All most all gamers want to get into video game journalism for one reason: to review games. While I sure as hell shall not complain about being in it (free games + being paid to be a nerd = win), I have to set the record straight. There are times when we feel pain and anguish for accepting this badge of honor. There are video games out there that are BAD! I mean, really bad. Putrid even! Playing these games is torture. Enter Ju-On: The Grudge.

I know children in this country are often told that if they have nothing good to say, they should say nothing at all. If I were to do that in this case this review would be empty, as in wordless. Where do I even begin? Ah, the game case alone was deceptive. On it lies the game’s nomenclature. Directly under that is a text box that says “Haunted House Simulator”. When I first saw this, I was intrigued. What the bloody hell is a “Haunted House Simulator”? I assumed it meant a virtual representation of what I know as a “Haunted House”. Though I am not a fan of haunted houses (they never scare me so I see them as pointless), I decided to give it a go with a little enthusiasm. This would prove to turn sour in the end. There are dynamics in this game that have nothing to do with a haunted house. For example, you “life” is gauged by a battery meter. Said meter depletes overtime. This is due to the fact that you are holding a flash light since all the environments in this game as pitch black without. In fact, they are barely visible even when lit by the flashlight. You die when the battery is completely depleted. The only way to avoid this is to find batteries in the game. That is right, you will be hunting down batteries. Doesn’t that just sound fun? Of course, the batteries don’t last long at all. In fact, they seem to act as if they are powering both the flashlight and the Wii remote you are playing with simultaneously. This may be due to the fact that in Asian culture, ghosts and things of that sort are thought to tap into electrical power sources. In other words, the fact that you are in the presence of ghosts is why your batteries deplete quickly. Of course, the whole reason you need batteries is your flashlight. You need said flashlight to see the environments you have to navigate. You have to navigate these dark environments to flee the ghost girl. Why? I have no clue. In fact, I spent a lot of time wondering why the hell the characters I’m controlling didn’t just leave the way they came in. Perhaps they are looking to find the ghost girl. I mean, think about it. Who the hell just walks around with a flashlight? If this is indeed the case, the game is completely pointless. Besides, if we have learned anything from Scooby Doo it’s that you never ghost hunt alone. This game could have been so much win if they had an awesome dog that could speak and mimic human behavior. He could even have a snack named after him and that could replace the stupid battery system as the life gauge . Oh, and for some reason this game is rated “M” for mature. Why? When did poor lighting become adult material? Maybe there was actual adult material but with graphics and lighting this bad, no one will notice. But I digress.

This game is sub par in even the basics. The controls are a chore. This far along into the Wii’s gaming lifecyle, there is no excuse for controls this bad. You use a single Wii remote to mimic a flashlight. You then control where you are going by aiming the Wii remote. There are quick time events that require you to move the remote in specific directions. Such events get triggered when running (like a punk if I might add) from the ghost girl. Problems arise when you all of a sudden go in directions you don’t want to or you go too far. What is even worse, when you die from the ghost girl because of the inaccurate controls (which will happen, it is inevitable) you get to start the level over. Yaaaaaay! The funny thing is when these encounters are not happening, which is the vast majority of the time, you are doing nothing but the previously mentioned battery hunting and exploring these atrocious and putrid environments. Again, Yaaaaaaaay! The characters move extremely slow for some reason. Really, who walks at this speed? It is as if they are stuck in a perpetual dancing machine (robot) maneuver. The game speeds up during the lame chase encounters but those are few and far between problem riddled themselves. Graphically, this game is very scary. You see, I was scared I was playing my PS2 when looking at this game. I am no graphics whore, but in a game like this where the gameplay is horrid one would think the graphics would try to make up for it. Oh no! This game does a great disservice to the graphical standards of last-generation. The sound is the best part of this game. It sucked, but it did not scar me for life like the rest of the game.

The game actually does have a story, believe it or not. Each character you control is a member of the Yamada family. Of course, this family is cursed. That is it. Yup, deep huh? Oh, it gets better. For reasons that lack any logic, each of the members you play as ends up in some abandoned building that has no electricity. The locales are supposed to be different (ranging from a hospital to a school and an abandoned apartment building) but I sure as hell couldn’t tell the difference. It doesn’t help that the game does nothing to show you are playing with different members of the Yamada family. They could have done a lot with this that would have added depth to the shallow gameplay. Imagine characters of different heights, weights, genders, and ages? Developer FeelPlus could have had you view the game in a manner to show the differences. Have the camera and flashlight lower or higher to the ground to reflect height differences. Have different walking speeds, rhythms, and strides. If they really wanted to, they could have had each character have different items that would reflection their personality and characteristics. Instead, you get characters that interact with the environments and control completely identical. Due to this, I argue there is only one real character.

There is absolutely no replay value to this game. Each time you play a level is the same as the last. The game is not long at all, and after playing it I am thankful for that. The game’s basis is just illogical. Stray cats and what looked like hair tentacle monsters (yes, hair tentacles) are amongst the “frightening” foes you face with along with the ghost girl and the boy that sound like a cat. Why the bloody hell am I running from a ghost of a little girl and even younger boy who makes cat sounds? First off, they are ghosts. They are already dead. This game forced me to run from creatures I was not even scared of. Why link my “life” gauge to the batteries in my flashlight? It is not like the light hurts or scares the ghosts. Without it, nothing changes except that the environments are dark. Playing this game was not fun and those involved in having to do so shall rue the day it arrived on my doorstep. In all seriousness, you would be better off calling the Ghostbusters than playing this game. Seriously, try calling them on your real phone. You will fail since they don’t exist, but the time you spending dialing all those numbers will be more fun than playing this game.

(1.5/5)