Dementium: The Ward recalled Wolfenstein 3D to me almost immediately. The other non-action title with some primitive graphics that incorporated first-person adventure was The Bard's Tale. It sounds ridiculous to compare these two ancient games with Dementium: The Ward, but when most first-person shooters have progressed to highly sophisticated graphics and intense surround-sound, a DS entry in the genre truly seems like an anachronism. The common thread is how easily we can be sucked into exploring around dark corners, and how consistently we jump at the appearance of some ghoul, blob, or fill-in-the-blank scary monster. The key question is whether Dementium: The Ward uses the system's capabilities to full advantage and most of all, scores some outstanding gameplay.

The last time I remember playing portable survival-horror was Alone in the Dark for the Game Boy - yes, that's not a typo... Game Boy, not Game Boy Advance. The execution of that game was sheer perfection, but it was not first-person by default, as we have with Dementium: The Ward. All the same, I don't think Dementium: The Ward is revolutionary by any means. "Evolutionary" might be a better term to capture how the DS hardware is evolving. We have all the "training" content now that owes almost nothing to graphics and relies heavily on all the touch-screen features. We also have plenty of first-party games that do both touch and graphics exceptionally well. Dementium: The Ward falls somewhere in between. The argument that FPS or survival horror is largely absent in the DS lineup doesn't change the fact that both genres have appeared on portable systems in the past.

The first observation is that many of the graphics in Dementium: The Ward are rough in what we hope is an intentional way, obscured to leave more to the imagination and make things more scary. Cut-scenes portray a bit more detail, but use the same basic building blocks as the rest of the game. Much of the action takes place in darkness, so like older games with lots of fog (a remnant of poor capabilities on other platforms), we don't notice much in the background. What we care about is the world in front of our face or the far reaches as illuminated by our unreliable, flickering flashlight. The surrounding environment is also painted with sound effects. There are some good effects in the game, but the timing and placement of sound isn't stellar. You'll hear large event-sounds like thunder almost anywhere and some rooms contain a repetitive sound associated with an object in the room. The thing other games got right that Dementium: The Ward didn't is the placement of sound effects as a way to lead the player or tip you off as to the location of a new enemy. Here we find that enemies are moaning or making other sounds as we are right on top of them - it creates some scares but does nothing for the "anticipation scare." Dementium: The Ward features a heartbeat sound and visual that is tied to your character's anxiety and level of damage. Calming your character down in itself doesn't do anything for health, but the sound of the heart beating will anticipate action with monsters. Listening on headphones and playing in the dark can be pretty engrossing and scary. The developers just didn't go far enough in loading the game with sound to create a rich (and more terrifying) experience. The visuals don't get in the way at all and seem to be as good as most third party titles for DS to this point.

The triggering event of Dementium: The Ward is waking up in a confused state, surrounded by mayhem. You can just flash back to being admitted to some terrible place and that place has now become even more terrible. What you did to end up here or why things have gone in such a bad direction is just a blur. Now the hospital is dark, but not quite still. As you venture out of your room, you find yourself confronted with gore and bloodshed on a massive level. Is everyone dead? Can you escape this place and solve some of the riddles of how you came to be here without ending up another corpse on the floor... or something worse?

The rules of engagement for Dementium: The Ward are fairly straightforward. You'll explore level after level of the hospital with the goal of releasing yourself from what has become a bloody prison. Something terrible happened and not only killed most of the occupants, but may have turned them into some awful ghouls, zombies, and... other stuff. You'll start the game with nothing more deadly in your possession than a nightstick salvaged from a hospital guard. This will flail the easier, slower enemies into submission, but won't do much in later levels. You're going to need heavy firepower. Gathering items and escaping each floor requires some treasure hunting skills. You can mark down clues via a notebook provided to you, by using the touch-screen and stylus. Clues aren't far removed from their respective puzzles, making the touch-screen notebook a nice-to-have, but hardly a must-have. The bulk of the puzzles involve finding and using key cards to open doors that give access to new areas on the floor. A handy map helps you navigate the entire floor; it would have been nice to see some key to the map showing areas you'd visited versus those you haven't, as has been used before in other games. The levels aren't small and unfortunately aren't all that much different from hall to hall or room to room.

There's some story development as you unfold the mystery of the hospital and its recent critical event. The monsters you'll face off against certainly get more and more deadly and you'll uncover deadlier weapons to defeat them. There is an honest-to-goodness survival horror game in here, so those looking for more serious fare on the DS will rejoice. The majority of the bumps and bruises are to follow, so read on before deciding if Dementium: The Ward is truly your knight in shining armor.

The challenges of creating challenge... Game designers are probably in a thankless position while trying to find this balance. Make a game too hard, and everyone gripes. Make it too easy, and everyone gripes. Find the perfect balance and you'll manage to alienate both core gamers that wanted it harder and entry-level folks wanting it to be more approachable. All subjective stuff aside, the save system in Dementium: The Ward really blows. My first round of play, I noticed that the game was saving as I walked through from one area to another. "Great," I said, in characteristically good humor and optimism. Nothing much in the first hour presented a terrible challenge and I noticed that ammunition for my newfound gun was in ready supply along with medicine to heal my occasional wound. Finally I met a beast that bested me and clicked Continue expecting to walk through the last door before my fatal encounter. Imagine my surprise when the entire chapter restarted. Imagine my further surprise when I saw my save file had been backdated to the beginning of the chapter. So, we don't know exactly what is being "saved" as you walk through each door, but it apparently isn't your game. The only true save happening is at the beginning of each chapter. Or, the developer felt that allowing you to continue from any spot other than the beginning of the chapter would be cheating? We don't and won't know the answer, but the reality is that nobody will be a fan of this system. It makes Dementium: The Ward unnaturally hard to play and creates too much tension as you are nearing the end of a chapter. The pain of replaying a long chapter may be enough to cause some gamers to throw in the towel. Other elements of gameplay balance are pretty nice in the game, so it's a shame the save system is as it is. Dementium: The Ward feels no harder than most of the large-console games of its type, but not dumbed down for the DS. It's not like kids should be playing the thing anyway, with that "M" rating, so might as well dial up the difficulty, eh?

Along with the save system that won't be voted Most Popular by its graduating class, we have the challenge of adapting a FPS navigation to a system even more scaled down than most large-console controllers. PC gamers chuckled about how consolers would handle FPS and initially said the lack of a keyboard made any "real" FPS a stripped down experience. There's no question that the additional control on a keyboard with a practiced hand is better than the 10-12 buttons available on most console controllers. We all know that the FPS titles on PlayStation and other consoles held their own and drew plenty of fans. The control scheme of a traditional controller just ended up being a compressed version of the PC keyboard, minus the chat features, of course. We have microphones for that stuff now, anyway. The DS has a grand total of 10 buttons and the touch-screen, so why should it be any different than a Dual Shock? The answer is size. In this case, the size of the dog in the fight matters and it is actually pretty damn hard to move and control weapons on a small, small form factor. The smart play made by the developers for Dementium: The Ward was to place controls for camera and aiming on the touch screen. At first this is totally unintuitive, and some gamers just may not like it. It started to feel more natural over time and there is no question that aiming via the touch-screen kicks the ass of aiming with buttons. Compared to aiming with the analog stick on a PSP, the touch-screen is still superior. Firing weapons with the (R) shoulder-button isn't as nice, but it's a necessary evil unless you could opt to tap the screen to fire on something. Strafing and moving around the level via the buttons is okay, and you can switch between the (+) control pad and the buttons in the Options menu if you happen to prefer left-handed controls. The worst thing about the control scheme is that when you are listening to headphones, playing with the stylus, and trying to push all these buttons at the same time, you feel like an octopus. The whole rig feels a little forced, unless you happen to be engrossed in the game. It was this way for me most of the time, but when my pinkie-finger started falling asleep because it was tucked into this damned awkward position on the side of the DS, I started wondering.

The verdict on Dementium: The Ward is that it's a brave entry into the hardware library, but not a groundbreaking game for the genre. You can download Marathon now for free on any PC and experience classic FPS/horror gameplay with about the same level of graphic sophistication. Taking FPS/horror gameplay on the road in your pocket is a different story and for that we owe Dementium: The Ward a debt of gratitude. It's not a game without flaws, the biggest being that zany save system. If the developers were trying to extend the duration of the gameplay experience, mission accomplished. The problem is that they will have successfully pissed off some gamers at the same time, which ain't that good for business. Give it a try and make your own decision.