Australia’s Classification Board is tough on video game violence, so it wasn’t a surprise that House of the Dead Overkill: Extended Cut didn’t get rated on its first try. After an appeal to the board, Sega announced the game now has an MA15+ rating with warnings for “Strong Horror Violence, and Strong Coarse Language.” The latest game in Sega’s horror series first appeared on the Nintendo Wii, but is coming to the PS3 with Move controls added. In addition to motion control, Extended Cut adds a Hardcore Mode that rewards players for headshots. There’s also an “Extra Mutants” mode with more monsters to kill.

Hudson Soft’s Calling is the latest survival horror game for the Wii. There have been plenty of these as of late, and Calling is happy to wedge itself somewhere between Ju-On: The Grudge (a haunted house simulator) and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (a psychological thriller), except that Calling is actually better than both. You heard me…Calling is better than Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and that’s simply because it’s scarier. Much scarier.

It’s been a really good year for games about really bad guys, according to data from everyone’s favorite industry pundit Michael Pachter.

According to the Wedbush Morgan securities analyst, horror-based video games account for more than $147 million in sales this year through September 2009. Horror games sales for all of 2008 totaled only $131 million.

Leading the pack was Resident Evil 5, the newest installment in the Capcom franchise credited with starting the “survival horror” genre. RE5 moved 1.94 million units according to data from market research firm The NPD Group. Pachter said that accounts for more than half of the horror genre sales to this point. That genre number is certain to grow November 17, 2009, when zombie sequel Left 4 Dead 2 hits shelves, along with Wii exclusive Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles.