To fans of the first person shooter genre, a mature FPS on the Nintendo DS is its own ring of hell. An eternity (or maybe just a plane ride) of navigating with a compact d-pad and using a stylus to kill enemies with the portable's trademark "plastic earswab" can be a bit difficult. It's enough to cramp your hands just reading about it.
That 2010 will see Renegade Kid release their third DS FPS, Dementium II, is something like adding a fresh sheen of ice over hell.
With a "how'd they do that" FPS engine and two moderately succesful releases -- Dementium and Moon -- Renegade Kid carved a niche for themselves in a place no one else has really bothered carving. (The DS's first-person Metroid own this turf, but had an astronomically higher budget, so that's like comparing a Volkswagon to a Porsche. (Though running with the metaphor, Renegade Kid's VW handles much better than Nintendo's Boxster.))
Running on its predecessor's tweaked engine, Dementium II hopes to recapture fans with a fully re-imagined catalogue of monsters, dynamic sound and outdoor environments; the latter seen in the developer's most recent DS FPS Moon, one of this year's most impressive handheld achievements.
Experience on Moon along with a familiar engine appears to have benefited Renegade Kid's time to focus on creating a refined mood, a necessary component of the horror genre. After all, what is a spook story without an air of spookiness? The time's certainly been put to proper use, as Dementium II's early playable stage shows richer environments and better mood than some of its first party competitors. Russian inmates howl from; prison cells; blood seeps over ceramic walls; lights flicker down hallways. Despite some grainy textures and funky polygons, or perhaps because of it, the game is spooky in a surreal manner. It's all pretty impressive for the handy work of a squad of designers working from their homes.
But the guts of the game, spilled guts, is the stuff of mature video games, and while the original Dementium did well (Shaun, the game's PR man, puts it at over 100K sold), Nintendo's recent track record for M-rated games shows a number of stumbles.
Shaun is unable to give an estimate of expected number of units pushed, but he has high hopes (then again, that's his job). With an engine already in place, a modest sized satellite team and a flash-paced six month development cycle, Dementium II appears to have less overhead (and a better shot at showing a profit.) Potentially, that means less to worry about out of the gate. Oh, and having a solid game doesn't hurt.
But Shaun doesn't let me get to caught up with then number, pointing me back to the portable's dual-screens.
On the screen, my bloated cellmate chants psychobables at the ceiling - only a few inches from his spot atop a skeleton bunkbed. "It's Russian," says Shaun. He could tell I mistook it for something more demonic. I pull the headphones back form my ear, two hefty Senheisser cans, but my demoer is adamant I keep them on. "For the dynamic sound system."
I go back into the world, navigating halls of ghouls and gore. I grab a knife, then later a pistol. I notice the aiming reticule has been tweaked and is much easier to control. Then I notice I'm low on health. Increasingly eerie music (dynamic sound!) should have been my cue.
A couple enemies corner me in a tight doctor's office, so I book it to a nearby door and out into...a snowy courtyard. The world's white and pristine and striking. And quiet. It's an "oh wow" moment for a DS FPS.
Dementium II may offer hell on the DS, but the looks are (forgive me, Father) heavenly.
