By Faheem Abz Abrahams
I am a fan of Kinect – yes I said it… and not just because of the technological possibilities. Oh no… I love the games too. Yep I have kinect parties at my place. Swing by and we’ll duel it out in some table tennis or bowling… well, maybe not bowling (I suck). Anyway so when the first trailers hit for Sega’s new Rise of Nightmares, I was stoked but had my reservations of whether or not this was going to be the much anticipated next level action/adventure title for Kinect, finally catering for the hardcore gamers.
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
For fans of: Kinect; Zombie Killing; House of Dead
Reviewed on: Xbox 360 Kinect (exclusive)
If we had to give it a numerical score: 5.5 out of 10
What I liked
- Regular switching between combat and other actions.
- Some interesting enemy designs.
- Chainsaw.
- Kicking enemies into spikes.
- Alchemist glove.
- Chains of deadly awesomeness like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.
Not so much
- Repetitive.
- Predictable.
- Klunky motion capturing.
Contrary to popular belief, RoN (as it’s been affectionately abbreviated by us at Zombiegamer) is not an on the rails first-person-adventure-horror-slasher game. Although similar to arcade hit, House of The Dead, it’s very different in that you don’t get a gun but you do get the freedom to move around and explore… as much as the game allows. That being said, I still found myself using the handy auto move function as I loved the gesture. Ok it’s because I’m unfit…
RoN plays off as a cheesy old horror that relies on more overdone exposition than one-liners in an 80’s action film. As for the horror itself… Well despite having to play the game with the lights on so that Kinect had no issues seeing me (I’m not afraid of the dark I swear!), I’m ashamed to admit being startled once or twice [sure – scared ****less most likely – Undead Ed]… no it’s not that the game has a spine-chilling ‘creep’ or bowel-releasing ‘scare’ factor… it’s more of a ‘boo’ factor. Or a shamelessly ‘freaky’ nature like when some undead witch grabbed me and tried to slip me a bloody tongue while I attempted to sneak a sip of water to quench my parched throat after all that wailing, kicking, punching and side stepping.
The story is pretty predictable as you play an American called Josh whose wife is kidnapped from a train that derails while travelling through some cursed forest in Eastern Europe somewhere. She’s been ‘napped by some loony evil scientist bent on raising the dead and blah blah yawn… let’s continue.
You’ll be running back and forward through the same previous gen level designs a few times too often for my taste. This is especially noticeable since you’re pretty much using a recycled set of 4 weapons and fighting the same undead enemies.
The weapon sets and enemies are rendered in a bunch of designs to hide the fact that the menu really is just grilled cheese with a selection of our finest sauces… they’re all mayo and tomato sauce mixed together in different quantities! So really you have 4 basic classes:
- slashing/stabbing
- hacking
- throwing
- pushing/squeezing
Come to think of it… there are even fewer gestures to differentiate them. My personal favorites were the chainsaw and the explosive testubes. But the real joy came later on when I found some chutney tucked away as a reward for enduring the gallons of mayo-mato sauce. Look, for the most part it was still grilled-cheese but dammit at this point the change in flavour was as welcomed as fresh brains (to a zombie of course). The 2 new weapons and even a brand new gesture were excellent fun but more on that later though.
The enemies and other NPC(s) have some interesting designs and their renderings are pretty sweet too… a few tasty zombetties walking around wearing the kind of stuff Marylin Manson dreams about… oh yeah!
The gestures were fairly repetitive and sadly very klunky for a newer Kinect title. It’s as if the motion sensoring had not been fine-tuned but I’m sure they can fix this with a patch and reach the same level of awesome as some other titles.
The gore factor was a bit disappointing as any weapon usually rendered litres of blood blobs or generic explosions.
Overall most of these complaints I feel can be overlooked to a certain degree as it is the first title of its kind for the new motion system. So yes there are some growing pains but more importantly (in this case) it seems like a title that’s really there to test the waters and see where Kinect can be pushed. I can’t see why they couldn’t have shortened the game and turned it into an awesome XBLA download. Aside from that, repetitive characters, weapons and levels are really not the kind of poor choices they seem to be… many developers employ these sins one way or the other.
Still, RoN is an interesting concept and brave step forward for its developers. Most importantly, it serves as real proof a kinect action game can work. With a deeper pocket and some fine-tuning, they could have something really amazing here. But if you’re planning to get the title, don’t expect a helluva lot of fun – the game is still too unfinished for the hardcore line and too mature for your kids. Also be sure not to play this one infront of an audience – you’ll end up looking silly.
Oh and for those of you who will get the title… remember I mentioned the two new weapons? Well (without giving away any spoilers) there’s a sweet ass alchemist glove and some seriously awesome chain thingies like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.
These bad boys gave me a sense of power – albeit briefly – and definitely opened my eyes to the gameplay possibilities of kinect shooters. As a matter of a fact I could see a kind of watered-down FPS version of God of War being pretty damn awesome on this Kinect thing – with specific gestures to use magical powers and swing those epic chains.
If you’re patient enough to stick it out, you’ll be granted with a cool new experience that unfortunately culminated in a not so raunchy and yet bordering on necrophilia sex scene.
Related posts:
