Kinect is making some attempts to try to shake its child-centric reputation with some slightly more grown-up games. None are more adult-focussed than Sega’s Rise of Nightmares, a survival horror game with an interesting control scheme and some gory action sequences.

Survival Horror is a genre which depends entirely upon the player’s immersion in the atmosphere of the game. You have to be immovably ensconced in the narrative for the jump scares and psychological terror to have any meaningful effect. Unfortunately, for Rise of Nightmares, that kind of immersion is impossible to achieve when you’re constantly being reminded to step back into the camera’s view.

[drop]Not only is it difficult to maintain the believability of the setting when you’re trying to be a good Kinect user, the admittedly imaginative control scheme doesn’t quite get it right either. This leads to many instances of the shuffling zombie undead appearing to be a tad more coordinated than Josh, the heroic protagonist.

You put one foot forward to walk and then twist your shoulders left or right to turn in that direction. When it works, it’s actually quite intuitive but it often ends in embarrassingly bouncing off walls, hastily contorting your body to readjust for over-enthusiastic spinning and much pausing to assess your predicament and get your bearings. It’s a shame that this most basic element of the controls is so awkward because the combat controls often feel brilliantly natural and hugely satisfying. Swinging arms to slice enemy’s limbs asunder, sidestepping attacks and throwing forward a foot to kick in a door is oddly entertaining. Unfortunately, there’s another corridor on the other side of that door and you’re going to look like a right idiot shuffling along it, bouncing from wall to wall. It’s the walking that defeats you, more often than the zombies.

The lack of immersion would be a real issue if it wasn’t for the fact that this game world isn’t really one you’d care to be immersed in. It’s generic in a way that almost calls for a redefinition of the term. Every character feels like you’ve seen them a thousand times before and they never do anything other than conform perfectly to the one dimensional stereotypes that you expect. Whether it’s the selfish businessman or the raver youth, you’ve seen these characters before, ten years ago and in every poorly written game (or movie) since. It’s a slovenly approach to writing that makes it feel like they thought the gimmick of motion control would be enough.

[drop2]The game has ten acts to play through but each of them feels roughly similar to the last. By the time you’re halfway through, you’ll likely be bored and exhausted from all that arm-swinging.

You might feel the desire to push on, slaying the endless minions of the mad scientist who has kidnapped your spouse. There are certainly a lot to wade through. I think it’s far more likely that you will come to a point in the game where you decide you’re too tired to keep swinging. You’ll likely switch it off with every intention of returning to wring out your money’s worth from it later but you’ll never find the motivation to return.

Rise of Nightmares is a game which tries so hard to be for adults but, in reality, it feels juvenile. The control scheme is so basic and simplified, perhaps through necessity, that it feels like it was made to be so simple a small child could play it. There are very few penalties for the numerous wall collisions, for example. The writing and characterisation is  so poor and underdeveloped that it feels like a bad children’s television show. But it is markedly not for children. With a mature rating (18 in the UK) and all that gore, you’d be a bad parent to let your kids play this. Possibly more so because if they’re going to be exposed to this mature content, there are a hundred better options.

Pros:

• It feels good during combat.
• It shows that there is potential for freedom of movement in Kinect games.

Cons:

• It makes the protagonist walk like a drunk.
• Terrible writing kills all empathy.
• Too much of the same thing becomes boring and tiring.

Rise of Nightmares really tries hard to be something new and mature and interesting. It almost gets it right and has moments of real pleasure in the combat system. Unfortunately, the player is defeated by their inability to walk in a straight line more often than by the hordes of generic, lookalike zombies. It’s possibly worth twenty minutes to see what the future of Kinect could be, if you’ve got a good imagination. Not worth the price of admission though, unless you’re a huge zombie fan that doesn’t like walking like a fully functioning adult human.

Score: 3/10