How to make Rise of Nightmares a 10/10

Turning a shuffling Kinect exclusive into a terrifying zombie hit

I recently gave Rise of Nightmares three out of ten. Whenever I read a review that gives a game three out of ten, I tend to be suspicious. Three out of ten? Surely if a game was that bad, there'd have been a point in the development process when someone sent the email below.

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So, with a certain level of blind faith in the development process, my suspicious turns to the reviewer. Three out of ten? You must be showing off. You're courting controversy. The developers must have bullied you during a press trip. Perhaps your dog was hit by a bus advertising the game. Maybe you missed the button that made it fun.

I got no pleasure from giving a Kinect original such a low score. So, in the spirit of positivity and reconciliation, here's my plan to rocket Rise of Nightmares into a 10/10 game. Give us a million quid, someone.

LET'S SORT OUT MOVING FORWARDS, EVERYONE

Rise of Nightmare's system has you turning your shoulders to rotate, and putting a foot forwards to move. It's a simple system, but it doesn't really work. Moving your right foot forwards naturally turns your shoulders anti-clockwise. If you want to turn right, it's not particularly comfortable. If you move your legs to get comfortable, you can accidentally readjust your feet in a way that fools the game into thinking you want to go backwards.

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How about this: stand central to stay still. Stand forwards, backwards or sideways to move and strafe. Like Dance Dance Revolution mapped to the left thumbstick. If you can't find where the centre is, simply shout stop to stop dead. Turning can still be done with shoulders - but considering we're not in a full neck brace after a traumatic spinal injury, how about the Forza path - turning the head or leaning?

Change that, and I'll give you four out of ten. We're on the up.

IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE CRAP, FOR GOD'S SAKE, GO FOR IT

You'd think the makers of House of the Dead would have their fingers on the so-bad-it's-good pulse. You think they'd be jacked into the "bwaaaa, what?" Matrix. House of the Dead was a masterpiece of nonsensical Engrish trollolol. Rise of Nightmares is like... well, it's like one of the team went on a one-hour scriptwriting course, and suddenly started taking his job seriously. And whoever chose the actors hasn't watched any TV or movies, or seen people talking to each other in real life, ever.

Get Rise of Nightmares re-translated, and you're up to five out of ten. Replace the terrible, charmless actors, and we're sailing high about its metacritic score at six. Now we're getting somewhere.

BE AWARE OF HOW ADULT AND MATURE YOU ACTUALLY ARE

Rise of Nightmares' 18 certificate doesn't ring true, because it's a game the feels designed by a committee of toddlers. You ask them, "what is naughty?" And the boys scream "toilets!" and hold their noses. Then you ask them what is scary, and the girls shout "blood, blood!" and start screaming.

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Have a look at the helpful reference table to the right. If Rise of Nightmares could move out of the bottom-right box and into any of the others, we've reached seven out of ten.

INCREASE "IMMERSION" BY MAKING WHAT IS ON THE SCREEN RESEMBLE WHAT THE HELL IS ACTUALLY GOING ON

The zombies in Rise of Nightmares (you might not call them zombies, but don't get all Simon Pegg about it) are made from metal and meat. There's a bit of necromantic steampunk about them.

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Comments

2 comments so far...

  1. thewrongtrousers on 19 Sep '11 said:
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    Not that I ever had any intention of buying the game but...... interesting to see that your justification for the review score is longer than the actual review itself. Why not just include some more information in the original review? That minor whinge over it raises a very interesting point though, should game reviews be more personal. I like the idea of reviewers giving greater personal justifications for the scores they give than they currently do. The majority of reviews are only one person giving one opinion yet are written in the third person suggesting this is how a 'generic' everyone will think. At the end of the day it is a subjective process and should be shown as such. Why not explain why 'YOU' reached that opinion rather than suggesting a collective opinion? As an example I looked at OXM GoW2 review where apparently the only thing that the reviewer could find wrong with the game was some of the story arcs not being resolved. Fine if that's their view, for me and a lot of people this would be a plus not a minus (I'm not and never have been a GoW fanboy, suggested by the reviewer as the only people that would appreciate this). As a case in point any good TV series will leave some story arcs unresolved so as to keep people intriuged for the following season, for me its the same with games.

    What I think I'm getting at before I waffle on too much is that personal opinions by the reviewers can help gamers decide if they will like the game or not. What the reviewer personally likes or dislikes about a game may be the exact opposite of what another gamer likes and will be much more informative.


    Saying that, there have been several games over the years that to this day I struggle to understand how they were given poorer or as is more often the case higher scores than .

  2. OXM Jonty on 21 Sep '11 said:
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    The review was quite short because it was created for the magazine, and so was constrained by the amount of space on the page. Obviously that's not an issue online, but we didn't have time to do an extended version (which we do sometimes do, where possible).

    I take your point, though - all reviews are ultimately opinion, and the more you know about the reviewer the more you're likely to know whether you'll agree with their judgement.