Review: Rise of Nightmares

Some mad scientists at Sega decided to combine Survival Horror and Kinect, the result is... interesting

Just your average Marilyn Manson crowd

Rise of Nightmares is, for lack of a better term, one of the first ‘hardcore’ titles for Kinect. It is also, partly due to the lack of titles out there, but mainly due to its quality, one of the must-haves for any Kinect owner who wants to try some serious gaming with the device and has even a passing interest in the horror genre. The game takes some risks, tells a crazy story, and pushes Kinect and the player to the limits, yet it somehow doesn’t overstay its welcome, never takes itself too seriously, and keeps you entertained and mostly void of frustration the whole way through, provided you succumb to the usual trappings of motion control. Personally I think it’s not only one of the best Kinect titles out there, but one of the most enjoyable horror games in recent memory. It tries to take motion-controls to a new level, and succeeds in enough ways that I can happily call it a success.

This is just how they do haircuts in creepy castles

The story goes for an interesting blend of tongue-in-cheek B-movie horror and typical madcap Japanese lunacy, and personally I felt they pulled it off brilliantly. It kicks off with a bang and never lets up, thrusting players into the shoes of a man searching for his wife in a wonderfully spooky castle in Eastern Europe. Mad scientists, pools of blood, gruesome deaths, and good old torture chambers make notable appearances throughout your journey. Yes, the story wouldn’t win any awards for originality, and is absolutely full of one-dimensional, stereotypical characters, and hilariously poor voice-acting. But I can’t help feeling that all of that is completely intentional, and even if it's not, you won't really mind because it fits the tone of the game perfectly. This was never meant to be a Silent Hill competitor, when you have a game that is built around jumping around the room and punching the air, you need a suitably light-hearted tone to the story, and the developers clearly recognised this. Rise of Nightmares is good, cheesy horror at its finest, with plenty of humour, madness and enough twists and turns to keep you hooked and hungry for more if you’re the sort of person who can appreciate this particular brand of crazy. The story, much like the rest of the game, never takes itself too seriously, right to the end, which works completely to its credit. 

This image alone should be enough for you to decide whether or not you'd like this game

Gameplay-wise, there’s more to Rise of Nightmares than you might think, anyone could be forgiven for watching a few minutes of footage and labelling it some sort of ‘Kinect House of the Dead’, and in more ways than one, that moniker is pretty accurate, but there’s plenty more to the game than meets the eye. Speaking as a regular Kinect user, I can safely say the controls are very responsive and, in some instances, surprisingly ingenious. Movement is handled by rotating the shoulders left and right to look around, and stepping out a leg forward or backward to move in the respective direction. It works pretty much flawlessly—or at least as flawlessly as Kinect seems capable of for the time being—with players able to easily navigate areas once they’ve grown accustomed to this unique control scheme. There’s also a convenient ‘auto-walk’ option, in which one can indulge by holding up their right hand. This lets the computer take control and move you along with much less physical effort. I rarely found myself resorting to this system, the game is linear enough and built in such a way that you'd rarely need the auto-walk, and in fact the option isn't even available for large sections of the game or areas involving puzzles, but its inclusion will certainly be welcomed by many less experienced Kinect users, or people who just want to cut out the movement and get to the action.

Rise of Nightmares doesn't skimp on the gore

And the action is pretty satisfying. Combat is basic, and more or less exactly what you would expect. You’ll collect countless melee weapons throughout the night, from the traditional knives and pipes, to the slightly more bizarre exploding test tubes and shock knuckles, to the destructive chainsaw and meat tenderizer. All the weapons are designed to handle differently and vary in effectiveness against the various enemy types, but most of them don’t really feel too different; with many combat encounters simply involving you swinging your arms around ferociously until everything falls down. You can block and kick, and the combat consistently remains enjoyable, despite being pretty shallow. Of course, if you're using a control scheme that naturally encourages players to fling their limbs about as fast as possible, it must be very hard to create a sense of variety or depth to a game's combat. It's just like House of the Dead, the player is naturally inclined to never stop shooting because really, that's all you can do. So I can't blame the developers for this problem, it's simply a limitation of the hardware that hopefully someone will eventually be able to work around. The combat is still a lot of fun, and definitely gets challenging in the later stages, with the boss battles in particular really upping the ante. Rise of Nightmares treats you to some truly exhausting encounters later on in the game, many of which will have you jumping around your living room dodging attacks in an effort to survive, and, if you're as unfit as myself, leave you breathless. Whether or not the boss battles wear you out, they'll most likely leave you with a great sense of satisfaction. By the time I finally defeated the last boss, I felt like I'd really accomplished something, using my own arms and legs no less, it was a feeling that you'd never be able to get from a traditional controller, and it's the sort of thing I hope to see more in motion controlled titles in the future.

Nothing bad could possibly happen in there, right?

The combat isn't all the game has to offer. Simple puzzles, stealth sequences—don't worry, they work!—and plenty of contextual gestures help to add some variety to what could have been a repetitive formula. The game continuously manages to surprise you, and just when you think you've seen everything it has to offer, they'll throw in another crazy little gesture or weapon or story beat to spice things up. The strongest compliment I can pay Rise of Nightmares is that it takes a lot of risks and manages to successfully pull off what some people would’ve deemed a pretty ambitious task. Making a thoroughly playable, enjoyable and fully functional survival horror game exclusively on Kinect must have been a daunting proposition initially, but Sega have done a fantastic job in realising their concept. It’s not one of the greatest games ever made, it won't win any awards, and it has plenty of issues, but the game is still a blast to play, and in these early days of motion control on Xbox 360, it’s good to see some developers already trying to push the hardware, albeit in some crazy and ridiculous ways. This sort of thing is exactly what Kinect needs. Where other Kinect games hold your hand as much as possible and seem to minimise player interaction as much as they can, Rise of Nightmares goes out of its way to let you be a part of the game in every aspect, immersing you in the adventure with countless gestures and player interactions. For that alone, it deserves commendation. The fact that it’s also a decent, funny game to play is one hell of a bonus.