If there are any Xbox 360 owners out there who remain convinced that Microsoft produced Kinect solely to win over the casual core crowd, they should have a gander at Rise of Nightmares. Developed by Sega, this is a particularly nasty and graphic survival horror game that plot-wise, takes its lead from Resident Evil and the Hostel film franchise. It also puts a premium on bloody dismemberment, flying body fluids and gruesome, wet slapping sounds.
The pitch is straight-forward enough; the player takes on the roll of a tourist on holiday somewhere in Europe with his wife. The pair are soon knocked out and kidnapped by an eccentric local, who on the evidence of the demo I played, resides in a massive medieval dungeon. The action starts with the player waking up and taking in their surroundings. In no time at all, they become aware of their captor standing opposite them, fondling the neck of a hysterical man who is tied to a chair. As the poor unfortunate begs and pleads for their life, the chuckling psycho casually brings an axe down on his right hand, severing it completely.
"Why!? Why did you do that?" screams the victim as claret shoots out of his arm.
"Why not?" sniggers the psycho, and then buries his axe in his victim's skull with a sickening crack.
The action is briefly interrupted by a telephone call, and the player's captor is called away on an urgent matter upstairs, leaving them in the company of a zombie nurse. She is quickly dispatched by some figure off-screen who then frees the player and the pair of them begin to make their way out of the dungeon. Hilarity ensues.
The control scheme in Rise of Nightmares is a doddle to master – mind you, this is a Kinect title, so if it wasn't, there'd be a problem. Players can turn in a 360 degree arch by swivelling their shoulders right or left, they move forward by placing one foot forward and taking a step back causes them to back up in the game. The player hovers their reticule over any doors they wish to open, or they can use their foot to kick them in when the prompt pops up onscreen.
There's a bit of lag between the player's movement and their actions in the game so navigating the endless, eery corridors can become a might tricky. Still, the game compensates for this by putting certain segments of the player's progression on-rails; the player simply raises their right hand when prompted and their forward movement becomes ever so smooth.
When they're not walking or looking around, the rest of the player's time is spent battering the endless parade of grisly monsters that stand between them and the dungeon's exit. This is where the fun starts as Rise of Nightmares offers the player an increasingly vicious arsenal to dispatch foes. They start off with a stick, but it's not long before they're being offered brass knuckles, ice saws, chainsaws and cast-iron tongs.
The player uses the weapons the way they would in real life. When the player jabs the air in front of them their character in the game hits out with the brass knuckles. A downward or sideways slashing motion causes their character to slice and dice opponents with the ice saw. The player needs to pretend they're gripping the handles of an invisible pair of tongs to activate that weapon; bringing their fists together causes the tongs on screen to bite into an enemy's face. The chainsaw is equally easy to use; hold two hands out in front of you, the way you would if you were holding a real chainsaw, and simply walk it into anything attacking you.
The combat in Rise of Nightmares isn't exactly complex but it's delightfully visceral and loads of guilty fun. When the player hits an enemy with an ice saw, the sounds of tearing meat and wet splashes usher forth from the TVs speakers. If they whirl in an arch with the chainsaw, they'll hear bone splinters and more wet splashes. The enemies for the most part, are pretty direct in their attacks; they shuffle towards the player and lazily strike at them. The exception to this rule is a monster which can vomit acid in the player's face; when this happens, the camera is completely obscured by a puddle of yellow fluid, which the player clears by making wiping motions with their hands.
On the evidence of the demo I played, Rise of Nightmares isn't smart and it isn't deep, but players shouldn't hold that against it. This is a game which is designed to provoke laughs and revulsion in equal measure. It may not convince anyone to sign up for a Kinect unit, but those players who already own a hands-free interface may find themselves seduced by its gruesome delights. After all, how often do you get to use a pair of tongs to take a zombie's nose off?
• Sega; Xbox 360 with Kinect; release date: TBC
