It’s that time of the year again, where the portal between the living and dead is at its most prominent, and ghosts and ghouls spill out into our world. Or if you edge on the more sceptical side, it’s a silly holiday that candy companies created to put pressure on the consumer and take more of our hard-earned cash. Whichever side you air, it’s an excuse for everyone to pop in a DVD or a game, and therein lays the inspiration to create a list of games you should be playing this October 31st.

F.E.A.R.
Released: 2005
Genre: Horror, First-Person Shooter

There’s nothing quite like being scared out of your wits on Halloween by a creepy little girl with mascara issues and with F.E.A.R. that’s what you get in abundance. It’s very much a case of what you don’t see playing just as major part in messing with your head as what actually unfolds on screen, ditching jump out from around the corner shock value for true psychological head tripping. It provides you with a constant sense of paranoia with its atmospheric jaunts and by the end of the experience you’re left drained on both an emotional and a physical level.

Mystery Case Files: 13th Skull
Released: 2011
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle, Hidden Object

For the more chilled out gamer who likes to take the world at a leisurely pace there is 13^th Skull from the hidden object maestros  that are Big Fish Games. Mixing a steady flow of adventure, puzzle and the aforementioned hidden object concepts works wonders here and is probably one of the best of a once barren, but now incredibly saturated market. While not a spooky gaming embarkation as such, its animated characters from beyond the grave and menacing undertone do instil just enough mystery and wonderment to fuel your enjoyment right up until its terribly confusing closing act.

Final Frame II: Crimson Butterfly
Released: 2003
Genre: Horror, Survival

While most survival horror games provide use of a double-barrelled shotgun, chainsaw or equally convenient slaughter weapon, Final Frame II arms you with a camera and a flashlight and leaves you to get on with it. If that wasn’t bowel-stirring enough, you’re only able to equip one at a time as you explore deeper and deeper into a desolate village inhabited by a deluge of ghostly souls. Dubbed the scariest video game of all time, it's the perfect accompaniment to a darkened room and an All Hallows Eve swag bag.

Plants vs. Zombies
Released: 2009
Genre: Tower Defense

Are you stuck in work this Halloween, or perhaps facing a long commute? Then this is the perfect anecdote to your fright night woes. Plants vs. Zombies is now available on almost every reputable handheld gaming device you can list and adopts a light-hearted approach to the flesh-eating contingent. Making full use of your shrubbery in both an attacking and defensive capacity is key here as zombies infringe upon your livelihood on various 2D planes, devouring senselessly on their rampaging quest for the much-favoured and far tastier human brains.

Silent Hill 2
Released: 2001
Genre: Horror, Survival

Focusing on a more orthodox entry in terms of what people would expect from a Halloween rundown is the semi-revolutionary Silent Hill 2. Ditching full-time creepy-crawly combat, the game features strong puzzle and problem solving tasks, as the main protagonist James searches for his missing wife, and soon discovers the truth. That’s not to say encounters with the undead and the unknown aren’t present – they’re here and then some, with the freakiest of which taking the form of the menacing Pyramid Head, who stalks you throughout.

Angry Birds Halloween
Released: 2010
Genre: Puzzle

Now bundled with Angry Birds Seasons, Trick or Treat was the first in a precession of ornithological add-ons to one of the most downloaded Apps of all-time, followed by one for every major holiday thereafter. They’ve now overlapped on themselves and as of October 21^st released a new Halloween special amusingly entitled Ham’o’Ween that will mark the beginning of Seasons 2012. The game features new levels littered with explosive Jack-o-Lanterns and some new Golden Eggs for your troubles. What more could you ask for?

Doom 3
Released: 2010
Genre: First-Person Shooter

We naturally finish with a game designed to scare the living bejezus out of its players and Doom 3 does that with unbridled aplomb. The game is geared towards tension and setting a nervy atmosphere that encompasses its enclosed linear level design. Lying in wait around every corner and in every orifice is a grotesque creature of the night, looking to chow down on your face like yesterday's leftovers and with little space to manoeuvre in most circumstances the task is a daunting one to take on.

Craig Bryan, NoobFeed
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