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By Brett Todd
Designed by Katie Bush
June is not a good month for horror. While there's no divine law preventing spirits of the dead from materializing on a hot summer night, such apparitions seem out of place. Far better that they should rattle their chains in the long shadows of an October evening, slink through the cold rains of November, or, like Jacob Marley, even lurk in the corners beyond December's cheery firelight. Virtually any moment during those drawn-out, gloomy months would be more appropriate for a supernatural encounter than the sunny present.
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Unless you're a horror fan who loves computer games. If you belong to that not-so-rare breed, you've been knee-deep in ghouls, ghosts, and long-legged beasts since the release of Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare earlier this weekend. The long-awaited sequel to a game that established the grotesque as a theme to be reckoned with also rouses some feelings of nostalgia. Revisiting the series where it all began has also put us in a mood to examine the modern history of horror gaming on the PC. Over the course of the following two-part feature, we trace the background of all things eerie, beginning with the early exploits of Edward Carnby in 1993's Alone in the Dark and concluding with the bloody carnage wreaked by Patrick Galloway in this year's Clive Barker's Undying.
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The evolution of such games is fully detailed, from the introduction of horror motifs into traditional adventures in the early 1990s to the way that such characteristics began to creep into all gaming genres in the more immediate past. Expansion has been so pervasive that there is no longer any accurate single definition of a horror game. Fearful elements are now part of every gaming family, courtesy of such high-profile endeavors as third-person action-adventures like Nocturne, role-playing epics like Vampire: The Masquerade--Redemption, and first-person shooters like Blood and the aforementioned Undying. This subject matter is also present as ambience in such disparate titles as System Shock 2 (set on what can best be described as a haunted house in space), Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (which features a number of quests dealing with vampires and other undead), and even The Sims (where the dead can return as ghosts to scare the living).
Because horror has become so widespread, the ensuing pages cannot address all of the games that deserve to be looked at. For the sake of proper organization and brevity, we've singled out only touchstone games that represent some noteworthy achievement. In the same light, sequels are discussed under the heading of the original game, and games that closely followed (or copied) others are handled in the sections dedicated to their inspirations.
Now, if you've turned out all the lights and can't quite see what may be lurking in the darkness beyond your monitor, you may click the link and proceed to the first part of this feature, Dead: Early Horror Gaming.
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