Hey G1s! I'm home on a lazy Saturday, and am spending my time catching up on my blog here at ScrewAttack! Earlier this morning I blogged about the wild rumors that flew around the first release of Mortal Kombat. Now I'm going to discuss what might be the scariest game I've ever played: Dark Fall, for the PC. Dark Fall is a PC classic and has a sizable cult following, even though it's only a few years old now, and is terribly frightening on several levels. I bought it based on a terrific review I read on an adventure gaming website, and it was cheap, only about $20, and promised to be good. It is a first-person adventure game where you are searching for what happened to your brother, who disappeared in a small town located on a disused train station. In fact, there is NO ONE around anymore, including the students who had recently come to study paranormal events at the hotel at the station. So all the town residents are missing. The lights are barely on (in fact, you start in the dark and have to turn on the lights as one of your first tasks), the locations are empty except for the remains of the prior occupants, and you have a mystery to solve. Well, this is one of those games that is 100% atmosphere, like Silent Hill... Dark Fall takes place mainly in the hotel that is built on the train tracks in this small British seaside town, as you walk around listening to strange noises. Sometimes the noises are your own footsteps, but too often they're not. Shadows flicker or move at the end of a hall, accompanied by a horrible whispering. You hear water running somewhere, although no one is around. The phone rings at one point. You hear the sound of a pen scribbling on paper. The soundtrack, in short, is simply fantastic. It works on you psychologically and is VERY, VERY effective. Everything you hear is unsettling. The graphics also play a huge part. Everything you encounter is dark, shadowed, old-fashioned. You wander in abandoned hotel rooms, some are completely torn apart, others are eerily ordered and well-kept. You wander through an abandoned kitchen and dining room. An abandoned platform. A dark tree-lined yard in the middle of the night. An old, old basement, lined only with bricks from the Roman era. An attic with a ouija board. Etc. The locations, each one of them, is frightening in a unique way. The first-person viewpoint cements the "you are there" feel. The mystery itself unfolds slowly. You have to take a LOT of notes if you want to finish the story. I played through a quarter of the game before realizing I was hopelessly lost. I recruited my wife, who sat with me and was at least as scared as I was, and who loyally took tons of notes and ultimately helped me immensely. We beat the game over the course of about three or four nights... bad idea. Don't play at night. The conclusion of the game is also quite unsettling. After you have all the clues/answers you need, you have a final encounter... but the game never tells you exactly what it is that you are up against, even after it's over. Just as in real life, all you know is that it is responsible for many bad things, would like to be responsible for many more, but you never know where it comes from, what it is, or why it's doing what it does. It's an enigma. This is probably off-putting to a lot of gamers, who want everything explained... but it's much more realistic, and ultimately quite disturbing. I would liken it to the end of The Blair Witch Project. You don't know what is going on, or why, but you have a vague idea ... which is perhaps worse than knowing the details. Dark Fall is a game that is best played with one or two other people, I think. Given the note taking, it would be better to have multiple memories to rely on, and one or even two devoted note takers. One person would be a little overwhelmed... perhaps as they really would, were these events actually happening. It's a game I highly, highly recommend. Among horror games for the PC, it is among the very best. It enforces a sense of total isolation... and then slowly lets you know that perhaps you're not alone, but that you wish to hell you were. Using sound, graphics, and a great story it creates one of the best atmospheres I've ever encountered in a game. There is a direct sequel, Dark Fall 2, that I own but haven't played yet - it takes place in a lighthouse - and the creator of Dark Fall recently released another game, The Lost Crown, which is getting fantastic reviews. So, if you like scary games a la Silent Hill - atmosphere over action - and you like PC games, this is a must try. It still sells for pretty cheap, and has VERY nondemanding computer requirements. Highly advised!