Calling (Wii) Preview
Posted by Ramon Aranda on 03.03.2010
Looking for a few good scares? Then Calling might fill that void if the full game can match the intensity of the hands-on demo.
You may not want to take this call...
Hudson, known for popular games like the Bomberman franchise, Bonk, Adventure Island and Deca Sports has always been known for its jubilant games that cater to a wide demographic but over the past year and a half, the company is looking to change things up and one of the games that aims to show off the company's new direction is Calling for the Nintendo Wii.
The game is a T-rated Japanese horror game that we had the opportunity to get a first look at during E3 last year. Recently we were sent over a demo disk to go hands-on with the game ourselves and though the experience is very short and sweet, we do get enough of a glimpse of what's to come to me excited.
The demo opens up with a hit counter that increases over a matter of seconds, followed up with a chat room within a website called The Black Page where we see various people typing away about rumors of the undead and what not. Apparently the counter keeps track of how many people die after seeing "something" on the site. Not exactly a good thing for visitors, as you can imagine. The folks inside the chat room talk about an occult magazine called "Samsara" that made mention of this website which ultimately brought them there. We then hear and see a handful of cell phones ringing before getting a glimpse of a young woman picking it up. As she answers the phone, we see an image of a rather spooky looking girl ala The Grudge standing right behind her…truly unsettling stuff.
After the initial opening, we get some text about a teacher whose husband passed away recently. This is no husband though as we've learned he became obsessed with dolls after the death of his daughter 10 years ago.
Getting that setup out of the way, we now awaken in our bed as we take the role of Shin Suzutani who gets up in a bit of daze as he doesn't know how he got there. From here we learn some control basics as we use the Wii remote to look around while pressing ‘A' allows us to manipulate the cursor to either take hold of something, examine it etc. Then the lights went out. Hell the room was creepy enough on its own but now we're unsettled. A cell phone rings and Shin answers it...I hold the Wii remote up to my ear as it doubles as the phone – the speaker being used to hear the phone. A freaky voice tells us something that is hard to hear but that seems to be the point. The door then unlocks. At this point, I leave the room and walk down a frightingly dark hallway before a ghost appears out of nowhere to scare the bejeezus out of me. I wave the Wii remote side to side and then hit the ‘A' button as instructed on the screen to shake it off. I see a heart rate meter on the top left which will tell me how freaked out I am. If I get too scared, I die…I can be scared to death; literally. I then find a flash light in the next room which allows me to see in the dark. There's what appears to be a closet with double doors. I head over to see what's inside but not before picking up one of those dolls that the teacher's husband was collecting. Like in various survival horror games such as Resident Evil, I get a chance to examine it and move it around on a 360 –degree plane. After looking it over, I head over to the closet and am able to see that there are more dolls on a shelf. Suddenly I notice something on the ground. It's a woman passed out. Or is she dead? I don't know but before I get the opportunity to investigate further the aforementioned dolls spook the hell out of me by peaking through the door and looking at me!
I run away like a frightened little girl and am surprised by another ghost. Dammit!! I shake him off as my heart rate is climbing like the U.S. deficit and make it back to my room. As my worries slowly disappear, a crazy little girl comes out of nowhere (a ghost seemingly) and looks to strangle the life out of me as Mr. Shin screams for high heaven…and the demo ends!
Was it fun? Yeah. Did it scare the shit out of me? Yep. So despite the demo being short as I mentioned before, there was enough action going on that I'm anxious to see how the rest of the story unfolds. Graphically I think the game could do a little better but with this just being a demo disc, I'm hoping we'll see an improvement in the final retail version. The controls seemed fine to me; about what I'd expect and the sound made for some uneasy feelings. We're told that we'll take the reins of various characters in the game from different perspectives and with the game releasing on March 9, the scares continue very soon!
The demo opens up with a hit counter that increases over a matter of seconds, followed up with a chat room within a website called The Black Page where we see various people typing away about rumors of the undead and what not. Apparently the counter keeps track of how many people die after seeing "something" on the site. Not exactly a good thing for visitors, as you can imagine. The folks inside the chat room talk about an occult magazine called "Samsara" that made mention of this website which ultimately brought them there. We then hear and see a handful of cell phones ringing before getting a glimpse of a young woman picking it up. As she answers the phone, we see an image of a rather spooky looking girl ala The Grudge standing right behind her…truly unsettling stuff.
I run away like a frightened little girl and am surprised by another ghost. Dammit!! I shake him off as my heart rate is climbing like the U.S. deficit and make it back to my room. As my worries slowly disappear, a crazy little girl comes out of nowhere (a ghost seemingly) and looks to strangle the life out of me as Mr. Shin screams for high heaven…and the demo ends!
