The 2021 Safe Room Horror Game of the Year Awards [Safe Room Podcast]

To say it has been one hell of a year would be an understatement. Fortunately, the medium of horror was faithfully standing at the ready to provide spooky solace in these uncertain times.  As the year comes to a close, Neil and I are counting down our top five horror games of 2021, a task […]

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‘Until Dawn’ Remains a Thrilling Trip to a Cabin in the Woods [Safe Room Podcast]

The line between cinematic presentation and player interactivity has been a fine line within the horror games space. Giving the player enough agency while still contending with an experience informed mainly by decades of horror filmmaking can be challenging to maintain.   Something that Supermassive Games managed to pull off in spades with their first foray […]

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‘Condemned: Criminal Origins’ Still Hits Like a Lead Pipe to the Skull [Safe Room Podcast]

As is in life, first impressions are important. And as a result, launch titles carry more weight than most console releases. Not only ushering in a new console cycle, but the games available on Day 1 should be a snippet of the future of that cycle. And for the Xbox 360, that Day 1 horrifying […]

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The Claustrophobic Horror Of ‘Condemned: Criminal Origins’

The empowerment of arming the player has always been somewhat of a conundrum for the horror genre.  While necessary to the player’s survival, the inevitable firepower bestowed upon the player can be detrimental to the carefully crafted horror elements.  So, what happens when the player is stripped of that empowerment and trades in their gun […]

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Arkane’s Sci-Fi Horror Game ‘Prey’ is an Immersive World of Mimics, Misdirection, and Monstrous Aliens [Safe Room Podcast]

Countless games claim to emphasize player choice, but how many actually deliver on that promise?  Often player choice amounts to little more than black and white morality decisions or variations on stealth or “loud” approaches to combat. And while there are surely outliers, a more traditional approach to immersive sims seems to be a rarity […]

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