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You'll find quite a few games in the horror genre to play which can be quite scary on consoles, from the Silent Hill's to the Resident Evil's, their is plenty to choose from, but finding a horror game on the Nintendo DS is a different story. For any fan of the particular genre and owner of the DS, the only game that sticks out as being a true horror is Dementium: The Ward which came out in 2007. It was a game praised for its use of the handheld for fitting into a category that is usually kept to the home consoles.
Renegade Kid, the creators behind the original Dementium have rode on the success of the original and shown the sequel Dementium II recently at GamesCon. Having listened to fans concerns and criticisms of the previous title, one such being the unforgiving save system that forced players to restart the level when they were killed, Renegade Kid have taken these issues into account and made the game more forgiving for newer players. You'll now find save points mounted on walls which are easily identifiable thus make the game much easier.
Among some of the negative feedback the original received, one most important one was the repetitive levels. The developers have now added more variety to the environments within Dementium II. Where the first game started you off in a hospital, the sequel sets you in a monster-infested asylum for insane people, you're not limited to this asylum either, you can head outside the asylum to a village covered in snow where no doubt you'll come across more creepy and more deadlier creatures, you can also enter into an alternate dimension, similar to how Silent Hill works where our dimension is normal and the alternate dimension is everything bad and horrific you could possibly think of.
Other improvements abound, you can now jump and crouch which is a huge bonus, also the extra screen on the DS has been utilized more efficiently, now giving you a new type of map which shows grids of rooms that you have visited and colour coded points of interest to show locked doors and other useful pieces of information. While the original was successful at drawing you into this nightmare world, Dementium II now includes dynamic music which sounds like it will add suspense to the area you're in, building up the music as you get closer to an enemy for instance. We are told as well that monsters will no longer respawn indefinitely which is a blessing.
Dementium II is being touted as the next big thing in horror games for the Nintendo DS, with more content, longer playtime and more variety, it could be set to be a really good game.
You can expect to see the game arrive sometime next year, roughly early 2010.
