horror
News
Record Sales For Scary Games, Reuters Dates Dead Space 2
10:00PM AJ Glasser | News source Reuters says scary video games are having “a record year as zombies, monsters, demons, and chain-sawing wielding psychos fight against the consoles, making video games the new home of horror for some”. More »
Culture
11:00AM David Wildgoose | Horror is the topic of tomorrow night’s Byteside debate. No, not Bindi Irwin’s DS game, but instead think Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2 and – yes – Silent Hill 3. More »
Byteside Wants To Scare You Tomorrow Night
11:00AM David Wildgoose | Horror is the topic of tomorrow night’s Byteside debate. No, not Bindi Irwin’s DS game, but instead think Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2 and – yes – Silent Hill 3. More »
Features
4:40AM AJ Glasser | How can a video game be scary? Unlike horror movies where you’re stuck watching some hapless victim succumb to scary stuff, video games empower players to fight back. Or at least run away. It’s October. Time to identify horror-gaming’s essentials. More »
What Makes A Video Game Scary
4:40AM AJ Glasser | How can a video game be scary? Unlike horror movies where you’re stuck watching some hapless victim succumb to scary stuff, video games empower players to fight back. Or at least run away. It’s October. Time to identify horror-gaming’s essentials. More » 
Decode the Walls with the Dead Space Cipher
1:15PM Owen Good | Readers Steven K., Eamon and Chris A. send this one in late, a screenshot from Chapter 6 in Dead Space that will help the rest of us decode what the alien scribblings on the walls mean. Some smudges on a few alien letters, plus some additional human phonetics (SS and TH, and “dbl letters”), but it’s a start for would-be graffiti decoders. Thanks guys. Update: Haven’t played the game this far yet, but gahazakul’s comment seems helpful enough for those wanting to fit this into a canonical explanation that I’ll highlight it: More »Yahtzee on Silent Hill censorship and the art of horror
11:30AM Seamus Byrne | Very nice opinion piece up at news.com.au from Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshaw about the banning of Silent Hill: Homecoming. Yahtzee is a well noted lover of Silent Hill, so I’m sure many have been hoping he would rear his head in the local media to let loose on the local classification regime. But the meat of the story is on the art of horror, and how our culture is the worse for branding this an inappropriate form of entertainment. Being an opinion piece, there are still plenty of Yahtzee classics in store, so there’s a few good chuckles for those of us in the choir. I’m sure you don’t need more convincing. Go read it already.
Of course, I completely disagree. I mean, look at that picture — there’s a kids playground! Ergo, this game is for kids and they must be protected from it.
Video game censorship and the art of horror [news.com.au] More » 
Next Dead Rising To Be Episodic?
10:20PM Luke Plunkett | No, not the Wii version. The next proper version, the one that may or may not be in development at Blue Castle Games. The latest issue of the UK’s Official PlayStation Mag reckons that it’s not just in development, but that Capcom are trying something a little new with it: that it’ll be episodic. Like Siren: Blood Curse. Be worth watching to see how that plays out, if true. One episode per night/day, perhaps? OPM UK Rumours: Crysis on PS3 in 2009? [PS Beyond] More »
Shell Shock 2 is Coming Your Way, New Screens
5:20AM Adam Barenblat | Well, Shell Shock 2: Blood Trails is coming. When you might ask? Just in time for Christmas is all we know at this point. Yesterday, McWhertor brought you the Lynard Skynard trailer, and today we got some new screens to keep you busy. The game is slated to hit Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Shell Shock 2 Screens More »
Frankenreview: Silent Hill: Homecoming
5:00AM Mike Fahey | Fans of the horror video game genre are very, very protective of their Silent Hill franchise, paying deadly close attention that each successive game is not only a high quality affair, but also stays true to the established canon of the series. It’s no wonder, then that fans were taken aback when it was revealed here at Kotaku that the fifth game in the series would be developed here in the states by developer Double Helix, rather than traditional developer Team Silent. Did handing off the beloved franchise to an all-new, Western team create a darker, nastier Silent Hill, or did it simply result in darker, nastier game critics? More »
Siren: Blood Curse Designer Is A Scaredy Cat
9:00PM Brian Ashcraft | You’d think that someone who made a horror title like Siren: Blood Curse would like to be scared. Wrong. Blood Curse designer Keiichiro Toyama does not like to be frightened. According to Toyama: More »
