MONTHLY 5 - October 2024

Rise from the grave and party with the undead thanks to a whole bunch of horrifically spooky games brought back from the great beyond. 

Your mortal soul may not be in danger, but a bunch of video game characters are in my two highest recommendations of the month. Gast: The Greatest Little Ghost (2002 Mindscape & Idol FX AB) is a macabre adventure for all ages that has the titular ghost collect souls from those who have taken over an amusement park. The highly underrated survival horror Gregory Horror Show (2003 Capcom) has you do the same to the effed-up residents of a spooky hotel. Based on an equally weird and under-seen animated show of the same name, I'd say it pips Gast to the top spot by a wide margin. 

Beyond these soul stealers we have Dracula's Secret (1996 Corel Corporation), an entertaining adventure game for kids and Isle of the Dead (1993 Rainmaker Software, Inc) an under-loved if slightly wonky first-person-shooter with classic adventure elements that makes it utterly unique for its time. Finally, you can find out your own future in the fortune-telling application called Rosemary West's House of Fortunes (1993 Villa Crespo, Inc). No serial killers included, promise.

On another note, a lot more time has been spent away from the site than normal thanks to some real life events taking up much of my time. I've decided to not do a Monthly-5 for November, instead putting my focus on completing missing reviews, updating some of the older packages that most need it and preparing for December's Christmas Countdown. No idea how much I'm able to get done, but I'll update you all at the end of the month to let you know.

Until then, keep gaming!

MONTHLY 5 - March 2024

March is the months of movies, and not just because the Oscars came about at the beginning of it. It is also the time the Collection Chamber specifically looks at movie-licenses and this time it's a doozy.

I recently saw Ghostbusters: Frozen Kingdom and I think I enjoyed it a little more than Afterlife, even though I'm still disappointed by the lack of city-wide chaos such a concept can bring. The originals did that perfectly. You'll get to try out the 40-odd entries in the Ghostbusters Collection (1984-2009 Various) to see how well they fare. Putting this together was task as gargantuan as a rampaging marshmallow man, so forgive me if I rank it my pick of the month even if includes that sucky NES port. New Ghostbusters II for that same system more than makes up for it though.

Earlier on, Denis Villeneuve finally gave us the epic Dune II in multiplexes, and it easily jumped to the top of my yearly list and I can't see it changing for a while. As the movie was delayed due to the ongoing effects of Covid and the union strikes, so was my package for Emperor: Battle for Dune (2001 Electronic Arts), Westwood Studios exceptional swansong to the franchise. I didn't have the foresight to pre-write the review so that may come a bit later depending on how I wrangle my increasingly limited time. Possibly the real pick of the month if I'm honest.

Another contender for that spot is Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (2005 Universal Studios & Ubisoft Entertainment) in both of its forms. The special Signature Edition was the version I owned back in the day on PC and was a port of the PS2 version. The Enhanced Gamer's Edition originally only came with select graphics cards, but being a port of the X-Box 360 version, it included all of the graphical enhancements that made that game stand out.

To round out the month we have a couple of interesting time wasters. The Land Before Time: Animated MovieBook (1998 Universal City Studios, Inc, Sound Source Interactive & MCA Music Publishing) takes what Disney did with their Animated Storybook series and tacks it onto the classic Don Bluth property. Lastly, a slew of movie and TV franchises take part in Sci-Fi Pinball (1998 Fox Interactive). Aliens, Predator, The Fly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer all have their own table.

Check these bad boys out by clicking on the links below. There's no massive compilation package (or Easter holiday) next month so hopefully I can get all of the reviews in on time. Until then, enjoy this bumper crop.

THE CHRISTMAS CATCHUP - DAY 6

I've more frights for you this festive season with Terror T.R.A.X. Track of the Vampire (1995 Ground Zero Productions) a choose-your-own FMV adventure where a couple of paranormal techno-cops investigate some bad guys who like to bite people. And blast electro-beams and rip eyes out from their sockets. I swear, this is the last Horror game to celebrate this yuletide... maybe.

Merry Christmas y'all!

MONTHLY 5 - APRIL 2021

I may have bitten off more than I can chew with April's quintet of games edging into May. At least there's loads here to sink your teeth into, including three adventure games; The Beverly Hillbillies (1993 IntraCorp), Return to Ringworld (1994 Tsunami Media) and Hollywood Monsters (1997 Pendulo Studios). The last one has been translated into English from its original Spanish, with the Manual translation created by yours truly. On top of all that, there's the cinematic platformer on the Super Nintendo called Nosferatu (1994 SETA Corporation) and a collection of games based on Total Recall (1990-1991 Ocean Software & Acclaim Entertainment). Dig in!

There's only one update this month which coincided with my Top 10 Unexpected Movie Licences. Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge (1995, Motion Picture Corporation of America Interactive) got a manual and some DOSBox love, so check that out too if you haven't already.

VIDEO COMING SOON!

** EDIT: Real life has intervened so I will combining April's video with May's. Stay tuned for that!**

Read on after the jump for more info!

MONTHLY 5 - October 2020

We may have to stay inside this Halloween, but with this bunch of old games, you don't have to waste it. Dusting off their sheets to escape the Chamber are the platforming skills of Satan (1989 Dinamic Software), the first-person shooting horrors of Eight Legged Freaks (2002 Warner Bros), the role-playing freak-outs of Xenomorph (1990 Pandora) and the survival horror that is Doctor Hauzer (1994 Riverhill Soft). Scariest of all is the teen romancing of The Vampire Diaries (1996 American Laser Games), but at least they have some vampire attacks in there to calm the nerves. 

October also got a slew of updates. 3D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night, Gahan Wilson's Ultimate Haunted House and Jurassic Park Collection: Volume 2 all got a little easier to get running on Windows 10. Check them out after the jump!

WATCH THE VIDEO

SILVERLOAD

The Wild West was a treacherous time in American history, but imagine if werewolves and vampires were thrown into the mix. Well, imagine no more because the 1995 adventure, Silverload by Millennium Interactive, did just that. And the PlayStation port did it too, only way better.

GOOSEBUMPS: ESCAPE FROM HORRORLAND

Between 1992 and 1997 over 60 books were released in R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series. During this time, a television show, a board game, several gamebooks and as much merchandise as a Disney movie came to market. In 1996 at the height of that media blitz, Dreamworks Interactive in partnership with Microsoft gained the rights to develop a video game for Windows. The result is Escape to Horrorland, an FMV adventure that boasts Hollywood production value and the involvement of Steven Spielberg.

GAHAN WILSON'S ULTIMATE HAUNTED HOUSE

Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House, released in 1994, is a surprisingly fun kid's game from the mind of a surprisingly adult cartoonist. Wilson's work, which often includes such macabre topics as murder, dismemberment and cannibalism, were featured in the likes of Playboy and The New Yorker. Let's see how this strange psyche can be translated for a younger audience...

ATMOSFEAR: THE THIRD DIMENSION

Being the kind of kid who liked everything that went bump in the night, I was immediately drawn to the series of early-90s VHS board games known as Atmosfear (or Nitemare in some parts of the world). With new expansions also coming over the next couple of years, it quickly reached the top of my Christmas list each yuletide season. A few years ago I stumbled upon this CD-Rom oddity that moved the party away from the TV set to the monitor screen. Needless to say, I was very intrigued...

BRAIN DEAD 13

It's October, the month where goth and gore become acceptable to the god-fearing suburbs around the world. Pasty skinned weirdos like me need no excuse to encourage the claret at any time of the year, but in the spirit of my favourite month, we're going all spooky on yo' ass. Let's ease into Halloween with something a little tame: an animated arcade adventure from 1995 named Brain Dead 13.

VEIL OF DARKNESS

Released in 1993 by SSI and developed by Event Horizon Software, Veil of Darkness is a bit of an oddity. It looks like an RPG. It controls like a typical isometric RPG. It's even published by a company known for great RPGs using the Dungeons & Dragons license. Those expecting roles to be played in their game, however, will be very disappointed. Veil of Darkness is very much an adventure game at its core...

NOCTURNE

Nocturne is a fun 3D horror game that takes a lot of inspiration from the Resident Evil games as well as the cultural phenomenon that was The X-Files, but can this original tale of demon hunting capture an audience like those frachises could?