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Product Description
Amazon.com
Rise of Nightmares is a single player Survival-Horror game exclusive to Xbox 360 that brings truly mature gameplay to the console's Kinect Sensor* accessory for the first time. Utilizing the Kinect Sensor's unique motion capture technology, the game allows for completely controller-free gameplay in a spine-tingling game environment filled with fearful anticipation, terror and of course, zombies. Additional features of the game include: a gripping storyline, dozens of melee and bladed weapons.
The Survival-Horror genre truly comes to the Kinect Sensor.
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Survive a nightmare that engulfs an unsuspecting couple.
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Experience Josh's Nightmares Through the Kinect Sensor
Rise of Nightmares is a true first - an unabashedly mature experience for Xbox 360 using the Kinect Sensor. Players take on the role of the well-meaning, but flawed hero, Josh. Intent on saving his faltering marriage to wife Kate, he sets off on what is intended as a romantic rail trip through Eastern Europe only see her kidnapped by a grotesque henchman. Not exactly the happy ending that was intended, he pursues but finds himself at the mercy of his target, a mad and morbidly creative scientist named Viktor, who is backed by various minions, including an army of zombie-like creations. Your goal is to survive one hellish night as you fight hand-to-hand against your enemies using the hands-free controls of Microsoft Kinect and attempt to find and free Kate.
Movement and Weapons
To survive Josh's nightmare you will need to utilize the Kinect Sensor to explore the game environments and discover the weapons needed to combat enemies. The game features dozens of diverse weapons of both the melee and slashing variety. These include everything from the standard fare of knives, axes, chainsaws and your bare hands and feet, to more gory contraptions that will rip your foes limb from limb if wielded correctly. Movement throughout the game is controllerless via the motion control capacity of the Kinect sensor, which recreates your every move whether that be running, backpedaling, side steps, balancing moves, jumps and more. The Kinect Sensor also allows for precision attacks, including punches, kicks, and blocks, as well as hacks and slashes with weapons that are also picked up using the Kinect Sensor. Adding to your horrific challenge, certain enemies may require attacks using specific weapons or combinations of weapons, and weapons are also degradable - meaning that they have a limited shelf life and must be used wisely.
The Kinect Sensor
The Kinect sensor allows you can experience gaming like never before. Easy to use and fun for everyone, the Kinect sensor utilizes revolutionary full-body tracking to put you in the center of the fun. This amazing new technology allows the sensor to recognize your body and mirror your movements in the game, making you the controller. The sensor is compatible with every Xbox 360, features a color VGA motion camera (640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS), a depth camera (640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS) and an array of 4 microphones supporting single speaker voice recognition.
Key Game Features
- The Horror/Survival Genre Comes to Kinect - An unashamedly mature title in a sea of family-friendly offerings on Kinect for the first time, Rise of Nightmares takes you into a cinematic world of horrific blood and violence.
- Unique Motion Controls - Punch, run, back pedal, kick, climb, balance, pick up items, and wield weapons as you use your whole body to fight the undead horde with physical brutality.
- Melee and Slashing Weapons - Rise of Nightmares contains dozens of melee and slashing weapons that degrade over time, meaning you have to use them or lose them.
- Explore and Investigate - Navigate through Viktor's castle with free movement control, uncover the secrets held within and delve deeper into his the mind of a madman.
- Deep and Varied Gameplay - Master the different fighting styles and various weapons, stealthy sneaking and puzzle-solving. Will you fall into the mansion's traps or lure the undead into one of your own?
- A Complete Experience - A full, cinematic gaming experience set in a twisted and astonishing world that grips you from the very start.
Additional Screenshots
 Controller-free controls. View larger. |  Melee and bladed weapons. View larger. |  Frightening zombie creations. View larger. |  Explore and puzzle-solve. View larger. |
* Kinect Sensor sold separately and required for play.
Product Description
An unashamedly mature title in a sea of family-friendly offerings on Kinect for the first time, Rise of Nightmares takes you into a cinematic world of horrific blood and violence.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
95 of 101 people found the following review helpful
By Deeperdarker
Fun:
5.0 out of 5 stars
As an early Kinect adopter, I had high hopes for it... motion gaming, deeply immersive gameplay... up till now there hasn't been a game that really sucks you in and makes you feel like you are in the game like "Rise of Nightmares"... I found myself flinching, cowering, and being genuinely creeped out by what I was experiencing... brushing leeches from your arms, frantically pushing zombies back before they kill you, beating them to a pulp with a wide array of weapons, all with your body, not a controller... after an hour or so I had to take a break, both mentally and physically... it is a deeply immersive, heart-pounding game!
Is it perfect? No... is it for kids? NO!!! Is it the ground-breaking Kinect title you have been hoping for? YES!
Is it perfect? No... is it for kids? NO!!! Is it the ground-breaking Kinect title you have been hoping for? YES!
48 of 53 people found the following review helpful
By M. Myers
Amazon Verified Purchase
Fun:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I have been following this game for a year now. The idea of a mature Kinect game with off-rails controls intrigued me heavily. Also knowing that the team behind the House of the Dead series was working on it made things even more optimistic.
The graphics aren't bad, the blood and gore look really good, easily the best looking Kinect game available. The fun is in the immersion the game gives you, however, not the graphics. Even though it is essentially a light-gun game with melee weapons (and you are the lightgun), it actually adds in a pretty hefty story. That story may me convoluted and nonsensical at times, but I was surprised that there was actually something there. The way the game pulls you in is where everything clicks. You actually experience the fear and horror, and while it's not going to have you running for your blankie, there are plenty of creepy moments that will get you jumping.
The meat of the game is moving around various areas searching for your missing wife after she is kidnapped. The thing is, zombies are now everywhere and it's up to you and tons of weapons to take them out for good. Things like lead-pipes, knives, machetes, even garden shears are used to end zombies in the most gruesome ways possible. The combat itself works pretty well. Pretend you are holding a knife and slash or stab the way you would if you were really holding one and the game responds pleasantly and usually pretty accurate. Want to open a door? Simply push it open like you would a real door, or kick it open for dramatic effect. Is there a lever that needs to be activated? Make a "pull lever" motion with your hand and your character will do it. Zombie in your face?...just kick it away and then slice it up. All the actions you have to coordinate may seem overwhelming at first, but they all make sense without the game even having to tell you what to do.
On that note, there is a learning curve for the controls and the game will keep you very active. Remember, this game is optionally off-rails, meaning you move your character with your body. Simply put one foot forward and your character will walk, take a step back and he will walk backwards (you can also just raise your left hand at most places and have your character auto walk to the next point of interest), you turn by moving your shoulders left or right. It really does take some getting used to, but once you get it down, it turns into a blast to play.
Rise of Nightmares is very much an experiment to see what they could really do with Kinect and that experiment mostly shines. Walking and moving can become a hassle at certain points (like moving and combat against multiple enemies), but it's something that won't drag on the overall experience too heavily. I am sure a sequel with multiplayer and more to do after the main single-player experience would greatly increase the replay and fun. As it stands, SEGA once again proves that they are the king of 'lightgun' style games. Nightmares is a solid 10-12 hour game if you don't do a whole lot of exploring and just go to finish the game as quick as possible, other than that, there isn't much in terms of replay value.
The graphics aren't bad, the blood and gore look really good, easily the best looking Kinect game available. The fun is in the immersion the game gives you, however, not the graphics. Even though it is essentially a light-gun game with melee weapons (and you are the lightgun), it actually adds in a pretty hefty story. That story may me convoluted and nonsensical at times, but I was surprised that there was actually something there. The way the game pulls you in is where everything clicks. You actually experience the fear and horror, and while it's not going to have you running for your blankie, there are plenty of creepy moments that will get you jumping.
The meat of the game is moving around various areas searching for your missing wife after she is kidnapped. The thing is, zombies are now everywhere and it's up to you and tons of weapons to take them out for good. Things like lead-pipes, knives, machetes, even garden shears are used to end zombies in the most gruesome ways possible. The combat itself works pretty well. Pretend you are holding a knife and slash or stab the way you would if you were really holding one and the game responds pleasantly and usually pretty accurate. Want to open a door? Simply push it open like you would a real door, or kick it open for dramatic effect. Is there a lever that needs to be activated? Make a "pull lever" motion with your hand and your character will do it. Zombie in your face?...just kick it away and then slice it up. All the actions you have to coordinate may seem overwhelming at first, but they all make sense without the game even having to tell you what to do.
On that note, there is a learning curve for the controls and the game will keep you very active. Remember, this game is optionally off-rails, meaning you move your character with your body. Simply put one foot forward and your character will walk, take a step back and he will walk backwards (you can also just raise your left hand at most places and have your character auto walk to the next point of interest), you turn by moving your shoulders left or right. It really does take some getting used to, but once you get it down, it turns into a blast to play.
Rise of Nightmares is very much an experiment to see what they could really do with Kinect and that experiment mostly shines. Walking and moving can become a hassle at certain points (like moving and combat against multiple enemies), but it's something that won't drag on the overall experience too heavily. I am sure a sequel with multiplayer and more to do after the main single-player experience would greatly increase the replay and fun. As it stands, SEGA once again proves that they are the king of 'lightgun' style games. Nightmares is a solid 10-12 hour game if you don't do a whole lot of exploring and just go to finish the game as quick as possible, other than that, there isn't much in terms of replay value.
28 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Fun:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Motion gaming has been a subject of hot debate in the gaming industry as of late. Traditional gamers prefer a more hands-on approach with controllers, while more casual gamers shout praise for the advent of easy-to-play experiences utilizing motion controls. Game studios have attempted to gear more motion-based games to traditional gamers in order to not lose their money, which has produced varying results. Leave it to the original development team behind the main "House of the Dead" entries, a series that defined arcade shooters, to show how to do hands-free gaming right. "Rise of Nightmares" is brutal, tense, but most importantly, it's fun.
The game kicks off with alcoholic protagonist Josh in a train while vacationing with his wife. When a flask falls from his jacket, she gets disgusted and storms out of the train car. But when he pursues her to the dining car, he sees her following a strange man to another part of the train. Next thing he knows, the train is crashing, and sent plummeting into a lake. He desperately runs to escape the sinking vessel, finding dry land and regrouping with survivors of the wreck. But just when he thinks it's safe, his party wanders through a corpse-filled forest into a bizarre castle filled with disgusting torture devices and violent undead hoards. With everybody around him dying in the most horrendous of ways, he must keep his wits about him and find his wife by any means necessary. Even if those means involve digging through the guts of a human corpse or decapitating a murderous maid by prying her neck with forceps. Which they totally do.
While the story does take some interesting turns, adding in three very wicked antagonists and a deepening mystery surrounding the castle, the real joys of this game are the scares that wait around every corner. As a longtime survival horror game enthusiast, I more than most would've scoffed at the idea of the genre working so well without a controller. Those scoffs would have been mistaken impressions, however, because this is one of the most downright enjoyable and scary games in that genre that I have experienced in a very long time. Newer "survival horror" games such as "Dead Space" feel like shooters with scares piled on them, and old favorites like "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill" have often picked action over terror entirely. With "Rise of Nightmares", I felt truly intimidated and panicked as my weapons broke and I was forced to pound away at the faces of zombies with my bare hands, until I could pick up whatever was available to kill them.
And killing is something that this game doesn't take lightly. And by "doesn't take lightly", I mean it makes every weapon you use more fun than they should be. You mimic the motions of every weapon, stabbing with knives, hurling scalpels, closing hedge trimmers, hacking with axes and pushing into foes with a chainsaw. These deaths are actually more brutal than they sound, believe it or not. Sega AM1 knows a little something about gore, and they've truly topped themselves this time. Unrealistic amounts of plasma gush from every enemy, their limbs coming across as nothing more than detachable sacks of red goo. This, coupled with the multitude of death traps that they can be lured (or forced) into, makes for an sickeningly entertaining good time.
While on the topic of sickening violence, it should be pointed out that not only the enemies are subject to these types of gruesome deathes. You will get offed several times by varying traps, and you will watch other captives of the antagonists be slaughtered in increasingly horrendous ways. It's not uncustomary for this game to get you acquainted with a character, only to force you into watching as they get brutally dismembered or disemboweled only moments later. But it's not only the physical violence that's grotesque; the environment succeeds at balancing the perfect air of suspenseful and disgusting. Strategically-placed hanging corpses, loose limbs and sliced-open torsos keep you looking around on high alert, lest what did those victims in comes for you as well. It's a bloody terrifying experience, one that wouldn't be out of place back in the good old days of DreamCast and PS2 J-Horror games.
Those are the types of games that "Rise of Nightmares" is like both in terms of content and plot. The story slowly evolves, or devolves depending on how you look at it, into a bizarre series of nonsensical imagery and concepts. Dialogue takes a turn for the unintentionally funny, and sometimes is simply a concoction of unabashed strangeness. Around the game's halfway point is where AM1's love of convoluted plots, shown in the later HOTD entries, comes out full force. Running through people's dreams, robotic transformations and shooting energy blasts from your bare hands all end up passing as normal occurrences in this game, whether or not it ever makes a lot of sense. It's these types of bizarre, confusing yet intriguing stories that some of my personal favorite survival horror games, like "Rule of Rose" or "D2", consist of, and thus I respect the gung-ho relentlessness that the writers scripted this game with.
An equal amount of respect goes towards crafting the solid controls that the experience is built around. Surviving through what the castle throws at you without a controller is a unique experience, and one that may be the most divisive in the game. The player places one foot forward to walk, using their shoulders to turn and using a single hand to interact with any object in the environment. When the time comes to fight, the player puts up their dukes and assumes a sort of modified boxer's stance. Depending on what weapon a player has, their experience will differ. That experience will shift quite often, because as mentioned above, each weapon has a breaking or depletion point. Typically, an escape route or alternative combat solution isn't too far, though. And with the huge arsenal of weapons (I lost count at how many I picked up during my playthrough), you'll never get bored tearing through enemies.
While all of this works perfectly fine, it could have definitely used some fine-tuning. There were more instances than I care to admit that Josh had a slight turn to his walk that I was not displaying, and picking up the wrong item and having to wait through a sequence of him picking it up only to drop it again happens way too often. The irritating process of cancelling an item pick-up is troubling in a survival horror game, especially one where enemies surround the player frequently. I would've liked to see AM1 give more effort in smoothing over some of the finickiness the Kinect-exclusive controls display.
I would've also liked to see some more zest put into Josh's traversing of the castle. This may just be me, but it's not believable that he would be moving so slowly in such a dangerous situation. Moving slightly faster in the game requires a larger step forward, which ultimately ends up feeling awkward and not worth the pain of standing in a wide stance for so long. So, for the most part, you're stuck going through occasionally expansive corridors with absolutely no way to speed up your movements. It doesn't help that some portions of the castle are incredibly dull to look at and in no way build up any type of suspense. While this may be a bit of a turn-off to some, I found it to be a mild annoyance at best.
The only thing that genuinely annoyed me about this game was the aforementioned inaccuracy of the controls, and the sometimes sloppy lock-on system. Generally, in combat, the player automatically locks onto their enemy and begins whaling at them with their current weapon. But there were times when the lock-on did, in fact, not work at all, and as a result, I was desperately flailing in an attempt to kill my assailant and be done with that particular portion. The lock-on itself is problematic at times, though, because it prevents you from even slightly. While it's understandable that AM1 did this, due to the fact your shoulders shift quite often in combat, it doesn't help when you're being attack by three enemies at once and you can't beat them off. It displays all the control pitfalls of an older survival horror game, really, just updated for a new method of play.
Despite these issues, "Rise of Nightmares" comes off with a serious recommendation from me. While finicky controls hinder it from true greatness, this is nonetheless a very unique and entertaining title from the guys who know hands-on zombie combat better than most. AM1 has crafted a viable reason for traditional gamers to pay attention to the Kinect, and paved a path which more developers are sure to soon tread. It's one of my favorite games this year, in the face of it's questionable control scheme, and will certainly provide many memories for a while to come.
Story: B+
Gameplay: B-
Graphics: B
Sound: B-
Overall: B- (Flawed But Fun)
The game kicks off with alcoholic protagonist Josh in a train while vacationing with his wife. When a flask falls from his jacket, she gets disgusted and storms out of the train car. But when he pursues her to the dining car, he sees her following a strange man to another part of the train. Next thing he knows, the train is crashing, and sent plummeting into a lake. He desperately runs to escape the sinking vessel, finding dry land and regrouping with survivors of the wreck. But just when he thinks it's safe, his party wanders through a corpse-filled forest into a bizarre castle filled with disgusting torture devices and violent undead hoards. With everybody around him dying in the most horrendous of ways, he must keep his wits about him and find his wife by any means necessary. Even if those means involve digging through the guts of a human corpse or decapitating a murderous maid by prying her neck with forceps. Which they totally do.
While the story does take some interesting turns, adding in three very wicked antagonists and a deepening mystery surrounding the castle, the real joys of this game are the scares that wait around every corner. As a longtime survival horror game enthusiast, I more than most would've scoffed at the idea of the genre working so well without a controller. Those scoffs would have been mistaken impressions, however, because this is one of the most downright enjoyable and scary games in that genre that I have experienced in a very long time. Newer "survival horror" games such as "Dead Space" feel like shooters with scares piled on them, and old favorites like "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill" have often picked action over terror entirely. With "Rise of Nightmares", I felt truly intimidated and panicked as my weapons broke and I was forced to pound away at the faces of zombies with my bare hands, until I could pick up whatever was available to kill them.
And killing is something that this game doesn't take lightly. And by "doesn't take lightly", I mean it makes every weapon you use more fun than they should be. You mimic the motions of every weapon, stabbing with knives, hurling scalpels, closing hedge trimmers, hacking with axes and pushing into foes with a chainsaw. These deaths are actually more brutal than they sound, believe it or not. Sega AM1 knows a little something about gore, and they've truly topped themselves this time. Unrealistic amounts of plasma gush from every enemy, their limbs coming across as nothing more than detachable sacks of red goo. This, coupled with the multitude of death traps that they can be lured (or forced) into, makes for an sickeningly entertaining good time.
While on the topic of sickening violence, it should be pointed out that not only the enemies are subject to these types of gruesome deathes. You will get offed several times by varying traps, and you will watch other captives of the antagonists be slaughtered in increasingly horrendous ways. It's not uncustomary for this game to get you acquainted with a character, only to force you into watching as they get brutally dismembered or disemboweled only moments later. But it's not only the physical violence that's grotesque; the environment succeeds at balancing the perfect air of suspenseful and disgusting. Strategically-placed hanging corpses, loose limbs and sliced-open torsos keep you looking around on high alert, lest what did those victims in comes for you as well. It's a bloody terrifying experience, one that wouldn't be out of place back in the good old days of DreamCast and PS2 J-Horror games.
Those are the types of games that "Rise of Nightmares" is like both in terms of content and plot. The story slowly evolves, or devolves depending on how you look at it, into a bizarre series of nonsensical imagery and concepts. Dialogue takes a turn for the unintentionally funny, and sometimes is simply a concoction of unabashed strangeness. Around the game's halfway point is where AM1's love of convoluted plots, shown in the later HOTD entries, comes out full force. Running through people's dreams, robotic transformations and shooting energy blasts from your bare hands all end up passing as normal occurrences in this game, whether or not it ever makes a lot of sense. It's these types of bizarre, confusing yet intriguing stories that some of my personal favorite survival horror games, like "Rule of Rose" or "D2", consist of, and thus I respect the gung-ho relentlessness that the writers scripted this game with.
An equal amount of respect goes towards crafting the solid controls that the experience is built around. Surviving through what the castle throws at you without a controller is a unique experience, and one that may be the most divisive in the game. The player places one foot forward to walk, using their shoulders to turn and using a single hand to interact with any object in the environment. When the time comes to fight, the player puts up their dukes and assumes a sort of modified boxer's stance. Depending on what weapon a player has, their experience will differ. That experience will shift quite often, because as mentioned above, each weapon has a breaking or depletion point. Typically, an escape route or alternative combat solution isn't too far, though. And with the huge arsenal of weapons (I lost count at how many I picked up during my playthrough), you'll never get bored tearing through enemies.
While all of this works perfectly fine, it could have definitely used some fine-tuning. There were more instances than I care to admit that Josh had a slight turn to his walk that I was not displaying, and picking up the wrong item and having to wait through a sequence of him picking it up only to drop it again happens way too often. The irritating process of cancelling an item pick-up is troubling in a survival horror game, especially one where enemies surround the player frequently. I would've liked to see AM1 give more effort in smoothing over some of the finickiness the Kinect-exclusive controls display.
I would've also liked to see some more zest put into Josh's traversing of the castle. This may just be me, but it's not believable that he would be moving so slowly in such a dangerous situation. Moving slightly faster in the game requires a larger step forward, which ultimately ends up feeling awkward and not worth the pain of standing in a wide stance for so long. So, for the most part, you're stuck going through occasionally expansive corridors with absolutely no way to speed up your movements. It doesn't help that some portions of the castle are incredibly dull to look at and in no way build up any type of suspense. While this may be a bit of a turn-off to some, I found it to be a mild annoyance at best.
The only thing that genuinely annoyed me about this game was the aforementioned inaccuracy of the controls, and the sometimes sloppy lock-on system. Generally, in combat, the player automatically locks onto their enemy and begins whaling at them with their current weapon. But there were times when the lock-on did, in fact, not work at all, and as a result, I was desperately flailing in an attempt to kill my assailant and be done with that particular portion. The lock-on itself is problematic at times, though, because it prevents you from even slightly. While it's understandable that AM1 did this, due to the fact your shoulders shift quite often in combat, it doesn't help when you're being attack by three enemies at once and you can't beat them off. It displays all the control pitfalls of an older survival horror game, really, just updated for a new method of play.
Despite these issues, "Rise of Nightmares" comes off with a serious recommendation from me. While finicky controls hinder it from true greatness, this is nonetheless a very unique and entertaining title from the guys who know hands-on zombie combat better than most. AM1 has crafted a viable reason for traditional gamers to pay attention to the Kinect, and paved a path which more developers are sure to soon tread. It's one of my favorite games this year, in the face of it's questionable control scheme, and will certainly provide many memories for a while to come.
Story: B+
Gameplay: B-
Graphics: B
Sound: B-
Overall: B- (Flawed But Fun)
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
great
I ordered this for my sister for Christmas and she loved it..Shipping was ok i recieved my package in about a week and a half but it was still before Christmas and thats the only... Read more
Published 16 days ago by kristina
1.0 out of 5 stars
boo
terrible game, hard to menuever, very repetitive, a lot of characters seem copied from silent hill. I got tired of playing it after about 30 minutes
Published 24 days ago by joe
3.0 out of 5 stars
Eh...
The idea of this game is absolutely awesome, yet when you play it yourself it's more like "What..." The controls for the game are a little whacky, and pretty much a lot of the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by aneesa syed
4.0 out of 5 stars
Decent
This is one of my favorite games, but I was expecting a little more based on the other reviews. It's definitely a fun game. Read more
Published 1 month ago by justjane77
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good exercise
I lost 20lb fighting zombies and having fun, when I first got the tape it took a while to figure out how to destroy the zombies without giving myself a heart attack with the effort... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Beverly Smith
2.0 out of 5 stars
It's not what I expected
My daughter and I have both played and we can't get past the 1st 10 minutes of the game. We keep falling in the water. Boo! Read more
Published 2 months ago by J. SIMMONS
4.0 out of 5 stars
Puzzle
An entertaining game. It is a like a puzzle that has to be solved. There are some slow times with no action.
Published 3 months ago by Tammy
5.0 out of 5 stars
very fun
had a great time watching the kid kill zombies by using her body with the kinect! great arm work out as you slash zombies!!
Published 3 months ago by hummm
5.0 out of 5 stars
This game is amazing and allows your body to get exercise..
When we have guest over they think the xbox 360/kinect is pretty cool.. Until we put this game in. Everyone starts asking if it is their turn next. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Lisa Gibson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Frighteningly outstanding
By far the best Kinect game I've experienced - truly great non-stop horror, art and action. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a game this much - absolutely addicted.
Published 3 months ago by Jason
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