Hallowe’en is a special time of year. So special, in fact, that we couldn’t let our celebratory Halloweek go by without making a very special effort to do a very special thing indeed. To that end, we’ve resurrected the ghost of H.P. Lovecraft, master of fevered horror and creator of Cthulhu, to write a few game reviews for us. It wasn’t easy. We had to enlist the eldritch help of Aleister Crowley to even get the ritual started–fortunately he haunts the right-hand toilet cubicle on the first floor–and he’s a notoriously cranky old bastard.

But succeed we did. So here’s old Howard Phillips, to take over the article and furnish you with his finest, most considered responses to this year’s biggest games. See you at the end. If you’re still alive, and sane, and not the prostrate thrall of an elder god… Good luck on all that.

Super Smash Bros.

Every bone of my wretched skeleton froze to fragile ice, liable to shatter with the steadily creeping weight of the endless moment. I stared into his eyes, seeing not life, nor light, nor comprehension. Only madness. And worse, it was not the disarrayed, fragmented, scattershot madness of the fractured-but-harmless lunatic, but one focused and aware, if it were aware of anything at all, of rapturous delight in its own insanity.

He looked back in silent, intent vigil. At me, through me, within or without me, I could not fathom which, and nor did I wish to try, for to follow his gaze back along the deep, fissured path to its source would surely have seen me lost forever. Perhaps it was days. Perhaps only a handful of eternally contorting seconds. But when my lucidity returned, to snatch at my hand and turn me shrieking away, I could not help but feel that our exchange was not yet over, nor would it ever truly be so. His empty glare lingers over my shoulder to this day.

Score: Despair / 5

WWE 2K15

The sights that I witnessed surely cannot have been real, but rather the twisted dream of an insane god. One by one, two by two, three by three the brawny beasts left the portal, emerging from the stygian blackness beyond to lurch, pound and creep toward the chamber. Upon that profane altar they assembled, these unholy constructs, these perverse amalgamations of man, rock and beast. Over and over again they threw themselves against each other, breaking and crashing their gnarled forms into the most terrible, impossible shapes.

Oh, the depraved lies that my deceitful eyes wrought during that unhallowed spectacle! Please, in the name of all that is reasonable, they must have been lies! For the creatures appeared, for the longest time, to stretch and contort their bodies into the most sacrilegious configurations, creating such heaving knots of ligament and flesh that the very stinking air around them must have defied and defiled all hope of logic, science or intellect. And worse! So much worst an abomination! Upon finally falling, rendered and broken, these hulking molestations of the rational inflicted further contempt upon my sanity, reviving, reforming and recommencing their assault as if nary the slightest of affronts had ever been committed.

Score: Devastation / 5

Tomodachi Life

There is a man in the room above mine own. I cannot see his face. In my dreams, he comes to me and tells me that he is unhappy, and that he requires seven things. Seven things, are what he requires. A simple fountain pen, a handful of purple bread, the shoulder of a cloven beast, the sap from a tree, a red cloak, and the soul of a banshee. Only then will he show me his face.

I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I cannot see his face. I see his face. Darkness.

Score: Decay / 5

Forza Horizon 2

The world of my senses dissolved into a garish blur. Illuminated only by the weighty mystery of the waning gibbous moon, my uncontrolled acceleration from the civilised plane was an irresistible trajectory into the void. Far from the lights, far from the path, further and further into the murk I went, my journey into blackness punctuated by intermittent flashes of blinding light upon unrecognisable scenery, bursts of sickening colour shaking incoherently at my core.

Above me, the pale, shadow-draped satellite watched in silence. If the gloom from which it half-protruded held any answers, then those answers were not forthcoming. Only the cold, faceless glare of that cryptic moon, half-shrouded in the same darkness to which I was committed. And on, on I plunged! Further, faster into the unformed night! The ground beneath me–if it were still the ground at all–rattled and contorted with a searing rage. Explosions and unseen shatterings shook the very air around me, as unseen objects tore past my face. And everywhere, in the periphery, I knew they lurked. Out in the night, watching for me and waiting for me. The pig people (opens in new tab). Always watching, and always waiting.

Score: Devilry / 5

FIFA 15

The drone of a thousand thousand human voices is echoing around my ears, threatening to lull me into a sleep that I fear I may never awake from. I desperately glance into the virtual eyes of a man known only as ‘Messi’, who answers my stare with a hollow gaze of his own that–such is its artifice–sends a dread chill through the core of my very being. I am helpless now. As a shrill whistle punctuates the infinity of our exchange, I realise that this game–this spectacle of fools–is already over.

The men are moving now. They chase a round object that objectively matters nothing to their existence, yet they pursue it as if a very legion of slave masters compelled them. They matter not. The object becomes entangled in a white web, which wraps around it like a cloak, presumably choking the life from its spherical victim. The men cheer, but I know that they are already dead. They always were.

Score: Dread / 5

Mario Kart 8

Around I went again. Around and around and around, never to slow, never to rest, never to look back at the blissful innocence left behind. How many times now had this dread circumvolution claimed another haunted hour of my experience with its obstreperous drone? How long had this sleepless sun driven my fevered senses from rest? How many hours, months, or years had it scorched my skin and flooded my senses with the foul stench of flame, of oil, of burning steel?

The dread beast was upon me now. I had, in my nave inattentiveness, been unaware of its presence at first, its ponderous, sluggish lurching registering barely a shadow upon my perception. But now it was here, a thundering blight of teeth, scales and talons. Beyond that, I will not describe it. Beyond that, I cannot describe it. Even if my mind were able to fully comprehend is fearful countenance without breaking entirely, I fear that the bumbling foibles of human language would be as naught in the face of its horror. But it matters not. Soon it would strike. Soon, and so close, so painfully close to sanctuary, that deathly azure inevitability would drag me down once more. My only solace would be a swift descent into oblivions sweet respite. Until the next time. And the next. And the next

Score: Desperation / 5

Watch Dogs

What is this place? This prison? And who am I? I stare longingly into the Pandora’s Box nestled in the palm of my hand, hoping it will somehow allow me regain my humanity, and escape this dreadful virtual zoo. As I run my rough hand over its smooth surface, I feel the world shifting around me. What devilry is this? I shall surely die here.

A fellow entity suddenly draws beside me in his motorised carriage. Wordlessly I slide into the seat beside him, and he duly mirrors my movement. I am now alone. I spur on my magical vessel and drive forever, spurning the temptations of some foul demi-god, who urges me towards a constant stream of empty activities. In his language, the beast calls them ‘Fixer missions’, but I know them to be evil traps that will forever enslave my consciousness. I must be wary.

Score: Darkness / 5

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

Sorry, got caught up in the moment there. Ahem. Where were we? Oh yes, that bit at the end of the article where we ramble on a bit in a desperate attempt to fill a final paragraph, before passing you on to some links to other stuff. H.P. would be brilliant at this. He’s great at rambling on a bit. But alas, we have already laid him back to rest, with the promise not to bother him again until at least this time next year. All part of the deal to get him to write this for us, I’m afraid. He’s a bit antisocial like that. But anyway, links!

How does an editorial on Why most scary games fail as real horror, and why they always have (opens in new tab) sound? And then maybe a Photoshop gallery of your favourite video game characters zombified (opens in new tab)? Yeah? Awesome. Enjoy.

The post The biggest games of 2014, reviewed by H.P. Lovecraft appeared first on Game News.

It’s a fully paid-up bit of horror-game imagery. Zero doubt about that. But does it make Gears of War a horror game? No more than coating a horse with whipped cream turns it into a sundae. From that point on, Gears of War is a big, meaty shooter, and no mistake. Neither the grotesque nature of the Locust nor the odd dalliance with slower-paced jump-scares, Wretches and old, abandoned houses (stock horror environment #2) alters that fact by one iota.

But why isn’t Gears of War a horror game? It gives us bleak environments, thick with a sense of perpetual mourning. It gives us hideous, tough, and highly dangerous monsters to fight off. It delivers gore with the giddy aplomb of a newly graduated fireman on his first day of hose-duty. It wraps all of this in a weighty, all-pervading sense of oppression. All of these things are core tenets of horror gaming. They’re certainly elements which define many easily-recognisable entries in the canon. Resident Evil 4. Dead Space. This month’s The Evil Within (opens in new tab).

So what’s the difference? Why do we say that Gears of War is a shooter, and that the others are horror games? You could argue that the largely one-note ferocity of Gears’ cover-based gameplay removes the fear factor sufficiently to earn the action-label most resoundingly. And you’d have a fairly decent point. Pretty cut-and-dried, right? Well no, I don’t think it is.

You see as a long-time horror aficionado in all media, I don’t find that a convincing argument at all. Because, after decades of immersion in horror, games, and horror-games, I think there’s something else at play, blurring the lines as fast as anyone can define them. Something endemic to horror gaming that, much like great Cthulhu, has been around so long, picking maliciously at the seams of the world, that we’ve long since stopped noticing its presence. Simply, it’s hard to define the boundaries of the horror game because very few video games have ever really delivered horror true experiences. We’ve pretended otherwise for a very long time, but really that’s the ugly truth.

Most horror games, even the really good ones, are games first and foremost, horror second. Strip away the aesthetic, and mechanically they’re just games. Some are actiony, some are stealthy, many dwell somewhere in between, but in truth they’re mostly just stock game mechanics painted with a gory or supernatural surface gloss. And real horror just isn’t like that. A good horror novel isn’t a spy story where all the enemy agents just happen to be zombies. A good horror film isn’t a generic Michael Bay movie, only set at night and full of vampires. Blade is a great, supernaturally-themed, gory action movie, but a great horror film? No.

In real horror–and this statement might sound trite upon first scan, but stick with me–the horror is the focus. In fact more than that, it’s the be-all and end-all. It’s not a tonal or aesthetic garnish for something else. It is the core of the whole experience. It’s the conduit through which all of the statements, thoughts and musings in the author’s mind are filtered in order to–as is the case with all good genre fiction–extrapolate ideas and experiences, and through their amplification, truly explore them.

And all good horror is about something. John Carpenter’s Halloween is concerned with the progressive, hypocritical isolation of suburbia in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Aliens is about Vietnam. Don’t Look Now is about the fatalistic nature of obsession and mourning. H.P. Lovecraft’s work, which beautifully straddles the line between art and pulp, is dripping with existential terror at arrogant mankind’s tiny pinhole view of reality. Same goes for the work of classic English novelist M.R. James.

But the point is that whatever subject matter or ideology is being filtered through it, the horror is the core. It’s the engine that makes the whole affair work. It’s what wraps up and forms every part of the work. But horror games don’t usually do that. They usually just stick some scary atmospherics next to a stealth, survival or action game, and leave it at that. They’re almost always primarily concerned with servicing their gameplay mechanics, with horror coming a distant second, if at all. The last time a big, mainstream release did the real horror thing was probably during the heyday of Silent Hill.

Although seen at the time as a rival to Resident Evil, in truth Silent Hill couldn’t have been further from its gore-munching genre-buddy. Furthering my points above, while both games are ostensibly third-person survival-horror games with deliberately awkward combat, squiffy, disorienting camera angles, and an emphasis on escape and evasion, it’s not their gameplay mechanics that ultimately matter, but their tones and the narrative content.

Resident Evil, even in its earlier, less action-driven entries, was a surface-level horror rollercoaster, trading on the vital thrill of jump-scares, gore, and b-movie monsters. It was, as is often the case, more focused on gameplay systems and aesthetic than deeper, true horror. Silent Hill though, at its best, has always operated in the inverse, using its gameplay to service a greater aim. The series’ high points have always been about atmosphere, emotion, psychology, and the use of horror’s nightmarish, surreal excesses to explore deeper, more powerful concepts and notions. Its monsters are no mere bitey cannon fodder. Each is designed to evoke and reflect an element of the lead character’s trauma and internal struggle. Its twisting, reality-bending journeys are crafted to disturb in specific ways that also resonate with the above.

It’s no coincidence that the series’ weaker, later entries are the ones that, with lesser or no involvement from early series Producer Akira Yamaoka, lost track of that. Neither is it any coincidence that Yamaoka’s dual role as designer and composer was instrumental in creating a coherent, cohesive, authored, ‘total horror’ production. Silent Hill is a game, but it’s one that has more in common with the legitimate conceits of literary horror than those of its corpse-grinding stablemates.

So are we now screwed for real video game horror? Are we bereft of hope and scrabbling in the dark, with Resi literally sticking to its guns, and Yamaoka seguing toward film, now working with Italian horror master Dario Argento (opens in new tab)? Well no, we’re not. Just as I was starting to give up, and ready to resign my gaming horror activities to the mental folder labelled ‘Fun diversions, but eh’–alongside Fast and Furious films and yo-yoing–a new wave of the real stuff has started to seep insidiously through the cracks in the floorboards.

P.T., with no hyperbole, is the absolute antithesis of game-horror’s failings (opens in new tab), intelligently recognising the detrimental effect of oft-applauded player agency on the power of horrific confrontations. That it also tightly winds its horror around a carefully crafted frame of psychology and significance makes it one of the finest and most insightfully directed interactive horror experiences in years.

Alien: Isolation (opens in new tab), despite being a more player-driven, stealth-horror experience, truly understands the impact and nature of its source material’s make-up. With that at its core, it fearlessly eschews all of gaming’s empowering, protagonist-courting safety nets and ‘necessary’ softened corners to create a savage, uncompromising simulation, made of primal terror and the unpredictability of real survival.

Perhaps ironically, given the arguments I’ve sketched out above, this resurgence is partly down to improved technology. Alien: Isolation just wouldn’t have been possible without the advanced, living, breathing artificial intelligence Creative Assembly created for the titular beast. P.T.’s atmospheric, claustrophobic, pure-horror focus is arguably amplified–and perhaps designed to show off–the near photorealism of Kojima Productions’ new Fox Engine.

But beyond technology, the human, creative factor remains all important. That mention of the studio behind Metal Gear resonates beyond the power of its shiny new toys. Horror like P.T. (and the in-production Silent Hills) requires the kind of deeper-thinking, more experimental auteurship that someone like Hideo Kojima–alongside collaborator Guillerno Del Toro–brings to a project. In fact his spiralling, fourth-wall-breaking, creative playground approach to direction will probably be far more at home on Yamaoka’s turf than it even was in MGS. Besides, a series as unique and artistic as Silent Hill needs a director with that sort of unchallengeable clout. Someone with vision and power, who can stand up for his ideas in the same way Yamaoka once did.

Similarly, if Isolation hadn’t been made by a team as dedicated to Alien detail as Creative Assembly–not just in terms of aesthetic, but also the tone, mood, and subtextual fears fundamental to Alien’s world and its violence–then it would merely be a beautiful sci-fi stealth game with a very dangerous monster.

So I suppose we come full circle. The future of video game horror simply cannot be about surface gloss, and gore, and overcoming the monstrous hordes. However much incoming visual fidelity affords us the ability to create more realistic dismemberment, and great numbers of the undead, we cannot allow horror to remain so external, a thing to be overcome with gameplay, weapons and agency.

To both the player and the creator, video game horror must, as it does in all other media, excel by becoming an internal experience, authored with thought, intent and craft, and experienced with personal resonance and uncomfortable meaning. I don’t want to jinx it. I don’t want to speak too soon. But it seems like technology, ambition, and (very probably) the more open creative climate brought about by the newfound prominence of indie gaming, might just be about to combine to create a bold new era. Horror fans, cross everything you have.

The post Why most scary games fail as real horror, and why they always have appeared first on Game News.

Torture–that most brutal application of pain–was first discovered by an unwitting ‘Adam 1’ in the biblical Garden of Eden. After accidentally pulling out a lock of Eve’s precious hair, Earth’s first woman quickly reciprocated with the old ‘bamboo up the fingernails’ treatment, followed by several hours of ‘electro-sponge’ swabs to the genitals. You know, like in Lethal Weapon.

And lo, was the evil act of torture created. Of course, this truly sadistic pursuit didn’t begin to hit its stride until the gruesome middle ages, when our man Throgg–freelance executioner for hire–had more fans screaming his name than many-a mid-90s boyband. Given his expertise in the field, I’ve convinced Throgg to give us his verdict on some of gaming’s most miserable acts of torture. So, without any further ado: let’s rack and roll.

Call of Duty: Black Ops brings new meaning to the term ‘glass jaw’

Hey buddy, need some help removing that cartoonishly throbbing tooth? Ha ha haa! No, but seriously we are here to mess you up pretty badly, so you’d best get to talkingThis is the somewhat unusual situation facing Black Ops’ resident punch bag Dr. Clarke during the opening moments of the game’s seventh level. With the COD boys already in a bit of a bad mood, they decide to extract some much-needed information from the good doctor, with predictably dire results. One of which apparently includes Jack the Ripper’s idea of a swift sparring match. Mouth opens, glass goes in, mouth closes. Player punches. Yikes. And here was me thinking that COD saved all of its worst outbursts for those long lines at the airport

Throgg: Kudos on the boys’ quick thinking. Ask any drunken hooligan and they’ll tell you, jagged glass is really in this year. Sure, they may’ve had all kinds of knives to choose from, but this scene is all about ensuring psychological suffering, which of course I’m a huge fan of. As long as Clarkey remembers to tuck his tongue back, the glass shouldn’t cause too much pain. Plus, if he decides to get cute he could always direct it towards Mr Mason’s pummelling fists. That way, everybody loses. Huzzah!

Manhunt 2 embraces heavy metal with an Iron Maiden

I say, what’s the lead singer of Linkin Park doing to that reverse-centaur chap? Ah yes, now I get it–he’s merely encasing a unicorn mask-wearing medical professional inside of an old timey torture device. It’s so obvious. Why didn’t I see it before? I suppose you might even say that he’s collaborating with Iron Maiden *readers are advised to take a full 15 minute laughter break* You knowthe iron maiden, that spike-filled casket up there? Urgh, never mind. Let’s see what Throgg thinks of this unusual form of torment.

Throgg: Love it. Love everything about it. Spikes on the inside of a coffin! Fabulous. Not to mention uber-practical. The iron maiden provides a great all-in-one death-and-funeral option for those families who’ve begun to suspect their daughters of witchcraft but simply can’t afford another flashy pyre. I’d love to get one of these bad boys down in the dungeon!

Grand Theft Auto V inks an unwilling Lazlow

Ahaa! I bet youd thought I’d opt for that other, totally non-stomach-churning torture scene. Well, try as I might, I just couldn’t come up with anything intrinsically funny about a man’s kneecaps being shatteredha’kneecaps’. What are they, like little backwards baseball hats for your knees? Amirite!?…Anyhoo, this brief scene of distress finds shock rock DJ Lazlow Jones undergoing a rather obscene makeover at the hands of an irate Michael De Santa. Receiving a new tattoo is painful enough at the best of times, but when it’s being administered by a man specifically trying to harm you, well let’s just say those quick little needles suddenly get a whole lot sharper.

Throgg: It’s a crying shame that other torture mission wasn’t included on this list. I enjoyed every minute of it, really took me back to my youth at the academy. As for the scene in question, it saddens me to see this kind of miniature piston technology going to waste. Why not include a 15ft needle and skewer your prisoner from across the room? Despicable acts of suffering just aren’t what they used to be.

Metal Gear Solid serves up a well-fried Snake

Oh Snake, you and your shenanigans. One minute you’re battling vampires, the next you’re tied half-naked to an operating table and shocked to within an inch of your life. Good times. Despite the strange prevalence of these torture techniques in the series–it really ought to warrant its own back-of-the-box bullet point–I’m going to go ahead and include the original scene from Metal Gear Solid. Why, you might ask? Well, aside from being an iconic and memorable moment, it also taught the world how to endure all forms of torture. Just keep pressing O people.

Throgg: It’s always pleasing to see a technique that makes use of your modern amenities. Waste not want not, I always say! Back in my day, we had to wrangle up a couple of electric eels, build em a nice fish task and then dunk a damnable sinner all the way in. Really wet work, and cleaning up afterwards was always a chore. We even tried tying a few people to a church spire, but that darned Doc Brown kept siphoning off the lightning strikes for his own ungodly experiments. Pah.

GTA: San Andreas squishes a rather large bug on its windshield

Torture racks are all well and good–and awful and terrifying–but why should any self-respecting torturer be expected to come to the captive? Why not bring the captive to the torture? I mean, who really has the time nowadays to be dragging a man off to the depths of some dungeon when a morning commute will do just fine? That’s the kind of forward-thinking pragmatism that propelled a little-known Carl Johnson to the top of the San Andreas crime tree, and now, thanks to some shoddy restraints he can do a similar thing for a no-good squealer. Get it? Because there’s a bloke tied to the front of his car, and he might go flying off into traffic if CJ doesn’t get his answers? Yeah, you get it.

Throgg: Ah yes, the old ‘lash him to a horse and cart manoeuvre’. I see it’s come on a mite since my day. With this technique, all of the problems of the past–sparse roadways, achingly slow movement etc.–are handled in a flash. I really can’t speak highly enough of this torture, but then neither can the poor sap strapped to the windshield. It’s far too loud to hear him!

Wolfenstein: The New Order revs up the Third Reich

Ever had one of those days where you just can’t seem to locate your imprisoned comrades? Pretty galling isnt it? Makes you just want to scream, or better yet have someone else do it for you. If you’re the unfortunately named BJ Blazkowicz then normal stress exercises just aren’t going to cut it. You need something with a little more bite, like a whirring chainsaw held to the chin of a terrified Nazi. Aaah, now that’s better. In this scene from the latest Wolfenstein shooter, players are tasked with kitting out the all-American hero, before watching on as cutscene BJ pumps his prisoner for info.

Throgg: An automated sword, covered in smaller spinning swords? Count me in. It’s just too darn bad we never get to see this modern marvel go to work. *Sigh*

Fable 2 undoes hours of hard work via discount force lightning

Metal Gear’s strenuous button mashing may have warped more than a few forearms, but no game has done more to involve a player in its hero’s agony than 2008’s Fable 2. Having been recruited into the ranks of the Spire prison guards, players soon find themselves subordinated to the will of the evil Commandant. Failure to heed the warden’s every command results in a sudden shock of electricity being delivered to your custom-fit neck brace, oh and you’ll lose a ton of XP in the process. That’s the exact same experience you’ve been carefully accruing all game long, gone forever. Not so defiant now, are we?

Throgg: Ensuring the obedience of your own guards? Don’t these people enjoy torturing their prisoners? I guess the world’s just gone soft. I say save those fancy electro-shock collars for the dungeon dwellers! Maybe trick a popstar into thinking it’s bling.

The Punisher is a very big kid in a blood-soaked candy store

There’s a reason they call Frank Castle The Punisher, and no it doesnt have anything to do with his witty stock of puns, unfortunately. You see, this burly, black-clad crusader doesn’t just straight up murder his foes, oh no. He insists on giving them a damn good talking to first. In the 2005 action title of the same name, Punisher drags many a would-be informant through some of the game’s context-sensitive torture spots. Highlights include an inside look at a car compressor, a good old chinwag by the wood chipper, and a spot of emergency skull surgery via drill bit.

Throgg: Who says you need a fully-equipped torture chamber to make those miscreants squeal? Frank defines freelance torment for the modern age. If it’ll spew your guts halfway across the hall, then by golly, it’s a torture device. The Punisher is setting the bar high for every bright-eyed rookie executioner, before crunching it down on some unfortunate prisoner’s face. Can I get an autograph? For the dungeon?

Beyond: Two Souls produces some eye-popping peril

Beyond’s Jodie Holmes really ought to be a little more careful, she could have somebody’s eye out! Oh right, context Following their capture at the hands of the evil Kirzastannis, player character Jodie and love interest/douchey CIA handler Ryan Clayton are both tortured for information. If the player chooses to give in and disclose some of her secrets, both characters can make it out (largely) unscathed. But, if Jodie opts instead to keep schtum, [minor spoiler alert] Kirzastan’s finest will in turn gouge out one of Ryan’s eyes. I bet he didn’t see that coming.

Throgg: There isn’t much to say about this brief scene of suffering. Me and eye gouging go way back–I used to perform it as a bit of a party trick you see–so of course it maintains a special place in my heart. Still, these Kirzistanni soldiers aren’t really doing it justice. You may not be able to see it happen (another big minus) but you can certainly tell it’s being done in a haphazard fashion. Zero artistry, no appreciation for the method! Colour me disappointed.

No more. You’re killing me!

That’s just about all we have from Throgg right now, he’s off to join some of GamesRadar’s other failed mascots–including ‘Radar the sentient Radar’, and ‘GRrr’ the irate gamepad, in a special file marked ‘garbage’. If you have any suggestions for further video game torture scenes–just what would Sonic do if he got his hands on Dr. Eggman?–let me know in the comments below. Ciao!

And after you’ve done that, check out some of our other fine, fine Hallowe’en content. If all of this gore-talk has you trying to hold back a little bit of vom, calm your senses with our guide to horror-gaming for the total wimp (opens in new tab). And if you’re stronger of constitution, have a look at The Top 7… undead creatures that are totally not zombies (opens in new tab). Because really, they’re not. They’re totally different.

The post Video game torture: tame or terrifying? A medieval executioner weighs in appeared first on Game News.