Can a Kinect game be scary?

"Kinect is a full-bodied experience, so there is an immersion to it. Part of a horror game is feeling like you're in it," producer Satoshi Ito told me when I asked him that very question, via translator Sam Mullen. "On top of that, Kinect works in the dark -- you can turn off your lights and play Kinect. So we feel like if someone wanted to focus on the pure, make-you-crap-your-pants horror aspect of it, they can."

I didn't crap my pants at Sega's dimly-lit Rise of Nightmares demo event in San Francisco (embarrassing!); luckily for me, the game wasn't that scary. After flailing, ducking and twisting my way through four different areas over the course of a few hours, I found no fear -- at least, this Kinect game wasn't scaring me. But what it lacked in frights, it more than made up for with wonderfully tense moments.