I don't really understand the appeal of this genre. Nor do I understand the appeal of horror movies, comics, shows, books or action figures in general.

At least with a movie, you can close your eyes, but if it's a video game, closing your eyes will force you to have to do everything over again from the last save point.

I also don't understand why people like to be scared. Or why some people find horror funny and entertaining. I can understand the really bad cheesy ketchup-blood horror movies. Those are so bad that it's amusing. But with the new technology we have today, things are looking pretty realistic.

So why would you want to control someone to go fight zombies? Or explore a creepy haunted house only to have demons jump out at you when you least expect it? Is it fun to have high blood pressure and pee your pants?

I don't have anything against survival horror games, I hear that the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series are really good. I actually own a couple of them, and of course, I've never played them. Shooting zombies to me isn't exactly more exciting than shooting say... marbles or magic mushrooms. Well, I guess it depends on the zombie. Sometimes I wonder if it's really the zombies, or it's just the music that creeps me out.

I did play through one survival horror game and that was Rule of Rose. I was meeting with an Atlus rep at E3 and they wanted to show me the trailer. I wasn't very interested when they said "horror" but I watched anyway and I was blown away by the video. The graphics were amazing. (the cut scenes, not the in game graphics) But I was intrigued to give this one a shot, and I figured it might not be as scary since the story was about a girl and other evil girls rather than demons and people eating each other. Rule of Rose was definitely creepy but not so much scary. As always, the worst parts were the zombies. Everytime those things came out I could feel my heart beat faster, my palms would start sweating and I wanted to turn down the volume and let someone else play for me. Again, I asked myself "WHY IS THIS FUN?"

It was fun because I wanted to see how the story unfolded. I would have very much liked to skip the zombies and get to the cut scenes. I wonder if there is a way to get over this irrational fear of zombies and be able to enjoy a good horror game? These games stress me out. They stress me out more than having to reload my last saved game a dozen times.

Sadly, even first person shooters freak me out because they involve killing aliens and other gross things. I would like to play through the storyline of Silent Hill, but unfortunately for me, too many zombies in the way.