Cursed Mountain

It’s Eurojank Resident Evil 4 for sure, but given the near immediate shift away from that particular third-person shooter paradigm in the post-Gears era, it’s sweet to see a lesser-known game attempt the style. Not that it holds a candle to its predecessor; you can’t move while shooting, but you also don’t have ammo to worry about for your paltry assortment of mystic weapons, and the vast majority of encounters throw one or two enemies at you with no confounding factors beyond that. Still, the game has merit on its environmental design alone, trapping the player in vicious sheets of ice and gusts of oxygen-starved wind in a rare mountaineering horror concept. The start is slow while protagonist Eric Simmons explores evacuated Tibetan monasteries at lower altitudes, but by the second half the barren slopes of Chomo Lonzo envelop the player in blinding whiteness and sullen caverns. The mountain’s name translates to “bird goddess,” and as it lashes out as you it deploys decaying avian forms that judder and blink as they pursue you. Few horror games visually capture suffocation like this.