Just posting some preliminary thoughts up, been playing this a fair bit this evening, though not enough to make a real conclusion.
Anyway, this is really good. You begin by setting up the camera, and here is where the main flaw of the game becomes apparent, and it's actually a limitation of the hardware rather than the game - the light has to be on in your room for the camera to actually operate. Dunno about you, but I play survival horror games in the dark. That said, it's not as big a problem as it sounds - you are not sat there constantly using the camera, after all. Just be relatively close to the light switch in order to turn the page every 15 minutes or so.
The horror element is where the game really shines. It employs all the horror techniques that you will be used to in the best Asian horror films (and indeed, previous Project Zero games), but the fact that you are in control of the sight means that you do not see it coming. Movement appears to be largely on-rails, the game making use of the gyroscopic features of the 3DS to allow you to look around as you're moving - this is actually really nice, it's like being in a movie but having 360 degree control over what you're looking at.
I won't put any real spoilers up, but there's this one scene where a glass shatters on the floor behind you. You instinctively turn around (as in, in real life, turning your body around, and 3DS with you) to see what happened behind you. Nothing appears to be there, but you hear a from somewhere else. Do the maths.
There's a scene where you can hear a voice coming from somewhere - I was frantically looking around trying to see where it was coming from, before feeling like a tit because I was actually looking around my real-life, pitch black room. Fantastic stuff.
The freakiest stuff is when the spirits start appearing in your own room, the 3DS camera filming your room and manipulating everything. It's cracking stuff.
Don't expect the gameplay to move the genre forward, much of this is on rails in fact (abeit, with 360 degree control over everything you're seeing), but if you're disappointed with where the survival horror genre is heading, and don't exactly think grabbing a shotgun to blow up a non-physical enemy is an appealing idea, turn off the lights and give this a go.
Anyway, this is really good. You begin by setting up the camera, and here is where the main flaw of the game becomes apparent, and it's actually a limitation of the hardware rather than the game - the light has to be on in your room for the camera to actually operate. Dunno about you, but I play survival horror games in the dark. That said, it's not as big a problem as it sounds - you are not sat there constantly using the camera, after all. Just be relatively close to the light switch in order to turn the page every 15 minutes or so.
The horror element is where the game really shines. It employs all the horror techniques that you will be used to in the best Asian horror films (and indeed, previous Project Zero games), but the fact that you are in control of the sight means that you do not see it coming. Movement appears to be largely on-rails, the game making use of the gyroscopic features of the 3DS to allow you to look around as you're moving - this is actually really nice, it's like being in a movie but having 360 degree control over what you're looking at.
I won't put any real spoilers up, but there's this one scene where a glass shatters on the floor behind you. You instinctively turn around (as in, in real life, turning your body around, and 3DS with you) to see what happened behind you. Nothing appears to be there, but you hear a from somewhere else. Do the maths.
There's a scene where you can hear a voice coming from somewhere - I was frantically looking around trying to see where it was coming from, before feeling like a tit because I was actually looking around my real-life, pitch black room. Fantastic stuff.
The freakiest stuff is when the spirits start appearing in your own room, the 3DS camera filming your room and manipulating everything. It's cracking stuff.
Don't expect the gameplay to move the genre forward, much of this is on rails in fact (abeit, with 360 degree control over everything you're seeing), but if you're disappointed with where the survival horror genre is heading, and don't exactly think grabbing a shotgun to blow up a non-physical enemy is an appealing idea, turn off the lights and give this a go.
that short promo horror film i posted in the headlines hread with the 3 girls playing it really creeped me out. Japanese horror has that effect on me, all i have to hear is that high pitched whine & im stright back in Ju-on (shudder)
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