Euro first for Silent Hill 3

In our humble opinion, the Silent Hill series is the daddy of all survival horror games, and to hear that the third in this scareathon is coming to Europe first (on May 23rd) on PS2 made us fall off our chairs this morning.

We can't recall a Japanese publisher premiering a game in Europe first ever so we're calling on the European Commission to declare the 23rd of May a national holiday to celebrate. Read that again to yourself slowly. It's coming out here first. "Several weeks before Japanese and US fans can sample its macabre delights". Who'd have thought it?

Anyway, enough gushing. Suffice to say that the last in the series smacked us squarely in the gob, and to sample the third in the series so soon is a very good thing indeed. This time around, the game focuses on Heather, a "gentle teenager" who on a routine trip to a shopping centre has her life "turned upside down", with the brightly lit walkways suddenly turn into a hideous, dark "brooding" place. And guess what? Vile twisted malformed creatures lurch out of the shadows to scare the bejesus out of her. How inconsiderate.

Fighting for her life against an army of grotesque beasts, the plucky Heather grabs whatever she can for a weapon, and - as you do in a shopping centre - she finds a steel pipe, a pistol and a sub machine gun, allowing her to blast away these evil, mysterious creatures, while she sets about working out whatever happened to Sainsbury's customer services department. Tut. This country. Must be the reaction to the congestion charge.

Apparently, Silent Hill 3 "represents a huge advance for the groundbreaking horror series". And we're hoping to find out for ourselves very soon. With "incredible aesthetic detail" bringing the game's dark corridors and blood stained rooms "to life". It will, of course, feature the usual selection of insane "drunk director" camera angles, although out of all the survival horror games we've ever played, Silent Hill deals with the spooky angles thing far better than its more successful rival Resident Evil.

Vile mutated adversary fans will also be happy to learn that Silent Hill 3 features a "horrific cast" with "the most ever" in the series to date, and promises to make us jump out of our skin with "brief glimpses" of the really unsettling creatures as you progress - much like the hammer headed weirdo in the last outing. The promise is "a truly engrossing and unsettling experience". Frankly we can't wait - but spare a thought for Tom, who simply doesn't have the steely nerve required to play these games…

And before you ask, no there's no news of other versions, but you can bet they're on the agenda eventually.