IGN's preview sounds very promising:
"The story of Dementium should be familiar to horror and survival horror fans: something has gone very wrong in a hospital, and you wake up to find yourself the worst of it. Walking the halls of this abandoned complex, you see the remains of what must have been a chaotic onslaught of hell. Gurneys and monitors are thrown askew, doors are ripped off their hinges, and blood is smeared on the walls. At the end of one hall, you suddenly see a horrific creature, all blood and teeth, and in its grasp is a young woman screaming for her life -- she looks up at you in terror, her eyes staring into yours, and then suddenly the beast pulls back through doors, and she and it are gone. And then, the monsters come...
Developer Renegade Kid may be new as its own entity, but the team has been around for a long, long time -- in fact, the crew is made up of veterans of Acclaim who worked on the original Turok and Turok 2. The crew is using that experience in making games for meager systems like the N64 -- creating incredible 3D with no horsepower to run it is quickly becoming a lost art -- and has come up with a DS engine that runs smooth and has plenty of style. The game's rain effects, flashing emergency lights, bloody texture overlays, surrounding grit at the edges of the frame, and lighting techniques were all done well for a DS title, and the smooth, locked framerate sold the game's look. Much of the game is played in darkness, but this isn't a cheat for graphic quality like it had to be in the old Turok games -- you will be able to find a flashlight that lights up further into the darkness, and in the limited outdoor sequences in the game, lightning can brighten the whole level and show unrestricted draw distance.
Atmosphere and style are the game's big draws. In addition to the graphical techniques used to bring The Ward to reality, the enemies are vile and violent foes. There will be 6-8 enemy types in the game, and each will have different classes -- the beginning sequences we played had normal sub-human beings, with their ribcages ripped out and turned into teeth and spikes jabbed through their eyes, and we are promised that they get even more grotesque later when the super-class versions are able to vomit bile on you. Adding to the gross-out gameplay, there were moments where swarms of bugs crawled on the floor and on the walls, which you can stomp by walking over them. There will be four to five bosses to battle in the game.
Control and gunplay in Dementium uses the touchscreen as a mouse button, and worked really well. When you need to act and aim, the touchscreen works as your cursor, but the game is also filled with puzzles, most of which are simply interacted with via a context-sensitive action button at the top of the screen. At the corners of the screen are access to a map and your notepad. The notepad is a nice addition, as it uses the Nintendo DS screen (like Hotel Dusk) to allow you to write down passcodes and game notes important for puzzles. (You can also doodle and wipe it off later with an eraser.) The game's story will evolve with communication with NPCs (including possibly the woman whisked away by the evil It in the beginning of the game.)
A truly indie project for the Nintendo DS (the game was mostly put together by a 3-man team before signing with GameCock, which is probably why its M-rated violence and blood was never turned green by a play-it-safe producer), Dementium: The Ward is something dark and sinister for the system. The monsters in the demo need a bit more work to convey the horror (animation was good for a humanoid character but not exactly scary up close), but the graphic detail and smooth gameplay was well-done on the handheld system, and the use of sound (with its dull, droning "Emergency" voice over a PA and all kinds of atmospheric effects in each area) was compelling and creepy. With no more Resident Evil on the horizon anymore, this game is hoping to be the game survival horror fans take with them. Look for the game on shelves at the end of this year. "
