E3: Illbleed Impressions

[05.13.00] » Climax's virtual horror land has a long way to go.

   When Illbleed was first announced, it appeared that it would be a very fresh take on the survival horror genre (albeit a plot that has been seen elsewhere). However, unless the game undergoes quite a bit of revision between now and its Autumn Japanese release date, this fresh take may prove to be a rather boring one.

    The most notable feature in Illbleed is the sense meters that are at the top of the screen. As you play, your character's sense of sight, smell, hearing, and a paranormal sixth sense are all measured at the top of the screen. When you near danger, your senses start to go off, warning you. By pressing the R trigger, you then go into a first person viewpoint where you can seek out this danger and mark it so that you can avoid it when you physically approach it. While this is a good concept, it was poorly executed in the game. Often, danger wouldn't register unless you were actually looking at whatever may prove dangerous. This means that instead of merely walking down a hall, you need to slowly make your way down it, looking all around, making for quite a different gameplay feel than what was originally shown at the Tokyo Game Show. Also, many of the traps fall more into the Dragon's Lair type, where you merely have to memorize where they are and pinpoint them every time you play.

   Another large problem with the game are the battles. Contrary to previous reports, you are armed. The single playable stage at the show had the character Eriko Christy armed with a baseball bat and a gun. Whenever you are attacked, much like an RPG the game switches to a battle mode. Sense meters disappear, your character's life gauge appears, and you're forced into a fight to the death; running is not an option. If you were able to pinpoint the enemy, you start on your feet, but in most cases you can expect to be on the ground, crawling, trying to get up while avoiding the enemy. As if this wasn't difficult enough, you then have to kill the enemy, which even with a gun, was taking upwards of a dozen shots. Given the simple fact that you have to fight, this gets tedious, not to mention difficult.

   On the plus side, the game was nice graphically, although it wasn't nearly as good as something like Shenmue. The house was creepy, the enemies were scary, but neither were real enough to make you wet your pants. Sound was a large unknown, as it was nicely drowned out by the Samba de Amigo machine across the way.

   While Illbleed still has a ways to go before it is finished, Climax has some major work to do on the title if they want it to redefine the survival horror genre. As it stands how, it is simply another mediocre attempt at success.