The team behind Persona 4 from Atlus Japan is working on their very first HD game, and sadly, it’s not Persona 5. They’re working on something a little more… spicy. It’s a much, much more adult game (see the Famitsu scans below if you want to see for yourself), but tagged with a horror action/adventure genre. The main character might be little familiar to recent adopters of Persona 3 Portable, as he was one of the social links if you played as a female protagonist in the game. (more…)
Dementium 2 had a fantastic marketing campaign set up at one time. Six months ago, there were posters flying around the internet, creepy pictures, like the one on the cover of the box, piquing people’s interest, and plenty of hotlinking to one of the creepiest sites probably ever made for video game marketing purposes. Then it was delayed. Then it was delayed again. Hype died down for some reason, possibly as people learned that Dementium 2 was actually on the DS, a platform not particularly known for its horror collection of games. And in fact it is that question that crops up when thinking about Dementium 2. Can a horror game exist on a handheld system? Can it do what horror games set out to do on a 2.5 inch screen?
Old Snarkasaur isn’t afraid of much, but the deep blue terrors of theJaws films have always filled me with a terror that goes beyond simple fears of pain and death. Sharks are the natural stuff of horror, and no where did that horror find its way into homes better than in Spielberg’s masterpiece. Now, it finds its way to your computer screens with this terrifying rendition of a giant bear eating his fellow bear. In what is easily the most disturbing in a series of clips featuring classic horror scenes (others have featured Alien and The Blair Witch Projectparodies), Naughty Bear becomes the many-toothed nightmare. I could only watch it once. I had to lock myself in a small, well-lit room afterward for a long time. Click below to have your adult diapers soiled.
We’ve all been there. You know what I mean. That game that you’ve been following since its very first announcement, the one that you anxiously await any tiny morsel of info to gobble up in delight, the one that can never come out soon enough, whether it takes years or months from first reveal until its street date. Fragile is one of those games for me. After first hearing about its Japanese release, I crossed my fingers and hoped it would eventually be localized. When XSEED decided to pick it up for North America, I was overjoyed, and eagerly read anything I could about the game that promised to bring something fresh and beautiful to Nintendo’s often overlooked console.
Earlier this year, Spawn Kill gave away a few posters that may have featured the most effed up image in gaming history. It was a proud moment for us, and I’m sure Southpeak Games’ art department found similar pride when designing the layout. At PAX East this year, I was given the chance to sit down with the actual game behind the poster, and while it did not stir within me such ghastly images as its forerunning images, I still found what little I played to be interesting and creepy as hell.
The basic rundown of Dementium II is that players take the role of a patient named William Redmoor who thinks he’s killed his own wife and child. He wanders the halls of the Bright Dawn Treatment Center for the criminally insane flitting in and out of alternate states of reality. His nemesis is the villainously named Doctor, and possibly his own mind given his recent brain surgery mishaps. If nothing, please visit the official website because it’s possibly one of the best for video game promotion that I’ve ever seen.
When I sat down with the game for the first time, I had no knowledge of any of this. I come to the series fresh. After a brief explanation of what to do, I jumped excitedly into the game. It plays like Metroid Prime Hunters in that its a first person “shooter” on the DS. For anyone who hasn’t played an FPS on the DS, it’s a difficult process to explain. Players watch the top screen while manipulating the bottom for visual direction. The left trigger is used to fire or slash one’s weapon. Surprisingly, this method of control works amazingly well. It’s perhaps not as precise as its older brothers and sisters on consoles and PC, but it gets the job done with virtually no frustration.
At the start of Dementium II, William is gifted a shank. It slashes, and that’s about it. I could quickly surmise that I would not be a fan of the melee combat in the game, and this opinion never softened. I don’t necessarily blame the game however, as much as I do the gaming developer community’s inability to properly convey melee combat in a first person mode. It’s never been done right in my experience, and who knows if it ever will be? William wakes up and begins his trek through the creepy halls of Bright Dawn. As he does so, his vision shifts from seeing a normal hospital into this dark, nethery realm of monsters and flesh crawling surprises. The first enemy I encountered after picking up my shank were humanoid-like creatures with large, vertical mouths in their chests, mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth and licking tongues. I stabbed them. I stabbed them until I could no more. As I journeyed on, the scene shifted and where once scaly monsters stood, now I had hospital guards armed with electroprods instead. They were stabbed also. I wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way of my truthseeking, and it didn’t take much time in this particular hospital to realize that things just weren’t quite right anyway.
The pinnacle of the entire experience came down to a boss fight. Suddenly I found myself trapped in a room with a thing that was all teeth and sharp feet (which you can see briefly in the video below at about the 50 second mark). To describe it adequately might even be beyond my enhanced vocabulary. It reminded me of a short, stout tyrannosaurus rex with no eyes and double the fangs, and it could walk on the ceiling. I had seen it previously in my wanderings, in passing, and had merely assumed it to be some enemy much later in the game, possibly towards the end when I would inevitably be armed with bazookas and plate mail. Alas this was not so, and as I looked down at my meager shank, a mental whimper escaped my ears, and shortly after, I died.
Overall, I liked what I played as brief as it was. I would have loved to try out the ranged weaponry selection as I think the game will play better with guns. I also would have enjoyed a few more puzzles here and there, but I expect the main game will make up for that. The trailers and screens show off a good amount of flashlight exploration and the like. Nevertheless, based on a preliminary playthrough of the game, I’m intrigued by both the game and the atmosphere and I’m looking forward to the April 20th release date so I can test out what’s under the hood for real.
Some of you may find February 14 to be frightening. After all, if the idea of a scary little angel-esque creature flying around and shooting people with arrows of… love isn’t frightening enough, then the possibility of having to buy something for your significant other for another materialistic holiday probably might do the trick. If you can survive that date this year, there’s another just around the corner: Dementium II releases on February 16, 2026 for Nintendo DS. Europeans, you have a bit longer to prepare yourself, as the game releases March 5 in PAL territories.
Dementium II continues to push the horror experience by melding FPS action and puzzles with a story and ambience that will have players on the edge of their seats. New wrinkles to gameplay, all new weapons, dual wielding items, improved interface and save system, and mind-boggling environments promise to engage gamers and spawn fear the likes of which some never thought possible.
It’s been a while since we’ve had an update on Hudson’s upcoming Wii horror game, simply called Calling. However, today they released a new teaser trailer to set our spines a-tingling.
For more on the game, check out our mini-preview. After the disappointment that was Ju-On: The Grudge, hopefully Wii horror fans will finally have something to give them chills come Spring 2010.
As horror enthusiasts are probably aware, the Obscure franchise as a rule is approached with trepidation. And for good reason. It’s not exactly the creme de la creme of the land of Pyramid Head and cursed tattoos. While the original game stood on its own as an intriguing thriller, its Wii sequel tended to disappoint, as migrations to the Wii tend to do. It stands on wobbly legs as a survival horror title, stumbling more than once as it struggles to be recognized as a viable spectacle of the macabre. Now that it’s on the PSP, this is one port you may be wise to pass up, especially if you have a strong aversion to pitiful, Americanized attempts at college horror films. Because that’s what Obscure: The Aftermath is trying to be, and that’s a nightmare in itself.
JU-ON: The Grudge, a Wii exclusive horror game haunted house simulator trudges out toward store shelves in time for All Hallows’ Eve. Hoping to catch the attention of fans of the movie version, JU-ON still thoroughly misses the bar at what was scary in the Japanese films. The more creepy, eccentric scare that the films present are different from the repetitive, and sometimes stale pop outs that the video game iteration offers up. Since I played the preview build over the summer, very little (if anything) has changed for the better, unfortunately.
Haunted houses,†‬tales of gruesome deaths and vengeful spirits,†‬terrifying movies,†‬and midnight jaunts are all a part of the Halloween experience.†‬People are simply fascinated with scaring themselves out of their wits,†‬and they’ll take the experience of true fear in any form they can get.†‬This fixation carries over into the gaming industry as well,†‬catering to thrill seekers†(‬such as myselfâ€) ‬by producing titles that seek to elicit blood-curdling screams from their players.†‬But whyâ€? ‬What prompts an average Joe to actively seek out video games that could cause his heart to beat rapidly,†‬his blood pressure to rise,†‬and the potential of soiled underwearâ€?
Get ready to become super psychologist Alice Drake and delve into her patients’ vivid dreams. A new teaser trailer for DreamKiller was released today, a new horror-esque FPS being tagged now with a Holiday of 2009 release window. Still little is known about it, but there are some brief glimpses of gameplay in this teaser where the player is fighting some monstrous creatures in the dream world. It seems like most of the game will take place in that world. I am very much intrigued to see what kind of psychotic creature designs will come out of the minds of the developers at Mindware Studios. Check out the latest trailer below!
July 9th I was able to attend a demo event with publisher of all things niche and intrigue, XSEED Games, in NYC. The title I head out to see that stood at the top of my mind more than any other title to be available for previewing was just this. JU-ON: The Grudge. Lover of all things undead, twisted, and psychotic (Clubbing baby seals? How about clubbing babies and you’ve got me), I was highly anticipating the opportunity to put what is referred to as a haunted-house simulator to the test.
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Earlier this year, Spawn Kill gave away a few posters that may have featured the most effed up image in gaming history. It was a proud moment for us, and I’m sure Southpeak Games’ art department found similar pride when designing the layout. At PAX East this year, I was given the chance to sit down with the actual game behind the poster, and while it did not stir within me such ghastly images as its forerunning images, I still found what little I played to be interesting and creepy as hell.
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