With Halloween coming this weekend for most of us in the US of A, we all need a little help getting in the ghoulish spirit.  And no, don’t break out and read your shitty Goosebumps books.  I know you have them.  And it’s okay.  I’ve got them too.

You probably have already decorated the front yard with skeletons, jack-o-lanterns on the porch, and spooky music playing from a hidden karaoke machine.  These all set the stage for a great spook filled holiday weekend.  Oh, and the candy.  I can’t forget to mention all of the that candy; pounds of luscious chocolatey bite-sized goodness.

Do you need help getting into the spooky spirit? Do you happen to be that douchebag that hands out coupons, ketchup packets, or toothpaste samples for treats?  Well guess what kiddies, I am here to help you get ready for Halloween.  How am I going to do that? Video games.  It’s what I know, and it’s what you are hear to read about.

10.  F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

The first game on our list has got to get us started on the right foot-or claw if you want to get technical.  FEAR 2: Project Origin does just that for us.  It’s not too bad of a game, and it’s not too good either.  Certain parts of the game are downright creepy, with a poltergeist girl that gives you the whillies and scares the bejesus out of you with elementary schools and hallucinations.  Then we have to mention the mechwarrior parts of the game.  These are downright cartoony and feel like a completely different game altogether.  It still constitutes a creepy experience (when it works) and those elementary school laughter from those kids still gave me nightmares.

9.  DOOM 3

This game was absolutely made for Halloween.  It’s essentially a dark run through of your favorite scary haunted house at night.  The game includes trick door surprises (probably too many to count) and loads of dark menacing hallways to explore.  Just wait till you have to switch from walking around with your trusty flashlight in your hand to losing sight of your enemy with your gun.  That crap is scary enough.  That’s just one more step you have to do to take out the zombies.  Mess up, and you’ll pay the price.  Doom has always been about scares, and this one doesn’t let you down.

8.  Clock Tower Series

Most gamers have forgotten or don’t remember the Clock Tower series.  It’s a set of games from the mid 1990’s spanning from the SNES to PC, with a few Playstation ports thrown in for good measure.  These games even though they are 20 years old, still hold up as some of the most scary.  The villain throughout the game is known as Scissorman, and cannot be killed throughout the course of the game using normal means.  The player is tasked with hiding and evading Scissorman while he stalks you and hunts you down.  If you get caught by him (and believe me you will), you go into “panic mode” and have to press a button fast enough to fight him off and get away.  Low on health? That sucks, you’re probably dead if your reflexes aren’t fast enough.  Unlike other games of the era, Scissorman was able to stalk and catch you throughout the entire game, often popping up in your favorite hiding spots.  There of course is an end boss battle with him, but you still have to fight throughout the ENTIRE flippin’ game.

7.  Bioshock

I have to include Bioshock in this list only because I nearly jumped out of my seat after I spooked my first Splicer.  Walking through the game doesn’t come off as scary, but it does have its fair share of spooks.  You know what I’m talking about.  You’re walking down the hallways with the haunting music, and you hear laughter or footsteps all around you.  From the Splicer masks to the Big Daddy and turrets, it all just has that old school 1950’s creepy going on.  The sounds of the game really add to some tense moments too.  Normally you are accustomed to hearing NPC enemies walking around whistling before you kill them, but in Bioshock when you hear those turrets you know you pissed one of them off and you better run.

6.  Fatal Frame Series

In the game there are some ghosts and ghouls out there that can kill you in the night.  No problem.  We’ve seen this premise before.  Just let me grab my auto-shotgun from the cabinet and strap on a few containers of ectoplasmic residue like always.  I’ll be good to go!  Wait, what? You just handed me this little piece of crap Polaroid camera?  Does the camera happen to shoot laser beams from the flash to kill ghosts? I’m confused?  Fatal Frame is one of those games you have to play to believe.  Here spooky things happen all around you, and you are equipped with absolutely no way of dealing with them (besides making memories).  In the game you walk around spooky mansions and gardens to take pictures of ghosts, essentially “trapping” them inside the photo so they don’t hurt you.  I wonder what happens when I take that roll to Walgreens?

5.  Left 4 Dead

Now you can finally get that auto-shotty that they wouldn’t let you have in Fatal Frame.  Sure, Left 4 Dead probably shouldn’t be on this list after your 300th play-through, but go back to your first 5 plays on each of the chapters and remember how you felt.  You eventually start to see or hear the patterns of the infected, but those first couple of times you hear that music kick up a notch and you are trapped in a closet with only dual pistols, it’s really flippin’ scary (even WITH that auto-shotgun at your side).  It looks like Left 4 Dead will continue to bring the scary with Left 4 Dead 2 coming and a slew of DLC.

4.  Silent Hill Series

Ah, a nice weekend getaway up at Toluca Lake.  They’ve got hot nurses from hell, an insane asylum, a huge dude with a metal parrot beak, and a cult of followers practicing human sacrifice and necromancy.  Great! Just what I was looking for, let me call the number on the back of that brochure! 1-800-666-HELL.  The Silent Hill series plays with your mind and troubles your brain to figure out what is real and what is not.  The fog of the quiet mountain town, the lack of visible area on the screen, all of these elements make for a terror filled evening no matter which game in the series you choose.

3.  The Thing

Okay.  Let me just go ahead and pony up, and say that this Xbox original game freaked me the F#@K out.  I’m not going to lie.  I didn’t even have a good sound system at the time and I still got jumpy at times from the gameplay.  I’m really hoping they pull this one out of the vault and make it a Games on Demand title, because I will buy it.  And so should you.  It’s that freaking good.  This game taught me to trust or not trust my fellow survivors.  Imagine going through Left 4 Dead and choosing who you wanted to give a gun too.  Now, you aren’t battling zombies, but you do have to watch out for each other.  One of your buddies could turn on you at anytime, so it’s imperative to watch your friends closely and see what they do.  Here’s hoping you chose correctly, because if you choose poorly, you just sealed your fate by giving a gun to The Thing.

2.  Resident Evil

Every scary video game list out there includes the Resident Evil series.  Why buck the trend here?  There is a reason for it.  They are great games (despite some of the movies being horrific).  I personally love Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition and think it is absolutely one of the greatest looking Gamecube ports out there on the Wii.  I’ve woken up many a night after playing this game and heard that scraggly voice in my head say, “Howdy stranger! Whaddaya buyin’?”  The Wii version turned out to be not as intense as some of the other console editions, with firing much easier now that you just hold down a button and point the Wii mote at the screen.

1.  Dead Space

Oh Dead Space.  You really are a glorious scary game.  The best on my list.  I remember the day I picked you up at Target for 30 bucks on special and starting playing the campaign while on vacation.  I listened to your somewhat creepy sounds and audio tracks  through two stereo speakers and wondered what all of the fuss was about?  Why did this game get awards for “Best Audio of the Year” and “Sound Design of the Year”?  The visuals in the first couple of chapters were obviously dark and gloomy, but nothing outside of the ordinary for me?  When I arrived home from vacation I immediately popped in the game to pick up where I left off.  I slowly turned up my audio setup, and proceeded to have eargasms for the rest of the single-player campaign.  The game is absolutely creepy.  Definitely a great spook-tactular experience for anyone who hasn’t played it.  And if you haven’t, you need to go buy it.  Now. It’s coming to Games on Demand (hopefully The Thing will follow suit).

What about you Loot Ninja gamers? Did I leave any off? Of course I did! There is only 10 games listed here!  Let me know what your selections are?