■ Video game review
Trick-or-geeking:
A gamer's night in
A slew of classic and contemporary video games
offer bloody alternatives to typical fright-night fares
BY ANDREW MCCOLLUM
PULSE REPORTER
What up, nerds? Have any big plans
for Halloween? Me neither. Here are
some games to play on Halloween to
fight boredom while you're dispensing
candy to little kids.
"Resident Evil 4" (GameCube,
PlayStation 2): "Resident Evil" games
suck. Their controls are clunky, their in
ventory system is archaic and their
combat is only passable. "Resident Evil
4," on the other hand, is one of the
greatest games ever made. In "RE4,"
Capcom addressed all of the above
complaints and created a frighteningly
good game. If you haven't played "RE4"
because you don't have a GameCube,
fear not This week saw the release of
the PS2 version. Go
get it, now.
A Castlevania game (Various): One
of the earliest successful titles that
combined horror and games. All
gamers have their favorite "Castleva
nia." Some say that nothing beats the
original, others claim that "Symphony
of the Night" is the best I'm partial to
"DraculaX."
"System Shock 2" (PC): One part
RPG, one part FPS and all pants
changing scary. In "System Shock 2,"
you wake up from cryogenic sleep on
the Von Braun, a corpse-ridden,
derelict spaceship. You must explore
the ship to find out what exactly hap
pened to it This game's use of sound is
its greatest strength. There's nothing
scarierthan the pained wail of a feral
lab monkey.
"Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts" (Super
Nintendo): In this side-scrolling classic,
King Arthur fights the Hallmark ver
sions of all sorts of stereotypical scary
imagery: Ghosts, gargoyles, zombies,
werewolves, etc.
"Doom 3" (PC, Xbox): When played
with the lights off and the sound up,
"Doom 3" will make you jump. Set on a
cramped Mars space station, the game
pits you against the same onslaught of
demons that the first two Doom games
did, but this time there's a catch. Appar
ently, soldiers of the future can't hold a
gun and a flashlight at the same time, so
players have to choose between shoot
ing and seeing in the game's pitch dark
environments. "Doom 3" is a great
game when it comes to those "Where
the &$%@ did you come from?" scares,
but after a few hours it gets old.
"Alone in the Dark" (PC): A survival
horror game made before there was a
survival horror genre. This H. P. Love
craft-inspired original spawned three
sequels as well as an absolutely horri
ble movie that starred Christian
SlaterandTara Reid.
"Luigi's Mansion" (GC): Luigi, proof
that there is nepotism in gaming, thinks
he's a Ghostbuster in this early title for
the GameCube. It's a great-looking
game with some fun mechanics, and it
really shows off the sorts of special ef
fects that the GameCube can pull off.
But the game's short playtime and lack
of true innovation cements Luigi's posi
tion as second fiddle to his brother
Mario in video game history.
"Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Re
quiem"(GC): A standard survival horror
game with a twist "Eternal Darkness"
features an insanity meterthat intro
duces all sorts of weird effects. Blood
will drip down the walls; you'll hear
voices whispering. The game's most
devious trick is when it tries to con
vince you that the game needs to be re
set If you do reset the system you'll
lose all your unsaved progress.
amccolium@dailyemerald.com
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