If you're familiar with Hindu or Buddhist motifs, or if you've studied the psychoanalysis of Carl Jung, you probably know what a mandala is.

For those of you who may unfamiliar with the term, a mandala is a kind of mystic circle separated into sections. We mentioned this because it seems that Blizzard's World of Warcraft has its very own mandala as well. Why not check it out after the jump?

Here's a stupid pun for you guys to flame us for: What do you call a psychoanalysis of Konami's Silent Hill 4 and Capcom's Resident Evil 4 games and the situation of being stuck in a room filled with zombies?

Some deep doo doo.

Well, it's the "deep" part we're more interested in as it discusses the latter. The Game Career Guide website has a thought-provoking article up about the RE4 and SH4, talking about their differences from a psychoanalytic point of view. Of course, those with short attention spans need not apply, but if you can stand it, you should take a look.

Just in case, here's a sample paragraph to see if you've got the (reading) skills for it:

The Resident Evil series conservatively positions a player as a defender of Lacanian "symbolic order," the psychological force constituting subjectivity (discussed further below). On the other hand, Silent Hill subverts our anticipation to occupy this position. If Resident Evil comfortably positions us as analyst, then Silent Hill mischievously collapses the distinction between analyst and analysand-undermining with it the surrounding symbolic order upon which such distinctions rely.

If you didn't understand that very much, you may want to just look for a cross-review of the RE and SH movies instead.