UK REVIEW--Project Zero 2 is a remake of the disturbing Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, and it might be one of the Wii’s finest retreads--it’s certainly one of its scariest. Nintendo isn't averse to a touch of horror, but Project Zero 2 is a far cry from the excesses of Resident Evil, and even the Lovecraftian menace of Eternal Darkness. Instead, it offers something altogether bleaker: a brutally intense and unsettling tale of ritualistic sacrifice, murder, and tormented spirits. The game is unrelentingly grisly to the point where you'd be hard pressed to say it's enjoyable to play, but it's incredibly gripping and genuinely frightening.

The narrative setup is fairly well-worn in the horror genre: twin sisters Mio and Mayu find themselves in an abandoned village with a mysterious secret that must be solved before they can escape. The two are separated, and though Mayu frequently appears to her sister, she always seems to be out of reach. While everything about the place should set off a warning alarm telling her to turn and run, Mio blindly follows her sibling, stumbling into a series of terrifying encounters with the wandering spirits that haunt the village.

It's a disturbing place even before the ghosts show up--a dilapidated, dimly lit settlement of cramped interiors and sinuous pathways. As in the original game, the fear factor is slow to build, the game holding back the shocks and ratcheting up the tension to near-unbearable levels.

Where the original used static camera angles, this adopts Fatal Frame IV's over-the-shoulder perspective, restricting you to an incredibly narrow field of view that only heightens the sensation that something terrible lies just out of sight. It also includes the exquisitely nerve-racking "touch" mechanic from the same game, where you have to hold the A button to have Mio gradually extend her arm to pick up an item, open a drawer, or lift an object to discover what's underneath. A further carryover is the sporadic appearance of a spectral hand, which will occasionally grab Mio's arm: these moments might seem like cheap jolts next to the constant atmosphere of creeping dread, but they're used infrequent enough so as not to undermine the scares when they do arrive.

Glowing objects are always helpful, though you'll take damage if you're grabbed by the ghostly hand.

Indeed, basic actions like opening doors or peering around corners are transformed by a more dynamic camera, which leans in closer, sometimes tugging you over Mio's shoulder to a near first-person perspective, forcing you into rooms before the character you're controlling. That the vast majority of the time there's nothing there only makes the surprises more potent. It's quite an achievement to turn the simple act of holding a button into a test of nerve: the game dares you to be brave and then provokes a genuine sensation of relief when nothing emerges.

It's not long before they do, mind you. Many of the ghosts have backstories, their tales sketched out through discarded notes and fragments of diary entries: tragic, but no less frightening. Some ghosts drop spirit stones in which their thoughts are vocalised; you can slot them into a strange radio and hear their wails through the remote's speaker, the tinny sound quality only making them more unnerving. Others are even scarier, unexplained horrors that float, stumble, and lurch unnaturally toward you, limbs and faces horribly contorted.

Of course, the wonderfully sadistic idea at the heart of the game's systems is that you're actively encouraged to let these malevolent spirits get as close as possible. The camera obscura you wield deals damage as it captures their image, with collectable lenses and upgrades allowing you to temporarily stun or push back your ectoplasmic aggressors. You inflict significant damage when the shutter flashes red for a fatal frame, while bonuses are awarded for snapping two and three ghosts simultaneously.

While the floating numbers and text remind you this is just a game, they never sap the intensity of these encounters. That's partly down to the very deliberate awkwardness of the controls, which regularly prove uncomfortable. Aiming requires a combination of the nunchuk's analog stick and tilts of the remote, which may sound clumsy, and in practice it often is. Yet it's an artful clumsiness, designed to make combat more difficult and thus more unsettling. If the camera obscura were an SLR, then you'd breeze through encounters; here, the controls fit the fiction and serve the game's systems well.

Spirit points from defeated enemies can be spent on enhancements to the camera's range, power, and shutter speed.

And just as you grow accustomed to negotiating combat scenarios without too much difficulty, the game disempowers you further. You're rid of your torch, forced to explore rooms lit only by the occasional lightning flash and the faint glow of a single lantern. Ghosts begin to move faster, and then suddenly disappear, teleporting behind you. The inclusion of a quick turn is welcome, though it's still startling to whirl around, raise your camera, and instantly witness a screaming face filling your viewfinder.

Most chapters find new ways to terrify. You encounter deadly spirits that can't be harmed by the camera, forcing you to flee. You're teased with images of rooms you're about to visit, steeling you for the horrors that inevitably lie in wait. One particularly disturbing set piece sees you suddenly surrounded by corpses while a ghost shrieks with laughter before an invincible spirit with a deathly touch forces you to flee. That Mio runs at the pace that most game characters walk only makes your escape more fraught. Other moments offer subtler scares: there's a masterful fourth-wall-breaking sequence that puts you in a room with an old projector--the Wii's disc drive whirring in time with the spinning reel--and suddenly stopping as the film ends. Along with the voices of the spirits floating from the TV to the remote's speaker, it can sometimes feel that the horror is seeping into the real world.

If the Wii version is mostly an improvement on the original game, it does suffer in other areas. The perspective shift can result in camera problems in narrow spaces, and while Nintendo has put laudable effort into localising the game for a European audience, the British voices aren't a great fit for the Japanese setting. The performances are also a little flat compared with recent translations like The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles. And though the game works hard to make you feel uneasy, the revealing attire of its 15-year-old protagonist and the camera's willingness to highlight her flimsy clothes is the wrong kind of uncomfortable.

You frequently have to fight several ghosts at once, so it's crucial to find a spot where you're not surrounded.

The only other notable addition is a new Haunted House mode, an on-rails scare ride that sees you exploring a series of locations unlocked by playing through the campaign. You might be asked to take pictures of spirits or simply remain calm in the face of some rather corny jump-shocks by keeping the remote still before being judged on your performance or stoicism. It's essentially a rather brazen copy of the Ju-On game, and while it's fleetingly entertaining, it's not a mode you'll revisit too often.

Thankfully, the story is more than worth the price of admission, and it's a reminder why horror games can be so intoxicating. Break Project Zero 2 down to its base mechanics, and you're left with something that is by turns awkward and embarrassingly simplistic: its puzzles are rudimentary, and it's as linear as games can get. But its claustrophobic atmosphere and masterful sense of pacing generate a pervasive sense of dread that immerses and consumes you. At one point, you come across a room with bloody handprints on the adjacent wall and smeared across the door, not wanting to enter, but knowing you have to. It's these excruciating moments of anxious anticipation that make Project Zero 2 one of the scariest experiences you'll encounter in any medium.

Endless Space is a new game to the 4X strategy scene, featuring non-linear gameplay and a demanding level of difficulty that pushes you to learn from past mistakes and strive to overcome the hurdles of galactic domination. This might not sound like everyone's cup of tea, but you'd be surprised how quickly Endless Space can trigger addictive tendencies. There is little in the way of story or variety in the presentation, but on all other counts, Endless Space is an excellent sci-fi strategy game that you can potentially replay for years to come.

When you begin a match, the first order of business is to define the size and density of the galaxy you wish to vie for. In addition to the dozen or so settings available for customizing the map, randomly generated star systems ensure that no two sessions play alike. Likewise, factions and allegiances are highly customizable, should you choose to veer from the predefined selections. There are just over 75 attributes that can be applied to a custom faction, and your choices impact your ability to interact with outsiders and exploit the universe around you.

Once you've committed to a galaxy and faction, you're treated to an intro cutscene in the form of a motion comic. The character and environment art are a treat, but their time in the spotlight is short and very much to the point. There's enough backstory to justify the sci-fi setting and your chosen faction, but little else. Before you know it, you're in command of two spacecraft on your home planet with the forces of enemy empires looming on the horizon.

Earth-like planets are some of the best resource producers around and should be colonized as soon as possible.

To even stand a chance of emerging victorious, it's imperative that you hit the ground running. Thankfully, Endless Space's intuitive UI holds your hand as you stumble down the unbeaten path of galactic domination. Tutorials appear when you initiate menus for the first time, and there are always reminders when anything of consequence happens during the course of a turn. You're not forced to dig through menus time and again; instead, you click on notifications to easily access research, production, and expansion tools in an instant. This may not sound impressive, but for a genre that requires a ton of micromanagement and has historically lived deep within complicated menu trees, the UI's ability to communicate in an organized and logical fashion should not be taken for granted.

On the flip side of the coin lies the incredibly complex tech tree. There are four research branches to explore encompassing 138 unique technologies. The nonlinear design ensures you exhaust numerous matches finding your way within the sea of possibilities. Quite often, what worked during your last match might not be as useful in the next, so it's important to diversify your knowledge of the entire tech tree.

Your empire's technological growth is in your hands. Don't screw it up!

One barrier that stands in your way is the elaborate language used to identify and define various technologies. Words like "epigenetics" aren't common and are bound to leave a few people scratching their heads. You do get a clear understanding of the bonuses rewarded once you've acquired a particular tech, but quite often they are only vaguely defined in the initial description. Without proper experimentation, it's easy to waste time and energy on lackluster technology simply because the description is unclear. Lose your footing due to the nonlinear progression or complicated terminology, and kiss your progress goodbye.

Even if you've honed your ability to navigate the tech tree, there are some conditions that are completely out of your control. Just as the densities of star systems and planets vary, so too do their attributes. Planets are randomly assigned anomalies and advanced resources that further complicate your empire's development path. Newfound dangers and opportunities pop up when you least expect them, and if you don't adjust accordingly, you can count on your opponents to take advantage of your mistakes.

Give your neighbors a space inch and they'll take a space mile. Jerks.

The AI is punishing, even on normal difficulty, forcing you to constantly correct past mistakes and improve your ability to micromanage. You may not comprehend the entirety of the game's systems during your first few matches, but frustrating losses quickly give way to incremental improvements, and each successive match bears the fruit of your experience, narrowing the gap between victory and defeat. Though Endless Space is daunting in the beginning, deciphering the game's verbiage and developing your potential are what make it a rewarding experience in spite of the challenge.

Eventually, you encounter outsiders, and before you are thrust into battle, you can negotiate the terms of engagement. Depending on your faction and resources, it may be best to butter up your opponent with a peace treaty until you've acquired the proper warfare tech to penetrate their defenses. Quite often, though, enemy encounters result in combat. Combat consists of three phases: long range, medium range, and melee. You can assign a move for each phase consisting of offensive or defensive maneuvers, or you can opt to auto-battle if you wish to simply roll the dice. Unless the tables are tipped in your favor, manually assigning commands is the best way to mitigate damage from an opposing star fleet.

Gorgeous battle sequences break up the inevitable monotony of micromanagement.

Combat is also the only time the camera shifts perspective, revealing the grandeur and might of your spacecraft. As the phases of battle progress, the camera cuts to different angles, highlighting the action against beautiful expanses of outer space. Ship designs vary greatly between factions, often mimicking the appearance or evoking the attitude of the commanding race. As you begin to customize the parts and functions of individual ships, it's encouraging to see the result up close, but quite often, the drive to complete a turn means you rely on auto-battle to keep the ball rolling.

Once you've adjusted to the flow of gameplay and empire management within Endless Space, beware: addiction is in your future. You will lose, lose, and lose again, but the motivation to succeed keeps you going back for more. If you wish to mix things up, online multiplayer opens the door to new levels of variety and difficulty. There is also native support for game mods, should the community wish to retool and iterate on the game's formula even further.

Teaming up with alien empires is often your only hope for survival against such unfavorable odds.

4X strategy games have the ability to captivate you with engrossing depth, requiring forward thinking and an extreme aptitude for juggling numbers large and small. With all of these qualities, Endless Space takes its rightful place on the 4X podium. The numerous options available during game creation are outnumbered only by the possibilities within an individual match. By the time you've got a few turns under your belt, it becomes painfully obvious that Endless Space is anything but a walk in the park, and if you are a fan of deep, methodical strategy games, you'll be thankful for it.

What makes this massively multiplayer game so unusual? To begin with, the setting is unlike any other MMOG. The Secret World doesn't whisk you away to a fantasy fairyland or a scorched sci-fi landscape, but occurs in an off-kilter version of our own planet. "Everything is real" a quest giver might tell you, and so it is: biblical plagues, haunted house horrors, and zombie invasions are threats--as well as symptoms of a greater power at play. Even the so-called "hollow earth" is real, serving as a central network of walkways that connect you to your various destinations, where police captains and academy administrators await delivery from their waking nightmares.

Some quests are doled out by objects you stumble across--a corpse sprawled across the road, or a computer terminal, perhaps. Most are provided by any number of mysterious citizens, who offer the most melodramatic of explanations for their needs. The writing and dialogue are notably self-conscious. "The city is a honeycomb of terror, each cell barely cognisant of the others" says one entry in your lorebook. And in a quest giver's monologue: "Men queuing up to cross over, animals guarding the threshold, returning gods and demons. Musical chairs of the soul." None of this writing sounds particularly natural, even though the excellent voice cast sells each and every alliteration and pregnant pause.

As belabored as the writing is, it works remarkably well in context, inviting introspection and analysis. The Secret World cultivates an oppressive tone in almost all of its aspects, including its wordy dialogue. After you choose a faction (Illuminati, Templar, or Dragon), the game introduces you to your home city, and the mysterious organization for which you work. After this lengthy blend of cutscenes and rudimentary exploration, you enter Kingsmouth, Maine, where you keenly sense the inspiration of authors Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe. The darkness is thick, and gnarly trees loom large over you. Iron fences and brick columns surround an abandoned mansion, its rising parapets ever-so-slightly askew.

The dejected atmosphere works hand in hand with the mythical tales that develop as you push forward. In New England, you learn of a league of young monster slayers, and the first girl invited into the fold. In Egypt, cultists worship ancient gods, and sand creatures roam the desert. In Transylvania, the locals tell chilling tales of the Draculesti. Each region is a bleak wilderness to be tamed, and there's a sense that frights and chills lurk just out of view. The bleakness can even get overwhelming, the nighttime becoming so black that you can't see an inch in front of you, making you long for an in-game flashlight to break the gloom. (Certain quests grant you a miner's helmet, but you may not get to use it once the missions are complete.)

For the most part, however, The Secret World's graphics engine serves the art design well, scattered visual glitches notwithstanding. Of special note are the layers of sound shrouding your adventure. You roam the halls of an abandoned asylum, where the trembles of a bass drum build anxiety, later released by the chilling howl of a tortured spirit. On the outskirts of al-Merayah, shimmering dissonant chords create an air of unease. Even the smallest of sound cues--the notification that you have earned ability points, the discovery of new lore--fit seamlessly into a remarkably cohesive sound design.

Some of The Secret World's quests can be boiled down to the kinds of kill-this, fetch-that tasks you've seen in countless other games. Even when this is the case, however, developer Funcom does its best to give your actions context and chain missions together so that even ordinary objectives are organic to that particular area, and fit within its ongoing narratives. If you enjoy online RPGs for the comfortable cycle of "take quest, arrive at waypoint, kill monsters, return for reward," The Secret World isn't for you. You can queue up only a small number of quests. The downside is that you perform fewer tasks at any given time and earn quest rewards at a slower rate. The upside is that you are fully conscious of why you are doing what you are doing at any given moment.

With that consciousness comes emotional investment and intellectual engagement. Your group's investigation of an amusement park turns to matters far more treacherous than most visits to the fun fair. Claiming ancient artifacts means confronting groaning creatures made of stone and sand. You disguise yourself in order to infiltrate a hideout, and even avoid trip wires and the roaming eye of security cameras to escape a solo dungeon unscathed. Such stealthy endeavors occur in car parks and claustrophobic mines, and in many cases, a head-on conflict means certain death. These are memorable quests, though it's too bad that you must leave any party members behind while you complete them.

Even better are quests that leave fighting and collecting behind and force you to sort out puzzles or even jump online (perhaps using the handy built-in Web browser) to do a bit of research. This might mean identifying a painting, sorting out a word-logic puzzle, or even figuring out the meaning of an Arabic scrawl. Such quests give you pause, particularly when you must piece together clues that provide your next destination. Make no mistake: many investigation quests are challenging, and bring your adventure to a halt as you sort through them. But when that "Eureka!" moment comes, elation kicks in as the game showers you with experience points for your mental efforts.

When you put in the work, you usually expect a game to fulfill its obligation to reward you--or at least provide proper feedback--but The Secret World often fails to fulfill its end of the bargain. Sometimes, this betrayal comes in the form of a small but basic execution flaw, such as the pixel-perfect exactness required when trying to click on certain items. You might stumble across the correct solution, but if you don't hover the cursor over an object in just the right way, you might never be able to interact with it. And then you move on, unaware that you were staring directly at the solution. On other occasions, other players can interfere, interacting with vital items and forcing you to start from scratch.

The Egyptian heat drives lesser men to evil acts.

Other times, The Secret World pushes past "challenging and thoughtful" into "frustrating and time consuming." A puzzle based on Morse code is one thing; having to translate fast-moving audio, or to download a smartphone application capable of doing it for you, is a step too far. Less forgivably, it might be a bug that gets in the way, preventing you from knowing if you are in the wrong, or if the game is. In one case, you must activate a staff that in turn lights a series of fires that guide you to your goal. Yet the fires may not blaze, and you are left staring at the screen, wondering where the clue to your destination might be.

The Secret World rarely suffers from online issues, its bugs more often limited to "annoying" rather than "crippling." Questing issues aside, most glitches relate to elements like chat channels and visual communication. And in some cases, feature execution is simply lackluster rather than outright broken. The in-game browser is a real help, for instance, but there are moments when you wish you could save bookmarks, or at least have the browser remember the last page visited when you reopen it, since you might need to refer to it multiple times. For that matter, opening the browser can lead to a full game crash, making using a laptop or tablet a better option.

It's best to heed warnings of fire and brimstone.

Meanwhile, the excellent storytelling might have you seeking out glowing icons that represent morsels of lore that form a larger narrative. The riddles and mysteries are worth piecing together, given the intriguing tales they convey. And yet discovering these tidbits (and completing certain quests) sometimes requires jumping to higher ground. That wouldn't be such a bad idea, were jumping in The Secret World not so inexact and unsatisfying. In fact, the two most basic elements of most games--movement and action--don't feel quite right. The floaty animations and inconsistent collision detection keep you from feeling like your feet make real contact with the ground, or that your weapons make real contact with your enemies. Enraged cultists fall before you see the sword swipe that kills them, and damage and status effect notifications appear before your grenade lands.

And so the most fundamental aspects of moment-to-moment interaction fail to engage, and this is the unfortunate first impression that could push players to a more immediately fun game. Sadly, the wonderful flexibility and challenge of the Secret World is lost on anyone that quits early on. In the vast majority of RPGs, you level up; here, there are no levels. You do earn experience and reach milestones, however, so while there is no number assigned to your level, you still have that sense of progress associated with it. You frequently earn points that allow you to purchase new abilities and improve your handiness with certain weapons, and ultimately, the idea of a "no levels" system is neither as aimless as you might think--nor as groundbreaking.

More refreshing is the lack of specific classes. In The Secret World, how you fight is determined by the weapons and abilities you equip, and you can mix and match within the game's framework. There are a number of weapon types: shotguns, assault rifles, magical focuses, katanas, and so forth. You can equip two weapons at a time, along with seven active and seven passive abilities. It's a free-form system, and in time, you could potentially purchase abilities from multiple trees, allowing you to take on the right set of abilities for any occasion. In fact, it's best to have multiple sets of gear on hand, should you hit a roadblock.

Lobotomies for some; miniature American flags for others!

If this freedom sounds intimidating, The Secret World includes prebuilt "decks" of weapons and abilities that more or less correspond to classes--and fulfilling one's requirements nets you a nice new outfit. Outfits are purely cosmetic, but after you see some of the stylish threads on others as you pass, you may find yourself in London, browsing aviator sunglasses and trying on pinstripe suits to see which looks most dapper. You can even spend real-world funds on clothing, titles, and other inessentials. Such microtransactions are a free-to-play staple, yet The Secret World sells at retail price and charges a monthly fee. A real-money store thus comes across as a cash grab, though to be fair, you can safely ignore the nickel-and-diming.

As for in-game currency, you spend it on more inventory space, upgrades to your sprint speed, and items such as talismans. Talismans are accessories used to enhance your attributes to best suit your play style. They impact such elements as your hit points, defense rating, and healing prowess. You earn talismans as loot as well, though you might be better off crafting them. By breaking down items into raw materials, you can then upgrade those materials and combine them into talismans and other craftables. You can do this at any time using the crafting interface, which has you dropping these materials into a grid in a particular pattern, Minecraft style. Just be sure to take notes: the game doesn't make it easy to refer to these patterns, though in time, you might remember them.

The light at the end of the tunnel isn't always welcoming.

Alone or with others, some encounters require you to be aware of your surroundings. Many creatures perform area-of-effect attacks, signaling the danger zone with a visible cone or halo. You need to dodge to avoid them--and do so without getting the attention of any other giant bugs buzzing nearby. The game requires situational awareness in other ways too: avoiding flaming crevasses during a boss battle, luring foes from objects that render them invincible, and so forth.

Five-player group dungeons require even greater acumen. You fight more powerful creatures than you do small ones, so each encounter is dangerous if you aren't smart about it. Once you're locked into a boss battle, there is no battlefield resurrection: either enough players remain alive to defeat the shrieking horror, or you all respawn and try again. Navigating environmental hazards while determining creature behavior and the proper ways to attack is part of the fun--as is rearranging your abilities to best suit the needs of the group. Sadly, finding a group is harder than it should be: there is no group finder tool, nor is there a way to queue up for a dungeon from the world at large.

One clue alone is of no use. When combined with others, it is priceless.

You can queue up for player-versus-player matches from anywhere, however. There are three maps in play, one of which is a persistent tug-of-war in which each faction struggles to retain control over key points. The other two are one-off matches of finite duration. There is some entertainment to be had as you roam the persistent map with bands of brothers, shooting up mobs of other players en route to your destination, where a hectic fight against a towering monstrosity awaits. The Secret World isn't a proper home for a PVP enthusiast, however. The auto-grouping tool on the Fusang map is barely helpful, and the skittery movement and combat are front and center here. And on the non-persistent maps, getting into a match can take longer than you would wish.

And so The Secret World isn't a game for those craving a quick and satisfying player battle. Instead, it's for those who seek uninviting crevasses and insidious conspiracies. It's for those who want their intelligence challenged--not to mindlessly battle monsters lifted from the Book of Generic Fantasy Creatures. You must still endure a fair share of annoyances, broken quests, and uninspired fundamentals. The Secret World requires you to dig more deeply than you might have expected. But when you do, you find a fascinating game willing to divulge its secrets to anyone ready to listen.