Halloween is upon us and there are some terrific horror titles out there waiting to be played and effectively waiting to scare the life out the player. Then again if you’re like me, you don’t want to be constantly jumping out of your seat, frantically rummaging through strategy guides to anticipate shock moments and go to bed hoping that whatever you’ve just been running from in your game isn’t banging at the door to chop you into little chunks.

Are there games out there for our kind? Of course there are and we’ve listed five of these ‘not-so-scary horror’ games that even the easily spooked like myself can play this Halloween without having nightmares.

5: Night Trap

Obviously the chances of you being able to pick this one up for this Halloween are pretty slim. The Sega-CD horror-fest puts you in the role of the ‘Sega Control Attack Team’ who must oversee a slumber party that has been crashed by Augers, weird alien like men dressed in black who must be stopped from capturing the guests of the party.

The game pretty much plays like one big movie. Taking the role of a series of security cameras, your role is to follow of the augers on camera and use codes and timing to activate traps, which will keep the Augers at bay in a Home Alone sort of fashion.

It’s nothing to be taken too seriously. In fact the game is pure comedy from start to finish with hilarious acting and dialogue that would give the original Resident Evil something to chuckle about. If you happen to have this lying around the house or spot it on eBay, now would be the perfect time to indulge in a game that’s more laughs than frights.

4: Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

Hailed as one of the great losses of the Gamecube, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem wasn’t bound to generate great sales despite the positive critical reactions.

A typical thriller setting, young adult Alexandra Roivas visits her recently deceased grandfather’s mansion and uncovers a mysterious titled ‘The Tome of Eternal Darkness’. From there on, she’s thrown into flashbacks of how the tome came into the hands of her grandfather and the ancient evils that it has evoked.

The problem with Eternal Darkness was that once you were aware of its unique selling point ‘the sanity meter’, it just wasn’t very scary.
This feature allowed your character to get scared which the game assumed meant that every time you saw an enemy the player was frightened too.

This would drain a green meter that then took its affect on the character to confuse and scare the player. Walk into a room and suddenly you are a zombie, or you’re walking on the roof, or you’ve shrunk, or your body begins to fall apart. Or maybe you’ll be told your save has been corrupted, be taken back the start screen or that your TV has changed channel. If you’re unaware of them, they can be a little confusing but they quickly become more of a nuisance, postponing progress until they’re finished and since they pose no real threat the horror element is quickly abolished.

Pick up Eternal Darkness because it’s a good Gamecube game but if you really get chills from this then to quote playable character, Dr. Maximillian Roivas: “May the rats eat your eyes!”

3: Left 4 Dead

Ok so you’re probably wondering what the hell Left 4 Dead is doing on this list and rightly so. Hordes of never-ending zombies in a post-apocalyptic setting are enough to make me board up the windows to my house and wait months for the crisis to pass. If you were playing this game alone then it would probably be nudging its way to the top of the most scary games list but you’re not alone.

Unless you’re completely daring, there’s no way you’re going to start on the highest difficulty, you’re really short of bullets and even then the AI does a pretty good job of killing its fair share whilst alerting you that more dangerous enemies are on the prowl. To top it all off, if you play Left 4 Dead the way it’s actually meant to be played, with four mates in tow, then the game becomes even less scarier and more about having fun.

We’re not knocking Left 4 Dead, it’s still a great co-op game and we highly anticipate the sequel due later next month. It’s in many ways a good horror title but truth be told, zombie apocalypses are never really that scary when you’ve got a friend’s brains to sacrifice before your own.

2: Dead Rising

Again, it’s worth stressing that Dead Rising was never meant to be a horror title. Much like Left 4 Dead, someone saw the gap for potential and filled it in nicely.

Taking the role of Frank West, a photojournalist who by helicopter arrives at a shopping mall where he meets a number of survivors who are holding off thousands of zombies in an attempt to form an escape plan.

Of course things quickly go all Shaun of the Dead within seconds. You might have a lot of zombies but you’ve got the mall at your disposal. Mow down crowds with chainsaws you stole from the hardware store, hop on a skateboard to get around, knock enemies down by booting a football in their face. The mall is your oyster and it says take them down by any means necessary.

You’ll waste hours just running around the mall finding bits and bobs to throw, bludgeon or impale the army of the undead with. If you want mild spooks with enough humour to blow a gasket, look no further than Dead Rising.

1: Resident Evil 4

Perhaps this was a fluke. After all, this was the series that once defined a genre. The term ‘survival horror’ is usually followed by the name ‘Resident Evil’.
When the series went through a breakdown and makeover, the result was Resident Evil 4, often hailed as the most revolutionary but timid horror game of the decade.

Leon Kennedy of Resident Evil 2 fame has been sent on a quest to save the presidents daughter from a mysterious cult who were last spotted in a rustic Spanish village. You quickly discover that your presence in this worn down farmers setting isn’t welcome as everyone is suddenly out to get you. The once slow Zombies now replaced with mind-controlled human hosts who will do anything in their power to kill Leon. It should have been a horror title for the ages.

Whilst the initial panic can be a little unsettling, Resident Evil 4 quickly drowns in a plot so full of nonsense that it’s all a little too stupid to take seriously. You know something isn’t right the moment your foes heads spawn insect like growths, you fight a giant troll from lord of the rings and you run around a castle in pursuit of a midget man who barely poses a threat until he eventually turns into a giant flower boss.

In addition to this, the revitalized gameplay mechanics make Resident Evil 4 just too easy. No more awkward controls or camera to hinder you fending off enemies that used to soak up bullets. You could now shoot a foe in the knee and roundhouse kick him in the face.

Needless to say, Resident Evil 4 is still a great game loaded with action but it falls short of offering a true scare factor (Unless you count the man who pops out of the oven…).

So there you have it. Five games to play this Halloween for those gamers who don’t want jump out of their skin, soil themselves or spend all night wide awake. Apologies if any games you had in mind didn’t make our list. Why not drop us a comment and let us know what they are. Until then, happy fright-free Halloween!

By Thomas Worthington Posted Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 9:31 pm