Nightmare Creatures

Developer - Kalisto
Publisher - Activision
Players - 1
Extras - Memory Card, Analog

The bit on the box

"Scientist Adam Crowley has created a hellish brood of monsters - now London has become their feeding-ground. Fight against this horrific legion as either Ignatius or Nadia in this 3D combat-exploration - possibly the most terrifying game ever!"

Graphics

Nightmare Creatures appears to be set in ye olde England in the 1830s, and the graphics do a wonderful job perveying this. Cobbled walkways lead the player past old buildings, shops, and carts and give a real feel of gothic terror, and weather effects are used to enhance this feeling with some stages suffering torrential downpour or snowfall. The actual graphics engine reminds me of a combination of Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, but uses a floating camera with no platform elements. Everything is alot faster than those two titles however, and the characters are alot bigger with the enemies being somewhat more grotesque than any I have seen in a game yet. There doesn't appear to be any noticable slowdown although the dark moody effect is no doubt used to make a shorter horizon (but it works well here causing a terrifying claustrophobic effect). Animation looks ok, but moves a bit fast to tell how many frames they have actually used.

Sounds

As with Resident Evil, Nightmare Creature's sound effects go a long way to making the game as scary as it is. Creatures can be heard approaching (sometimes well before you see them coming, making you spin about desparately trying to gauge where it is coming from) and other noises (creaks, rainfall etc) help the environment seem more real. The in-game music is alright but I really didn't find myself listening to it much with such great eariee sound effects, so whether it has any influence on the atmosphere i'm not really sure. It is not modern music though, which is good because that would have ruined the entire 1830s feel, which really is a key element to the game.

Gameplay

My main suggestion for people playing this game for the first time, put it on EASY mode straight away. This game can be extremely difficult in later levels, and even easy mode gives the player a great challenge. The opening menu interface is simple enough, giving only a few options to choose from, one of which is Analog control (though digital is just as good in this game). There are a choice of two characters, the priest being slower but stronger, the girl being faster. Otherwise though, there is not much difference between the two, and no difference in the game itself (unlike the Resident Evil games in which the story would change for each character). The levels are mission based but otherwise how you accomplish getting to that point is up to you (though it's all pretty much fight, kill, cack yourself when something jumps out, then do it all again until you succeed). The actual story is fairly weak with the only cut scenes being the intro and the ending, which is a shame in such a technically sound game. Also we have yet another of these virtual cameras that fly about trying to give you the best view of the action, but sometimes putting you right in it when you can't see the enemies that are assaulting you, causing you to swipe blindly to save yourself.

I feel a verdict coming on

Some people will be put off by the difficulty level in this game (I didn't like the idea of having a time limit for each stage), and this game is definitely not suitable for younger gamers (they will get nightmares themselves for sure!). What is there for the limited audience that the game is aimed at then? A good action-oriented title that will give a hard challenge and some genuinely scary moments (I jumped a number of times when something burst out from behind some crates or a door, something that most horror movies can't make me do anymore). I found it to have more scares than Resident Evil but the story wasn't as good, and can someone PLEASE make one of these games where the camera doesn't go insane when you back up against the wall? I'd rather have the wall go transparent (like in Die Hard Trilogy) than have the camera go on a side-on view where you can't see what's coming in front of you. Nightmare Creatures is far from perfect, but for horror fans it is excellent.

Review by D.R.T.Barrett