For cheap thrills, this is a pretty good place to start!
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blog/26235
I love rummaging through bargain bins for rare, obscure, or under-appreciated games, especially if they're horror games. Now, there's a bit of a genre definition there that should be clarified. I like survival horror titles, and I'm the biggest Resident Evil nut there is when it comes to remembering storyline events or characters. But in particular, I like the games that are clearly designed to appeal to fans of J-horror films, from the brilliantly executed Fatal Frame/Project Zero to the small, el-cheapo games like Ju-On. The more cliché, the better.
Then I heard about Calling. It seemed to have a bit of a cult following going on, yet I could not find hide nor hair of it at any retailers at which I inquired! So, off to eBay I raced, and what a worthy purchase it was!
After recently playing Ju-On, I loved the feeling of creeping around with a flashlight as spooky things happened to you. The level layouts were interesting enough, but the fact that you crawl along at a snail's pace without even a run button made things more of a chore. By comparison, Calling is fast, fluid, and responsive. When there's a need to run your character will haul ass out of there, and looking around with the pointer is as flawless as it is in Metroid Prime 3. The excess time in this game is not spent on waiting for your timid, useless avatar to reach the far end of a hallway; it's spent exploring every nook and cranny for documents to piece together the (surprisingly good) storyline, uncovering every little hidden pop-up scare and finding every little secret scattered around each level.
The game is a short one, and fighting ghosts off is fairly repetitive. Most of the scares come in the form of things suddenly jumping out at you or flashing before your eyes, but the atmosphere is pretty creepy in its own right, and there's lots of fun to be had if you enjoyed movies like Ring, Grudge or One Missed Call. Most of the characters are likable, and generally smarter than the standard fare in this kind of game. The ghosts, be them vengeful, or helpful, or just there to show their story to the living, are all pretty interesting, and at times, even tear-jerking.
The thing I like most about Calling, however, is the sheer amount of hidden things to discover. Finish the game once to open up the "true story", which is easily twice as long. Find all the files to figure out those extra little details about a character's back story, or don't if you want to simply skip through. The title screen's gallery mode has a broken cell phone with its number keys missing. You'll find the keys scattered in each level, and then you can find the gigantic list of passwords (usually at least two per level) scrawled on the walls and floors and ceilings which you enter into the phone to unlock artwork and 3D models with more information. Let your character die in a certain way at the hand of a certain ghost, and you may just get a decrepit, black envelope popping up on your Wii message board containing a photo of your gruesome, mangled corpse, or a happy snap of the offending spirit grinning cheekily over your untimely demise. And then there's the chilling love-letters that the Woman In Red sends you... it's such a great concept and I'm sad more Wii games don't use it. Even the title screen (once you've finished the game once) contains dozens of subtle, creepy little changes and animations that randomly occur each time you load the game up.
But the reason this is a blog post and not a review is, sadly, this game isn't for everyone. Liking it depends heavily on the player's individual tastes. Because of various factors, if asked I wouldn't even be able to give the game an accurate score. The length of the game depends on how much of a completionist you are, and whether you want to rush through the game to see the bare-bones story and ending, or whether you want to take it slow, explore a little and take in the atmosphere along the way. If you love Japanese culture, language, and film (particularly of the scary kind), Calling is a true hidden gem of a game. Don't expect outstanding graphics, but certainly expect some very creative use of the Wii Remote, speaker and messaging system. Keep a Japanese dictionary handy, for both the living and dead have hidden little messages everywhere.
Topic: Horror Games are My Calling (Read 1409 times)
