Burton's Bytes

Publisher: Konami. Price: from £29.99. Formats: PS2, PC. Family friendly? Are you kidding?

SILENT Hill has always been the most cerebral of horror games. If Resident Evil is the interactive version of a George Romero zombie splatter film, then Silent Hill has plenty in common with the Robert Wise ghost story The Haunting.

The Room is Konami's latest addition to this long-running series that started out on the original Sony PlayStation.

Henry Townsend is a man with a problem. He suffers from recurring nightmares about his apartment being cursed. The game begins when Henry wakes up one morning to find himself trapped inside. Every window is sealed and the doors are all chained. His only clue is a chilling message written in red (blood?): "Don't go out!! Walter."

Henry explores his prison and discovers a portal to another world. He steps through and finds himself in a room in the quiet American town of South Ashfield, a few miles away from Silent Hill.

If Henry is to escape, he must explore his new surroundings and unravel the secret of his cursed apartment. He can return to the room if he needs to regain his health or to save his progress. When you step through the door, your viewpoint switches to a first-person perspective, so you can examine clues in minute detail and peek out of the window. Creepily, notes are slipped under the door to help guide Henry but when he opens it, no-one can be found.

The spooky atmosphere is ladled on in spades. Konami has finally done away with the dense fog that made the first three games as much a test for the eyesight as the nerves.

Instead, Henry walks through a world of bloodstained walls, mouldy brickwork, dripping pipes and creaking floorboards. It all looks perfectly innocent (well, apart from the blood stains, that is) but everything feels a bit off-kilter as though someone has taken the world and given it a good shake. The bits have fallen back to earth but all of them are slightly out of place.

Konami has added a tremendously atmospheric soundtrack that really ramps up the creepy factor. You'll be constantly looking over your shoulder should you be unwise enough to play Silent Hill 4 at night.

The combat sequences are exhilarating, if a little repetitive, and the graphics are nice to look at.

If you played the first three games and enjoyed the experience, Silent Hill 4 offers more of the same. Gamers with a nervous disposition should move on to the next game instead.

THE SIMS 2

Publisher: Electronic Arts. Formats: PC. Price: £39.99. Family friendly? Yes.

YOU could be forgiven for thinking The Sims has already spawned numerous sequels. Ever since the first game became an overnight success, Electronic Arts has been churning out add-on packs designed to enhance the Sims experience in some way.

The first game gave you control of a virtual household and let you develop your own PC family. No two games were ever the same and gamers became ridiculously paternalistic towards their characters.

The sequel had to be good. And it is.

Your Sims are now more sophisticated, better looking and altogether more realistic. They respond to the environment around them in unexpected ways, just like real folk, and they can even be re-designed to look like you.

It's a terrific achievement and likely to prove even more engrossing than the original.

Unfortunately, it almost certainly means you'll become so addicted that you will be shelling out extra cash for add-on packs until the third game comes out in a couple of years time.

MYST 4: REVELATION

Publisher: Ubisoft. Format: PC. Price: £39.99. Family friendly? The fiendish puzzles mean this game isn't for young children.

ANOTHER classic game that's returned bigger and better than ever is Myst, a beautiful-looking puzzle game that sold in massive numbers six years ago.

Myst 4: Revelation looks even better. Thanks to the incredible computing power of today's PCs, what could only be created as static backgrounds on the original are now fully interactive.

The key to these games is the puzzles. Some of the teasers in the original were so obscure as to be incredibly frustrating.

Myst 4 gets it spot on. There is much more to the puzzling than collecting a few objects and pushing a few switches. In order to be successful, you have to think before you act. Everything is logical and the game never cheats the player.

The interface is pretty much as before. You move a little hand around the screen using your mouse and when it passes over something of use, it points a finger. If you spot a clue, the hand produces a magnifying glass.

The bottom of the screen shows your inventory, that includes a camera and a photo viewer.

Myst was popular with adults who wanted a game that didn't have buckets of blood or bone-crunching fights. The same audience is likely to find this sequel just as engrossing.

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