Preventing eye strain?

[Darkhill]

Apologies for just blowing in like this, but this seemed the best forum for this question.

Having just recently acquired Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth for Xbox, now playing on my 360, great game and all, but I'm having a shocking time with eye strain. Honestly, survival horror games get so dark, one does their glazzies in just squinting at the screen constantly.

So, how does one best reduce eye strain when playing a particularly dark survival horror game? How should one set the screen brightness and contrast? How should the lighting in the room be? Where should the light source be?

I'm using a 26' LCD HDTV, Xbox 360, component cable(due to PAL50 compatability), lightbulb is off to my left, rather large windows to my right, I may be able to stick a lamp or something behind the screen.

Thankyou for listening.

 

[defcon 1]

You should turn up the contrast when it becomes too dark to see. I always play horror games at night in the dark. Doesn't work as well when sun streams into the room.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Decrease all that useless bloom. Then light things won't be blurry, all it does otherwise is suck up processing power.

 

[Melaisis]

Although it will probably ruin the atmosphere, you should always play with the main overhead light on as much as possible.

 

[TomNook]

Get a big screen tv/computer screen.