Horror games have made great strides over the past year, as advances in hardware technology have enabled developers to create more immersive, compelling and downright frightening experiences than ever before. Konami raised the bar for horror visuals this past year, using a gritty, photorealistic style to create a grueling and suffocating game world in Silent Hill 2. Capcom used traditional game-building techniques with their latest Resident Evil remake, merging restrictive camera angles, expertly-rendered locales and claustrophobic encounters into a refined horror experience. As technology enables developers to move away from crude polygonal images and low-definition environments, video game visuals have become increasingly realistic, to the point where genuinely moving game experiences are possible.

More importantly than the audiovisual portion of games, though, the subject matter of modern horror games has matured considerably. While M-rated games used to be more synonymous with bloody gore and zombie blasting, a few companies have bucked that trend by crafting a more cerebral type of horror experience. Konami did just that with Silent Hill 2, which explored the themes of murder, euthanasia, child abuse and revenge in surprisingly candid fashion. Following that lead, Japanese developer Tecmo, best known for the tits-and-ass content of their Dead or Alive fighters, has produced a similarly up-scale entry into the horror genre with Fatal Frame.

Often described as a mix between Silent Hill and Pokémon Snap, you might initially dismiss Fatal Frame due to the dubious subtitle emblazoned on its package: "based on a true story". This unusual boast makes the game smack of movie-of-the-week production values, and I'm not sure how much "truth" there is to be found in an enchanted camera that can capture ghosts. This claim does a great disservice to the game, as Fatal Frame is a solid title featuring better-than-expected visuals and a unique premise, which come together to provide a genuinely frightful experience. Just ignore the "true story" marketing push, and you'll see a very competent initial foray into the horror genre.

The game begins with a man named Mafuyu arriving at a shinto mansion in search of a missing novelist. Through grainy sepia-tone visuals, you begin to explore the mansion, armed only with a flashlight and a camera. Real time cut scenes introduce plot points through striking high-contrast black-and-white sequences, while flashback movies carry the old-time film motif even further, with visible dust and scratches coating the screen. As Mafuyu discovers the terrible fate of the novelist and his crew, he is hounded by vengeful spirits, and we witness him running down a hallway crawling with ghostly hands flailing away at him. Overall the presentation is excellent, and although the visual style borrows a few elements from Silent Hill 2, the developers have managed to give the game a unique feel and a striking look.

The game is split into five sections: an introduction (with Mafuyu) and four nights of Miku exploration. After Mafuyu falls prey to the spirits of the Himuro mansion, his little sister Miku arrives to look for him. Here the game shifts to grain-free, full-color visuals, though the color palette still consists mainly of muted browns and blues. The textures are surprisingly clean, and aliasing is kept to a minimum. Shadows cast by the flashlight look great, and seem to move more or less realistically as you walk around. The interior of the mansion is modeled quite well, with many interesting objects (including an abundance of mirrors) and decorations. The distinctly Japanese setting gives the game an exotic feel that sets it apart from other horror games on the market. Miku is modeled and animated in impressive fashion, and her innocent demeanor makes her situation feel all the more uncomfortable.

As you walk around the mansion, you'll begin to see some ghostly apparitions, but the manner in which they are presented is classy and genuinely scary. For instance, walking down the hallway you might glimpse a ghostly form walking slowly in the distance, or you might see a ghost behind you as you look in a mirror. Classic horror movie scare tactics are used liberally, and the results are impressive. One of the scariest moments comes early on, as creaking footsteps are heard on a staircase. As the camera pans across the stairs there is no one there, but the footsteps are growing closer, and the controller vibrations representing your heartbeat are getting quicker and harder. Tecmo has really done their homework for Fatal Frame, as the scare points are many and varied, but are almost always scary in some way. Much like Silent Hill 2, limited sound effects and jarring musical interludes are used effectively to heighten the tension. The ghostly shrieks are harrowing, and hearing creaks on the stairs behind you is very creepy.

Control is similar to Resident Evil and Silent Hill, in that it's stiff and unresponsive for the most part. Tecmo has gone to great lengths, however, to provide options for the player, as you can choose from up to eight different control schemes. The default scheme lets you move left by pressing left on the analog stick, but this feels stranger than the usual up-to-move-forward scheme that is so common in these types of games. (Luckily, you can select that method if you wish.) Running is a bit of a chore, but fortunately you can just hold down the square button to make Miku run in whichever direction she's facing. Tapping down on the analog stick will turn Miku around 180 degrees, useful for when a ghost gets to close for comfort.

A paranormal meter occupies the lower right portion of the screen, and will glow blue when ghostly phenomena are near. This is highly useful, as you can't always detect the direction of ghosts. Despite the high-quality presentation, the loading times in Fatal Frame are unusually quick, unlike its horror brethren. When Miku grabs the handle of a door, the game pauses for a split second while the next room loads. She then opens the door and you're free to explore what lies beyond. As a result, the game feels a notch scarier, as you don't get the safety of the loading screen to catch your breath.

The status screen is graphically appealing and well-organized, though the loud navigational "clicks" get annoying after a while. In the status screen you can upgrade your camera, view your photo album, use healing items and play audio tapes. There is even a cool flow-chart detailing the various characters in the game and their relationships to people and events. There are tons of text-based clues to find, from journals and newspaper clippings to photographs and historical documents. One of the coolest features, however, are the various audio tapes you can find all over the mansion. Simply pop them into your cassette player, and you'll be treated to sound bytes of the missing novelist and his crew recounting their experiences in the mansion. Hearing these testimonies is a lot more compelling than simply reading text, and I hope other games incorporate and expand on this feature.

The main premise of Fatal Frame is the use of a mystical camera that can see ghosts and "drive" them away. Pressing the circle button shifts you to a first-person behind-the-camera view, in which you can look in all directions and snap photos. Rotating the field of view is painfully slow, but you can speed that up by holding the square button. Often you'll see swirling vortexes on walls and doors, and snapping photos of these phenomena will show you photographic clues showing you where to go or what to do. Photos of ghosts are rewarded with points, and improving you photographic skills will net you more points, which can be used to upgrade your camera. While snapping a photo of a regular ghost will cause them to disappear, you'll need several well-placed photos to drive the more mobile and angry spirits away.

These encounters are akin to battles in traditional action games, in that you'll have to take accurate photos to deplete the ghosts' life meter, while avoiding being grabbed yourself. Though there is no actual blood or gore, ghosts can still hurt you pretty badly, so you'll want to stock up on the many Herbal Medicines that are lying around. Lining up your camera's crosshairs inside the capturing circle will cause it to glow blue, which means you can snap a clean, damaging photo. Furthermore, there are certain moments when ghosts will move in particular ways and the capture circle will glow orange, enabling you to inflict more damage. Dwindling film supplies means you must take as few photos as possible, while making sure those photos are of the highest quality. This is a surprising amount of fun, and a nice change of pace from the normal firearms-heavy style of horror game.

You can equip four different types of film into the camera, with higher-rated film having more ghost-busting power. This more powerful film has another advantage, in that it allows the camera to accumulate mystical power. You have to keep the ghost framed in the capture circle as it moves around, and a group of symbols at the bottom of the screen will light up the longer you keep the ghost in focus. Snap a photo when any of these symbols is lit up, and you'll take a super-powerful photo and score a ton of points. This system is surprisingly deep, and has many RPG conventions (powering up, spending points for rewards) that turn the game into something more than just a typical survival horror game. Of course, classifying Fatal Frame as a "survival horror" game is a bit of a misnomer, as you can quite freely replenish your supply of Type-14 film at every save point, so you'll never actually run out of film.

While the overall presentation is quite polished, the weakest link in the Fatal Frame chain is undoubtedly the English acting. While most Japanese games feature respectable, or at least tolerable, English dubs nowadays, Tecmo still seems unable (or unwilling) to hire top-tier voice talent for their western audiences. Mafuyu is downright laughable, and the novelist and his crew sound amateurish and inexperienced. Granted, this is a tough type of game in which to give a convincing performance, but it has been done before. Miku is by far the best of the bunch, but even her effort falls short of the modest standards set by games like Silent Hill 2 and the Resident Evil remake. This is quite a shame, because the game would be much more compelling and immersive with a competent voice track.

Acting and control issues aside, I still have a favorable impression of Fatal Frame. Tecmo has created a unique and compelling horror experience that should find favor with fans of horror games, despite its shortcomings. Not a gorefest or bloody shoot-em-up, Fatal Frame is a heady, classical ghost story with top-notch presentation and unique play mechanics. The foundation for a great series is already in place, and I hope Tecmo can clean up a few of the more pressing problems in future installments. But if you love turning out the lights and scaring yourself silly, give Fatal Frame a try right now.