PAX07: Hands on with Dementium: The Ward for DS

The DS isn't just for kids and Dementium: The Ward, from Texan outfit Renegade Kid, certainly makes the point clear with a blood-soaked adventure that brings the under-represented survival horror genre onto Nintendo's typically family friendly handheld.

Your role in the game starts as a rather unlucky fellow who's trapped within Redmoor Hospital. Awakening in the dilapidated joint, you have no idea who you are or how you ended up confined within the creepy medical facility. The game's goal – safety – is pretty obvious, however.

Unfortunately, finding your way out isn't as simple a solution as running for the front door. The hospital's patients have suffered extensively through horrible medical experimentation, leaving them demented, deformed and out for revenge.

So, mixing straight-up action with a bit of puzzle-solving, the gameworld is seen through the top screen, enabling you to explore the building and battle enemies. You move using the D-pad, while moving the stylus controls your view. Firing your weapon requires tapping on the R button, which we found to be tricky, given that your right hand also has to maintain grip of the stylus at all times in order to control the camera.

During the opening level, we explored the seventh floor of the hospital, locating a flashlight that could be turned on and off via the L button. The halls were dark, so turning on the torch allowed much needed extended vision. Of course, this only served to illuminate groups of grotesque patients, who were missing large parts of their internal organs, yet somehow still milling around in the way characteristic of undead enemies.

Effortlessly holding back our urge to leg it from these ghastly visions, we instead shouldered our available weapons – a nightstick and pistol – and launched into some head-to-head combat. The nightstick is the default weapon, while the pistol is limited by the amount of ammunition you have. Blasting enemies with the pistol naturally proved more effective than the nightstick, but as we quickly depleted our ammo, we were left swiping at foes with the police baton in a desperate effort for survival.

Switching between weapons is carried out by accessing the inventory on the touchscreen. A quick tap with the stylus on an object's icon will select it. Other uses for the touchscreen exist, of course, and include a perpetual EKG meter that relays information about your health, a notebook that can be written in (using the stylus) for hints, and a map.

Even during our limited time with the game, the notebook proved useful in solving a puzzle to open a locked door. A staff-only section of the floor required a numerical code for entrance. Naturally, we went on the hunt for the password. Peeking into a few empty rooms yielded no results until we noticed blood-smeared digits on the wall of one patient's room. After jotting down the six-digit code in the notebook, it was easy to travel back to the keypad and enter the correct password.

So between battling horrific enemies (the screenshots show more powerful weaponry, such as shotguns, that becomes available later in the game) and solving simple puzzles, we're hoping Dementium will provide an entertaining experience. What little we played didn't exactly instill a sense of fear, but nevertheless we did enjoy lopping the heads off the deranged patients.

But with previous examples of the survival horror genre on DS, such as Resident Evil and Touch The Dead, not being able to provide more than B-movie examples of touchscreen gaming, it's not unreasonable to think Dementium could have its work cut out in trying to generate the required sense of menace.

We'll find out before too long, though, as ambitious new US publisher, Gamecock, has set a Halloween release (October 31st) for North America for Dementium: The Ward. A European date has yet to be confirmed.