1. World of Darkness
White Wolf created the much-loved (at least by geeks) Vampire: the Masquerade gaming system. Other popular games included Werewolf: The Ascension and Changeling: the Dreaming. Many goths and geeks everywhere were obsessed with these games for a few years. Thousands of Angelfire, Tripod and Geocities pages were created for clans, characters, and regional clubs.
Related links:
http://www.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/
World of Darkness Articles, at Wikipedia
2. Call of Cthulhu
This Lovecraftian role-playing game was first published as far back as 1981, but I remember it being most popular in the mid 1990s. The Web majorly helped Cthulhu gaming fans find each other to play online and in real life. I spent many long hours looking for links about this game, and now all the Call of Cthulhu links in my old database are dead.
3. Planet Vampire
Planet Vampire offers an up-to-date wealth of resources on White Wolf's Vampire Role Playing PC games and the upcoming World of Darkness MMO. Active forums, mods and patches are available here.
4. Magic: The Gathering
I'm sure you all remember the hygienically challenged M:tg players who would gather in hallways at conventions, swapping cards. I can't tell you how many hundreds of Magic: The Gathering links I had to wade through back in the day to find a few dozen decent ones that were kept updated and had useful info to offer.
5. Deadlands
This game was a mashup of Westerns and horror RPGs. It never got fanatically popular, but I got a kick out of the concept.
6. Alone in the Dark
Did you ever play this PC game? It spawned many sequels, and lead the way for Silent Hill and Resident: Evil. It definitely creeped me out back in the day!
Alone in the Dark Video Game, at Wikipedia
Alone in the Dark Series, at Wikipedia
7. American McGee's Alice
My goth friends and I were so excited to play this computer game designed by someone who might not have been a goth himself, but definitely had a dark, morbid sense of style. I wasn't very good at the game, but loved the imagery so played it often. I remember a lot of fansites springing up, and girls going dressed as the macabre Alice on Halloween, clutching bloody knives.
Supposedly there was to be a movie based on the game, due out in 2010, but it doesn't seem it will happen.
American McGee's Alice, at Wikipedia
8. Clive Barker's Undying
I never played this game, but there were certainly a lot of online fans at the time.
Clive Barker's Undying, at Wikipedia
9. Oogie's Revenge
This was actually one of the stupidest video games I've ever played, and I regret the $26 I spent on it at the time. Horrible graphics, too. But it still made me happy that another NMBC game had been created. Avoid at all costs, though.
10. Resident Evil
The center of the survival horror universe. Spawning many comics, graphic novels, and of course the movies.
Resident Evil Movies, at LiveJournal
11. Silent Hill
This game scared the crap out of me. I made the mistake of spending 3 nights in a row playing it by myself in my darkened apartment back when I lived across the street from Microsoft. I blasted the sounds on my speakers and jumped out of my skin every time something shuffled towards me on the screen. It's of course been made into popular movies, creepy comic books, and has many video game sequels and offshoots.
12. Dark World RPG
Here's a great example of a PBEM (play-by-email) dark fantasy horror game. I'm glad to see there's still something like this out there.
13. Arkham Horror
Aah, my misspent youth. How many evenings did my dorky friends and my dorky self spend gathered around this Lovecraftian board game? Many.. Many.
bahhh... castlevania. but only the ones in 2D
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