Amnesia Collection

Frictional Games was no stranger to the horror gaming scene thanks to the Penumbra series. However, Amnesia: The Dark Descent completely blew away expectations. Its tale of confusion and mystery, highlighted by the protagonist’s amnesia, clashed with the oppressive shadow that constantly sought out players. Amnesia: The Dark Descent delivered a compelling psychological horror experience that was simple but still wholly terrifying. The Amnesia Collection features the first game, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (developed by The Chinese Room) and Amnesia: Justine. While the latter two range from above average to good, the entire collection is a steal for the amount of scares it provides.

Until Dawn

Wonky frame rate aside, there’s a whole lot to like about Supermassive Games’ Until Dawn. It has all the odes to a teenage horror slasher except the overall direction is influenced by your decision making. The backstory and lore is fairly well done, even if some of the characters can be grating (looking at you, Emily). Most importantly of all, it’s scary especially when making all the wrong decisions and potentially getting everyone killed because, well, they die in horrible, horrible ways.

Microsoft’s mission to bring the Xbox 360 library over to the Xbox One continues thanks to their excellent backward compatibility initiative. The newest title to be added to the catalog of playable Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One is Saints Row: The Third, the third, and arguably definitive, installment in Volition’s over the top, wacky open world action franchise.

That’s not all, either- while Saint’s Row is the headlining game of this batch, unusually enough, this batch of games is good all around. Apart from Saint’s Row, we also get Super Contra (the Xbox 360 port of the SNES classic), cult hit horror game Slender: The Arrival, twin stick shooter Undertow, and card based party game Monopoly Deal. If you live in Japan, the Xbox 360 port of the classic Sega mech based fighting game Virtual On is also playable on Xbox One.

So yes, it’s a good bunch of games all around- unlike the usual norm, I would heavily recommend all Xbox owners look into all of these games.

Slender: The Arrival developer Blue Isles has announced its next game. Valley is a game where the player dons themselves an Exosuit that gives them a number of different powers. Among those are speed and agility as well as the rather interesting ability to either give life or take it away.

During the announcement of Valley, the company divulged the plot saying, “Hidden deep within a remote region of the Rocky Mountains, you find yourself bewildered within a secluded valley. With the power of a recently discovered L.E.A.F. suit (Leap Effortlessly though Air Functionality), run and jump your way through beautiful forests, dangerous ruins and vast environments; all the while utilizing the power to control life and death to uncover the startling secrets of the mysterious valley.”

Valley is coming to the PS4, Xbox One and PC later this year, but Blue Isles hasn’t given a launch date. In the meantime check out the rather pretty screenshots, as well as the announcement trailer.

Blue Isle Studios’ Slender: The Arrival is available today on the PlayStation 4 in North America. It will be releasing on March 25th in Europe, which is when it will also be available on the Xbox One worldwide.

Slender: The Arrival is an expansion of sorts to the original Slender: The Eight Pages. It takes the original premise and creates a new campaign for it it, allowing for more exploration and easily more terror. Slender: The Arrival already released this past September on the PS3 and Xbox 360, featuring better visuals than the base game, and was met with an average critical reception.

Retailing for £7.99/€9.99, Slender: The Arrival is the perfect choice for Xbox One gamers. As for PS4 players, well, there is that other big name game that recently released. But we won’t push you to that.

What are your thoughts on Slender: The Arrival? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information.

Viral hit and meme phenomenon horror game Slender: The Arrival, will be hitting the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One on March 24, developer Blue Isle Studios has announced. The game should see more of that vaguely terrifying and psychologically unsettling horror game action that made Slender so popular and famous in the first place (seriously, just go check YouTube, it is swarming with Let’s Plays of the game, each racking up hundreds of thousands of views).

The game, which has already been available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 since September (and for PC since 2013) was also announced for Wii U, although so far, we don’t have any indication whatsoever about that version. Much like the Slender Man himself, it seems to have disappeared, possibly to re-appear right in front of your face later when you least expect it.

Slender: The Arrival will cost $9.99 on PS4 and Xbox One. Stay tuned for more information.

Slender Man never sleeps. It’s doubtful whether he even has eyes but regardless, the dark suited, faceless entity will be stalking Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers, with Slender: The Arrival announced for both platforms. It will release during Q1 2014 and be published by Midnight City with two new levels to premiere on the home consoles first.

These two new levels will apparently be flashbacks, seen through the eyes of earlier Slender Man victims. Debuting first on Xbox Live and PSN, these two new levels will arrive for Steam later. You’ll need to finish the initial campaign to experience them though.

Slender: The Arrival will also see an additional level of visual polish. Considering that it hasn’t quite garnered the critical praise of its predecessor Slender: The Eight Pages, will you be interested in picking Slender: The Arrival up for current gen platforms? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and pray Slender Man isn’t reading.

eleased back in the summer of 2012, my first introduction to the original Slender was fairly unappealing and misguided. A freely, downloadable first person survival horror on the PC, it was made all the less impactful as I was being fed instructions and had my shoulder surveyed by a colleague at the time.

Needless to say, when I finally did give it a fair shake by my lonesome, I was impressed with how much pressure was put on the player, in order to survive the egnimic and faceless figure known as the “Slender Man.” For a good/sadistic laugh, Youtube for “Creepy Watson” to check out one the main inspirations of the concept.

"With walls littered with scribblings of the Slender Man and Kate gone missing, Lauren must now embark into the darkness with a flashlight and a camcorder."

Fast forward to now, Parsec Productions (the original creator) and Blue Isle Studios team up to bring us the first commercial release in the series. Dubbed Slender: The Arrival, you’re once again thrust into a familiar setting.

The Arrival is split up into five chapters, the first acting as a prologue to help tie into the events later seen in what is a “remixed” version of the original, fittingly called The Eight Pages. Apart from the standard creepy forest, you’ll have more domestic and industrial areas to wade through, one of which is admittedly re-used for a later encounter.

While the basic premise of what made the original Slender such a cult phenomenon hasn’t changed all too much here, the introduction of a narrative to tie all the events together is welcome.

You play as a woman named Lauren, who visits her friend Kate and her house located somewhere out in the wilderness, only to find it completely ransacked. With walls littered with scribblings of the Slender Man and Kate gone missing, Lauren must now embark into the darkness with a flashlight and a camcorder (which for some reason is always on) in order to find her.

"There's a level of frustration that comes with nearly every encounter that will you have in this game."

Thankfully, the story does little in terms of detracting from the simplicity of how the rest of the game carries itself. Aside from some cutscenes, you’re never really taken away from the perspective of how the events are told or unfolded.

The Arrival is at its best when giving little indication to the player, having you crawl or sprint through surroundings, where paranoia can quickly creep into your brain when there’s seemingly nothing happening at all. Its the attention to the sound design, as well the distortion and anxiety that builds when faced against a incorpreal entity than can basically teleport right next to you if Mr. Man so desired.

The approach to actually progressing is almost arcade-like in nature. You’re given almost no way to counter-attack your foes (yes, plural), but the amount of time actually required to finish a Chapter is minuscule. That’s because there’s a level of frustration that comes with nearly every encounter that will you have in this game. Because you’re not going to instantly be able to find the required number of objects to trigger the next sequence of events, Chapters will likely cause multiple play-throughs.

Even given your ability to remember as much of the map possible, the real challenge comes in the form of evading the Slender Man. One wrong turn, and look too directly at his classy sense of style, its game over.

This somewhat random affair can easily be classified by some as unfair, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. There were definitely times I wished that I was able to collect that last item, just so I can see what happens next. And then poof, there’s Slendie! Did I feel tense and frightened? For many of the initial few times, sure. But was as I as enthusiastic to give the Chapter another go? Not really.

The Arrival is definitely not something I feel a lot of people can rush through, unless they’re looking to get some ridiculously time scores for bragging rights, or having to do it all again in the unlocked able extra that is Hardcore mode.

This game was reviewed on the MAC.

Have you been waiting for a proper horror experience that you foolishly hoped (like so many others, some of us included) Dead Space 3 and Resident Evil 6 would deliver? Well, Slender: The Arrival, which was looking pretty damn good as it is, has just started looking like an even better option now.

Developers Parsec Productions and Blue Isle Studios have released a 10 minute long beta gameplay footage of the upcoming survival horror game, showing everything they can within the space of 600 seconds and odd that would spook the hell out of you.

The video is above, you should really give it a try. Get a blanket.

Slender: The Arrival releases in March for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live, PS3 via PSN and PC and Mac. Stay tuned for more information.

Till then, tell us what you thought of the video in the comments section below.

On top of that, you’ll also be able to pre-order the game which will grant immediate access to the upcoming beta test that will happen before the game’s release. After the pre-orders open, you can head straight to the developer’s
official site and purchase the game.

Developed by Parsec Productions and Blue Isle Studios, Slender: The Arrival picks up where the original left off and has you running through the woods, doing your best to not be spotted by the creepy urban legend creature Slender Man. The sequel will feature an improved storyline, more levels, much improved visuals and of course, a larger map to get lost and find yourself facing harrowing situations in.

Source: OnlySP