Have you ever been walking around in a video-rental store, looking for some game or movie to rent, and find yourself passing frequently by one movie or game in particular that catches your eye and yet never piques you into renting it?

Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly.

I used to walk by and see the case, occasionally picking it up to look at the back, and think about the cover-art. I mean - Japanese horror-based videogame? Involving TWINS? Scary Japanese twins? Who happen to be loli-delicious? Why the hell didnt I rent it before? XD Those are just the right ingredients to make a good game, right? And yet I never ended up renting it, or playing it at all - until recently.

I got it as a gift from a good friend who had been praising it for being freaky enough to cause him to throw the controller away from himself numerous times. So I figure, alright, it must be scary, and hell, I love being scared. So I pop it in, and watch the opening cutscene, and get ready to play.

Ten minutes later I'm nearly pissing myself and frantically trying to swallow my heart back while simultaneously CURSING and PRAISING FUCKIN' JAPAN AND PROJECT ZERO for their - I dont even know. Brilliance? Insanity? Christ! This fucking game @_@

Imagine being stuck in a dilapidated, deserted and dhaunted village that had disappeared off the map years ago. Imagine that village and the souls of its inhabitants being cursed to forever relive the night of the torment and suffering that wiped them all out. Imagine the souls of that village are pissed off at just about everything around them, including yourself. And then, to top it all off, imagine your only weapon against them - is a fucking camera. Ghhhh.

You play as a girl named Mio. While hanging out in the forest that they used to play in while they were children, your twin sister Mayu spots a startling crimson butterfly, and follows after it. You in turn follow your sister, and you enter 'The Lost Village,' which is ominous enough to give me shivers and it makes me wonder if they actually called it The Lost Village when everyone was still alive. XD But anyways. Once the two of you are inside, a bunch of shit starts going down, and you find out that the spirits of the village are anxious to exact revenge on - anything and everything, really. Unfortunately, that happens to be you. Stuff happens, you get separated from your sister, and you find an old camera that somehow has powers of exorcism over spirits. Good, right? Well it'd be good if there were only a couple of spirits that wanted to hurt you, but, well, that'd be easy, and Project Zero is an asshole.

I wont spoil the storyline. This entire entry is simply to say that I loved playing this game and getting the crap scared out of me in ways that I cant express. Everything was frightening on a psychological level that had me on edge even after I turned the console off. I recommend you go to your nearest video-rental store, find Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, and do not pass it up. The graphics are startlingly good despite it being a dated game to today's standards, and the storyline is enough to get you hooked into it, with a couple of different endings that are worth playing on Hard or Nightmare Mode to get if you dont like being depressed.

If you like being scared in a way that is entirely different than, say, Resident Evil scared, or even Silent Hill scared, than I beg you to try it out. Dont be worried about getting the 2nd game in the now-tetralogy, because each installment is its own separate story. However, if you're interested in being scared further, I'd also recommend the first, third and - if you have a Wii - fourth installment of the Fatal Frame series.

I think that's it for me, as I'm tired and need to sleep. If you're still skeptical that it's THAT scary, I'll leave you on the note that, while lying in bed, I'm terrified to roll onto my other side because I think there might be a FUCKING FACE in my wall, watching me sleep. XD;; Not joking.