Review: Cursed Mountain

Developer: Sproing/Deep Silver

Publisher: Deep Silver

A criminally overlooked gem of a game on the Wii. You, Eric Simmons, start off at the bottom of a snowcapped mountain in the Himalayas, and you have come here in search of your missing brother, Frank Simmons. He ascended the mountain and has not been seen or heard from since. You set off from your base of Lhando (a deserted city) at the base of Chomolonzo, a sacred mountain which the sherpas refuse to climb. You’ve vowed to bring back your brother dead or alive….

The first person you meet is Thod-pa, who takes you through the customary tutorial bit of the game, which is done very well and doesn’t feel patronising at all. Thod-pa is the last remaining Monk on Chomolonzo, the rest have fled the city in fear of the curse that has started since Frank disappeared. Thod-Pa will also instruct you in the game’s equivalent of medi-packs; dotted around the game are shrines where you can burn incense sticks to regain health. Incense? Yes, I said incense.

Control wise this game is the usual set up of Nunchuk and WiiMote. Every button is utilised, the most interesting of these is the C button on the nunchuk. As you explore the mountain, forever venturing upwards, you will encounter restless spirits which you must dispatch. Hitting the C button allows you to look into the Bardo, the Tibetan equivalent of limbo, which lets you can see and attack these spirits but only for a limited time. You can just use a melee attack by pressing the B trigger but this isn’t as effective.

Once you’ve attacked the spirit and weakened it enough a series of motion sensitive controls will appear. You have to complete these to banish the spirits, this is called a compassion ritual. It’s an interesting game technique and works extremely well. Your other main choice is whether you run up the mountain and disturb more spirits or walk up the mountain slowly and only fight who you need to.

It can be quite frustrating if you are attacked from both sides, as you can’t complete a compassion ritual if you get hit. Still, this just adds to the tension. When you come across flying spirits a bit further on in the game you will have to press C, then aim and use the B trigger to fire projectiles at them to get them to come to ground. The controls seem complicated but they are extemely intuitive and you won’t have any problems. If you do die the game has the checkpoint system, however if you die before saving you might go a bit further back. Although, I found the game was split into manageable chunks.

Storywise the game progresses well through the medium of flashbacks and voiceovers. With surprisingly good voice acting, credit is due to the Deep Silver and Sproing crew for this. While there are only a few characters in the game they all have their part to play and there are enough bizarre twists in the tale to keep you thinking what the heck is going on.

Graphically this is impressive, apart from the occassional invisible barrier and a massive amount of fog on some stages. After conferring and Googling I can confirm that it is quite foggy up there at the top of the World. The effect when entering into the bardo is great and really does feel like you are looking into a secret underworld that’s all around you.

Throughout your adventure you will pick up different weapons, which all handle differently. Some are heavier to swing but more powerful; let’s just say it’s nice to see some realism in weapon usage. These weapons are upgraded as you find more journals and items of evidence that support the backstory. Some will enable you to pin down spirits whilst others simply increase the power of the weapon.

This is strict one player territory. You’re on your own, with a supporting cast of NPCs: you’ve got Edward Alexander Bennet, who organised this ill-fated expedition; Jomo Menmo, a female sherpa who conducts ritauls at the most haunted places on the mountain; plus of course your friendly guide Thod-Pa and a few others but I’ll leave those as a surprise. I think if they had made this two player the atmosphere would of gone downhill (or mountain?) a lot. This is a game for playing early or when you can’t sleep when no-one else is around.

Overall it’s a nice twist on the survival horror genre. It doesn’t have my pet hate Resident Evil controls, left and right to turn. It doesn’t have zombies and it doesn’t have guns. For a change this is a very good thing, the atmosphere is great, the graphics are great and the controls are well thought out. It’s also well supported by an excellent back-story. An excellent choice, get your climbing boots on and get up that mountain.