Video Game Review: ‘Cursed Mountain’ Brings Survival Horror to the Wii

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CHICAGO – The Nintendo Wii has never really been a system designed for atmosphere. It’s a party console, a machine built around social experiences that usually involve making fun of how silly your relative looks waving a controller around the room like he’s actually holding a tennis racket. “Cursed Mountain” attempts to work within those constraints to make something fresh and new, which is admirable, but it only half-succeeds.

Of course, there have been a few adult, horror, shooter games for the Wii, most notably a brilliant port of “Resident Evil 4” that’s basically a must-own for anyone with the system. But the reason that game worked so wonderfully was not due to the chills created by its atmosphere. That game thrived thanks to its action component and that’s where “Cursed Mountain” goes a bit wrong. Despite some effective elements that show promise for the survival horror genre on the system, it ultimately falls victim to the weaknesses of its console.

Cursed Mountain
Photo credit: Deep Silver

“Cursed Mountain” takes place in the late 1980s in the Himalayan Mountains. The player takes on the role of Eric Simmons, a climber trying to find his recently vanished brother. Through abandoned, mountain-side villages and ancient monasteries, you climb the steep face of the Chomolonzo, trying to solve the mystery as well as survive.

Cursed Mountain Photo credit: Deep Silver

Anyone who’s ever read a Jon Krakauer book or seen the great “Touching the Void” can tell you that mountain climbing can lead to the fine line between delusion and reality. As the air gets thinner, it becomes harder to make the right decision, which is actually a fantastic idea for a setting for a survival horror game and the location is one of the parts of “Cursed Mountain” that works best.

As you hang onto the roof of the world, the physical fear is matched only by the sensation that your character may be losing his mind and one has to give credit to the developers for avoiding gore and zombies - the staples of the genre. The enemies in “Cursed Mountain” are ghosts, spirits of monks, hikers, and villagers who have died on the very peaks you’re trying to climb. Of course, the greatest enemy is mother nature is herself as Eric tries to climb peaks that possibly weren’t meant to be climbed.

“Cursed Mountain” isn’t even a traditional shooter. Your only weapon is a magical pick-axe (a phrase I never thought I’d write) that eventually becomes upgraded to the point that it can shoot projectiles. It may sound like not much of a difference from a traditional shooter, but there’s something refreshing about the fact that Eric isn’t carrying a shotgun and land-mines up the mountain like he would be in a traditional title.

Cursed Mountain Photo credit: Deep Silver

The most significant problem with “Cursed Mountain” comes with pacing. For large chunks of “Cursed Mountain,” the player walks around abandoned villages or up the mountain side and there’s something about the Wii that makes lulls in action that much less enjoyable. Sitting back with a PS3 or XBox 360 controller and exploring a well-designed environment isn’t nearly as frustrating as doing it two-handed with a Wii-Mote and a Nunchuk. The pace of the game can be deadly slow, crossing over from atmosphere-producing to boredom-inducing.

As much as the setting, enemies, and weapon choice defy expectations for the survival horror genre, there are still frustrating cliches in “Cursed Mountain”. Walking around villages smashing clay pots trying to find keys, I couldn’t help feel like I was playing an old-school horror title and not something new and fresh. If the game was working with a graphical engine better than the Wii, the settings could overcome the pacing issues, but that’s just not the case with the Wii, where control and graphic issues are too common to battle a slowly paced game.

Cursed Mountain Photo credit: Deep Silver

There’s something about the design of the Wii control system that makes breaks in the action harder to handle, and it doesn’t help that major portions of “Cursed Mountain” involve dark, foggy, snow-covered mountains where it would be hard to see no matter the console or the controller. “Cursed Mountain” can be incredibly frustrating from a control/graphics standpoint and too often reminds the player of the graphical limitations of the machine you’re playing on and how you’re much more bored than frightened.

Having said that, there are moments in “Cursed Mountain” that truly work and I like to support any title trying something new on a system (and within a genre) that can sometimes be very predictable. When you finish a climb and look back over the heights you’ve ascended, it’s impressive. I wish the game were more honestly scary and more quickly paced but, for a console that doesn’t support survival horror all that often, it’s refreshing to see a developer try and stretch the expectations and reach new heights, even if they do stumble a few times along the way.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com