A Trip Into Some Snowy Hell
Cursed Mountain is a survival horror title that didn’t get a whole lot of press. Released for the Wii and PC, Cursed Mountain follows protagonist Daniel on his trek through the Himalayas in the 1980s to find his brother, who went missing on a climb of treacherous means. Cursed Mountain isn’t by any means what we’d call a great survival horror game, but it takes a unique premise and couples it some rather interesting gameplay mechanics.
Half the time I was controlling Daniel, I was wondering why on earth he moved at such a slow clip. Much like Fatal Frame, Cursed Mountain urges the player to avoid jogging so ghosts aren’t alerted. The early scenes do a great job of depicting tension, and the setting is certainly a welcome one compared to the cramped mansions, hospitals, and other stock settings of most horror games.
Where Cursed Mountain fails is when it starts implementing combat. Combat is one part aiming your mystical pickaxe, no joke there by the way, and adding gestures as per most lazy Wii developers. Now, if there was some compelling reason as to why you need to blast things with your scyred pickaxe I wouldn’t be docking it. However, what has the potential to be a sleeper hit turns into a bargain basement horror game while completely saying fuck you to the setting and ideas.
How can you fucking see in this game?
The sound design is wonderful to a fault, I found myself loathing Daniel’s voice actor and moaning aloud when your monk mentor instructs you on how to swipe at things to use them. Daniel sounds like an effeminate Malcolm McDowell, the odd accent and lisp doing absolutely no favors to make me feel immersed in the game.
I feel about the same towards Daniel, truth be told.
Now, the ordinary gamer will be slightly annoyed by the visual filter that saturates everything when you attempt to defend yourself. As depicted in the screenies, it’s this nasty black stuff that just swarms all over the place. The first time was pretty cool, added a little bit to the overall feel, but then I found myself having to do it constantly.
I was instantly reminded of Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves of course, and the nasty look Hell had in that film. Playing this game is a bit like watching Constantine, great concept with a shitty execution.
Another five dollars I’ll never see again.
Now, while I can at least excuse Keanu for the simple reason that he’s a pretty cool guy, Cursed Mountain doesn’t get the same excuse. It’s a great concept, sure, but the oversaturated visual effects, uninspired gameplay mechanics, and creepily voiced main character just kill whatever great things I felt about this game going in.
Within ten minutes of fighting my first enemy, I went from going, “Hey, this is pretty cool so far,” to “Why can’t dying just end this?” Developers take note, a good horror game doesn’t need to rely on combat, just take a look at Amnesia or Penumbra. Both stellar games, both really fucking scary, and you don’t have a singular weapon on you the entire time. Both are going to be looked at quite extensively in the coming weeks by yours truly, and hopefully I can will myself to play for more than a half hour at a clip.
Am I shooting this in the dick?
I won’t lament things though, I only spent five bucks on this turgid piece of shit. So, really, you get what you pay for.
As a parting note, take a look at a little gameplay from Amnesia by Frictional Games.
0 comments:
Post a Comment