Cursed Mountain Review

Written by: Steve Martin Posted: 17th September 2009

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Horror climbs onto the Wii.

Cursed Mountain Details:

	Survival/Horror
	Nintendo Wii
	Sproing
	Deep Silver

16+

Out Now

Shock, horror! A horror game that's not set in a haunted house or abandoned village! With Cursed Mountain Sproing has reached for the skies, literally! Having brought the horror genre to the desolate landscape of the Himalayan mountain range, with ghosts, Buddhist monks and lots of spirituality! So is this top-of-the-world entertainment or about as much fun as frostbite? Well, unfortunately this bold attempt will not be replacing Resident Evil and the likes on the thriller throne, however I would like to applaud their effort at trying to juxtapose a familiar game genre to an unusual and challenging environment. They have managed to capture the isolation of being alone climbing your way into the clouds, and by the clever use of fixed camera angles allow you to experience the vertigo and disorientation of your dizzying ascent.

You assume the role of Eric Simmons, a veteran mountaineer who learns that his younger brother, Frank, has been sent on an expedition to recover an artifact located on the Chomolonzo Mountain known as “the Sacred One” to the locals. However he has not been heard from in sometime, so you mount a single-man rescue mission. Frank, in my humble opinion, deserves to be left to his fate, as he has ignored the sacred teachings of the locals and angered the spirits of the mountain causing a curse to befall the mountain community. The locations are now devoid of life, but rife with ghosts and demons, which you must vanquish using your magical ice-axe. The story is quite engaging, and is fleshed out by some well-presented static cut-scenes and some solid voice-acting. It is obviously heavily influenced by Buddhist and Tibetan folklore, which you will learn about from the books scattered around the game world. The problem is that the whole thing is infuriatingly slow, with periods of monotonous walking (made even worse by Eric’s snail-paced walking speed, even making him run he still seems to be in no rush) there is also some back-tracking which you must undertake and then there is the combat with the spirits stuck in limbo (or Bardo in the game). Combat is a little repetitive but a necessary evil, your ice-axe can be used to shoot projectiles, however this locks Eric in place allowing him only to rotate making the task of taking down more than two enemies pretty hard work. There is also a standard melee attack, but this tends to be a bit erratic, inaccurate and therefore ineffective. Once you have weakened a ghost, you can perform the “Compassion ritual” which requires you to swing the nunchuck or remote as shown by on-screen diagrams to banish the ghost once and for all. Performing this allows you to regain some health, so get used to doing it a lot! It would be forgivable if it wasn’t so over used, but the angry Goddess seems to delight in throwing waves of low level baddies at you, there’s more ghosts in this game then there is in the Ghostbusters game!

The locations in game are quite eerie in their empty states and there are some wonderful views within the game, but the graphics engine still seems to struggle with animation especially the characters such as Eric or the spirits he encounters. I did find it occasionally difficult to figure out where I was supposed to be going! The locations are not that large so getting lost is not really a major problem and straying off the beaten track allows you to find the books and diary entries dotted around and it’s worth keeping an eye out for the prophecy writings as these increase your health bar. Also, for a horror game, there just aren’t enough scares! Apart from one or two jumps I found it a relatively tranquil trek up the mountain, this maybe due to the overuse of the apparitions, making them about as scary as a sack of kittens by the end of the game. The soundtrack seems some what amiss in creating an atmosphere. It rarely makes you feel uneasy or uncomfortable, although the wind effects do help to immerse you in your solitary surroundings.

For someone looking for a decent adventure game, they could do a lot worse than this, but I found it to be an uphill struggle thanks to the lack of horror, slow pacing and over emphasis on combating evil spirits even the boss battles fail to mix things up enough in my opinion. Kudos for trying something different and I especially liked the more spiritual story elements and the isolated atmosphere and setting, but Eric seems to be in no rush to save his brother (I don’t blame him to be honest, Frank seems to be a bit of an arse!) and although this gives you time to appreciate your surroundings, it frustrates the gamer in me who wants to push on and see what’s going to happen next!