Very good Editorial, Damon. As a RE fan and a horror fan, I have to agree on RE4 fitting into the mold of Game designers adapting to change. Shinji Mikamia came along into Capcom's design division, saw the working scripts of RE4 and the same rehashments of story and changed the story to fit something new and much more fresh for horror fans. That's what it all comes down for people who loved prior installments of RE. The player's mind as the main character strolls down a dark hallway not expecting what's coming next. Shinji and Capcom certainly fulfilled that task with the last RE installment. I rememer at the time, some fans of the previous games were breaking out the complaint factor that it strayed so far away from the original story but after the game released, most gamers cannot say they didn't have a wonderful experience playing it for the first time(or 100th time for that matter). Now to fear itself...I think what contributes more to a frightening atmosphere, first and foremost, is the first person shooters perspective. It's equivelant to feeling a rush while playing a racing game. While playing outside the carpit, watching the vehicle rolling along it's trackway, it takes away from the rush. However, if you go into the car camera so all you see is pavement in front of you..the excitement of feeling yourself "in the action" is much more intense. Part of the reason Doom is so beloved by so many fans is that first person perspective as you walk earily dark corridors armed with your trusty weapon and flashlight. Same rules apply to RE4 or any forthcoming product from any of the next gen consoles. It's already proven that while great well-scripted storylines are a plus, if the atmosphere is going to feel real, I'd put my money on the gameplay itself. First person is much more cohesive for this kind of atmosphere....The gamer won't know what's going to appear at the next dark corner and it gives that gamer the vision that he/she believes they're seeing as themselves instead of seeing the back of some videogame character. It makes the experience much more fun to survive through fear itself.

Another big thing is the "reset" factor of games. Pretty much every game now has so many saves, autosaves, etc... that you lose any real worry, fear or dread (and sometimes caution) for your character because even if something pops out and "kills" you, you can just hit a button and respon right outside that door a moment later. And this time you will be ready for him/her/it. That lack of personal investment or "invulnerablility", if you will, has a way of draging you out of the tension of the moment that the game is trying to convey. With movies you are compeled to go along. It doesn't stop if a character dies, it just keeps going and thing get worse for those left behind. Now how do you build that sort of attachment to a character in a game is the real question and challenge for game designers. Because right now if the chainsaw wielding madman is chasing me down a hall and I trip and he slices me into sushi it doesn't scare me. I just get angry and hit restart.

Have to say, the one game that has ever made me jump was Alien vs Predator orginal as the Marine. The first level is absolutely nothing. Just dripping water, and bad light. Then on the second level you get the same thing, up until about half way through the level you get a blip on your motion detector. I just remember switching to night vision and all of a sudden out of the darkness an Alien leaps. I think I emptied an entire clip into it. ' What made it scary was that everything in the game was harder to kill than you, ammo was scarce, and if anything got close you were dead.