Rise of Nightmares

We will say this though; we relish a great deal of enjoyment from our time with the game, and a proportion of that can be attributed to stress relief after three days of growing impotence borne from watching buildings burn and shops destroyed in news reports. And with rumblings of trouble inching its way towards London's retail heart in the next few hours, frustration wars with worry. All this negative energy is poured out in punching thin air.

But between thrusts and swings, there's the occasional sharp laugh. The story crafting for AM1's newest is schlock horror, exaggerated dispensation of both story and personality types, so bad it's good. A logical progression for the studio behind House of the Dead, be it finally willing to embrace the crass and crapness of the heavy-handed tone and gore on display, or that we're now old enough to laugh rather than recoil. The game perfectly bursts the bubble of tension that's been building.

It's the second hands-on with Rise of Nightmares in what feels as many months, so why the shortness between the two? The build we're seeing today is reportedly the entire game, though we don't strike far into the adventure even with the event's lowered turnout that's due to real-world troubles encroaching on normal life outside the bar's front door.

However, our time does allow us to get a better grasp on the title, working through the opening half hour and nicely gets us to the point which we last played as part of Microsoft's Christmas Showcase, which formed our original preview.

The opening offers a nice little twist, merging tutorial with your classic horror flick pre-title sequence. Here's the setup. Here are the heroes of the day. Here's the danger they face...and shortly after: a pile of gore that marks their violent passing. Being young and French doesn't equate to long lifespans in horror titles it seems.

But then, everyone knows horror flick frontmen are classically strong-jawed Americans hiding dirty secret. Hence the death screams of our backpackers fade as if in a dream and are replaced by you, struggling alcoholic in need of shave and shower, sitting in a train carriage somewhere in the backwaters of Europe with a understanding but strained wife. She'll storm off in a second.

The game's true opening section starts with splashing water on your face, and ends with an explosion of guts, gunfire and train crashes.

The linear corridors of the train carriages are easy to navigate, letting you get to grips with walking forward (put one foot in front of you) back (put one foot behind you) turning (twist your shoulders, the sharper the movement the sharper the turn) and a mixture of context-based commands that are fun for the variety; crouch to pass under a ballet dancer's extended leg, raise hand and pull left or right to open doors, flip your hand to overturn fortune cards, raise both hands to face to engage your character in doing the same over a water-filled basin.

While lifting one arm up and to the side will initiate an automated walk to the next story-driven checkpoint, manual exploration is needed to pick up on the smaller details. Such as conversing with other carriage passengers - youngsters readying for a rave, stuffy business suits, a mysterious Romanian fortune teller, all stereotypes for the horror tableau that's about to ensue - as well as picking up dictaphone tapes. Dropped by likely the worst detective in memory, these recordings of his thoughts offer insight into investigation on a series of disappearances, and form the back story to the events about to unfold.

You catch up to your wife only to see her swiped by a hulking trenchcoat-clad brute who have a penchant for exploding security guards with a massive hook chain and derailing the train before making his escape. Cue blackout, and sounds of metal impacting soil.

The next section has you escaping the wreckage, now plunged in a fast-flowing river, before it's swept away. You might want to send observers out of the room at this point; the bolded on-screen word of "RUN" only disappeared by the kind of antics that made perfect sense in Kinect Sports, but make a mockery of the danger here - knees up as high and as fast as they can go the only register of speedy movement Kinect is willing to accept.

More fun is what comes after; your desperate group of survivors making for a house in the far hills, having to duck through a cave, motion to swim through what turns out to be a monster and leech filled lake, the exiting of which is swiftly followed by slapping your arms like a junkie in need of a fix to swipe the blood-sucking parasites off you. The quick succession of mini-trials between cutscenes makes this strangely feel like a horror version of Let's Go Jungle, the first ever romance-measuring arcade light gun game from Sega.

Combat, the main reason we walk out of the event with a shortness of breath, kicks off shortly after and remains dauntingly unrelenting for a spell, but also leaves us amazingly eager for more. Music cues kicks in come attacks, so even in a larger area such as the graveyard we've stumbled in - the stages of Rise...being quite expansive at times - you know there's some bastard out there wanting to pick a fight with you.

Fighting in Rise of Nightmares is quite the workout. Clench your fists and raise them to enter a combat stance. Punch with either to attack, and kick to boot your opponent in the chest to knock them back a few feet - necessary for when you're surrounded.

Attacks are limb-specific. This isn't as huge issue until you've got your hands on weapons (about 30 seconds into your first fight) which delightfully litter the area like a Rob Zombie directed version of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. They've got a decent, if limited lifespan, so use effectively. You got your blunt objects like steel pipes, offering a good solid thump, but the larger and sharper weapons turn rumbles into open night at a carvery.

Aim your swings to the joints and you can quickly lop off arms, and with time heads, which will fountain blood everywhere. As monsters attack in swarms its better tactics to cut fast and precise. Enemies are, for the part we played, reanimated humans, but some have increasingly complex hydraulic gears embedded in arms and chests. These allow them to charge up powerful swings and thrusts, and while you can block by raising your fists in front of your face, its an ineffectual response in the long run. Fight or die.

It mightn't have the tactile feedback of a light gun, but there's a heady thrill to be had from this most visceral of Kinect experiences. You gain a thirst for it.

Perhaps partly because its the first 18-rated game for the system and thus gives us something new to enjoy. Perhaps partly because it takes that immediate satisfaction gained from the unique experiences only found in the arcade and transplants it in your home. The latter is something we though long lost as home consoles quickly matched and bettered what was found in arcades, so its nice to feel flush with that feeling of uniqueness once again.

Its dumb fun, the experience you expect in sitting down, or in this case standing up, to enjoy a over-the-top gory fright-fest. That you're knackered from a brief stint of play is likely a good thing, as this feels much more a gamer-friendly fitness regime, despite how unbalanced it is, than the current exercise-focused titles on Kinect. What would you prefer to get fit with, workout regimes and stats, or nutting zombies?

How the story pans out and how the game holds out to extended and indeed, repeated play is still be seen, but for now we walk out of the event to deserted and boarded city streets with sweat under our armpits and a renewed spring in our step. We'll leave it to you to decide which of those we were actually thankful for.