Review

Developed by:Renegade Kid Published by:Gamecock Media Group Genre(s):
  • Survival Horror
  • Platform:
  • Handhelds
  • Cost:$29.99 ESRB Rating:MATURE Players:1 Release date:October 25, 2007 Reviewed on:DS
    6.8

    Dementium: The Ward

    For all who don’t know, Gamecock Media Group is a publishing company that is all about helping developers by allowing them creative freedom and the ability to keep their original intellectual properties, and  I have got to be one of their biggest fans. Being former developers themselves, the founders (Mike Wilson, Rick Stults, and Harry Miller) understand what it’s like to create a great video game only to have the publisher take it as their own. Gamecock is their answer to this problem, offering their services as a publisher but without making developers sign over the rights to their titles. This is why I am such a big fan and support their endeavors. One such endeavor is Dementium: The Ward, developed by Renegade Kid for the Nintendo DS. A first-person shooter/survival horror game filled eerie music, decent AI and interesting puzzles, Dementium: The Ward, is a welcome addition the DS’s library.

    You begin the game as a patient in Redmoor Hospital, awakened by the sound of sirens. It seems that monsters have overrun the hospital, everyone has either fled in fear or have been killed, and to make matters worse you have amnesia. You will make your way out of the room and down the hallway towards the exit. Of course the exit is blocked, forcing you to head deeper into the abandoned hospital in search of another way out. I opted to hide under the bed. After about an hour I felt a little silly so I crawled out of my hiding place and turned my DS back on.

    The first thing I noticed when I started Dementium was how well detailed the environments were. Redmoor looks like a real hospital…well, if hospitals had blood all over their walls. Renegade Kid, using texture mapping and a distinct color pallet, did a good job creating a truly frightening place to wander through. Added to the realism is the use of light. Apparently Redmoor has lost power, making the whole place extremely dark. Of course this wouldn’t be a scary game if it didn’t occur at night with a thunderstorm raging outside. With every flash of lighting, the halls of Redmoor are lit up for brief seconds illuminating the area around you. Between lighting flashes, the only way to navigate is by using a flashlight found early on in the game. It’s very reminiscent of Doom 3, using a small cone of light to illuminate small areas at a time. Again, this adds to realism and creates a since of gloom that never really goes away. Another neat feature is the inclusion of cut scenes. When one of these cinematics are triggered, the graphics ramp up as the story progresses.

    I’m happy to say that Dementium’s controls are also executed well. The default is to use the stylus with your right hand to look around, aim, open doors, and select your weapons, while the left hand is for moving and shooting; the D-pad and the L button respectively. The touch screen is set up with a heart monitor, showcasing your status. This is the area where you place the stylus to look around. Above the monitor are three buttons: one for a notepad, action icons, and the map. The notepad is used to write down clues to help solve puzzles. The action icons change depending on your current situation. Walk up to a door and the action icon will ask you if you want to open it; find a note and it will ask you if you want to examine it. The map button is pretty straightforward, pressing it opens up a map to the current section of the hospital. Below the heart monitor are more buttons; one for items and one for options, as well as boxes showing the weapons you’ve acquired during your trek through the hospital. The  stylus must be used to  select these items. Altogether, the controls are fine. It’s easy to see how you are doing health wise as the heart monitor will change its color and heart rate when you become injured, going from green (good) to red (bad). Selecting weapons is quick and easy. I never had a problem switching between them during a fight. Really, if you’ve played Metriod Prime Hunters then you will be ok here.

    There is plenty to like in Dementium: The Ward’s gameplay. The monster AI is decent, with each creature having different behaviors. The Chest Maws, the blind and disfigured enemies seen the most through out the hospital, act like fast moving zombies. They just wander around and moan until they sense your presence. Then they run at you, trying their best to take your head off. One of them even burst through a door, throwing wood splinters everywhere and scaring the crap out of me! The puzzles are implemented well, requiring use of the notepad in order to solve them (think Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass). None of the puzzles require a college degree to solve and yet they aren’t pushovers either. There are a lot of details in the environments. There was even a sign on one patients door that read: “Diagnosis: Video Game Thumb, Treatment: Ice Pack”. The sound quality in Dementium is impressive. There voice-overs and ghostly music rival those found on video games for larger consoles. One element that really stands out in the sound department is your heartbeat. If you have full health, you will hear the constant “ba-bump, ba-bump” of your heartbeat. Once your health starts to get low the heartbeat will quicken, letting you know that you should start seeking health bottles. It’s very reminiscent of the Tell-Tale Heart. Renegade Kid has provided everything needed to create an intriguing, graphically pleasant, horror title for the DS.

    Of course Dementium is not without its faults. While there was not a whole lot to fuss about, the problems Dementium does have could scare even the most die-hard survival horror fans away. One problem area has to be in the placement of checkpoints…there aren’t any. Dementium is broken up into 16 chapters and although the early ones are rather sort, the later ones can take a while to complete. With no checkpoints to save your progress, if you die you are sent back to the beginning of the current chapter. I can’t tell you how mad I was when I finally solved a difficult puzzle and made it to the end of a chapter, only to be killed by a boss and sent back to the beginning. To add insult to injury, every time you enter a new room, the word “saving” pops up at the bottom of the top screen. You may ask, “Why does it say saving if, when you die, you go back to the beginning anyway?” Good question. In all fairness, you can opt to quit in the middle of a game and continue right where you saw the last “saving” screen. Also, when replaying a chapter, it goes by pretty quickly. I just like to get back to the part where I died without reencountering all the puzzles and monsters. Oh, and did I mention that sometimes a boss fight occurs in the middle of a chapter? You can guess what happened when I died after FINALLY killing a certain machinegun-toting boss. Another problem area for me was the story itself. It never really explained what or who is behind the craziness at Redmoor Hospital. Just when I thought I got a handle on what was going on, the game ended. Being that the story is told mostly through letters spread thinly through the hospital over a course of sixteen chapters, I felt a little cheated by the ending. I did all that work and at the end…well, I am still wondering if it was worth it. It seems like the developers at Renegade were planning a sequel for Dementium and wanted to end with a cliffhanger. I am just not sure it worked for this particular game. You don’t even learn who the characters are or why there are monsters roaming the hospital.

    Bottom Line

    I am glad I played Dementium: The Ward for the DS. I had an ok time and even got scared a little (I had to be the one to wear earphones and play in the dark). I am not sure if I would spend any more time at the Redmoor Hospital as there are too many questions left unanswered by the story and the absence of checkpoints made playing frustrating at times. Also, there was a weird glitch where, around chapter thirteen, that caused me to go back in time. One minute I am on the first floor of the hospital completing chapter thirteen, and the next minute I walked through a door somehow warped to the forth floor, back in chapter eleven. I even had to battle a former boss all over again. Luckily it didn’t save; when I died I started chapter thirteen over and not eleven. Dementium: The Ward is a good start for Renegade Kid as it’s worth buying. I hope that if they make a sequel, that they will fix the aforementioned problems before releasing it.

    Gameplay:

    6

    The controls are implemented well and, at times, Dementium: The Ward is a pretty scary game. The incomprehensive story and lack of checkpoints hurt the gameplay though.

    Graphics:

    9

    For a DS game the level of detail is superb.

    Sound:

    10

    The sound quality is great at making the player fell uneasy (I recommend playing while wearing headphones).

    What's New:

    7

    Dementium is one of the first true survival horror games that’s also a FPS for the DS (Touch the Dead is an on-rails shooter).

    Replay Value:

    2

    The bad story elements and lack of checkpoints really hurts Dementium’s replay value.

    Final Score:

    6.8

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