Originally starting out on the Super Famicom, the Clock Tower series would see three releases on the PlayStation, including a port of the first game. While this title does feature many of the elements of the Resident Evil series, it is actually a light gun shooter, so don’t expect the same kind of gameplay you get from the others.įind Resident Evil Series on Clock Tower SeriesĬlock Tower: The First Fear (NTSC-J/1997), Clock Tower (NTSC-J/1996, NTSC-U/1997, PAL/1998), Clock Tower 2 (NTSC-J/1998, NTSC-U/1999) Of course, due to its popularity there are a large number of spin-off titles, such as the Survivor series which first appeared on the PlayStation. If you’ve never played a survival horror and are wondering what the genre is about, Resident Evil is probably the best place to start.
But Umbrella also does work with biological weapons, which have a nasty habit of getting loose and unleashing hordes of zombies or worse. The plots tend to follow a particular group of characters, usually police officers or in related fields, as they battle a pharmaceuticals corporation named Umbrella. Resident Evil is easily one of the biggest names in the genre, and is credited with creating the term “survival horror.” The series also standardized the control scheme and many other elements that would dominate survival horror games for this generation, to the point that other survival horrors became known as RE clones. Also, while I tried to provide the more influential titles first, the listings aren’t in any particular order, except for the Honorable Mentions section, which is in alphabetical order. All release dates were provided by GameFAQs. Hence titles like Dino Crisis are listed as series, though only the first is considered true survival horror.
It should be noted, if multiple titles in a series were released on the PlayStation, they ended up in the series category instead of the singles, even if the sequels were not really survival horror titles. What other genre can incorporate point-and-click adventures, third-person action games, RPGs, and first-person shooters without skipping a beat? So, to help gain an understanding of the genre, and possibly lead a few collectors to track down titles they’ve never played before, here is the list of survival horror titles for the original PlayStation. Yet survival horror is a strange genre, because it is based around themes instead of gameplay mechanics. But it would be the 32-bit era when survival horror would really take off, appearing almost out of nowhere to become a major factor in console wars, especially with the PlayStation. The history of horror in video games is an interesting tale, some say starting with a few games on the Atari 2600, some saying even farther, to Haunted House on the Magnavox Odyssey. (be sure to also check out Ack’s guide to the Dreamcast Survival Horror Library) The Playstation (PS1) Survival Horror Library