Somewhere, deep within the darkest recesses of the Uncanny Valley lies a wierd, jagged sinkhole. Nobody is aware of how deep it goes, or even when it has a backside to succeed in, merely that its pixellated partitions appear to vibrate and shimmer as you progress round them. Welcome to the PlayStation Zone. the Spooky Retro Bundle 2 on Itch is a group of seven (principally) PSX-styled games that channel the spirit of this significantly unsettling period in 3D graphics into one thing intentionally unnerving. Below, trailers for the bundled games, plus some further scares to start out your weekend with.
Top billing on this bundle goes to OK/NORMAL, beforehand covered here. Starting out feeling like a threadbare but genuine early PlayStation game, it comes aside on the seams, turning into more and more hostile each to take a look at and expertise. While developer 98demake has produced a whole channel’s worth of fantastic (and normally humorous) movies depicting trendy hit games as early PSX titles, their most up-to-date manufacturing – September 1999, free on Steam – is a extra technically superior slice of concern. It’s solely 5 minutes lengthy, so attempt it. Then ensure your doorways are locked.
While extra DOS or early microcomputer-themed than PSX and so feeling a bit of little bit of a cheat to incorporate on this bundle, Faith by Airdorf can also be effectively price taking part in. The priesthood are investigating an deserted home on the centre of stories of demonic possession and satanic skulduggery. Hogwash, clearly, however you may wish to keep in mind your finest warding prayers nonetheless. There’s a sequel in development with a demo available now, too.
The remainder of the bundle I’m much less acquainted with, but it surely’s enjoyable wanting stuff. There’s the brilliantly named stealth-action-horror Night Of The Nun… aka Nun Massacre by Puppet Combo, a developer specialising in grungy 80s horror and PSX-ish aesthetics. Dead End Road by DDD Wares combines the inherent terror of driving by way of unusual roads on a wet night time, mixed with low-fi 3D stylings and a few VHS filters. Helltown by WildArts is a bit of greater decision, however makes use of the additional pixels to painting a quaint, vibrant little city earlier than its descent into demon-infested chaos.
While Dan Sanderson’s First Winter appears a bit of extra like PSX FMV than something (a glance all of its personal, simply replicated in real-time these days), it does inform a narrative with a grain of genuine 80s concern. A nuclear submarine is detected not removed from Los Angeles, and your individual bizarre reality-shifting expertise appears associated to the errant and probably world-ending vessel. Lastly within the bundle, Modus Interactive’s Sanguine Sanctum is a brief game of exploration by way of dreamlike (and nightmarish) retro worlds looking for choices for a robust, hungry entity.
There’s lots extra people doing scary issues with warped polygons and blurry video outputs past this bundle. Anyone wanting a slow-burn spookin’ ought to swap the lights out and check out Petscop tonight, a completely regular Let’s Play video collection taking a look at a very actual, regular and not-at-all haunted PlayStation game. I’ve even embedded the primary episode beneath, as a result of I’m so good. Just don’t go googling for movies explaining the collection – there’s loads of them, and so they’re much less spooky, extra tedious. It can be remiss of me to not point out Paratopic both.
You can discover The Spooky Retro Bundle 2 on Itch here. It prices $14.95, and is accessible for simply 51 hours extra on the time of writing. I want you all night time, and really spine-chilling weekend.
