Horror movies may give us monsters as a way to help us confront our worst fears, but horror games go a step further: They let us put our monsters in the crosshairs and pull the trigger. John Carr recounts his experience playing Left 4 Dead to cope with his parents' cancer.

In their rush to fill the screen with high-definition gore and arm players with arsenals that would make Duke Nukem feel inadequate, horror games have become a lot less horrifying. But one U.K. developer is doing his best to change that trend. Lewis Denby speaks with Dan Pinchbeck, creator of Dear Esther and Korsakovia, about how horror games could truly live up to their name.

Too often horror games rely on grotesque monsters and buckets of gore for their scares. But the latest project from Max Payne developer Remedy Entertainment takes an altogether more psychological approach. Nick Cowen spends some time with the upcoming Xbox 360 title Alan Wake.

Characters in horror movies make all the wrong decisions, from splitting up to cover more ground to opening the door that we all know the killer lies behind. But in horror games, players must make those choices themselves. How do developers force them to do it? John Constantine mines a few classic Japanese horror games for examples.