Fatal Frame III first shots

If there's one series of survival-horror games that terrifies us so much that we simply refuse to play them alone and in the dark, it's Tecmo's Fatal Frame.

Called Project Zero in Europe, both of the previous games managed to evoke an atmosphere of tangible fear by blending subtle scare tactics with jump-inducing sudden shocks, successfully reducing players to a wreck of jangled nerves.

Fatal Frame III The Tormented continues the basic premise of its predecessors, with players once again required to defeat tortured spirits using the camera obscura - a photographic device bestowed with exorcising powers - while trying to discover the source of the unrelenting evil.

The game is set against a backdrop divided between the real world and the world of nightmares, and the boundaries between the two gradually become blurred as the player progresses.

Three playable characters, each with their own unique abilities, will feature - Rei Kurosawa, the main female protagonist, her male friend, Kei Amakura, and Miku Hinasaki.

Fans of the series may recall that Kurosawa and Amakura were both family names that appeared in the previous game, Crimson Butterfly, while the third playable character, Miku Hinasaki, was the female lead in the original Fatal Frame.

Fatal Frame III The Tormented will be released for PS2 in autumn 2005