Rise of Nightmares

Rise of Nightmares – Kinect Demo Impressions

Rise of Nightmares developed mild hype early for being the first mature game for Kinect. At the time there weren’t any mature rating games which piqued some gamer’s interest. After playing through the fifteen minute demo for the horror action game Rise of Nightmares some things are clearly apparent. The most notable is how bad the controls are via Kinect. Rise of Night mares was developed and published by SEGA and released September 6, 2011 for the Xbox 360 vis Kinect.

The demo starts off with a scene that looked like it was ripped from Hostel except the guy doing the killing was speaking German. You’re tied up in a chair awaiting to be dissected until a man breaks in the room and frees you. Much of the demo has to do with you escaping whatever crazed building your in. The man that helped you escaped was killed while trying to escape along side you. The demo doesn’t tell a story but does give you atmosphere and some presentation. The atmosphere reminded me of SAW, Hostel and Silent Hill. However the quality is much lower with this first-person melee horror game.

The controls via Kinect: Move Forward-put right leg in front of you, Kick Enemy-kick right leg up, Auto Movement-hold right hand up, Turn Left/Right-turn your shoulders, Walk Backwards-move right foot behind your body, Block-hold both arms/hands up, Push-push arms forward. The main reason why Rise of Nightmares isn’t a good game is because of the controls. First off it has a steep learning curve just learning how to walk and turn. Many times i was walking into walls. Picking up objects to use for combat wasn’t so bad. Actual combat was surprisingly responsive and fun actually.

The gameplay in Rise of Nightmares is a mash-up of melee combat and light puzzle solving and light exploration. You can find weapons like the chainsaw, pipe, brass knuckles, ice saw and gold test tube (still never found out what that was for). Using weapons to knock off locks on locked gates was present in the demo. The light puzzle and exploration came in the form of me having to search a toilet with blood in it for a key. The key was needed to unlock a locked door with. The building was dark and had many hallways and doors. Enemies lurked about who looked like they were ripped straight out of Silent Hill and House of the Dead.

Combat is the best thing about Rise of Nightmares. The only problem was that defeating the grotesque mutated people/monsters was that it was to easy. I had no fear as i would swing my arms punching them duel wield style on Kinect. You can take out up to four or five evil enemies at a time and not take much damage. The chainsaw just causes a mess and fills the screen up with blood as you slice your way through the evil monsters. The combat regarding most weapons was swift and reactive with Kinect. I was doing a swing/kick combo on enemies and Kinect pick it up nicely. The demo was overall horrible but the combat was fun.

The visuals in Rise of Nightmares are below average but features beautiful blood effects. The enemies looked like they are ripped from Silent Hill and House of the Dead (another SEGA game). The setting which was a building and looked dark featuring gates, dissecting rooms with equipment. The setting was a copy and paste of the last few years horror movies and had little imagination. The music ramps up when your engaged in combat. The sound design was decent and tried to make the game feel creepy.  The voice acting and dialog was a little below average and often times NPC’s repeating the same lines over and over.

It was clear that Rise of Nightmare’s intentions regarding bringing a horror action game to Kinect. It wanted to be the first Kinect mature game which is apparent with the gore and cussing this game has. But judging from the demo this game will be a pain to play due to the controls. Thanks for reading.