GOG is currently offering several games at heavily reduced prices. The Halloween promotion should not only make horror fans sit up and take notice. We recommend the following 8 bargains.
What are you dressing up as for Halloween this year? The days when the holiday was dominated by ghosts, zombies and vampires are slowly but surely over. A few years ago Harley Quinn was the costume par excellence, yesterday I saw someone dressed up as a washing machine. Even if there is something sinister about smelly laundry, this is hardly a classic Halloween outfit.
Likewise, GOG is not only offering horror games in its currently running Halloween sale, but is also stepping out of the shadows with some less spooky games. We have browsed through the offers and have come across a few games worth mentioning, which we would like to bring closer to you here. If you want to browse through the offer directly, the following link will lead you to the target:
Spec Ops: The Line
(Genre: Third-person shooter – Development studio: Yager – Release year: 2012 – Price: 4 Euro (reduced by 80 percent))
For a long time Halloween has not only stood for ghosts, vampires and zombies, but also for Call of Duty. After all, with few exceptions, a new spin-off of the series is released every year shortly before the spooky festival. For me, the campaign for the current Modern Warfare 2 was the first CoD single-player experience of my life. Containers slid around and people flew in all directions. But one thing the campaign couldn”t do was blow me away – me.
Instead of hare-brained plot lines and pseudo-cool sayings, I”d rather go back to Spec Ops: The Line. The third-person shooter isn”t really spectacular in terms of gameplay, but the story is all the more so. You play Captain Walker, who searches for Colonel Konrad and his battalion with two comrades in sandstorm-ridden Dubai. There are hundreds of anti-war films, but Spec Ops: The Line is one of the few genuine anti-war shooters.
Shooter games with such stories are still, ten years after the release of Spec Ops, clearly too few. It takes a little while for the title to really get going, but then your foot never leaves the accelerator. I questioned my own actions, at some point condemned them in the strongest terms, and the ending … that didn”t let me go that quickly and was almost creepy. So if you”re looking for a shooter story that has more to offer than just brash explosions, then definitely grab this offer.
Corpse Party
(Genre: Adventure – Development studio:Mages – Release year: 2021 – Price: 14 Euro (reduced by 30 percent))
I”m a fucking soft biscuit when it comes to horror games and hate jumpscares like the plague. They ruin the atmosphere for me rather than being scary. And that”s exactly why Corpse Party convinced me: no jumpscares, but real horror!
Here, a school class is transported to a dilapidated Japanese primary school after a ritual, where they are haunted by the ghost of the deceased Sachiko and have to break her curse. So you can expect real Japanese horror with ghost girls of The Ring brand! The atmosphere is not created by the graphics, but by the very detailed descriptions.
The game was actually released in 1996, but has received more than one remaster. The latest one is from the year 2021, and with Book of Shadows and Blood Drive, the two successors are also available in the sale. Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient is also on sale. However, I didn”t find it nearly as good. However, its story has only just begun and the second episode has been in development nirvana for some time.
Endzone: A World Apart
(Genre: Adventure – Development studio:Mages – Release year: 2021 – Price: 14 Euro (reduced by 30 percent))
(Genre: Building Strategy – Development Studio: Gentlymad Games – Release Year: 2021 – Price: 9 Euro (reduced by 70 percent)
Is there a more terrifying notion than global apocalypse? After all, neither Freddy Krueger nor Pyramidhead can create such devastation. All right, in the video game field, the nuclear end times are rarely a horror scenario. After all, there is plenty of potential here for really entertaining role-playing games. But if you need a bit of a change from RPGs of the Fallout brand, then I can only advise Endzone: A World Apart. In this building game, you lead a group of survivors back to the surface, which is no longer so contaminated, and build a completely new settlement out of scrap metal or ruins.
Logically, you not only have to provide enough food and shelter. Radiation can also make life more than difficult for your end-time settlers. In general, the weather can spoil your day. This doesn”t always have to be toxic rain, a sudden drought may also become a challenge to which you have to react spontaneously.
Or you can prove your skill as a planner and prepare your settlement for any adversity right from the start. Because that”s what Endzone is all about: careful city planning.
Monster Prom 3: Monster Road Trip
(Genre:Adventure – Development studio: Beautiful Glitch – Release year: 2022 – Price:11 Euro (reduced by 10 percent))
For those who like to celebrate Halloween with monsters but without horror, I recommend Monster Road Trip. In contrast to the two predecessors Monster Prom and Monster Camp, in the third and just recently released part of the series, the dating sim aspect has been scaled back somewhat and the gameplay has been given survival elements.
As the name suggests, you go on a road trip through the country in visual novel style, meet demonic cults, celebrate parties and decide what”s on the TV in your hotel room. But you have to watch your status values at all times. After all, you don”t want to accidentally lose your soul or go mad.
The best thing about it: you don”t have to click your way through the dialogue alone, but can go on a journey with up to three other friends in co-op and discover the adventure of your life (and perhaps love) along the way.
Hollow Knight
(Genre: Metroidvania –Development studio: Team Cherry – Release: 2017 – Price:8 Euro (reduced by 50 percent))
Hollow Knight has one of the most unique creepy atmospheres I”ve ever experienced in a game. As you”d expect as a little knight in an orphaned insect city full of chitin buildings. Yep, Hollow Knight very much goes its own way – in every sense of the word.
Sure, on paper it works like any other Metroidvania: you gradually explore a gigantic, gloomy 2D world of corridors, halls, platforms and buildings, unlocking new ways to move, which in turn open up new areas in old ones, and so on.
But Hollow Knight is a beast of a game! You can lose yourself in the background story just like in Dark Souls, the numerous bosses and areas will keep you busy until next Halloween, the fights are so challenging that you will cut your teeth at times, soundtrack, atmosphere, sounds, Hollow Knight is a masterpiece! Play it!
Metro Franchise
(Genre:Shooter – Development studio: 4A Games – Release year: 2014/2019 – Price:15 Euro (reduced by 75 percent))
For comparatively little money you can also get three great shooters in the sale, namely Metro 2033, Last Light and Exodus. The Metro series sends you to a Russia destroyed by a nuclear war, where the last survivors are hiding from radiation and monsters in the Moscow underground.
All three games are characterised by their dark and oppressive atmosphere, which arises during the exploration of the destroyed Moscow and other places. Some supernatural phenomena also play a role, for example when we are plagued by sudden visions from the pre-war world or see ghosts. So, in keeping with the season, things get a little spooky, but you don”t have to fear any big scary moments.
In the course of your journey, you”ll tangle with mutated creatures, religious and political fanatics and the harsh post-apocalyptic world itself. While the story of the first two games can be categorised as “quite nice”, the stories and characters in Metro Exodus are particularly convincing.
The Stillness of the Wind
(Genre:Adventure – Development studio:Memory of God/Lambic Studios – Release year: 2019 – Price: 1 Euro (reduced by 85%))
Sometimes the scariest thing is to be alone. Alone with your thoughts, memories and the need to somehow fill the silence in your own head – for more than a few people, loneliness is far more terrifying than any creepy horror game. In The Stillness of the Wind, loneliness is the daily companion of an elderly woman named Talma, who lives on a small farm with only a few goats.
The only contact she has with the outside world is through letters and conversations with a travelling merchant from whom she sells manufactured goods and buys necessary items for daily use. The melancholic, very quiet story about life and loss runs on a daily basis, per day you only have time and strength for a few tasks in Talma”s role.
What you spend Talma”s time on is up to you: You can take care of her farm and the goats, or simply walk through the desert and reminisce. If you”re more interested in an interesting experience than scary action, the scarce euro is well invested for intense atmosphere and a poignant, decelerated story.
The Evil Within 2
(Genre: Horror – Development studio: Tango Gameworks – Release year: 2017 – Price: 4,49 Euro (reduced by 85%))
I”m on a bit of a hot streak at the moment. Because very soon a very wonderful release time is dawning for me: that of survival horror. Not long to wait, then The Callisto Protocol, the Dead Space Remake and the Resident Evil 4 Remake are coming around the corner – and there are hardly any breaks in between! So it”s high time to get myself in the mood for the coming months now and dig out The Evil Within 2 again. After all, we have Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami to thank for Part 1 and Part 2, even if the games don”t quite measure up to them in my eyes.
Be that as it may, The Evil Within has a few very different and, of course, very similar strengths. Even though the big plot twist at the end of Part 1 took away a lot of suspense for the initial situation of Part 2, the sequel convinced me above all in terms of gameplay. The Evil Within 2 offers less tubing and more open game areas, which reward thorough exploration and attentive looting immensely. This is an immense blessing, especially for survival horror and higher difficulty levels, which perfectly complements the now much more hardened nature of main character Sebastian Castellanos.
The Evil Within has not revolutionised survival horror, as many a fan of Shinji Mikami might have hoped. However, those who are enthusiastic about a rock-solid representative of the genre definitely won”t go wrong with a little more than four euros in the current GOG sale. Especially if playing Callisto Protocol and the remakes of Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 makes the time fly by all the faster.
What game do you spend the scary season with? Do you prefer to scare yourselves with horror games or do you try to block out all the horror with colourful feel-good games? And then there”s the question from the beginning of the article: What do you dress up as for Halloween? We”re curious to see if anyone can top the washing machine!