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Hello Steemians,
Its a beautiful Saturday morning here in Nigeria, hope you had a good night rest.
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Out of all the horror films I saw as a kid that gave me nightmares, there were two written by Stephen King that always stuck in my mind. Firstly there was IT with Tim Curry forcing his way into my subconscious with his portrayal of the child killing clown, Pennywise and secondly there was Salem's Lot with the horrific Mr. Barlow is a very Nosferatu inspired vampire wreaking havoc in a small American town.
The image of his glowing eyes popping into frame is still edged into my mind all these years later and despite how cheesy most of that miniseries was, they definitely nailed Barlow's appearance heavily inspired by Count Orlok in the original 1922 Nosferatu film. Nosferatu the wrath of Malachi, a first-person horror game developed by Idol FX exclusively for Microsoft Windows in 2003.
### THE STORY
The story goes that you're a guy named James Patterson heading to the wedding of his sister in a spooky castle with other members of the Patterson family, it turns out the place is home to a vampire Count and your entire family is missing and you're now tasked with exploring the castle grounds to rescue the family members before sunrise. Malachi is interesting in a number of ways most notably because it changes the layouts of items and certain characters for each playthrough giving the game a small amount of replayability and also because you're on a time limit the entire time having to rescue 15 of your family members before dawn.
There's a timer constantly ticking away in the top-left corner of the screen and at certain points in the night family members are killed off if you're not quick enough in rescuing them. The caterers as I said they're not always going to be in the same place for each playthrough and after you've found them you then also have to escort them all the way back to the gates of the castle grounds where they'll often give you an important new item. This could be garlic to ward off vampires up enemies, it could be a potion that increases your movement, speed or it could be a revolver or machine gun.
A priest you rescue early in the game gives you a chalice you can fill with holy water that makes the ensuring boss fights laughably easy and rescuing your arm allows you to free the family dog Buster who can follow you around and help you out in combat. The family members will always be relegated to the same sections of the castle either the east wing, the west wing or the main castle itself though their placement will be different. Introducing an RNG 11 to the game which can make finding them either quick or annoyingly time-consuming.
It can feel like little more than a glorified escort quest at times though, when you find edge family member it can be a bit of a nuisance having to escort them all the way back to the castle gates. The AI isn't bad in fact they're actually quite good at path funding for the most part it's just that whenever you're attacked by enemies, they have a tendency to freak out and stop following you so your first stuff to kill all the nearby enemies then double back and interact with the family member again to have them resume following you.
At times you can be attacked every 5 or 10 seconds making this process tedious as all hell and most of the time spent in this game is trying to save the lives of all the brain-dead idiots that make up the Patterson family. It probably doesn't help that the layout of the castle is a goddamn maze at times. The east and west wings aren't too hard to get around though there's just this sense of familiarity with all of the rooms that makes navigation really confusing. The main castle area is where things get ugly complexes you've got to explore five different floors all in total darkness and the entire rooms look almost identical, I mean a map of some kind would have really helped immensely.
This can give the game a sense of cheapness as it does rely on jump scares with enemies often jumping up through the floorboards or waiting in corners when you enter a room. Also, it can lose its horror edge at times bordering on just being plain annoying as you're constantly killing the same looking ghoul over and over as they just keep popping up one by one. The weapon lineup is at least original though so it doesn't feel too generic. James backstories that it was a fencing champion in the Olympics so the first weapon you get your hand on is a sword, though about all you can do with it is swing the damn thing over and over and just pray for the best.
It's real textbook hack and slash kind of stuff and about all else you can do is try to stay mobile to avoid taking too much damage but it's a very rudimentary melee combat system and a bit clunky. If the sword doesn't do the trick you can try shooting them with the revolver, machine gun or flintlock pistol. You've also got a wooden stake which is used for staking and can be used as a light source when set on fire, you've also got a musket which is a pain in the ass to use as it literally takes 95 years to reload.
Certain enemies require the use of a crucifix mainly ghosts but it can also be used to repel vampires and then on top of that the boss fights also have different strategies. Though all of them can be finished off with a few splashes from your holy chalice. Afterwards you've often got to find their resting place and drive a stake through their heart as well which is pretty damn cool.
During combat against the standard enemies if you get swarmed or stuck in a corner it can be curtains pretty quickly but the game uses a quick save system and is pretty liberal with the placement of ammo and health items.
So it's not all that tricky on easy or medium difficulty anyway but play the game on hard mode and it becomes a whole different kettle of fish to the point of not really being enjoyable at all.
I feel like to probably enjoy Nosferatu, you really need to overlook a lot of the game's shortcomings, the prehistoric hack and slash style combat the often relentless and annoying respawning of enemies and there are times confusing trudge through familiar hallways and corridors.
### GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Nosferatu isn't a particularly good looking game and compared to other games are the same period it kind of looks like shit there's an obnoxious film grain effect as well which I guess is trying to reinforce the game's cinematic roots though it really just lowers the image quality output, covering up the low resolution textures. There's no support for high resolutions in the games options menu but getting the game running in widescreen is about as easy as downloading the corresponding executable from the internet and dropping it in the games folder.
So it's at least got that going for, I mean it still looks pretty crappy but high resolution crappy is better than low resolution crappy. One thing you can't really argue with though is that it does have an incredible horror atmosphere, from the very first area in the game where you're just surrounded by the castle grounds across this spooky and frightening environment with clever use of lighting and visual effects to keep the mood suitably creepy from start to finish.
The sound design also plays a big part in things as well with some unsettling sound effects played throughout the entire game most notably when something comes out of the shadows to attack you. Enemies are varied but does play into the sort of archetype should expect so you've got demonic dogs, you've got gargoyles ghouls and zombies and you've got other vampires and gypsies. Like the placement of items, enemies are randomized for its play through and they'll also spawn at random when you're just exploring and trying to rescue the next family member.
### MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
>CPU: Pentium III 733MHz Processor
RAM: 128MB RAM
GPU: Direct-3D Compatible 16MB VRAM Video Card
DX: DirectX 8.1
OS: Windows 98/2000/XP/7/8
Store: 350MB
Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
ODD: 4X CD-ROM Drive
<sub>[source](http://gamesystemrequirements.com/game/nosferatu-the-wrath-of-malachi)
### REVIEW/RATING
Graphics 5/10
Sound 5/10
Gameplay 4/10
Controls 5/10
Effect 5/10
#### OVERALL REVIEW/RATING
4.7\10
### DEVELOPER
Idol FX
### PUBLISHER
KISS ltd, Funbox Media Ltd
### GENRE
Survival horror, First-person shooter.
### RELEASE DATE
21 October 2003
### CONCLUSION
At first glance and even for the first 20 or so minutes it can really feel like you're playing the worst game ever made but if you can get over that initial hurdle it's really not all that bad. It's like watching one of those old horror movies from the 70s it has this almost tongue-in-cheek feel to the whole thing that makes it utterly enjoyable. It's just a shame that these core gameplay elements seems so half-baked because the horror aspect of the game is remarkably honed and even now playing it almost 16 years after its initial release, it's still a frightening game that had me jumping in my seat a fair bit.
I'm not sure if I'd recommend it overall considering there's far better alternatives out there which are more intuitive to play and don't rely on a scoring NPCs as their primary mechanic. But if you can overlook the fact that you'll be doing this 90% of the time then Nosferatu wrath of Malachi might be worth checking out.
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## Kindly checkout my previous reviews:
<sub>
[Observer Full Game Review for PC](https://steemit.com/gaming/@creativity101/observer-full-game-review-for-pc)
[Arktika 1 [Oculus Rift] Full Game Review](https://steemit.com/gaming/@creativity101/arktika-1-oculus-rift-full-game-review)
[Dishonored: Death of the Outsider [FPS] Full Game Review For PC](https://steemit.com/gaming/@creativity101/dishonored-death-of-the-outsider-fps-full-game-review-for-pc)
[Amid Evil [FPS] Full Game Review For PC](https://steemit.com/gaming/@creativity101/amid-evil-fps-full-game-review-for-pc)
[The Suffering [Horror] Full Game Review For PC](https://steemit.com/gaming/@creativity101/the-suffering-horror-full-game-review-for-pc)
[Destiny 2 (FPS) Full Game Review For PC](https://steemit.com/gaming/@creativity101/destiny-2-fps-full-game-review-for-pc)
[Wolfenstein 2 The New Colossus (FPS) Full Game Review For PC](https://steemit.com/gaming/@creativity101/wolfenstein-2-the-new-colossus-fps-full-game-review-for-pc)
[Dead Space 3 PC Game Review](https://steemit.com/busy/@creativity101/dead-space-3-pc-game-review)
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<sub>Images were gotten from [store.steampowered.com](http://store.steampowered.com/app/283290/Nosferatu_The_Wrath_of_Malachi/)</sub>
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### <center>Thanks for reading. Follow me @creativity101 for more.</center>
