Ju-On / The Grudge: The Game Preview

Kyoufu Taikan: Ju-On, or perhaps Feel Terror: Ju-On or maybe just The Grudge - The Videogame. Either way, it's a combination of hyphons and colons, along with some words, that portrays the idea that a game of Takashi Shimizu's works (with him overseeing the title) is in the pipeline for the Nintendo Wii.



As can be seen from the screenshots, the game is all about the J-Horror of long haired pale scary women that has become a stable of the genre. The setup for the story and game itself isn't exactly original (those who enjoyed Fatal Frame / Project Zero or nearly any other horror game of the last decade, will feel right at home), with a trip around a scary mansion being the order of the day (or night). You as the player, will switch between different members of a family to explore and uncover all manners of mysteries horrors and scares.

So that is the setting, the gameplay that goes along with all this "terror" falls into the category of, you guessed it, the horror flavour of the month, an on rails shooter. Ok with one exception in that you dont actually do any shooting and are instead armed with....a proton pack?....NO.......a camera?....you wish, no instead you wield a mighty torch!

You move around the mansion, going forward with a press of the "B" button, but can go back with a press of the down arrow, shining your torch about with the wii-mote pointer, exploring all nooks and crannies with a click of the "A" button, all the while scary shenanigans jump out from behind doors, running along ceilings and all the other things that you come to assosciate with this sort of thing.



Although this may sound more like an interactive movie than a full blown game, the title is not without some nice touches and novel gameplay Ideas. The audio is a strongpoint and adds bucketloads of tension to the mix. The characteristic sounds of the films cross over well and are as distinct and disturbing as ever. Added to this will be numerous false leads of things crashing around in the dark.

The game also offers a checkpoint system that tries to judge how afraid you were during the previous chapter by seeing how much you were shaking the controller whilst playing. A multiplayer option sees player two watch player one go through on a run, then triggering scares when they choose to try and terrify their co-op partner.

Ultimately, this will be a quite shallow game that tries to imitate the feeling of the films more than trying to carve a deep horror experience. So expect frights rather than fights, with the terror being left to your own devices.



[Above, Some Screenshots from a Japanese Games Mag. (sorry don't know which one)]



The game will be released for the Wii later this month in Japan (30th July) to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the horror series (along with 2 new films), with an expected American release in October 

Publisher: AQ Interactive / XSeed
Developer: Feel Plus
Origin Japan

More more information on the title can be found here

[Sources IGN for one of the screenshots, Edge magazine and some Japanese Games mag too]