Calling Review

Commence ChatRoom Log
[Kuroneko has entered the room]
[Tanx has entered the room]
Tanx: Hi there
Kuroneko: Greetings puny corporeal entity. Are you here to speak with ghosts?
Tanx: actually… I just wanted to type out a review of Calling for the Wii… I’m not at all sure why I’m in a chatroom to begin with. Quite a coincidence, though, as Calling is about a haunted chat room whose participants are sucked into the realm of ghosts.
Kuroneko: Spooky, isn’t it?! Do you know what else is spppooookkkyyy? Cell phones!
Tanx: Funny… that’s the other major feature in Calling. Using your Wii-mote as a cell phone to get around the ghost world or Ethereal Plane or wherever it is.
Kuroneko: And you get to receive calls from GHOSTS!
Tanx: In the game, you use your phone’s record feature to capture ghostly conversations… which always seem a bit one-sided if you don’t mind me saying so. Also, don’t expect one of today’s high tech phones. This one gives you record and camera, but it is otherwise a cell so hopelessly out of date that my students would never disdain to answer it. It looks like my phone, for goodness sake, and I’m a luddite math teacher who still uses a blackboard!
Kuroneko: They’re coming to get you.
Tanx: Well, it’s useful when they call ahead. Because their recorded voices allow you to teleport to other haunted locations and thus get away.
Kuroneko: You cannot escape.
Tanx: Using the phone is a major pain in the butt. The directional pad is awkward, and spirits keep grabbing you and shaking you around, making it necessary to type in numbers very quickly or have to start over.
Kuroneko: We feed on your pain and suffering. And I have flashy eyes.
Tanx: That’s true… “kuroneko” means black cat in Japanese… and there’s a mysterious black cat with hypnotoad eyes that leads you around and also shows up in plushie form, which acts as a savepoint. Oh, did I mention you should learn some Japanese before playing this game? There are a lot of messages written on signs and on walls that aren’t translated to English.
Kuroneko: The cries of previous victims surround you.
Tanx: What really surrounds you is doors that lead to nowhere. Most doors you encounter are mere window dressing… you can tell if there is really a location behind them by consulting your map… over and over again.
Kuroneko: You will be lost in the halls of the dead.
Tanx: lost and bored. Calling is a game of long strolls and meaningless searches while not a lot is going on, very occasionally punctuated by some well-worn trope of Japanese Horror jumping out at you. Occasional spooky noises and visual effects make an attempt to spice things up, but they quickly get repetitive and humdrum. Still, it is worth giving credit where credit is due. Ghosts are not generally scary when encountered out in the open, but all the wandering and boredom does generate a tense mood, and things jumping out at you can be satisfyingly startling.
Kuroneko: We play upon your fears.
Tanx: more specifically, you play upon the cliché fears in Japanese horror films. Scary little girl? Check. Lots of scary black hair clogging doorways and such? Check. Cackling Japanese dolls? Check. Original ideas? Well… not so much. But the modern Japanese fears of technology, connecting with other people, and the loneliness of urban existence are exorcised with the usual symbology.
Kuroneko: The RING of your phone will bring our GRUDGE upon you.
Tanx: I do like the way that J-Horror depicts ghosts, as hostile entities following an unknown set of rules, from which the only hope of escape is a full investigation and understanding of their pain before they happen to GET YOU. What they do to you when you are caught is never really explained, and it is better (and scarier) that way.
Kuroneko: Know our Torment.

Student: Hello.
Tanx: Oh, hello.
Kuroneko: Greetings puny corporeal entity. Are you here to speak with ghosts?
Student: Am I in the wrong chat room? I wanted some extra help on my math assignment. My teacher wants me to explain four dimensions.
Kuroneko: We dwell in the interstices of space and time. Always watching…
Tanx: Funny you should mention the fourth dimension, as it is sometimes associated with ghosts. You know that a standard blackboard is two-dimensional, right?
Student: okay.
Kuroneko: Blackboards are portals to the realm of the damned.
Tanx: well, we say it is two-dimensional because there are two independent axes along which you can move… up-down or left-right. That’s the sum of your options. We ourselves live in three-dimensional space, because we can move up-down, left-right or forward-back.
Student: you like whiteboards?
Tanx: it has been hypothesized that their could be a fourth axis of movement unknown to us, independent of our usual three. Call it Ana-Kata. Ghosts could flicker in and out of our world by moving along this axis, just as I can raise and lower my chalk to make marks on my blackboard.
Kuroneko: Your mathematics cannot save you.
Tanx: It probably couldn’t save this game either, but it would be great to see a horror game about ghosts bring some of this stuff up.
Student: you guys are weird. I’m outta here.

Kuroneko: the Student is with US now.
Tanx: I always did find anonymous online interactions a bit spooky. That student may as well have been a ghost for all we know about him or her.
Kuroneko: the Student will never be found.
Tanx: the other less than stellar aspect of Calling is the search for tiny objects in the dark. In the first part of the game you don’t have a flashlight, so you can wander around but any attempt to interact with the environment is greeted with the same annoying message, “you can’t see that well.”
Kuroneko: the dark will claim your soul.
Tanx: Once you find a flashlight, you spend an awful lot of time searching expanses of repetitive, murky graphics for ridiculously tiny objects necessary for the completion of the game. Oh, and you’ll open and close lots of drawers in Calling, the vast majority of which have nothing in them.
Kuroneko: ghosts do not need material things.
Tanx: In general, it doesn’t feel like there’s much to do in Calling. You wander around a spooky place, see the occasional ghost, and solve a few very easy puzzles. The game could have used a few more layers of gameplay… more interesting items to collect, or maybe health to replenish or maps to complete or something. As it is, this is a pretty passive game.
Kuroneko: ghosts do not need reviewers either!
Tanx: Wait… what are you… BLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
[end chat log]