Fatal Frame III: The Tormented (Sony PlayStation 2, 2005)

Fatal Frame III: The Tormented follows the story of Rei, a young professional photographer, who lost her fiancé Yuu in a careless car accident. Blaming herself for this tragedy, Rei keeps on having nightmares every night and finds herself in a strange mansion named the "Manor of Sleep". A mysterious snake tattoo spreads on her body...but is it just a dream?

Like in the previous Fatal Frame games, the story revolves around ghosts and a ritual. The only weapon is also still the Camera Obscura, which allows you to photograph ghosts and hurt them using the camera's "magical" abilities. You can once again find upgrades for the lens and make it more powerful, as well as add functions like "slow", "blast" and "zero", which prove to be very useful later on in the game.

This time around, the game is set in the real world and the dream world. This is both welcome and a bit frustrating. It is good because the real world seems safe and relaxing, therefore releasing the tension from the scary "Manor of Sleep", but is also a bad thing because it really disconnects you from the dream and sometimes it's a bit puzzling when you go back there. Furthermore, there really isn't much to do in the real world so it kind of feels out of place sometimes.

3 characters are playable in this game: Rei, Miku and Kei. Miku is the main character from the first Fatal Frame game, who now works as Rei's assistant. Kei is related to Mio and Mayu from Fatal Frame 2. What I am getting at is that Fatal Frame 3 ties the 3 games together, so if you have played the previous entries, there are interesting secrets to uncover, although minor in most cases.

The graphics are slightly better in this game compared to the 2 first ones, especially during cutscenes, but the load times suffered because of this. For instance, it can take about 10 seconds to open a door, compared to 2 or 3 seconds in the other games.

Overall though, if you liked Fatal Frame 1 and 2, you are bound to love this one too. And if you are looking for a scare, then look no further, you found what you were looking for.

Fatal Frame 3, probably the best in the series. If you are new to this series, it's about a girl hunting down ghosts with a camera.

Let's talk about the game play. This time, you can control more than one character in different chapters. Camera controls are almost the same, accept they added some new functions, which makes the ghosting busting job more fun than ever. What's so fun this time, is you can switch between reality and dream world. It's actually like what they did in Silent Hill 4, accept this is more fun and creepy than ever.

Graphics and sound, superb. Textures and character movements had greatly improved from the previous series. Although they need to work more on the character's facial expressions, BUT its nothing else you can expect more.

To me, fatal frame is the best over all the horror games out there. If you love game with horror genre, try this out, Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented

...And it thrills us! The Ring, The Grudge and now Fatal Frame are great examples of the bone-chilling horror stories that keep us glued to our sofas. Fatal Frame in particular is wonderful in that you are playing out the story yourself.

The game develops in an incredible way; You begin as Rei, a photographer, who visits a house which is supposed to be haunted. Afterwards, she starts having strange dreams about the house. Soon the line between the dream world and real life is blurred as hands appear reaching for her in her bathroom mirror, or an arm reaches out from under the bed.

The graphics are beautiful. The characters look life-like, and you'd swear there was a real ghost in your living room. The sounds are spooky and get your heart beating as a crescendo of moans and screams blast through your speakers.

I highly recommend playing Fatal Frame - The Tormented. It may be a difficult item to find, since it is out of print, but it is well worth the price. If possible, play the first two Fatal Frames in the series as well (Fatal Frame and Fatal Frame - The Crimson Butterfly), since they all connect and are wrapped up with this installation.

But even if you've never played a Fatal Frame game before, play this one for sure, and experience a true horror story.

In my opinion, this is the scariest Fatal Frame entry in the series. It also has the most interesting story, and has more cutscenes than the two previous titles. This one really wants to make you play until the very end because you really want to see how it all adds up. The ghosts in the game are horrific. Thier appearances will send chills down your spine. With the improved graphics, the whole idea of getting up in the spirits' faces can be unnerving. The sound effects are top notch, and I would recommend using surround sound if you have it. This will add to your already frightening gaming experience. Thier's nothing quite like a pale, black haired woman coming screaming out of a wall to attack you, scaring you so bad that you jump out of your sofa and hit your head on the ceiling(which is ten feet above you). This game is highly recommended.

I think a gamer in the horror genre would appreciate this title. To me it's a very great game to play and I noticed a lot of work went into this title, as you will see the (well done) animated cut-scenes meld into gameplay.

Awesome storyline and I finished watching "The Grudge" and started to play this game, which for me... is watch a good ghost flick, get the heebie jeebies - then play this game and get interactive heebie jeebies. I'm a fan of horror game titles, so I tend to buy, play and keep all my games. I recommend this title and this game is definitely worth checking out.