Do you remember that bit in the remake of The House on Haunted Hill when whatsit is wandering through the basement of the derelict mental asylum, and she comes upon a forgotten operating theatre? She has her camcorder with her – we all had them, back then – and through its viewing screen, the empty, dusty room is suddenly filled with sexy nurses and wonky old doctors. She lowers the screen and the room’s empty. She raises it back up and the room’s full. Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir is that scene, basically, with your 3DS standing in for the camcorder. …
The core of the package comes with story mode, which tells the strange tale of a spooky old notebook and an evil crone who likes to steal people’s faces. The narrative is refreshingly nasty, as it happens, and it unfolds as you page through a short AR pamphlet that accompanies the game, following on-screen instructions that tell you where to point your 3DS camera as you go. …
Beyond that, though, there are a range of AR extras that promise to keep you busy if you’ve lost the little cards the 3DS originally came with, or if you’ve just become bored of having Link and Samus Aran strike heroic poses next to a cheese sandwich.
The simplest of these add-ons is actually the most fun, I think: a basic camera mode that inserts all manner of spooks and horrors into pictures that you’ve taken with the 3DS. There are a variety of different twists on offer, as you mess around with 3D pictures or even opt for a lens that alters the faces of your friends and loved ones, covering people with acne or bending their noses into witches’ crones. Elsewhere, there are asides in which you take snapshots of people and then read about the ghosts that are presently haunting them, or even use friends’ facial geometry to provide the statistics for enemies in a simple combat game. It’s more spinning and snapping, by the looks of it, so it’s probably a good idea to keep that office chair handy. …
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