Shocktoberfest: Enter The Nightmare -- A Month-Long Journey Through The Horror Game Genre

When does this start?

Shocktoberfest begins on October 1st, and will last the entire month of October, ending at 11:59 PM on Halloween night.

What should I play?

Anything that falls under the classification of a horror game. Survival horror, action horror, a horror-themed FPS, anything with zombies, etc. In the interest of having fun, this can be more of a loose definition of what defines a horror game, and constitute anything that is more-or-less "horror themed". So games like Gears of War or even Luigi's Mansion are fine.

For me, it's very much the same outlook as Backlaugust -- I've got horror games in my backlog, and it's time to play them. How many games you want to play is up to you, whether that's just one game or a few games. Any platform, doesn't matter. They can be new games, old games. Even horror games you've already beaten long ago and want to replay. You don't have to choose all of your games up front; you can if you want, but it's fine to just take it one-game-at-a-time.

Who should participate?

If you:

a. Enjoy horror games
and/or
b. Have at least one horror game in your backlog
and/or
c. Plan on buying a new horror game (such as, I don't know, ZOMBIU!!!!!!!!)

you should do this.

The purpose of this is a little less about seeing how many games we can beat, but for everyone to share in the experience of playing something scary. A good horror game can be a tough thing to get all of the way through to the end, but with some moral support from the rest of the community that's going through the same thing, maybe we can all make it back into the light by November! That's what it comes down to -- having fun, and being scared shitless. And being scared shitless is a lot more fun when being scared shitless as a group.

One last thing -- for your fellow NW-er who hasn't played every game, try using spoiler tags whenever possible for anything major that's story-related, or just in general anything that should not be spoiled. So, "I can't believe Leon died at the end!" instead of "I can't believe Leon died at the end!"


Completed (18)



Kentucky Route Zero, Act 1 (Secret_Tunnel, 10/6)
The House of the Dead: Overkill (GameDadGrant, 10/7)
Dead Space (PogueSquadron, 10/11)
Kentucky Route Zero, Act 2 (Secret_Tunnel, 10/14)
Fatal Frame (TheBigG753, 10/17)
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (PogueSquadron, 10/20)
Dead Rising 2 (Zero, 10/20)
Dead Space Extraction (Mop It Up, 10/21)
Super Castlevania IV (Het_Nkik, 10/23)
Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir (GameDadGrant, 10/24)
Zombies Ate My Neighbors (Het_Nkik, 10/26)
ObsCure II (r_hjort, 10/26)
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (Jargon, 10/26)
Resident Evil: Revelations (ludist210, 10/28)
ZombiU (Mr_Mustache, 10/29)
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (TheBigG753, 10/31)
Project Zero 2: Wii Edition (r_hjort, 10/31)
Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen/Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (Het_Nkik, 10/31)


LEFT 4 DEAD (10)

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (Secret_Tunnel, in progress)
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (GameDadGrant, *has thrown in the towel*)
Dead Space: Extraction (chrisguy, through 5 levels)
Doom II (Pokefreak911, 12 levels in)
Resident Evil Zero (gojira, at the Training Facility)
TellTale's The Walking Dead (Zero, finished Episode 3)
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Pokefreak911, through Stone Tower)
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (Zero, finished first run)
ZombiU (gojira, Tower of London)
ZombiU (r_hjort, whack-a-zombie)


The Players (20)

chrisguy: Dead Space: Extraction
deathly_hallows: Cult County, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil: Deadly Silence
DrFinkelstein: ZombiU
GameDadGrant: Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir, The House of the Dead: Overkill, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
gojira: ZombiU, Resident Evil Zero
Hero_of_Hyrule: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
Het_Nkik: Super Castlevania IV, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen
Jargon: Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Dead Space, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
kriswright: ZombiU
ludist210: Resident Evil: Revelations
Mop It Up: Dead Space Extraction
Mr_Mustache: ZombiU, Castlevania
PogueSquadron: Dead Space, Castlevania 3
Pokefreak911: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Doom II
r_hjort: Obscure 2, Project Zero 2: Wii Edition, ZombiU
Secret_Tunnel: Dead Space 3, Kentucky Route Zero, 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare.
Shadowlink: ZombiU
Stephen: Alan Wake
TheBigG753: Fatal Frame, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, Fatal Frame III: The Tormented
Zero: Dead Rising 2, Castlevania (III or Adventure Rebirth), Virtue's Last Reward, The Walking Dead


LAST YEAR'S THREAD

URL to share (right click and copy)

@d_Artagnan
@r_hjort

But it does take a bit to wake them sometimes!

A trick I've learned: unlike other systems where you generally will remove a disc or a cartridge from it, its actually "beneficial" to leave the cartridge exactly as is when you're done playing your NES. Just turn the power off, and when you're ready to play again, just power back on. Game should pop right back as usual. Even if you don't want to play that game, and you want to play another, fire it up for a few minutes and let it warm up. At least thats how MY system goes. I can get *knock on wood* pretty much any game working in under a minute. Some are a beach though. I remember Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt taking me a LONG time to get going when we were doing those speedruns.

@Mr_Mustache
Most of the troubles people get with the NES have to do with poor conductivity on the contacts. I clean my carts once or twice a year with the equivalent of windex, and they all boot up first time every time. Before I cleaned the system and the carts, though, I thought it was dead. All I can say is, don't blow in the cartridges. It helps short term, but just contributes to corroding the contacts in the long term.

EDIT: The old cart based systems are sturdy in general, though. A friend of mine found two SNES consoles by a dumpster a while back, and decided to bring them home. When he opened them up he found what seemed to be years worth of dead leaves and cobwebs, but once he cleaned it all out he got them working like nothing ever happened.

@r_hjort

Yeah, that too. I know you can buy new pin connectors also if you're a tinkerer, but its just not my bag.

Good on your friend. What a hero!

@Mr_Mustache

They aren't too hard to install. I did mine on my old NES (before I sold it...needed the money) and it took me just a few minutes, then all of my games worked like a charm.

@Mr_Mustache
I did buy a new pin connector a while back when I thought mine had died on me, but I ended up doing my best to polish the old one up instead, and it worked. Not as easy to polish as the cartridges, and swapping the whole piece is actually really simple, but I like having the original connector as my primary.

Yeah, I was happy that he salvaged them, and especially since he's never owned a videogame, unless you count the C64. He's always been strictly PC, but even he didn't have the heart to leave a couple of Nintendos out in the rain.

So I'm trying to finish Ni No Kuni before starting on my Shocktoberfest stuff, and the area I just walked into is like the "scary" area... all dark and misty creepy trees with eyes and ghost-type enemies and everything.

It actually felt pretty appropriate.

Alright, I bought Fatal Frame 1, 2 and 3 off of PSN earlier. Guess I know what I'm doing after finishing GTA...

Started playing Obscure 2 again, trying to get into the game for the fourth or fifth time, only to realize I didn't have my batteries charged. In the ten or so minutes I managed to play, the scariest part was how bad I suck at this game. The strange IR setup where you have to hold two buttons pressed down while pushing a third just to fire your gun isn't helping much either. But goddamnit, I will complete this game! Maybe.

I played through a decent chunk of The House Of The Dead: Overkill last night. Got past the "Scream Train" stage and then had to call it quits and hit the sack.

The amount of F-bombs in this game is...impressive.

@GameDadGrant
It had the world record amount of F-bombs in a videogame script up until the release of Mafia 2, I believe.

Love Overkill. Not just because it's so tasteless, but because I find the shooting to be so damn addictive with all its combos and stuff. And the soundtrack is fantastic! The ending theme is right up there with Still Alive in terms of thematic cleverness, IMO.

Just saw that Haunted Memories landed on Steam Early Access for the low, low price of FREE.

Looks like it's an episodic horror action/adventure where the first installment is free and you have to pay for follow-up episodes.

Ah poop.

Did anyone start ZombiU last night / this weekend as intended? Totally blanked on it.

Sometime this week; tonight doesn't seem like a viable option though.

@r_hjort

Excellent, I'm looking forward to beating the game even more, now! And yeah, the shooting and everything is quite good. I wish the framerate was a bit tighter, but....eh. It's not enough to break the game. At least, so far.

I played Kentucky Route Zero Act I last night. Cool game. There's not a whole lot to it on its own, but I'm sure all five Acts will come together to make a more full experience. A lot of people love Act I on its own though, and apparently there are a few little hidden things I missed too. Check it out if you like adventure games.

Just like every single time before, I manage to get to this one particular fight in Obscure 2, and then I die. Well, my AI partner dies, which means that it's all over for me as well. This game would be so much easier with a real life co-op partner instead of one going around trying to count to potato. But I want to play my horror games alone, 'cause having someone around ruins the mood for me. There's just no pleasing me.

EDIT: Finally made it, and it only took me four years! But now I keep dying at a new spot, and when I do I have to reload my previous save, skip through two cut scenes, watch one, and solve a puzzle before I can go back to failing miserably. FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!

These first six days of the month remind me why I have so much trouble completing "M" rated games. I just don't have too many opportunities to play them when the kids aren't around.

Regardless, I'm through the first 3 levels of Dead Space Extraction. (I replayed levels 1 and 2, and I hadn't actually played the 3rd level before.) Took me a couple levels to figure out the trick to the quick reload and I wish the player had a little more control over his view. That said, it's being entertaining so far.

I played some Zombi U today. I was going to restart but didn't see an option for it right away so I just decided to go on since I had only played about a half hour before. But since that was almost a year ago I kinda forgot how to do anything. I pressed buttons and figured out pretty much everything though.

I slowly made my way through a shop and took on some zombies. An alarm went off and I died, but I was able to kill them all and retrieve my stuff with the next character. There was even some genuinely scary parts.

Then a horde was apparently headed towards my safehouse and the guy told me to prepare. Prepare how? They pretty much showed up right away so there really wasn't much I could do. And I died I think three times before I took care of them all. And since it seems only your last character can be killed to retrieve items I lost all my stuff.

Now I'm heading towards Buckingham Palace.

Gonna add Doom 2 to my Shocktober listing but is it ok if i'm aldeady part way through? I'm about 12 levels in.

I beat The House Of The Dead: Overkill last night. Game was surprisingly easy. It was fun to play, so I'm not complaining, but it was a fairly gentle ride from beginning to end. There was a "Director's Cut" mode that was unlocked afterwards, which I suspect might be a harder difficulty, but...for the purposes of Shocktoberfest, I'm putting this on the DONE PILE and moving on to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir.

I'm on Chapter 3 in Revelations (Wii U). Still every bit as good as the 3DS game, but now 1000% bigger on my TV screen!