Silent Hill: Sinners Reward back

The power of the computer game to scare the living shit out of me never fails to astonish. It's not real, yet somehow one's immersion raises the stakes; that is, once you've taken control of a character you develop a virtual umbilical chord, an empathic attachment which makes watching Ripley's plight in Alien seem positively remote - and that's saying something.

SILENT HILL, however preposterous the plots, is the step-mother of all scariness, and I wonder sometimes why I continue to put myself through it.

If you buy a copy my best advice to recreate the effect of the game is to switch off the lights, stick a pair of head phones on, play some Diamanda Galas and read it by candlelight. For extra impact arrange for a mate to sneak up from behind you at any random moment and grab you round the waist. That should do the trick.