Cursed Mountain

Eric has to find his brother. There's nothing more for him, just the fearless phantom figures that follow him all his way up to the Himalaya's mountain. Deep Silver had made one of their greatest games so far, with a very interesting storyline mixed with an even more interesting graphic engine. There's nothing to lose in here; it's a must-have for all terror-lovers that are looking forward to buy a good adventure for their favourite console.

A great setting and lots of top shocks - Cursed Mountain is chilling in every sense. [Oct 2009, p.78]

Cursed Mountain is an innovative psychological survival horror game. The interesting and deep story improves the gameplay experience. The game offers calm gameplay with many exploring moments. The graphics and the sounds give many chances to the storyline and the combination between wiimote and nunchuk makes a better experience. Actually one of the best survival horror games on Wii.

A unique setting and some decent - not great - chills. [Oct 2009, p.87]

Despite the occasional issue, Cursed Mountain is a fun and sometimes frightening title -- I actually jumped once or twice as I played. The adventure's spooky atmosphere is something I haven't seen before, which is refreshing amidst a genre clogged with games all sporting the same themes.

This Himalayan horror adventure will send chills up your spine, even though the controls are as cursed as the titular mountain.

Despite the quirky ideas, it lacks the dynamism to thrill or the tension to scare. [Oct 2009, p.72]

Fantastic atmosphere, setting and story will chill your bones and nerves. But spotty controls and some tedious pacing keep Cursed Mountain from reaching its full potential.

Cursed Mountain is a good choice against those great survival series available on the shelves, with a particular rhythm and an original atmosphere.

Cursed Mountain is an earnest attempt at staking its own niche in the survival horror space, but uninspired gameplay and clumsy controls keep it from reaching its own summit.

One of the most original survival horrors of modern times, held back by a leaden pace and controls.

As a horror game it might not be scary enough, but as dark adventure it is one of the best options available for the Nintendo Wii.

At least building the game around a mountain ascent avoids survival horror cliché. Instead of stepping bravely into the murk you are motivated forwards by the peak's promise. [Oct 2009, p.98]

Sometimes, the little touches make a big difference (when’s the last time you saw a Buddhist chant on a game-over screen?), but even those aren’t enough to save Cursed Mountain when it leans too heavily on its genre’s cursed monotony.

Cursed Mountain is one of those rare opportunities to see the horror genre on the Nintendo home system, so all fans should at least try this game. Having said that, we cannot ignore the unrefined gameplay and the unreactive controls.

The story is unique but a little slow for a major portion of the game. And, though the game does last for around 20 hours, there is nothing more than the main game to keep you playing.

Slow and steady exploration will keep you on the edge of your seat and progressing upward for some time.

Really, my biggest issue with the game comes from the pacing, and while I agree that slowing things down compared to a typical action title isn't a bad idea at all, at the same time I think that you need to spice it up a little bit instead of just having a player run from spot A to spot B over the course of five minutes or so, with nothing to do in between.

Cursed Mountain provides a unique survival horror experience for the Wii but the slow-paced gameplay can be a turn off early on in the game.

Cursed Mountain admirably recreates the tension of the established survival-horror template, but too infrequently for it to sit alongside the genre greats. [Oct 2009, p.119]

Cursed Mountain is surely a title which stands out from the crowd. It’s not properly a survival horror, as in some ways it’s more a voyage through the ancient heights of the Himalaya, with the millenarian Tibetan culture as a rich framework. In terms of gameplay the combat system is fun and the controller’s motion sensor are well used and give a contribute to the title’s variety. The only faults are the non responsive controls and some plot elements which are not explained in an exhaustive way.

It's by no means perfect, the motion controlled combat can be a tad flaky and its pacing may be too languid for some, but those Wii owners looking for something a little more grown up would be well advised to put on their climbing boots give this a try.

Cursed Mountain is a remarkable horror game - for pure unrelenting terror it is way above the recent high-tech offerings of Resident Evil 5 or Dead Space.

As it stands it's a flawed but fun title, and if you want something a bit different in the third person adventure mould then it's a decent choice.

Cursed Mountain is a game of considerable quality, with no shortage of commendable assets - an intelligent story, well-crafted immersion into a foreign world and a high standard of audio and visual presentation mark it out as a game well worth a buy.

The game is very monotonous after the first couple of levels, the graphics are inconsistent and the motion controls don’t always work. So if you’re a Wii owner and a fan of slower paced survival horror games then give Cursed Mountain a shot. Everyone else should probably rent it before they buy it

They've got their heads in the right place, and the start of something that could be really good, but they've still got a long way to go in the ways of storytelling, pacing and visuals before this gets up into the pantheon of must-play horror games.

Cursed Mountain is a real tribute to the genre of survival horror. Although not really scary, the title of Deep Silver recreates an original setting for a videogame. The attention to detail and the excellent plot, however, collide with not excellent graphic and especially with not perfect controls that will force us to repeat some steps too many times.

It's clear from the thoughtful setting and the commitment to Buddhist myth and ritual underpinning the plot that genuine effort has gone into the game, but that doesn't show in the final product. Perhaps fittingly for a game based around scaling a peak, playing Cursed Mountain is more a matter of endurance than anything, despite its worthy intentions.

Despite those issues, there is no question that Cursed Mountain is not only one of the finest titles currently available for the Wii, it's a welcome detour from the well-worn survival horror path that so many developers seem only too happy to tread.

For someone looking for a decent adventure game, they could do a lot worse than this, but I found it to be an uphill struggle thanks to the lack of horror, slow pacing and over emphasis on combating evil spirits even the boss battles fail to mix things up enough in my opinion.

Mountain? Full marks. The curse? Less impressive. [Nov 2009, p.62]

Cursed Mountain has some good ideas and at times manages to put together some decent art design to create glimpses of a good game. For the most part, though, you're having to contend with an awkward control scheme and drab presentation.

Cursed Mountain is awfully ugly, poorly designed and almost unable to create any fear at all, making it a frighteningly bad horror game.

All in all, the game will probably take around 12-15 hours to complete. With no multiplayer to any significant bonus features, replay value is quite low.

Limited replayability but if you enjoy your horror games tense with a good story you should enjoy this.

Had it been released about a decade ago, Cursed Mountain might have conjured up more than a slight shrug. The few occasions where the atmosphere actually started to draw us in were promptly ruined by god awful Wii controls and terribly realized enemies. Add to this horribly poor pacing and what you end up with is a decent at best horror game that's hard to recommend to anyone.

At the end of the day, Cursed Mountain is actually a step in the right direction on the Wii and attempts to create something unique and strangely original on a console that is unfortunately dominated by high-end console ports or casual games.

The name of this game is Cursed Mountain. But do we curse the game itself or not? If you don't pay attention to the bad graphics and the slow progress in the game, you can really have some fun with Cursed Mountain which has actually a unique atmosphere.

Meanwhile, everyone who’s already played Resi 4 can see that Cursed Mountain is, without a shadow of a doubt, a bit pants.

Despite a unique setting and a compelling story, Cursed Mountain fails to deliver some good survival horror action. The combat system is pretty good and there are some nice boss battles, but the game is slow, easy and short, with very poor locations, lots of invisible barriers and dull puzzles.

Even with a lack of endearing gameplay advancements and actual frights, Cursed Mountain is the kind of unique experience you want from the Wii and up and coming developers.

Cursed Mountain is a decent action adventure with plenty of horror to keep you up at night. The pace could've been a tad higher, but the atmosphere more than makes up for that error. Add good voice-overs and a captivating story and you'll know what Deep Silver provided us with this Cursed Mountain.

This game won’t exactly entertain you. The bad controls result in way too much frustration and the game isn’t even that scary, which is a shame because the game pretends to be a survival-horror game. The visits to the Himalaya are interesting enough but not enough to turn Cursed Mountain into a classic.

Cursed Mountain succeeds in providing a genuine mature experience on Wii. With the great use of Buddhist themes, Cursed Mountain stands out from all the other survival horror titles on the platform and is very original.

The first real Wii survival horror shocker! The Austrian developers tried something new and created not a great, but a good game for grown-up horror fans!

Cursed Mountain has some really worked out aspects, but isn’t delivering a good quality on every front. It’s a game that you could hate after a while but has some unique perspectives at the same time. Cursed Mountain is a trip for a good eight to ten hours, if you don’t have any problems with the controls and linear maps.

If it were only a matter of story, plot, game atmosphere and originality, this very game would be of extraordinary quality. However, it's clear that there's a lack of polish here.

The bottom line is that Cursed Mountain seems to be one of those highly ambitious titles that didn't really spark all that much interest on the Wii and was thus somehow sloppily ported to another system in the hope of being able to make a decent cut there.