Nightmare Creatures

The Good
Nightmare Creatures wants very badly to knock the player's socks off by presenting traditional beat 'em up gameplay in a wonderfully atmospheric and gothic Victorian London setting. In this world, a wizard named Adam Crowley is using his occult tomes to summon forth terrifying abominations and cruel creatures to do his bidding, plunging London into terror. Stepping forward to fight Crowley's legions are Ignatius, a wizened monk with a giant staff, and Natasha, his nimble, sword-wielding protégé.

Kalisto did a fantastic job with the atmosphere, presenting 19th century London with all of the cobblestones, fog, and gothic architecture you would expect. The soundtrack, composed by Kalisto's rock-musician-in-residence Frédéric Motte, meshes with the stages beautifully. The graphics, while primitive by today's standards, looked awesome in 1997 and still retain a certain simplistic charm. You don't have to squint to figure out you're fighting a werewolf, and for many of these early 3D beat 'em ups, that's about the best you can ask.

The Bad
While the level design and soundtrack are spot-on, the nuts and bolts of the game itself have some flaws which keep it firmly in the mediocre category. Chief among these is the way almost every creature in the game is a gigantic damage sponge. Most games of this sort allow you to inflict gradual damage on enemies to wear them down through basic attacks, but Nightmare Creatures forces you to use its built-in combination system in order to dismember and decapitate your foes. This sounds like a great idea in theory, but in practice it leads to a slow learning curve of what works against each enemy type, and then using that move to pretty much the exclusion of all else each time you encounter one. The first few times you obliterate an enemy and see a blood-splattered orgy of flying limbs, it's awesome. By the time you've hacked up your twentieth zombie though, the gore has sort of run its course and you remember you're just pressing buttons.

It doesn't help that the controls are too loose for a beat 'em up either. It's easy to whiff shots that should have connected, and to get locked into an animation that unloads numerous misdirected attacks while the enemies maul you from every angle but the front. The built-in inventory system is also clunky and annoying to use, especially in the heat of combat. There's also no way to manually control the camera, which can lead to no end of annoyance in any 3D title, but especially to a game so wedded to the idea of moving and attacking a plethora of foes.

The Bottom Line
Nightmare Creatures is not for novice gamers. It demands a level of expertise and precision that exceeds its weight class. The gothic presentation, creepy creatures, and blood-drenched combat may hold your interest for a few stages, but it doesn't take long for the flickering polygons and dial-a-combo dismemberment system to haul the game back to earth. If you love all things horror, and don't mind putting up with some frustrating gameplay elements, then Nightmare Creatures was absolutely made for you. If your expectations run more along the lines of "Final Fight, but with werewolves!", you'll probably be undone by the game's imperfections by stage three. This is one of those 32-bit era titles where watching a longplay is more enjoyable than picking up the controller yourself.

The Good
The game is very eerie, yet with good sense of heroism, and horror. The story is steel. and the boss levels are greatly, entertaining, not to mention the items and weapons!

The Bad
the downsides of the game are not too severe, but still is a hassle. It is the controls are very jumbled up, making it hard to establish certain combos, such as that the C button strafe controls are not side by side rather Right is Right and Left is up! I Guess they wanted these controls close. When you have to tern and run around you can't just simply turn, you have to make a slow 180 degree turn, however this is all of the downside part.

The Bottom Line
The Game is scary at moments, but that is good, and has eerie music. the best part of the game is your character and his or hers moves. now on to the intro! London, 1800(s) The Brotherhood of Hecate has discovered mans most horrifying fears-and brought them into realty. The leader Adam Crowley effortlessly tried to make "Supermen" to take over the world! Yet two mysterious heroes have stepped in to the chaos to stop the evil spawns and man in grey, only these two heroes stand between the citizens of London and the Brotherhoods evil creations. this, is their story. NIGHTMARE CREATURES. As you can tell this is about monsters, about 13, and you got to fight them to get through levels. My Rating:7.3 Note: Have Fun killing!

The Good
'Nightmare Creatures' seemed like it was going to be an enticing video game that I could really sink my teeth into. The FMV sequences were a bit bizarre looking, which grabbed my attention. The game began and I couldn't have been more anxious to start this thing. I chose the female character, Nadia, to play with. From there on it just went all down hill.

The Bad
I felt that this game quickly became repetitive. It was fun slashing these zombie-like creatures for the first five minutes of the game, but after that it just became more of a chore. It became especially tedious when I learned that destroying the simplest enemy in this game took years. Seriously, I could swear I brawled with one of these undead things for at least five minutes before they just fell to the ground and didn't get up. On top of this, you die rather easily. So if you've been caught in the middle of a level with enemies everywhere then just know that it's over. And to top THAT off, the controls are very sluggish. It's either unresponsive or too responsive; at times I'll tap forward on the D-pad and the character won't do anything. Other times I'll slightly touch the Up button on the D-pad and the character will go sprinting. I stopped playing this game after one of the bosses. The camera is really crippled as well, which made fighting this boss one fuster-cluck. I didn't even bother to try playing this game with the male character. I was just so disappointed.

The Bottom Line
'Nightmare Creatures' definitely promises lots but never actually delivers. It's been awhile since I last played it, but I've really had absolutely no desire to since. I kept this game because I enjoy collecting video games, but this was one of the very few titles I considered getting rid of. Perhaps this just isn't my kind of game. Either way, it was fun while it lasted so I'd say it's worth a check-out if you've got the patience for it.