Sega’s new Kinect-only XBox game
For a long time, hacking your way through the undead with whatever weapon that’s handy has been a mainstay in video games, whether it’s the “Resident Evil” or “House of the Dead” games or more recent classics like “Dead Rising” and “Left 4 Dead.” With the introduction last year of the X-Box Kinect, there’s the opportunity to get even more hands-on in the slaying of zombies even if the splatter still remains very much on the screen.
Now, the team behind the “House of the Dead” games have developed “Rise of Nightmares,” a Kinect-only game set in a horror-inspired environment that SEGA will be releasing on September 6. A few weeks back, ShockTillYouDrop.com was invited to try the game out with a demo that gives some idea what it would be like to actually be in an environment surrounded by zombie-like creatures and monsters.
As the game begins, you wake up strapped to a chair in a “Hostel”-like environment where a mad doctor is taking a hatchet to the poor schmoe across from you, first hacking off his hand, then planting the axe directly into his skull. The mad doctor is called away leaving you to his nurse whose back has been to you this whole time. When she turns around, you see that she’s missing her lower jaw and her tongue is dangling out from her neck grotesquely as she comes towards you to. You’re spared similar mutilation as someone behind her shoots her and releases you.
As soon as you’re loose, you’re right into the game as you follow your savior into the hallway of a giant mansion filled with creatures and death traps. Things start easy as you’re given a chance to test out how the Kinect controller is used to affect your movements on screen. Walking involves putting one leg in front of you, then putting your legs back together stops your gait. If you step backwards in a similar fashion, your character reverses. You can grab objects by holding your hand out in front of you, open doors, while swinging your arms as if you’re striking someone or slashing around makes your arms on screen follow suit. You can even block zombie attacks by crossing your arms, pushing away from you and even kicking.
You’ll have plenty of chances to try out all these last few techniques as you’re attacked by the undead creatures, just one or two at first but then the waves get more frequent. There’s really no pussy-footing around when it comes to surviving, as you’re provided with a number of objects with which you can defend yourself. “Rise of Nightmares” offers all the gore that we’ve come to expect from the best R-rated horror flicks as well as a wide array of weapons like machetes, chainsaws and more original weapons like electrified brass knuckles.
Now mind you, we had never played using the Kinect controller before and our attempt to do even the simplest of actions were laughably incompetent. By the time we got to the last room of the demo, we were continually being sawed in half by rotating metal blades so many times our hosts started feeling bad for us and figured it was time to call this demo a day. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to see any of the boss levels in the game, but we assume that once you’ve gotten used to the controller, things will get even crazier.
Regardless, “Rise of Nightmares” offers a lot of the same fun as other zombie-killing games but with the added pleasure of being able to throw your entire body into the experience which makes it quite a bit more immersive, as well as making it seem like you’re doing something constructive with your time⦠like exercising. We certainly worked up a sweat in the 15 or 20 minutes we were playing.
“Rise of Nightmares” will be available on September 6.
Source: Edward Douglas
