Halloween Update #1 - 10/19 - Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Kyros, Illbleed, Night Slashers, Downfall, Horror Zombies from the Crypt

Welcome to Halloween Gaming 101! As we're approaching the end of October, we're kicking off a huge two-part special full of horror and mystery. Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a hellishly fun co-op monster mash by LucasArts for 16-bit consoles, squeezing together tons of classic horror movie references. Our article covers both the original and its sequel, Ghoul Patrol. It includes interviews with ZAMN creator Mike Ebert and Ghoul Patrol director Kalani Streicher, among other things revealing a very little known inspiration for the series: A forgotten arcade action game by Alpha Denshi, called Kyros, which we honor with its own article.

Furthermore, we're covering Illbleed, one of the craziest horror games out there, featuring gallons of fake blood, evil crashtest dummies and a Toy Story spoof, Night Slashers, a horror brawler by Data East full of early-'90s charme, and Downfall, a morbid indie adventure with intriguingly-looking hand-drawn backgrounds. The kusoge for this update is Horror Zombies from the Crypt, a ridiculously brutal action platformer for 16-bit home computers, while the spotlight is taken by Roberta Williams' Phantasmagoria, updated with the improved text from The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures.

Of course we didn't forget our other regular featues, even though we couldn't make them Halloween-themed in time: The Game Club 19XX podcast deals with Crystalis, SNK's Zelda-clone for the NES, and the iOS Shooter article is up to page 19 now. The Games of the World section also got updated, mostly to feature a translated article on the games industry in Malaysia (which ties in nicely with the ZAMN-article, since Ghoul Patrol was co-developed with a studio over there), but also some smaller contributions, like a photo stretch from arcades in Pyongyang, North Korea.