The atmosphere of this game is amazing.
The first question that came to my mind was "is the game scary?" Well this game uses a slightly different "scare tactic" than Resident Evil or Silent Hill. Instead of using blood, guts, and zombies to scare you, Fatal Frame uses more of a psychological method. First they make you heighten your senses by placing you in an setting that treats you like you are the only person alive other than your sister and its dark. When I mean dark it really hard to see like you got to focus your eyes on to the screen. Now that your eyes are total focused on the screen they add slight sound effects from every direction.(I use partial surround sound...not enough speakers for true surround sound) However, it's not like Resident Evil or Silent Hill where enemies can hide in a dark corner and you won't see them. In Fatal Frame all the ghost glow so there is no way you can miss them. However, ghost do pop out of nowhere and your controller will start to imitate your character's heart beat and the sound of the beat will take over most of the sound coming out from the speakers. So, you would be like "where the hell is it I can't hear it coming but I know it's there." On top of that the ghosts will and would disappear and reappear anywhere and they would follow you through walls. To get the highest amount of points and do the most damage to the ghost you need to get up and personal to them, and doing that puts your character at risk of being damaged. But keep in mind that the longer the battle drags on, the worst the situation can get if you try to run and other ghosts come to swarm you.*this rarely happens unless I have been lucky*
This game isn't exactly "action packed" since your character is slow and your only weapon is a camera. However, that kind of adds to the atmosphere of the game. The game wouldn't be half as scary if you character can move like Leon or have a gun or a golf club as a weapon.
Overall to play this game to the fullest you need to turn the sound up with nothing else on like a radio or a CD player and play by yourself in a dark room.