When it comes to shonen manga, anime and games, there are few with as much knowledge and love as the Shonen Otaku. Join me as we look at all different varieties of action-packed media.
Last Halloween I wrote a piece on Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, a relatively well-known adventure game known for being disturbing. As disturbing as it might have been, I wouldn't describe IHNMAIMS as "scary." At least part of the reason for that can be attributed to its stylized, hand-drawn graphics. In my experience, the 90s adventure games of old that used digitized actors are better at inducing nightmares thanks to the literal realism of the characters clashing with the special effects (and sometimes the sloppy voice acting) that creates an uncanny valley effect for extra punch. I touched upon this way back in my post on the first Clock Tower game.
For FMV games, this can be felt in horror titles like the Phantasmagoria and Darkseed games. The fear factor in the second installments in both those examples have kind of been mitigated in the public eye by certain internet comedians, however.
But there is one horror adventure game that is largely overlooked. One that is an excellent example of how to make a game subtley disturbing as well as outright horrific. It's the messed-up game called Harvester, which luckily has not yet been ruined by silliness.
