"Resident Evil, Silent Hill and a selection of pretenders were incredibly popular in the last two generations, but in the age of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the traditional survival horror is all but dead. What happened to the horror? Did publishers just get tired of it, or did pressure from gamers and prevailing trends cause it to self-evaporate, to adapt with the times to such a degree that it effectively committed suicide?

As for right now though, it seems that survival horror has ev..."

"Resident Evil is said to be born from a Japanese horror movie, “Sweet Home” (which was actually based on an NES game of the same name). Although “Sweet Home” itself took its inspiration in turn from several Western movies, it nonetheless carries with it the strong hallmark of the way Japanese culture treats horror – and that distinctly Japanese fear factor is what made Konami’s Silent Hill, Tecmo’s Fatal Frame, and Sony Japan’s Siren what they are.

The West and the East have distinctly dif..."

"There's something special about being on the edge of your seat, realising you need to change your underwear for the second time in an hour and trying to remind yourself (unconvincingly) that it's just a game. I mean, what kind of sissy would be scared of a game?

As it turns out, a lot of us. And more to the point – we like it. The horror genre, more specifically survival horror, has delivered an array of classic titles and, like a fine wine, has matured to near perfection. With the upcomin..."

"Once, we were a proud warrior people, adept in every skill, discipline and combat technique required to earn mastery over our every digital domain. We were a pantheon of noble thumb-ninjas, our legendary victories and kill-counts matched in number only by the calluses on our digits; calluses we wore as badges of honour through the eternal, bloody war against AI and our fellow man. But through its ever more sophisticated design and an unerring need to be accessible to all, modern gaming has do..."

"Over the years, gamers have seen dozens of high-profile titles make their world debut by being featured on the cover of Game Informer. In fact, if you’re a regular shopper at GameStop, you’re probably one of the magazine’s more than two million readers.

But does a game getting on Game Informer’s cover signal it’s going to be great?

Can you be confident that these debuts will, one or two years later, become games you want to buy and play? Perhaps the magazine has a “Madden” curse (though..."

"The average age of a video game customer now hovers around the late twenties to early thirties. The variation on either side of that average reveals a fascinating picture, too. Many of the first generation of child gamers now approaching their forties have children of their own. Whole families now gather around a game console, just as in previous generations the family gathered to watch a video or Morecambe & Wise on TV or to play Monopoly together.

If you don't play videogames, you may co..."

"Project Berkley. At first glance, these two words would almost undoubtedly render the average gaming punter to multiple bouts of head-scratching uncertainty. For loyal followers of the legendary AM2 developer Yu Suzuki (Sega’s answer to Shigeru Miyamoto) however, it should register instantaneously as the precursor to one of Suzuki’s most ambitious works to date, for it is none other than the working title for what would later become known as Shenmue."