the few games that looked the part and really pushed the industry into a new era of HD visuals. It’s a game that can be replayed many times, and you will always have a fun experience. It’s too bad the series is dead because Monolith nailed the atmosphere here. The game is intense, with crazy melee combat and incredibly dark and haunting levels. Crazy bums coming out of nowhere, breathing, panting, and trying to attack you in dark hallways is something else. The sequel, Bloodshot, was great but focused more on combat and less on the atmosphere, so it’s not quite as scary. It was also the nail in the coffin, as due to the poor sales of the sequel, Sega shuttered the series for good. To date, the series hasn’t seen a remaster, remake, or port of any kind.
Dante’s Inferno is one of the best hack-and-slash games ever made, but EA was bound to make sure you didn’t know that. It didn’t get much attention and was considered just another God of War rip-off. While the game was short, it had incredibly responsive and fun combat, an interesting protagonist, and insanely gory and adult-themed levels. It’s just too bad the story wasn’t fleshed out enough. What’s here is a fun 4-5 hour game that you won’t find anywhere else. Sadly, the game’s low sales sealed its fate to have no sequel, caused Visceral to shutter, and hasn’t seen a port, remaster, or remake to date.
Specifically speaking about the first two games, BioShock had a crazy dark atmosphere, some creepy enemies, and horror that kind of just oozed everywhere. There were no jump scares or downright frightening scenes, but you always had a sense of dread and fear, and that’s really hard to pull off in games. The game was more about psychological horror and isolation, and it sure pulled off mostly the best in the first game. Surprisingly, the entire trilogy was released during this generation and would receive barely passable ports later on as the BioShock Collection.
While Dead Space 3 was mostly about action and less about horror, the first two games were damn scary. I would consider them one of the scariest games I have ever played. Jump scares aside, there was a constant foreboding presence of something lurking around every corner, and the Necromorphs are some of the greatest video game enemies of all time. This was peak horror during the HD era. Another trilogy saw its ending in the same generation cycle. The series would stall here, and the first game would receive a remake two generation cycles later.
Deadly Premonition is the perfect game; it’s so bad, it’s good. The gameplay is dated and feels like a PS1 game; the graphics are terrible; and the voice acting is awful, but the writing and overall atmosphere the game presents are well done and memorable. It really feels like a PS2 game that was quickly ported over to next-gen consoles without any improvements in mind. It can be scary in the sense that its trippy Japanese horror weirdness will freak you out more than scare you. This is one of the few games you should stomach for its terrible design and weirdness. It’s worth it. It would get a sequel in the next generation, but it would not look like it and would be poorly received.
Oh, man, this one brings me back. The first game was very scary, with crazy The Ring girl vibes that were all the rage in the early 2000s. The gunplay was genuinely solid, and you needed a NASA PC to run it back in the day, but forget about understanding the story. The second game had some really scary elements but was more action-oriented and had less of a mid-2000s PC shooter Half-Life 2 style vibe to it. The third game, well, just isn’t scary at all. Another trilogy was released in the same console cycle. While the first game was a port and was released during the PS2/Xbox era, the entire trilogy would never see a remake or remaster.
The Resident Evil series really took off after the previous generation. This generation will see the most action-focused games yet. Resident Evil 5, 6, and Operation Raccoon City were the main releases. There was also an HD port of the 3DS exclusive Revelations, as well as Revelations 2 as a sequel. Some would consider this the weakest run the series had, only to go back to its roots in the next generation cycle, starting with Resident Evil VII. The games also weren’t very scary around this time. They were just too action-focused and didn’t have the same nuanced scares and puzzles as before. Revelations would be the only sub-series to feel scary or have any tension at all. Operation Raccoon City would be lauded as the worst game in the series.
The Last of Us would be considered one of the best horror games ever made. It was wildly praised and made waves throughout the gaming industry, receiving awards and praise from all angles. The tense stealth scenes with the Clickers were awesome. These monsters are some of the creepiest and eeriest creatures ever made for a horror game. This wasn’t just another zombie game. It would receive a sequel in the following generation as well as some of the most controversial decisions ever for a game. It would also receive a full remake and remaster.
Outlast
Released at the tail end of the HD era of gaming, Outlast never saw a port to consoles until the next generation. It was damn scary. This small indie game made waves and became one of the top streaming games of all time. The tense atmosphere and overall great design, in general, made Outlast terrifying. The sequel would be released several years later on PC and consoles, as well as a port of the first game released about a year later.
Amnesia was probably the top-streamed video game of the year in 2010. Game streaming was new, and scare reactions reached the charts on YouTube. There hadn’t been many really scary games during this generation. It was all action-focused and multiplayer-focused to generate sales. That’s why this indie game was released on PC only at the time. It had interesting puzzles and enemies you couldn’t fight. It wouldn’t receive a port until many years later and two generations later. The sequels, A Machine for Pigs and Rebirth, would be poorly received, and I personally didn’t like them that much either.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series
The STALKER series wouldn’t sell well at first but would gain a huge cult following. The entire trilogy was released around the mid-life of the HD era and was exclusive to PC. It’s rough around the edges, but a huge following of moderators would improve the game, and it wouldn’t be until two generations later that a true sequel would be released. The game never saw a port to consoles, and for a reason. The engine is already poorly optimized on PCs and wouldn’t do well on consoles. It would be a huge undertaking to port the entire trilogy, and it would be hard to market.
Alien Isolation
Alien Isolation wasn’t technically developed for HD consoles, but mostly for PC and next-generation systems. It came out right as the next generation was coming in, and the HD versions were quickly forgotten. Isolation is considered the best game in the Alien series and one of the best horror games of the last couple of decades. It captures the 80s aesthetic of the movies and tells a great story while being terrifying. I still haven’t completed it to this day because of how scary it actually is.
Penumbra Series
The original horror trilogy, Penumbra, was developed by Frictional Games, which would later go on to make the Amnesia series. This was released for PC only and never received a console port. It was a less talked-about indie series that was loved among horror fans, but indie PC games didn’t receive the same spotlight that they do now. Console gamers didn’t care unless they were ported. Penumbra is a slow-paced, puzzle-focused horror series all about adventure and discovery. It’s creepy, full of psychological horror, and a must-play for any horror fan.
While this is stretching it a bit, The Evil Within was mostly meant for next-generation consoles and PCs. It played and looked nice on PS3 and Xbox 360, but those weren’t the intended systems. This was Shinji Mikami’s next opus and was definitely creepy and had some good elements, but it was too action-focused and unbalanced, and the story made no sense. Some say that’s the charm of survival horror games. There’s a bit of jank that’s needed. I personally just thought this game was okay, despite the amazing monster designs. A sequel would later come out, but not sell as well.
This is one of my favorite horror games of all time. It has a great story, memorable characters, and a great combat system that plays off of light and darkness. I’ve replayed this game many times, and it wasn’t an instant hit for Microsoft. The sales were slow, and it wasn’t appreciated until much later. It received a PC port and a recent remaster. It’s a must-play for any horror fan.
Siren: Blood Curse
It was a surprise to see a niche and obscure horror title return to PS3. Siren didn’t sell or review well but is considered a cult classic and part of the classic survival horror era. Blood Curse was a digital-only episodic release in the US that had some great scares and an overall fun adventure. Sadly, only Japan and Europe received a physical release.
Oh man, where do I start? My favorite horror series was butchered with this release. I rented this from GameFly and had to follow a guide through most of the game. It was a confusing, convoluted mess and felt like a chore to play. It wasn’t scary, it wasn’t fun, and it was the worst game in the whole series.
While the movies were quite enjoyable despite their flaws, the games were just awful. They weren’t as gruesome as the movies and played it too safe. Pretty much every bad conventional video game flaw was present here. Awful voice acting, terrible graphics, bad puzzles, and poor level design.
Vampire Rain
Easily considered one of the worst games of the HD era, there was no redeeming value in this game. There was nothing you could overlook. There wasn’t any “it’s so bad, it’s kind of charming” to this game either. It was just a disaster and an unplayable mess. It wasn’t scary; it felt like it was trying to be several games at once; it looked bad; it played even worse; and it wasn’t any fun despite all the hype leading up to its release.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
This game needs no introduction. It’s been covered by every “worst of” and “most controversial” video game on YouTube out there. Its history has been extensively documented. From broken AI to awful visuals, this is just a completely unfinished and broken game. It’s also considered one of the worst games ever made. It’s a stark contrast to Alien Isolation.
I had the displeasure of actually finishing this game when it came out. I was hoping it was going to be a great reboot of a classic horror series. I followed the developer’s diaries all the way through the release and played it without reading any reviews. The game is pretty bad. It’s one of the worst games of the HD era. It was just an awful chore and a mess of a game. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t scary. It was just plain bad.
Amy
Probably one of the worst games ever made. This was a small indie game that was supposed to be full of suspense and horror, but instead, it’s a chore of a game with awful controls and graphics. The game was also poorly optimized and suffered terrible framerate issues. The story made no sense, and overall, it was just a stupid and lazy game.
I was so excited about this game, and every time I think about or have to write about it, it breaks my heart. I absolutely love Clive Barker’s work and have had it since I was a young teen. I fawned after the figures from Todd McFarlane and loved the characters in his movies. Undying was also a cult classic. The game was just trying to do too much at once. It had cramped-level design, awful performance, dated visuals, and just felt like a chore. The only thing it had going for it was the art design. It’s one of the worst games I’ve ever played and one of the saddest scars of the HD era.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.