Haunting Ground

[apathy]

Continuing on from my Clock Tower 3 thread is this submission for Haunting Ground. A lot of people might not have heard of CT, but Haunting Ground is pretty popular in the suvival horror fanbase. It's a spiritual successor to the CT series but deals with a new setting, story & characters, and mostly is a successor in terms of mechanics and what not.

Like Clock Tower there's a panic meter that rises as the main character Fiona gets stalked by pursuers or witnesses disturbing events. Allowing the meter to get to high will see the player losing control of Fiona as she runs about in a frenzy, leaving her vulnerable.

The other main mechanic of the game is your dog companion Hewie, who you need to train so he'll listen to your commands when you need him to attack or help solve a puzzle. At the beginning of the game since he doesn't know Fiona too well, he's prone to ignoring your commands, but if you praise him for doing a good job he'll start to like you more and be more consistent in obeying you.
Funnily enough, the dog that saves you from El Gigante in Resident Evil 4 is supposed to be an easter egg of Hewie - as RE4 and Haunting Ground were both made by Capcom and released around similar times.

 

[Oblivion Knight]

I've been tempted to pick this up, but just not at the price it's been asked for on eBay at the moment - I'll probably give it a quick download when I have a moment..

I watched a video review and they really liked the concept of having a dog companion.

 

[apathy]

I know, a lot of these PS2 horror games are pretty ridiculously priced, with Rule of Rose being the worst offender to my knowledge.

I've actually only played this game once myself, when I was a teenager and had one of those MagicSwap discs for the PS2 that let me play DVD-Rs. From my memory the dog actually isn't too annoying of a mechanic and works pretty well. I think having to be mates with him before he listens is a pretty good idea.