Three games expanding on the story of “The Blair Witch Project”.

My background in gaming is nothing impressive, I was always a few years behind everyone else when it came to consoles and when it came to PC gaming, well I had no clue at all!

We didn’t have a PC in our house until I was in my mid teens and even then you have to remember that this was a time when it was a real luxury to have one. I remember my parents saving for one, then it was a family day out at PC World as we spent hours with a salesman going through everything.

This may seem strange for some of you reading this but I remember all of this because it really was a big deal back then, we had to wait for two weeks for it to be delivered (no just walking out of the shop with it) and the guy spent hours and hours setting it all up with hundreds of wires and discs to install the huge machine.

Once this was all done I now had to find something that I could do on it, after scouring around and looking at overpriced large boxed games (if you’re old enough to remember then you know what I mean) it was in a small game shop that I found a three game pack for sale that was based on a Horror film I loved.

This was all new to me, like I said I was always a few years behind on this stuff, I’d never played a game on a PC (well, apart from the free RollerCoaster Tycoon that came with it) so when my birthday rolled around and I was given these games I was seriously excited but for some strange reason I was also nervous.

After waiting a long time for the games to install I finally got to sit down on the pleather chair with the PC on it’s huge desk to support the weight of the monitor I finally felt like a proper gamer, the only problem now was that I had no clue what I was doing! I’d never used a keyboard as a controller before.

Once I finally got my heard around that I was off and I found myself engrossed in the game, as someone who really enjoyed the mythology of the ‘Blair Witch’ tale and what it entailed here was my chance to somehow explore it in my own way. For a teenager who was mad on Horror this was amazing, I’d never experienced anything like this.

The first game, “Blair Witch Volume I: Rustin Parr”, is set in the 1940’s and you play a research scientist sent to Burkitsville and you have to investigate Rustin Parr. I remember really got into the whole story and found myself playing for hours, sat in the dark, basically being a stereotypical gamer.

I really was engrossed in the whole thing and once I’d burned through that game I was straight onto the next one as I was loving the whole interactive story and just wanted more. Though once again I had to wait a long time I had to wait a while as the game installed but at least it gave me a break from the screen.

“Blair Witch Volume II: The Legend of Coffin Rock” is set during the Civil War, you play as a dying Union soldier with amnesia who is rescued by some villagers. In return, he agrees to help them find their missing children and goes to the haunted Burkittsville forest. Sounds like fun eh, well not really.

Unfortunately the second one wasn’t as fun as the first game and even though there was a lot of story it just went by so quickly, there wasn’t as much freedom to it and I was just left disappointed as I had high expectations after my experience of the first game. Sequels, we all know the deal.

The third game, “Blair Witch Volume III: The Elly Kedward Tale” is set in 1785, you play a witch-hunter who is investigating whether or not a Burkittsville woman who is accused of witchcraft is taking vengeance on her fellow villagers who tried to lynch her. A really enjoyable premise.

Even though a lot of people didn’t like this game, I remember really enjoying it and being captivated by it. I really got into it, I don’t care what anyone says it as enjoyable. That was it, I’d played all three games and I was really happy and I also had that strange sense of achievement that comes with completing a game.

I wish I knew what happened to those games, they just seemed to disappear, lost over time. I have to admit the reason I wrote this was was for my own selfish nostalgia, these games bring back so many memories, I remember I enjoyed them so much I replayed them again only this time I did so with a good friend of mine.

My friend never did do well with the Horror stuff so I got a different type of enjoyment out of it that time around because I got to see him jump and scream yet really get into the game play. Just thinking about it all brings a big smile to my face, very fond memories of my childhood.

I have toyed with the idea of buying these games again but I don’t dare as I feel it will taint my precious memories of them. As they say somethings are best left in the past and having had this experience before, the same thing happened to me when I decided to revisit the first “Resident Evil” game.

I’ll save that story for another time on another post but let’s just say that the game quickly stopped being my all time favourite game and I was sadly reminded why it’s sometimes better to leave things in the past, that experience saddened, but like I said, another time on another post

I know I’m viewing these games through rose-coloured glasses but I really don’t want to spoil those memories, even searching for images to post with this has reminded me how stiff the graphics were but you have to remember that these games were released nearly 20 years ago and to someone like me this was huge difference.

This wasn’t a 2D Sega or Nintendo game, this was fully immersive gaming where you could walk anywhere and see everything. There are also videos of the game on YouTube but once again I don’t want to watch them and then have what I remember of them to be spoiled.

Did you play these games? Have you replayed them recently? I’d love to hear from someone else who also enjoyed them as much as I did.