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IGN Review of Rise of Nightmares
A good survival horror game can suck you in, maybe more than many horror films. You sit in the dark, tension rising as you peek slowly around every corner, wondering what new terror awaits. You desperately hope there's ammo in the next room, and not the corpse of your wife. And then you pretend you're swimming and take a step back because the camera can't sense you. Wait, what? Oh no, that's this stupid horror game, Rise of Nightmares, that does that last part.
Rise of Nightmares puts you in the shoes of Josh, as he tries to save his wife Kate from the clutches of a painfully generic mad scientist. You take control of Josh in a first-person survival horror beat down. It's a first for Kinect, both in terms of its super violent M rating, and a game where players have full range of motion.
The motion controls serve as Rise of Nightmare's greatest strength, and ultimate weakness. At times they work very well, better than most other Kinect games. Hacking the limbs off zombies, kicking open doors, and sidestepping attacks feels natural, and, admittedly, a little satisfying. But then I tried to walk in a straight line and discovered that Josh is either drunk the entire game (a possibility because he does have a drinking problem), or he's even clumsier than the hordes of the undead he fights. Trying to maneuver the endless hallways of the creepy castle you're trapped in involves pivoting your shoulders and taking one step back or forward. And as fun as it is to pretend to be a backup dancer in a Fat Joe video, it's certainly not scary. The option of an auto walk feature, while nice, is basically a neon sign on screen at all times that says "Our game doesn't work!"
Even the best part of the game, killing the crap out of every zombie you see, gets old after a couple hours. Rise of Nightmares attempts to spice up the game with new types of zombies, but it's too little too late, and by Act 4 (of 10) I was just plain tired. The boss battles are the most disappointing part because they're just normal enemies that have a couple attacks you need to dodge with a quick time event like ducking or sidestepping. It's too simple to be challenging or interesting. Repetitive games are bad enough, but when you're using your entire body to play you physically feel the strain of doing the same stuff over and over and over.
Everything about the motion controls serve to make Rise of Nightmares as unfrightening as possible. The game forces you to literally step back from the experience, and as such you can never fully immerse yourself in the story, an essential component of any good survival horror game.
And what a story it is! See, even if you take away the motion controls, Rise of Nightmares is still a ridiculous, laughably bad horror game. It's Bad Writing 101. Every character is one dimensional (bickering main couple, asshole business man, raver youth, ballerinas), and every line is something along the lines of "Aaah zombies! This is f---ing scary!" The story starts off like some House of the Dead meets Hostel thing, but goes completely off the rails towards the end. It takes itself so seriously that the few moments of comedy clash and weaken the plot. Oh, and try not to laugh when the super sexy gypsy says her tearful goodbye to her lover-turned-monster before she stabs him in the balls.
Outside of murdering the mad scientist's army of servants (Seriously, how many identical French maids did you employ, dude?), Rise of Nightmares mostly consists of walking to a door, discovering it's locked, and pulling a switch located 3-6 feet away. That's it. That's the game.
©2011-09-07, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Rise of Nightmares puts you in the shoes of Josh, as he tries to save his wife Kate from the clutches of a painfully generic mad scientist. You take control of Josh in a first-person survival horror beat down. It's a first for Kinect, both in terms of its super violent M rating, and a game where players have full range of motion.
The motion controls serve as Rise of Nightmare's greatest strength, and ultimate weakness. At times they work very well, better than most other Kinect games. Hacking the limbs off zombies, kicking open doors, and sidestepping attacks feels natural, and, admittedly, a little satisfying. But then I tried to walk in a straight line and discovered that Josh is either drunk the entire game (a possibility because he does have a drinking problem), or he's even clumsier than the hordes of the undead he fights. Trying to maneuver the endless hallways of the creepy castle you're trapped in involves pivoting your shoulders and taking one step back or forward. And as fun as it is to pretend to be a backup dancer in a Fat Joe video, it's certainly not scary. The option of an auto walk feature, while nice, is basically a neon sign on screen at all times that says "Our game doesn't work!"
Even the best part of the game, killing the crap out of every zombie you see, gets old after a couple hours. Rise of Nightmares attempts to spice up the game with new types of zombies, but it's too little too late, and by Act 4 (of 10) I was just plain tired. The boss battles are the most disappointing part because they're just normal enemies that have a couple attacks you need to dodge with a quick time event like ducking or sidestepping. It's too simple to be challenging or interesting. Repetitive games are bad enough, but when you're using your entire body to play you physically feel the strain of doing the same stuff over and over and over.
Everything about the motion controls serve to make Rise of Nightmares as unfrightening as possible. The game forces you to literally step back from the experience, and as such you can never fully immerse yourself in the story, an essential component of any good survival horror game.
And what a story it is! See, even if you take away the motion controls, Rise of Nightmares is still a ridiculous, laughably bad horror game. It's Bad Writing 101. Every character is one dimensional (bickering main couple, asshole business man, raver youth, ballerinas), and every line is something along the lines of "Aaah zombies! This is f---ing scary!" The story starts off like some House of the Dead meets Hostel thing, but goes completely off the rails towards the end. It takes itself so seriously that the few moments of comedy clash and weaken the plot. Oh, and try not to laugh when the super sexy gypsy says her tearful goodbye to her lover-turned-monster before she stabs him in the balls.
Outside of murdering the mad scientist's army of servants (Seriously, how many identical French maids did you employ, dude?), Rise of Nightmares mostly consists of walking to a door, discovering it's locked, and pulling a switch located 3-6 feet away. That's it. That's the game.
©2011-09-07, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved