Tag Archives: survival horror

Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti, Famicom

Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti is a spin-off from the infamous Splatterhouse series and was a Japan only release, published by Namco for the Nintendo Famicom in 1989.

Rather than take the gruesome approach of the original game, in Wanpaku Graffiti the characters are “super deformed” (and made cute) and the game takes a comical approach to the presentation and gameplay, which was obviously deemed to be more fitting to a Famicom audience.

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Splatterhouse, Arcade

Splatterhouse is an infamous side-scrolling horror-themed action game that was released into arcades by Namco in 1988. It is known for its grotesque opponents and for its satirisation of well-known horror films of the 1980s.

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Dracula the Undead, Atari Lynx

Loosely based on the famous Bram Stoker novel, Dracula the Undead sees you taking the role of Jonathan Harker as he tries to escape from Dracula‘s castle and collect evidence to prove the vampire’s identity.

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Dusk, PC

Dusk is a 2018 release from New Blood Interactive, developed by American programmer David Szymanski. It is a horror-themed first-person shoot ’em up with simplistic graphics, atmospheric music, lots of weapons, and plenty of blood and gore.

It doesn’t look like much when viewed as still screenshots, but the beauty of the game comes from its refined controls, interesting level design, and engaging, fast-paced gameplay.

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Touch the Dead, Nintendo DS

Known as Dead ‘n’ Furious in Europe, but I’m going with the North American title for this Nintendo DS rail shooter – a touch-screen tribute to Sega‘s infamous arcade game House of the Dead. Only the title reference doesn’t work properly because there’s no “of” in it… I would’ve gone for ‘Touch of the Dead‘, which doesn’t really make sense but is better than what they used, because it at least references the original game properly. Anyway…

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Realms of the Haunting, PC

I have to admit that, in spite of the slightly wonky graphics/cut scenes, I have a real soft spot for Gremlin Interactive‘s 1997 PC MS-DOS release, Realms of the Haunting. Mostly because I was lucky and got to visit Gremlin‘s offices in Sheffield to see the game in production, and to talk to the people who were making it. I drove all the way from Bournemouth – where I worked as a video games magazine editor – and spent an entire day there to preview the game for PC Power magazine.

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Fallout 4, PC

The fourth Fallout was released by Bethesda in 2015, some seven years after Fallout 3, and five years after Fallout: New Vegas. In fact: I would call this the fifth Fallout game, because Fallout: New Vegas was more than just game number 3.5, in my humble opinion – it was the best game in the entire series. But anyway… What do I know?

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Ecstatica II, PC

This sequel to Andrew Spencer Studios‘ brilliant Ecstatica is a worthy survival horror game in its own right. In it you play a knight trapped inside a gigantic castle full of monsters and must fight your way out to freedom.

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Dracula, Intellivision

This 1983 release from Imagic is somewhat revered among Intellivision fans, because it is an original title, and because in it you play Dracula and must drink the blood of victims in order to survive for as long as possible.

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