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This thread has been linked to the game 'Rise of Nightmares'.
Sega’s Rise Of Nitemares is a first person survival horror game which is played solely using Microsoft’s Kinect motion controller. In a market where pretty much all Kinect games released so far seem to have been either dancing, sporting or party games can Sega convince gamers that Microsoft’s controller free control system can actually be used to play ‘’proper’’ video games?
The game begins with a sequence where you and a young girl are trapped in a prison cell and have to work out how to escape the attractions of a few rather angry members of the undead. This sequence does not last very long and within 5 minutes or so both characters have met an extremely sticky end. This is basically to familiarize you with the controls and feel of the game before the actual main game begins. You begin on a tranquil train journey traveling somewhere across Eastern Europe, within 5 minutes your wife has mysteriously disappeared, the train has derailed and you and a small group of survivors are left to escape the burning train wreck and fend for yourselves in one very strange forest.
From this point onwards the game basically becomes House Of The Dead without guns. You arm yourself with an array of weapons ranging from your bare fists and feet to machetes, chainsaws and even ornamental objects such as vases. The weapons are one thing which Sega has actually got right in this game. There is a large selection of different types of weapons available, all of which have different characteristics. Items such as iron bars can be used to pulverize your enemies, knives and swords can be used to slice them up while smaller items such as syringes can be picked up and thrown like ninja shuriken. The other thing I liked about this aspect of the game was that the weapons degrade and then break after they have been used multiple times, this prevents you from simply obtaining one of the more powerful weapons and playing through large sections of the game with it.
The games rather unique control system is what first attracted me to picking up this title but sadly this is a very much a hit and miss affair. Certain parts of the game where you have to duck, side step or hack and slash work well enough but in other parts of the game they are truly abysmal. To navigate left or right you simply twist your shoulders in the direction you wish to turn, twist for a moment too long and you will continue rotating in that direction, this really does take some getting used to. You move forward by sticking out a leg and retract it to stop, pulling it behind you allows you to move backwards although quite often this command does not always seem to work. At times you will pull back your leg only to continue walking into something you would have much rather avoided. Some parts of the game require you to navigate past things like rotating blades or spikes which fire up from the floor. It is incredibly frustrating when you die simply because the game did not seem to respond to your command. For much of the game you can use the ‘’auto walk’’ facility, this allows you move around simply by holding your right hand in the air. Apart from the fact that being stuck in some kind of oath swearing position can actually become pretty uncomfortable, it insinuates to me that Sega could see that the main control system didn’t really do the job. Another issue I had with Rise Of Nightmares was with one of the games characters called Ernst, he cannot see you but can detect you by any movement or noise you make. He turns up at various points throughout the game and if he spots you its game over. I have stood so still that I may as well have been cryogenically frozen and yet somehow I seemed to keep being detected? However, walk behind him and at times he doesn’t seem to notice you are there at all? The boss fight sequences in this game generally seem to work OK, with on screen prompts popping up to tell you exactly when to duck, side step or step back at the precise moment you are attacked. These walk you through these sequences to a certain degree leaving you only to figure out when to jump in with your attack, one gripe I did have though was there is no facility to run or retreat quickly in these sequences which there really should have been. The combat itself is something that I feel could have been seriously improved as there is hardly any skill required to defeat the vast majority of the creatures in this game. As hordes of ravaging zombies come hurtling towards you simply act like you are doing the call for help sign from Team America and before you know it you will have defeated most them. If random button mashing has been the plague of video gaming in the past then I suppose you can prepare to meet its natural successor, random arm waving. After a while this all gets very repetitive and have to say just a bit boring, within half an hour of playing Rise Of Nitemares you have pretty much experienced most of what it has to offer.
Sega have clearly tried very hard to make this a Kinect title for the adult market and in places it appears that perhaps they have tried a tad too hard? There are places where the blood and gore levels become fairly extreme while the cut scenes seem to contain a lot of rather unnecessary F words, little of this content adds anything to the game to be honest. Some of the ideas in Rise Of Nitemares have quite clearly been ripped off from other games, for example zombies can be dismembered limb by limb (just like Dead Space), others cover you in green vomit causing temporary blindness (exactly the same as those in Left 4 Dead) while kicking zombies onto large spiked walls will see them off (Bulletstorm). For the most part this game is also extremely predictable, enter a dark room illuminated only by a single flickering light, throw the large switch located rather obviously in the centre of the room, count to 3……. and cue monsters. The odd ‘’what the hell was that?’’ moment would have been very welcome in a game of this kind, sadly it never arrives. I also felt the games story failed to engross you in any way, one reason for this is that in places it doesn’t seem to make all that much sense. One part in particular is just so utterly ridiculous you can’t help but laugh at it.
Another thing which ruins any atmosphere Rise Of Nitemares could possibly have created is the way your character moves. Rather than walking or running you seem to move so silky and smoothly it feels like you are some kind of floating weightless apparition. When using certain weapons your hands are shown on the screen but for some reason they do not seem to be attached to any arms? The feeling of floating along while punching with your magic ghostly hands just seemed weird and completely unrealistic to me.
The graphics while not particularly inspiring do look the part, some of the faces on the cut scenes could have done with slightly more definition but other than that there are no real issues with this game. Audio wise things fare a bit better, the creepy musical score from the title screen does a very good job of setting the initial scene, while the screaming sounds from the undead as you hack them to pieces do sound pretty impressive. I would not class Rise Of Nightmares as technically ground breaking but audio and video wise the game is certainly a passable effort.
Overall Rise Of Nitemares is a game which promises a lot ultimately but falls well short of actually delivering it. On paper an 18 certificate survival horror game for the Kinect was a great idea but unfortunately the games finicky control system lets it down badly and seems to lead to more frustration than anything else. I have always felt that motion controllers are something of a gimmick, I'm not saying that they cannot be a fun gimmick but they are a gimmick all the same and this game goes some way to proving that they are currently no replacement for a conventional hand held controller. But despite its issues Rise Of Nightmares is not a complete waste of time, its actually fun in places and its cheap enough to pick up but it does get repetitive very quickly and has no real replay value once you have completed it. Sadly Rise Of Nitemares turns out to be yet another disappointment from the once mighty Sega.
5.5/10
The game begins with a sequence where you and a young girl are trapped in a prison cell and have to work out how to escape the attractions of a few rather angry members of the undead. This sequence does not last very long and within 5 minutes or so both characters have met an extremely sticky end. This is basically to familiarize you with the controls and feel of the game before the actual main game begins. You begin on a tranquil train journey traveling somewhere across Eastern Europe, within 5 minutes your wife has mysteriously disappeared, the train has derailed and you and a small group of survivors are left to escape the burning train wreck and fend for yourselves in one very strange forest.
From this point onwards the game basically becomes House Of The Dead without guns. You arm yourself with an array of weapons ranging from your bare fists and feet to machetes, chainsaws and even ornamental objects such as vases. The weapons are one thing which Sega has actually got right in this game. There is a large selection of different types of weapons available, all of which have different characteristics. Items such as iron bars can be used to pulverize your enemies, knives and swords can be used to slice them up while smaller items such as syringes can be picked up and thrown like ninja shuriken. The other thing I liked about this aspect of the game was that the weapons degrade and then break after they have been used multiple times, this prevents you from simply obtaining one of the more powerful weapons and playing through large sections of the game with it.
The games rather unique control system is what first attracted me to picking up this title but sadly this is a very much a hit and miss affair. Certain parts of the game where you have to duck, side step or hack and slash work well enough but in other parts of the game they are truly abysmal. To navigate left or right you simply twist your shoulders in the direction you wish to turn, twist for a moment too long and you will continue rotating in that direction, this really does take some getting used to. You move forward by sticking out a leg and retract it to stop, pulling it behind you allows you to move backwards although quite often this command does not always seem to work. At times you will pull back your leg only to continue walking into something you would have much rather avoided. Some parts of the game require you to navigate past things like rotating blades or spikes which fire up from the floor. It is incredibly frustrating when you die simply because the game did not seem to respond to your command. For much of the game you can use the ‘’auto walk’’ facility, this allows you move around simply by holding your right hand in the air. Apart from the fact that being stuck in some kind of oath swearing position can actually become pretty uncomfortable, it insinuates to me that Sega could see that the main control system didn’t really do the job. Another issue I had with Rise Of Nightmares was with one of the games characters called Ernst, he cannot see you but can detect you by any movement or noise you make. He turns up at various points throughout the game and if he spots you its game over. I have stood so still that I may as well have been cryogenically frozen and yet somehow I seemed to keep being detected? However, walk behind him and at times he doesn’t seem to notice you are there at all? The boss fight sequences in this game generally seem to work OK, with on screen prompts popping up to tell you exactly when to duck, side step or step back at the precise moment you are attacked. These walk you through these sequences to a certain degree leaving you only to figure out when to jump in with your attack, one gripe I did have though was there is no facility to run or retreat quickly in these sequences which there really should have been. The combat itself is something that I feel could have been seriously improved as there is hardly any skill required to defeat the vast majority of the creatures in this game. As hordes of ravaging zombies come hurtling towards you simply act like you are doing the call for help sign from Team America and before you know it you will have defeated most them. If random button mashing has been the plague of video gaming in the past then I suppose you can prepare to meet its natural successor, random arm waving. After a while this all gets very repetitive and have to say just a bit boring, within half an hour of playing Rise Of Nitemares you have pretty much experienced most of what it has to offer.
Sega have clearly tried very hard to make this a Kinect title for the adult market and in places it appears that perhaps they have tried a tad too hard? There are places where the blood and gore levels become fairly extreme while the cut scenes seem to contain a lot of rather unnecessary F words, little of this content adds anything to the game to be honest. Some of the ideas in Rise Of Nitemares have quite clearly been ripped off from other games, for example zombies can be dismembered limb by limb (just like Dead Space), others cover you in green vomit causing temporary blindness (exactly the same as those in Left 4 Dead) while kicking zombies onto large spiked walls will see them off (Bulletstorm). For the most part this game is also extremely predictable, enter a dark room illuminated only by a single flickering light, throw the large switch located rather obviously in the centre of the room, count to 3……. and cue monsters. The odd ‘’what the hell was that?’’ moment would have been very welcome in a game of this kind, sadly it never arrives. I also felt the games story failed to engross you in any way, one reason for this is that in places it doesn’t seem to make all that much sense. One part in particular is just so utterly ridiculous you can’t help but laugh at it.
Another thing which ruins any atmosphere Rise Of Nitemares could possibly have created is the way your character moves. Rather than walking or running you seem to move so silky and smoothly it feels like you are some kind of floating weightless apparition. When using certain weapons your hands are shown on the screen but for some reason they do not seem to be attached to any arms? The feeling of floating along while punching with your magic ghostly hands just seemed weird and completely unrealistic to me.
The graphics while not particularly inspiring do look the part, some of the faces on the cut scenes could have done with slightly more definition but other than that there are no real issues with this game. Audio wise things fare a bit better, the creepy musical score from the title screen does a very good job of setting the initial scene, while the screaming sounds from the undead as you hack them to pieces do sound pretty impressive. I would not class Rise Of Nightmares as technically ground breaking but audio and video wise the game is certainly a passable effort.
Overall Rise Of Nitemares is a game which promises a lot ultimately but falls well short of actually delivering it. On paper an 18 certificate survival horror game for the Kinect was a great idea but unfortunately the games finicky control system lets it down badly and seems to lead to more frustration than anything else. I have always felt that motion controllers are something of a gimmick, I'm not saying that they cannot be a fun gimmick but they are a gimmick all the same and this game goes some way to proving that they are currently no replacement for a conventional hand held controller. But despite its issues Rise Of Nightmares is not a complete waste of time, its actually fun in places and its cheap enough to pick up but it does get repetitive very quickly and has no real replay value once you have completed it. Sadly Rise Of Nitemares turns out to be yet another disappointment from the once mighty Sega.
5.5/10
Good to hear :-)
Certainly seems to have worked. Had the last 4 GAD wins not been review posts, I'd be 100% sure this is a GAD-worthy review. Now I'm only 99% sure :P
Certainly seems to have worked. Had the last 4 GAD wins not been review posts, I'd be 100% sure this is a GAD-worthy review. Now I'm only 99% sure :P
Ha ha, glad you liked my annual review Mr. Moderator! :)
After drawing inspiration from your ''how do you write yours?'' post I decided to employ a new tactic. I jotted down header points on a piece of notepaper then used them as a skeleton for my review. I found it worked pretty well TBH.
After drawing inspiration from your ''how do you write yours?'' post I decided to employ a new tactic. I jotted down header points on a piece of notepaper then used them as a skeleton for my review. I found it worked pretty well TBH.
Ahhhh, I love it when you write a review pete :D
Great stuff :-)
Great stuff :-)
Sega’s Rise Of Nitemares is a first person survival horror game which is played solely using Microsoft’s Kinect motion controller. In a market where pretty much all Kinect games released so far seem to have been either dancing, sporting or party games can Sega convince gamers that Microsoft’s controller free control system can actually be used to play ‘’proper’’ video games?
The game begins with a sequence where you and a young girl are trapped in a prison cell and have to work out how to escape the attractions of a few rather angry members of the undead. This sequence does not last very long and within 5 minutes or so both characters have met an extremely sticky end. This is basically to familiarize you with the controls and feel of the game before the actual main game begins. You begin on a tranquil train journey traveling somewhere across Eastern Europe, within 5 minutes your wife has mysteriously disappeared, the train has derailed and you and a small group of survivors are left to escape the burning train wreck and fend for yourselves in one very strange forest.
From this point onwards the game basically becomes House Of The Dead without guns. You arm yourself with an array of weapons ranging from your bare fists and feet to machetes, chainsaws and even ornamental objects such as vases. The weapons are one thing which Sega has actually got right in this game. There is a large selection of different types of weapons available, all of which have different characteristics. Items such as iron bars can be used to pulverize your enemies, knives and swords can be used to slice them up while smaller items such as syringes can be picked up and thrown like ninja shuriken. The other thing I liked about this aspect of the game was that the weapons degrade and then break after they have been used multiple times, this prevents you from simply obtaining one of the more powerful weapons and playing through large sections of the game with it.
The games rather unique control system is what first attracted me to picking up this title but sadly this is a very much a hit and miss affair. Certain parts of the game where you have to duck, side step or hack and slash work well enough but in other parts of the game they are truly abysmal. To navigate left or right you simply twist your shoulders in the direction you wish to turn, twist for a moment too long and you will continue rotating in that direction, this really does take some getting used to. You move forward by sticking out a leg and retract it to stop, pulling it behind you allows you to move backwards although quite often this command does not always seem to work. At times you will pull back your leg only to continue walking into something you would have much rather avoided. Some parts of the game require you to navigate past things like rotating blades or spikes which fire up from the floor. It is incredibly frustrating when you die simply because the game did not seem to respond to your command. For much of the game you can use the ‘’auto walk’’ facility, this allows you move around simply by holding your right hand in the air. Apart from the fact that being stuck in some kind of oath swearing position can actually become pretty uncomfortable, it insinuates to me that Sega could see that the main control system didn’t really do the job. Another issue I had with Rise Of Nightmares was with one of the games characters called Ernst, he cannot see you but can detect you by any movement or noise you make. He turns up at various points throughout the game and if he spots you its game over. I have stood so still that I may as well have been cryogenically frozen and yet somehow I seemed to keep being detected? However, walk behind him and at times he doesn’t seem to notice you are there at all? The boss fight sequences in this game generally seem to work OK, with on screen prompts popping up to tell you exactly when to duck, side step or step back at the precise moment you are attacked. These walk you through these sequences to a certain degree leaving you only to figure out when to jump in with your attack, one gripe I did have though was there is no facility to run or retreat quickly in these sequences which there really should have been. The combat itself is something that I feel could have been seriously improved as there is hardly any skill required to defeat the vast majority of the creatures in this game. As hordes of ravaging zombies come hurtling towards you simply act like you are doing the call for help sign from Team America and before you know it you will have defeated most them. If random button mashing has been the plague of video gaming in the past then I suppose you can prepare to meet its natural successor, random arm waving. After a while this all gets very repetitive and have to say just a bit boring, within half an hour of playing Rise Of Nitemares you have pretty much experienced most of what it has to offer.
Sega have clearly tried very hard to make this a Kinect title for the adult market and in places it appears that perhaps they have tried a tad too hard? There are places where the blood and gore levels become fairly extreme while the cut scenes seem to contain a lot of rather unnecessary F words, little of this content adds anything to the game to be honest. Some of the ideas in Rise Of Nitemares have quite clearly been ripped off from other games, for example zombies can be dismembered limb by limb (just like Dead Space), others cover you in green vomit causing temporary blindness (exactly the same as those in Left 4 Dead) while kicking zombies onto large spiked walls will see them off (Bulletstorm). For the most part this game is also extremely predictable, enter a dark room illuminated only by a single flickering light, throw the large switch located rather obviously in the centre of the room, count to 3……. and cue monsters. The odd ‘’what the hell was that?’’ moment would have been very welcome in a game of this kind, sadly it never arrives. I also felt the games story failed to engross you in any way, one reason for this is that in places it doesn’t seem to make all that much sense. One part in particular is just so utterly ridiculous you can’t help but laugh at it.
Another thing which ruins any atmosphere Rise Of Nitemares could possibly have created is the way your character moves. Rather than walking or running you seem to move so silky and smoothly it feels like you are some kind of floating weightless apparition. When using certain weapons your hands are shown on the screen but for some reason they do not seem to be attached to any arms? The feeling of floating along while punching with your magic ghostly hands just seemed weird and completely unrealistic to me.
The graphics while not particularly inspiring do look the part, some of the faces on the cut scenes could have done with slightly more definition but other than that there are no real issues with this game. Audio wise things fare a bit better, the creepy musical score from the title screen does a very good job of setting the initial scene, while the screaming sounds from the undead as you hack them to pieces do sound pretty impressive. I would not class Rise Of Nightmares as technically ground breaking but audio and video wise the game is certainly a passable effort.
Overall Rise Of Nitemares is a game which promises a lot ultimately but falls well short of actually delivering it. On paper an 18 certificate survival horror game for the Kinect was a great idea but unfortunately the games finicky control system lets it down badly and seems to lead to more frustration than anything else. I have always felt that motion controllers are something of a gimmick, I'm not saying that they cannot be a fun gimmick but they are a gimmick all the same and this game goes some way to proving that they are currently no replacement for a conventional hand held controller. But despite its issues Rise Of Nightmares is not a complete waste of time, its actually fun in places and its cheap enough to pick up but it does get repetitive very quickly and has no real replay value once you have completed it. Sadly Rise Of Nitemares turns out to be yet another disappointment from the once mighty Sega.
5.5/10
The game begins with a sequence where you and a young girl are trapped in a prison cell and have to work out how to escape the attractions of a few rather angry members of the undead. This sequence does not last very long and within 5 minutes or so both characters have met an extremely sticky end. This is basically to familiarize you with the controls and feel of the game before the actual main game begins. You begin on a tranquil train journey traveling somewhere across Eastern Europe, within 5 minutes your wife has mysteriously disappeared, the train has derailed and you and a small group of survivors are left to escape the burning train wreck and fend for yourselves in one very strange forest.
From this point onwards the game basically becomes House Of The Dead without guns. You arm yourself with an array of weapons ranging from your bare fists and feet to machetes, chainsaws and even ornamental objects such as vases. The weapons are one thing which Sega has actually got right in this game. There is a large selection of different types of weapons available, all of which have different characteristics. Items such as iron bars can be used to pulverize your enemies, knives and swords can be used to slice them up while smaller items such as syringes can be picked up and thrown like ninja shuriken. The other thing I liked about this aspect of the game was that the weapons degrade and then break after they have been used multiple times, this prevents you from simply obtaining one of the more powerful weapons and playing through large sections of the game with it.
The games rather unique control system is what first attracted me to picking up this title but sadly this is a very much a hit and miss affair. Certain parts of the game where you have to duck, side step or hack and slash work well enough but in other parts of the game they are truly abysmal. To navigate left or right you simply twist your shoulders in the direction you wish to turn, twist for a moment too long and you will continue rotating in that direction, this really does take some getting used to. You move forward by sticking out a leg and retract it to stop, pulling it behind you allows you to move backwards although quite often this command does not always seem to work. At times you will pull back your leg only to continue walking into something you would have much rather avoided. Some parts of the game require you to navigate past things like rotating blades or spikes which fire up from the floor. It is incredibly frustrating when you die simply because the game did not seem to respond to your command. For much of the game you can use the ‘’auto walk’’ facility, this allows you move around simply by holding your right hand in the air. Apart from the fact that being stuck in some kind of oath swearing position can actually become pretty uncomfortable, it insinuates to me that Sega could see that the main control system didn’t really do the job. Another issue I had with Rise Of Nightmares was with one of the games characters called Ernst, he cannot see you but can detect you by any movement or noise you make. He turns up at various points throughout the game and if he spots you its game over. I have stood so still that I may as well have been cryogenically frozen and yet somehow I seemed to keep being detected? However, walk behind him and at times he doesn’t seem to notice you are there at all? The boss fight sequences in this game generally seem to work OK, with on screen prompts popping up to tell you exactly when to duck, side step or step back at the precise moment you are attacked. These walk you through these sequences to a certain degree leaving you only to figure out when to jump in with your attack, one gripe I did have though was there is no facility to run or retreat quickly in these sequences which there really should have been. The combat itself is something that I feel could have been seriously improved as there is hardly any skill required to defeat the vast majority of the creatures in this game. As hordes of ravaging zombies come hurtling towards you simply act like you are doing the call for help sign from Team America and before you know it you will have defeated most them. If random button mashing has been the plague of video gaming in the past then I suppose you can prepare to meet its natural successor, random arm waving. After a while this all gets very repetitive and have to say just a bit boring, within half an hour of playing Rise Of Nitemares you have pretty much experienced most of what it has to offer.
Sega have clearly tried very hard to make this a Kinect title for the adult market and in places it appears that perhaps they have tried a tad too hard? There are places where the blood and gore levels become fairly extreme while the cut scenes seem to contain a lot of rather unnecessary F words, little of this content adds anything to the game to be honest. Some of the ideas in Rise Of Nitemares have quite clearly been ripped off from other games, for example zombies can be dismembered limb by limb (just like Dead Space), others cover you in green vomit causing temporary blindness (exactly the same as those in Left 4 Dead) while kicking zombies onto large spiked walls will see them off (Bulletstorm). For the most part this game is also extremely predictable, enter a dark room illuminated only by a single flickering light, throw the large switch located rather obviously in the centre of the room, count to 3……. and cue monsters. The odd ‘’what the hell was that?’’ moment would have been very welcome in a game of this kind, sadly it never arrives. I also felt the games story failed to engross you in any way, one reason for this is that in places it doesn’t seem to make all that much sense. One part in particular is just so utterly ridiculous you can’t help but laugh at it.
Another thing which ruins any atmosphere Rise Of Nitemares could possibly have created is the way your character moves. Rather than walking or running you seem to move so silky and smoothly it feels like you are some kind of floating weightless apparition. When using certain weapons your hands are shown on the screen but for some reason they do not seem to be attached to any arms? The feeling of floating along while punching with your magic ghostly hands just seemed weird and completely unrealistic to me.
The graphics while not particularly inspiring do look the part, some of the faces on the cut scenes could have done with slightly more definition but other than that there are no real issues with this game. Audio wise things fare a bit better, the creepy musical score from the title screen does a very good job of setting the initial scene, while the screaming sounds from the undead as you hack them to pieces do sound pretty impressive. I would not class Rise Of Nightmares as technically ground breaking but audio and video wise the game is certainly a passable effort.
Overall Rise Of Nitemares is a game which promises a lot ultimately but falls well short of actually delivering it. On paper an 18 certificate survival horror game for the Kinect was a great idea but unfortunately the games finicky control system lets it down badly and seems to lead to more frustration than anything else. I have always felt that motion controllers are something of a gimmick, I'm not saying that they cannot be a fun gimmick but they are a gimmick all the same and this game goes some way to proving that they are currently no replacement for a conventional hand held controller. But despite its issues Rise Of Nightmares is not a complete waste of time, its actually fun in places and its cheap enough to pick up but it does get repetitive very quickly and has no real replay value once you have completed it. Sadly Rise Of Nitemares turns out to be yet another disappointment from the once mighty Sega.
5.5/10