Back when modern gaming was young and groundbreaking titles like RESIDENT EVIL first came out, there were problems—the primary one being that the games’ user interfaces were, well…wonky. Oftentimes, when one least expected it, players would be left standing in one spot, spinning uncontrollably, while the undead hordes closed in. It was frustrating. It was pointless. And it made for a very unsatisfying gaming experience, to say the least. Well, games have come a long way since then, and now, with Xbox’s Kinect technology, we collectively find ourselves back at that place with a new user interface being introduced—and, sadly, the same problems seem to be rearing their unwanted head once again.

DEAD SPACE 2 plants us three years later, as Isaac wakes up in a hospital amidst an interplanetary pit-stop mining city known as “The Sprawl,” thrusting players into one of the most hellacious first fifteen minutes of a game ever to appear on consoles.

UNO, MAGIC: THE GATHERING, Poker…there are innumerable card games out there to occupy your time. Luckily, in the past decade-plus there have been more and more additions to board/card games for the horror set too. FACEEATER is one such card game. Released by Variant Media this year, FACEEATER is marketed as a game that can be played quickly or enjoyed all night long.

This game gave me nightmares.

“Surely this guy from FANGORIA wasn’t scared by the smash-n-splat imagery from a video game?  He’s seen this before, right?”  No, I assure you. It wasn’t so much what SPLATTERHOUSE brings to the table that gave me nightmares (that’s not to say that the good folks at Namco Bandai didn’t deliver as the game comes packed to its exposed gills full of the blood-drenched gore and over-the-top violence that comes part-and-parcel with any quality horror-related video games),  but it also delivers something more.

In the modern world, cars are freakin money pits. If you don’t have the know-how, a driveway, or (in the case of the ever-growing import market) an engine lift, you’re pretty much stuck dropping your ride in the hands of some grease monkey that overcharges you for a laundry list of parts and labor you’ll never comprehend, or have the balls to argue. In post-zombie-apocalypse world, your car is your castle – a dangerous, deadly castle. Any mechanic worth his salt would be your best friend, turning your wheels into a bladed harbinger of mobile death, and turning you into a weapon-ized speed demon hell-bent on quenching your thirst for blood-soaked action and flesh-shredding destruction. Welcome to BLOOD DRIVE.

When Rockstar announced a zombie-themed add-on pack for the near-perfectly designed RED DEAD REDEMPTION, my reaction hovered “interested” but bordered on “skeptic.”  Sure, Rockstar rarely disappoints, but the thought of adding zombies to an otherwise zombie-free realm of the old west seemed a tad silly to me. Knowing the DLC would wind up on my review plate, I figured this would touch on the ridiculous…I thought I could adopt a faux-cowpoke persona and try to romanticize about “russlin up zombies” or crack lines about the dead rising to steal my gold. I could come up with zombified nicknames for the stars of Western-themed cinema, throw in some zombie-killing stagecoach modifications, and tie it all up with the risen corpse of James Polk forging westward expansion of the Zombified States of America.

The perfect boyfriend doesn’t necessarily have to be an obsessive, moody, telepathic vampire with permanent bed-head. He could be a vastly proficient chain-whip wielding defender of holy virtue, and did we mention he comes with long-flowing locks and knowledge of light and dark magic?  Ladies, meet Gabriel Belmont, the strapping young hero of CASTLEVANIA: LORDS OF SHADOW (Mercury Stream, Kojima Productions, Konami).