The Ring: Terror’s Realm. The ancient curse of the GD Disk.

Good day, SG-Ach! Surely you watched (or at least heard) about the film “Call“, where the journalist is investigating the case of a damned video cassette, watching which a girl with long hair comes out of the nearest TV after 7 days and kills you. Movie Mount Verbinski Call 2002 release is still considered to be one of the worst films. This is partly so it is: the film attracted with its viscous atmosphere, an interesting story, and the first appearance Samara Morgan, getting out of the TV and still scares to horror. About five years ago, I learned that a series of films Call turned out to be remakes Japanese films, which, as it turned out, were a film adaptation of a series of Romanov Kozi Suzuki, of which at the time of the release of American remakes there were already four pieces: “”Call“1991,”Spiral“1995,”Loop“1998 and”Birth“1999. And no matter how strange it may sound, but this will not be about them today.

And today we will talk about the game based on a series of Japanese books And films: [The Ring]: Terror’s Realm. She went out in the genre Survival-Horror, Exclusive for Dreamcast, In Japan: February 22, 2000 (in Europe, as usual, with a delay: August 22, 2000). They accepted it, to put it mildly, not very: the highest rating was 5.4 out of 10 on IGN, A Gamespy and completely slapped 1 out of 10. The game was scolded for almost everything that has: bad graphics, disgusting control, dumb plot, lack of an atmosphere – in general, a complete set “Film Games” those times. Many players, by the way, also did not appreciate this masterpiece, approximately for the same reasons. Now you ask me: why did you even start writing something about her if she is obviously bad?
A little personal story: I met this game still very small, and in childhood I went through this game, and it went terribly to me, and I even understood the plot more or less. And after a long time I did not even remember her until in the garage I found a bag with my good old Dreamcast. I brought her home, repaired, restored and decided to recall my childhood, launching [The Ring] ..

I’ll make a couple of warnings at once:
– I went through the game on my native console, I have no video chop card, but I don’t intend to frighten you with photos of my TV – I will take screenshots from YouTube.
– I played on the pirate Russian version (so as in childhood!1) with all the ensuing eyes consequences, so sometimes I can not be true to name the names.
– In the game, the Reinman will lose consciousness often and with taste and any loss of consciousness is accompanied by the transfer between worlds, so I will simply sign ”World 1“, where Meg is investigating the death of Robert and”World 2“Where is the abandonment.
-There are quite a few characters in the game, but I will only call the names those who have any attitude to the plot.

World 1. The story begins with the fact that the girl has Meg Rhinman Under mysterious circumstances, the guy dies Robert. She, believing that this is somehow connected with his work, is arranged in his place in CDC (Center for Control and Prevention of Diseases of the United States). Inspecting Robert’s workstation, Meg finds his laptop, which himself launches some kind of ring program, and she offers her to enter her name. Meg, believing that this is some kind of game, records his name and … falls asleep.

World 2. After some time, she wakes up in a completely different place: in a certain capsule of a large abandoned building, and instead of everyday clothes, an impressive police uniform with armor with armor on her. Meets her Member of the brigade In the same suit, she teaches her to shoot and sends her to the second floor, explaining this by the fact that “There is someone from above“. She examines the floor where she meets a furry monster similar to a monkey. Meg kills him, returns to a man and loses consciousness.

World 1. The girl wakes up, and the phone calls her and reports that “7 days left”. Meg leaves his office, meets a colleague at work and goes to the director of the CDC – John Brad. She tries to ask him about Robert’s activities, but to no avail. John informs her that they are on quarantine, and no one can enter either the building and sends her to work. But Meg does not go to the workplace (we have come to investigate, and not work, is it so?), and goes straight to the laboratory, and finds a scientist by name there Timothy (in the pirate Russian version Professor). During the conversation, she mentions the Ring program, which is why Tim warns it so that she would not tell anyone about it, and advises her to inspect Robert’s personal belongings in the locker room. There she finds his diary, where she finds out that Robert actively investigated the Ring program, and how after her first launch they called him and said that he had to live 7 days and finds out that “something is happening in the basements”. Then she comes to the archives and finds a document there, which describes a kind of virus that was recently found in the CDC, and that it is somehow connected with Ring. Together with colleagues, she gets to the first floor, examines the offices, and in one of them the Ring program includes in the laptop.

World 2. Here, Mag enters the basement of an abandoned building, examines it, and from there falls into the main corridor of the first floor. Here we understand that this is the same CDC building from the world 1, only in a much more deplorable state. In one of the rooms, the girl meets the already familiar member of the brigade. It is very alarmed: since the electricity in the building is disconnected, neurotoxin should be released in all rooms in 15 minutes in order to prevent the spread of possible infections, but it will not only be possible to turn on the generator – it is needed for a special key, but a huge gorilla has been dragged (strap. ). Naturally, the key should look for the key. She finds the key, includes electricity and notices the silhouette of a little girl who quickly disappears.

World 1. Reinman talks again with John, then comes to the dining room on the ground floor, talks with colleagues, and during the conversation, Meg begins to hear children’s laughter. As a result, the heroine agrees with one of the colleagues and receives the key card, which gives access to the basement. In the basements, she finds chambers where people are sitting patients with an unknown virus. One woman claims that she was left to live 5 days, the other is looking for Robert and believes that he found a vaccine … When Mag enters a room with a microscope (yes, the room is called – there is a large inscription of Microscope – STRO. Maybe I don’t understand something in the laboratories?), she hears the voice of the boss from the corridor and hides in the closet. She finds the dialogue between John and one of the scientists: they discuss the creation of the vaccine, and John is very excited by this topic. They leave the office, and Reinman runs to the director’s office, enters his personal recreation room and finds a video film. Having persuaded a colleague, Mag receives a conference room, where there is a projector that allows you to view the film. When the heroine returns to her office, the guard comes to her and says that she was detained and must go to the director with him. The girl runs away, comes to the conference room and looks at the unfortunate film (yes, this is the same damned film from the original story), a little girl has a little girl behind her back.

World 2. Meg comes to the basement, talks with a member of the brigade, who reports that he had driven a dangerous monster into a trap, but he is very strong and without a grenade launcher and an automatic machine cannot be copeful with him. He sends her to the kitchen, where the heroine finds a machine gun and charges to a grenade launcher – the grenade launcher itself lies in one of the offices. The brigade member sends the girl, remaining to cover her rear. After the battle with the monster, she meets her friend Jack (she repeatedly talked to him on the phone, retelling what the player should learn from her misfortunes), but the monster attacks her.

World 1. Meg wakes up in the operating room agentspinscasino.co.uk – she is surrounded by John and one of the scientists. They tell her the truth: everyone who is in the CDC building is infected with the very virus, which is called Ring. She returns to the office, where she meets the guard – they agree that the guard disconnect the electricity in the building, and the heroine could get into the closed sector of the basement. While Meg has time, she wants to go to the world 2 to find out something about the virus.

World 2. The main character notices a little girl and runs after her. When she catches up with her, the girl says that she is Sizzuko Yamamura, mother Sadako Yamamura. If you don’t know: Sadako is The same The girl who crawls out of the cassette (in the American version her name was Samara Morgan). She says that in fact the world 1 is virtual and is called Loop (loop). Mag does not believe in this, and Sizuko invites the heroine to come to the same room in his world, where she will leave a gift and warn that the virus has finally got into the world 1.

World 1. When a girl leaves her office, the light turns off – the guard turned off the electricity. There are only 3 minutes before the restart, and Meg reaches the closed section in the basement. There she finds the body of Sizuko and the key. When Meg goes into the corridor, she sees the same monsters that were in the world 2. She gets to the director’s office and activates the secret elevator from where she gets into the boss’s personal laboratory. Here she is met by John himself, who tells Meg about the fact that he will carry the forces of Sadako and become very powerful. However, ring into John’s body turns him into a dangerous monster. After the murder of John, she finds a room with a capsule where Sadako’s body lies. Sizuko appears here and tells the story that Sadako hates people, because all people are bad, evil and deserve complete genocide. Sadako suddenly gets up and flies through the ceiling upstairs. Sizzuko says Meg that Sadako went to the roof. The Rhinman runs to the roof, fights with Sadako and kills it. Before death, the girl gives Meg a vaccine. The game ends with a video where Meg in the world 2 stands on the roof of the CDC, listens to the radio, where they report that the vaccine works, but not on all people: it either heals or kills. Suddenly, a sadako appears at Mag behind his back and the credits begin.

[The Analysys]
So, before you start writing “what kind of nonsense you set up”, I will explain: the plot in the game is really disgusting. He is inconsistent, stupid, boring and stretched. It is so chaotic described because the game has a lot of unnecessary events, and in order to somehow combine it in the text, I cut a lot of unnecessary philleric moments. Its current is very slow, and the dialogs are simply idiotic:
– Go look for a grenade launcher.
– Why should I look for a grenade launcher?
– To shoot at the monster.
– Okay, I will find a grenade launcher and kill the monster.
Well, that is, everything is very bad. Moreover, the story in the game is independent, although it takes some aspects from films and books. There is Sadako, but if in the original she lies in a well for 30 years, then in the game she was taken by John and secretly sent it to CDC. At the same time, there are references to the fact that in Japan there were mass deaths from the video cassette, but no one explains how the Ring virus has become a computer program. And in general, the game has enough inconsistencies with the main series of books/films. It is not customary to explain something at all, but to talk forever, at the same time, according to the old Japanese tradition, conversations are written only by text, there is no voice acting in the game at all. Yes, there are FMV with voices, but there are only three of them per game, so I don’t count them. The moments that should be frightened are especially funny: how can a subtiter, which is not accompanied by sound?

Ahhh is terrible to cut down

Here we smoothly move on to the general atmosphere of the game. Whether the game scares? Rather … no. And the problem, it seems to me, lies in a strange choice of the genre: the story about the curse, of course, is able to scare, but the original itself does not imply any combat clashes – all books and films are mystical detectives, where it is the investigation that is based on the investigation. Immediately, the developers decided to create two radically different in terms of atmosphere and gameplay in the world: in the world 1 you are investigating the murder, and in the world 2 fight monsters. Moreover, there is a curious feature: the more monsters you killed in the world 2, the stronger and more dangerous they will become after the invasion of peace 1 (at least different guides in the game are talking about this). The world 1 is more illuminated (before the invasion) and calm, and the world 2, on the contrary, is almost completely devoid of light. But there is what unites them: an almost complete absence of the situation. The corridors do not differ at all from each other, and because of this you can get lost at the beginning of the game, but there is no variety in terms of locations at all-all actions take place EXCLUSIVELY In the CDC building – even on the street they will be given at the very end of the game, but this is the courtyard of the CDC, so I do not count it. And in general, all the events of the game occupy literally 3-4 hours of intra-game time (at least as it seemed to me).

A little about the schedule

These were CG rollers. And now the game itself ..

And yes, these are screenshots from an emulator that has fixed some graphic misunderstandings. But how to fix the square heroine and the convex balls of the policeman – no one knows ..

Yes, something like that. Let me remind you that Re: Code Veronica came out this year, the first Shenmue was released, where the graphic study level pleases to this day.

Now about gameplay. As I mentioned above, the worlds are distinguished by the gameplay. In the world, 1 Meg communicates with colleagues, looking for evidence that helps her find out the truth. Puzzles in the game is not from the word at all. The only thing where there is a kind of semblance: when the generator is turned on, you need to enter a password. All. No keys searches, no “click the buttons in the correct order”.

This “puzzle”, by the way, is repeated at the end of the game in the world 1. The password is the same, but God forbid you will forget it, because no one will remind you of it

The only puzzle in the game that is in both worlds: where to go and what to do? In dialogs, they are far from always telling you about what you need to do at the moment, and you can guess only wandering around all rooms in a row. Moreover, this problem is especially noticeable in the world 2: there are much smaller places (part of the first floor and basement), and they drive here from one end of the basement to the other end of the first floor and back.

Maps in both worlds are the same, but note that from the entire “diversity” of the rooms, in the world 2 you can enter only those that are highlighted yellow, and the second floor is not available at all.

It would seem that the problem is? There are not many rooms, and they are quite small. The problem is the optimization of the game. On my console, the doors opened about 5-6 seconds, which is simply very tiring. You say that the situation was similar in Re. But the problem is that in reloads between the rooms it was realized as an element of sazpiens (although for someone this is a rest), especially in Code Veronica, when a heartbeat was heard in the plot-vain moments, and the character slowly and carefully opens the door.

And so “cool” door open to [The Ring]

Enemies are constantly responding, sometimes literally in the face. But supplies are simply unfairly limited: there are a lot of empty rooms in which there is nothing but one or two enemies. If, for example, there is always something in the Resident Evil in any room (cartridges, first-aid kits, files or quest objects), then in the best case, you will be a pack of cartridges for a pistol among three rooms in one. And what is paradoxical, in the world 1, where 90% of the time there are no weapons, no enemies, but at least one place chew at at least one place! And all this will be necessary, I repeat, at the very end of the game! And then, in a battle with Sadako, taking into account the crooked control, you will maximize 2-3 first-aid kits, and given that during the entire passage time I found about 12 in this world (!) a first -aid kit that makes sense to use in the last 15 minutes of the game. Do you know what is the most funny? All weapons, all cartridges and supplies after the last sortie into the world 2 Not tolerated – what is the meaning from the machine gun, from a grenade launcher, from the assembled missile installation, which can only be obtained in the last sunset? All bosses in the world 2 (and there were all three of them, and they look like ordinary monsters, but bright red color) are already killed, and enemies can die from one successful shot from a shotgun. I didn’t just write about a successful shot, because it is very difficult to aim here. In order for the game to use a flashlight in the game, the auto -item at weapons is activated only in bright light, and then only 45 degrees (according to the game itself). And since we started talking about combat mechanics: as I said, the game has a lot of unnecessary weapons. Eat gun, There is shotgun, which knocks the doors and brains, there is grenade launcher, which is needed only once per game, there is machine, which differs from the pistol in that it shoots when clamping the shot button (rate of fire, however, will be the same), there is Katana, which is simple IMPOSSIBLE fight, because Meg is very slowly lugging and hits (although the damage causes a bad thing). I did not indicate knife And Hand -to -hand combat, But this is such a useless nonsense that I will not even talk about it.
In fact, the whole game can be passed with one gun, because you can find the most cartridges for it, unlike other types of guns. However, the main problem of the fighting: this is management. The heroine very slowly takes the weapon when clicking on aiming, and if a monster approaches you at point -blank and draws you at least once, then Mag will immediately take a neutral pose and begins to raise the weapon, but while she lifts you up again … And so, until you die or until the monster is posed by the monster.

[The Result]
The game is simple disgusting. Passing this game for this review, I just raped my childhood, for then the game [The Ring] seemed terribly terrible and interesting to me. But you know, when I defeated Sadako and the credits began, I felt good. No, I did not feel that my torment was finally over and I was free. I had a feeling that I went through a good, but cheap game. Even now, when I write this text, I have a good sediment from the game. Why? Perhaps it is a matter of nostalgia, and perhaps something in the game is still something that made me go through the game until the end. Soundtrack? It is not bad only in the final credits, otherwise it is meager and boring. Gameplay? Disgusting and boring. Plot? Clinically dumb. Graphics? Well, you yourself see in the screenshots what horror is going on here (I will remind you that the Resident Evil: Code Veronica came out in the same year. I don’t know what, in general. I can advise you to play it only for those who want to play something very idiotically strange and in some places stupid.

P.WITH. When I was preparing to write this article (I watched films, read books), I noticed that the History of Sadako could have a future – its story could become the beginning for a very unusual setting, or a series of detectives … But this did not happen. Now I gradually prepare the material throughout the Ring universe – there I will tell in more detail which rakes prevented the series of profitable and megapopular. You say: “The series is already popular – everyone knows the girl from the TV,” but this is only one well -known passage. And the series, as I found out, is far from about the crafts of girls from the Telecovs. But this is probably another time.