Dementium: The Ward (DS) Review
The horror genre was a dying genre in the world of video gaming, especially last year, where there was little released comparitively to other years. It seems though, that with 2008 that the horror genre seems to be making a massive comeback. With Alone in the Dark, Alan Wake, Dead Space and Silent Hill 5 all hopefully being released this year, we mustn’t forget the handheld systems either. Recently with the release of Silent Hill Origins on PSP, Climax Studios proved that a handheld title can be scary. Does Dementium have the same effect on DS owners? Almost.
Dementium puts players in the role of an unnamed protagonist who awakens to find himself alone in what seems to be a hospital. Not any ordinary hospital either, this hospital is dangerous, derelict and covered in splatters. Screams can be heard from almost every empty dark corridor and time is frozen everywhere but inside. Sounds generic doesn’t it? Well, to be quite honest, Dementium’s story is incredibly generic. It’s built from all the staples and conventions you would expect to find in a horror game. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s pretty safe to say that you will be able to work it out after playing through the first couple of chapters. You’ve gotta hand it to Renegade Kid though, the game’s developers, they did a might fine job for their first game.
Dementium is an incredibly nice looking game. The game itself runs at a very fluid and smooth 60fps and boasts some interesting graphics. The textures in the game are pretty well done, at least for a DS game, and the atmosphere is spot on. Dementium’s graphics, although not groundbreaking, provide a suitable and sufficient method to immerse the player into the world Renegade Kid has created. It is very evident however, that the quality of the graphics had to take a hike in order to guarantee the smoother frame rate, and although this may put some players off – it doesn’t quite detriment the gameplay as much as you think. Something that is very notable is the lighting in this game. Although there is no forms of lighting such as light bulbs and fluros, there is a flashlight given to the player at the start of the game. This flashlight essentially lights up whichever area you point it at, casting shadows away from the player if they point it at a static object – a very impressive feat for lighting on the Nintendo DS.
The biggest impressive feat of Dementium technically is the way the game combines graphics and sound to immerse the player in the world Renegade Kid has created. The very melancholic music that is implemented in the game keeps the player depressed and makes them feel they really are in a bad dream, wanting to just wake up and escape the frightening hospital. Lighting is practically non existant outside of the player’s flashlight, though occasionally in a windowed room, lightning striking will light up the room. This naturally leads to a few frightful encounters with the games enemies, of which will be tension filled due to your character’s inability to use a flashlight and weapon at the same time. That’s right – this game inherited the infamous Doom 3 syndrome, and unfortunately there’s no masking tape patch to apply to Dementium. It does do it’s job in heightening the tension though.
Dementium plays exceptionally well. The developers have stated that they modelled the controls on Metroid Prime Hunters, though they feel much more fluid and simplified. All aiming is done with the touch screen itself, while movement is mapped to the directional pad and the shoulder buttons fire. The touchscreen can also be used to select weapons, peruse recently acquired notes, view the map and change monitors. Using the stylus to aim is no chore and feels great to use. The game is essentially an ode to those Survival Horror fans who enjoy games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, with multiple brain challenging puzzles to keep the player questioning things like WHY the puzzles are there in the first place as well as the pay offs for skipping these puzzles. One very notable complaint about the puzzles is that some of them require very esoteric knowledge when playing, such as the keys of a piano. Another complaint with the gameplay is that although it’s linear, it’s very easy for players to miss out on acquiring firearms or certain weapons, as most are contained in optional rooms. All in all though, the game does provide a moderate length experience with a healthy amount of chapters with the odd boss battle thrown in between.
Dementium doesn’t come without it’s let downs though. The first is the repetitive nature of the game itself. Being set in a hospital, and ONLY a hospital, the game doesn’t really come across as being diverse. Every patient’s room looks the same, every bathroom looks the same, heck the little outdoor environments included look the same too. The enemies are also very limited in numbers – there’s not alot of them and most of them have different forms that look exactly the same. Example: Red Zombie eventually becomes Green Zombie who spits acid. Then we have Red Worm, which progressively becomes Green Worm who spits acid. There simply isn’t ALOT of variety with the enemies. The game even recycles boss battles too! It’s just all a tad to repetitive for this reviewers liking. Secondly, the save system in this game is terrible. Whenever you die in Dementium, you must restart the chapter. There’s no other way (legitimately) that I know of. There’s no checkpoints in each chapter, though you can save the game, but then you must suspend play (similar to a Quicksave in Final Fantasy III on the DS too). Reloading the suspended play and dying means you have to start from the beginning as the save game made is erased upon loading. So essentially, you can either save during a chapter and LOAD IT UP ONLY ONCE, or save at the beginning of every chapter and be returned to that beginning should death occur.
Renegade Kid have stated in several interviews that they planned to add in a multiplayer mode over Wi-Fi to keep gamers coming back for more. When the game release though, it was no where to be found. Unfortunately, although Renegade Kid DID cancel the multiplayer mode in order to focus more on the storyline, the game’s replay value essentially got cut down to an even smaller proportion. The problem comes in the fact that there is simply nothing to do with Dementium once you’ve finished it – that’s it, it’s over.
Criticisms aside though, Renegade Kid have done an excellent job with Dementium: The Ward. They’ve managed to meld gameplay, sound and visuals to create a very deep and brooding environment that should give a fright to the couple of people willing to play this game in the dark with only headphones. Nothing else would do this game justice. This reviewer eagerly awaits Renegade Kid’s next title, or even the horror titles that Dementium may inspire others to produce.
