The two newest video game consoles, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, are somewhat lacking in games you can play with your friends. The PlayStation 4 actually has numerous great titles, but they mostly run the gamut of smaller independent titles. I recommend the excellent “Nidhogg,” “TowerFall Ascension” and “Sportsfriends.” While all three together cost less than a $60 retail game, they also don’t look like games one might expect to see on powerful new game consoles—“Towerfall” and “Nidhogg” both utilize the pixel art graphical style from the medium’s early days, and “Sportsfriends” combines pixel art with an animated cartoon aesthetic.
Apart from gallivanting through Nintendo’s wonderful worlds of “Mario Kart 8,” the new “Super Smash Brothers,” “Super Mario 3D World” and “Nintendo Land” on the Wii U console, released in 2012, there aren’t many high-definition games that a group of friends can huddle around, grab controllers and play with and against each other.
But if you open yourself up to turning off the lights and letting one person guide you through the scariest haunted houses this side of Screamin’ Acres, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 offer a few outstanding choices.
The obsession of gaming writers for the last month has been the high-budget “Alien: Isolation,” a game which fills in the story between the 1979 Ridley Scott masterpiece film “Alien” and the ’86 action-oriented sequel “Aliens.” “Isolation” works to emulate the former—one single creature roams the walls and vents of the Sevastopol, a civilian space station that has fallen into disrepair after obtaining the flight recorder of the first film’s Nostromo. The player takes on the role of Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda, an engineer who seeks to find out what happened to her mother when she disappeared fifteen years prior.
“Isolation” is breathtaking to see. Scattered shudders of light drip into abandoned medical offices and every time Ripley unlocks the shutters a gorgeous space vista opens itself. The trick of the game is that the alien itself is unshackled from the game’s script; while scared survivalists and creepy androids will always appear in the same hallways, the alien can appear any time, and Ripley never has the resources necessary to take it down once and for all. It is a lonely and tense experience, but one that recaptures the core of the original film, and its scares and sights are worth the trip.
For those looking to delve a little darker, both consoles are also host to “The Evil Within,” the new game from the creator of the “Resident Evil” game franchise, Shinji Mikami. The game follows a detective into a murder scene; security footage reveals a killer who appears to be faster than the eye can see before the killer appears and knocks out the detective. He awakens in a basement with a butchering torturer, and after escaping, the world seems to have turned upside down. What is real is left for the player to determine as they explore the world’s worst Wonderland. The game is more action-oriented than “Alien: Isolation,” giving the player several weapons to knock down leagues of the undead, the macabre and the insane. It’s less intellectually stimulating and less original than “Isolation,” but for those who prefer gore and action to hiding in lockers, it is likely the better choice.
But I’ve saved the scariest for last. Quietly, Konami released a free PlayStation 4 horror game named “P.T.” We’ve since come to learn that it is a playable teaser for an upcoming release in a major horror franchise, but the game stands alone, resting comfortably between a two or three hour playtime.
Everything that needs to be known about it occurs in its first hallway, the main entryway to a large home. The player character can only open a couple of doors, with most appearing to be locked. A light swings above the front door, creaking loudly. The main character is too tall for the hallway, his head almost reaching the ceiling, but the ceilings also seem too tall for the cabinets and picture frames shown about them. A radio blares with a conservative radio host describing the murder of a wife and child by a delusional husband, sitting on a large cabinet with far too much trash surrounding its family photos. At the end of the hallway is an open door to a basement, the basement door closed below.
I was so unsettled that when I finally mustered the courage to open the basement door, I could barely continue after seeing the surprise on the other side. Things only get worse as time goes on. You’ll just have to see for yourself.
“Alien: Isolation” and “The Evil Within” are available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC for $60, both in stores and downloadable. “P.T.” is available on PlayStation 4 online store.
