Title - Ring / The Ring: Terror's Realm
Platform - Sega Dreamcast
Release Date - 02/24/2000
Developed By - Asmik Ace Entertainment

This review written especially for the ringworld by C. Gavlas and K. Gavlas

Synopsis

Ring (released in North America under the title The Ring: Terror's Realm) is a basic survival horror/action video game for Sega Dreamcast. In it, Meg Rainman is a newly-hired researcher at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States. Her boyfriend Robert is among four workers at the CDC who have died mysteriously on the same day, and the only thing that connects them is a program found in their computers, called "RING." When the CDC is put under lockdown, Meg finds herself imprisoned in the center with her co-workers; her only outside contact is Jack Nikson, a reporter and friend. Her only clue to Robert's death is the RING program.

In her new office (formerly Robert's), Meg recieves a phone call from Jack, who tells her that Robert had been working on RING before his death. Meg attempts to access RING from Robert's laptop, and the program asks her to input her name, then runs an "Uploading..." dialogue. She awakens to find herself in a location that parallels the CDC, only derelict and run-down. A man wearing futuristic armour similar to the outfit Meg is now wearing tells her that she's part of a mission to recover the antidote for a virus. Meg is under the impression that RING is some kind of video game.

Meg awakens to find herself back in the office. RING is on the computer screen, and a dialogue that says, "7 days..." appears onscreen before the program shuts down and refuses to load again. Meg recieves another phone call, and when she picks the reciever up, there's no one on the other end. A co-worker, Chris, comes in and tells Meg that the boss, John Brad, wants to see her. When Meg asks John about RING he becomes furious. Timothy, a doctor at the CDC, confides to Meg that her boyfriend seems to have died from a virus, and suggests that she investigate his belongings. It seems that Robert was working on something suspicious before he died--something involving RING and a woman from Japan. Jack phones Meg again, and tells her about the urban legend of behind RING, which first appeared as a videotape in Japan, and then as a virus.

As Meg works to recover the clues that Robert and Jack have left her, her efforts are furthered by two of her female co-workers (Chris, and Kathy, who seem to like causing trouble) and hindered by Lukino, the center's hardcase security chief, and by John, who believes that Meg is simply hysterical. She accesses RING once more, and a commando tells her that she has to work quickly as his connection is failing and he cannot help. Meg also sees a mysterious little girl with short black hair. The girl appears normal at first, but is actually some kind of ghost. When Meg returns to the real world the ghost girl follows her, seemingly urging her to return to RING. As she travels further into the facility's restricted areas, Meg discovers that people are being kept there under quarantine and against their will. A doctor tells her they're infected with a mystery virus, and one of the prisoners she talks to is a woman who had spoken with Robert before he died. Meg also discovers that the body of Yamamura Sadako, the being responsible for the Ring curse, had been recovered from Japan and brought to the CDC.

Meg recovers an 8mm film containing a short, incomprehensible movie (which is nothing more than the film Sadako created in the movie version of  Ring), and after watching it is catapaulted back into the RING program. She discovers, to her horror, that Jack is in the program as well, and is also trying to solve the mystery. Just then, Jack loses his connection to the program and vanishes. The ghost girl appears, identifying herself as Yamamura Shizuko, and explains that RING is actually the real world, but that to save it she must find the vaccine and stop Sadako. Shizuko tells Meg to trust her, and that she'll understand when she visits where Sadako lives.

When Meg awakens, Lukino talks to her and asks her to help, for Robert's sake. The most restricted area of the CDC can only be accessed with a special key, but Lukino plans to turn off the building's power so that Meg will be able to enter it. Lukino was a friend of Robert's before he died and Kathy's boyfriend, and his concern is genuine. Meg sneaks into the Isolation area, which contains quarantine cells and a morgue. As she explores the area further, she discovers that the monsters encountered in the "real" world are actually people who have been infected with the Ring virus, and that the captives in quarantine are now becoming monsters in the "Loop" world as well. Meg gains access to the morgue (oddly, it's labelled "Chapel") where Shizuko appears again, telling her that the virus is Sadako's revenge for the persecution she and Shizuko suffered. According to Shizuko, she had tried to come back from the dead in hopes of stopping Sadako, but something went wrong (hence her childlike appearance). She says that the reason Robert died in this world is because he has become infected with the Ring virus in the "real" world, and that Meg must find Sadako and obtain the vaccine from her so she can save Robert and everyone else.

Shizuko directs Meg to John's office, where she takes an elevator to a secret area. John confronts her, explaining that he wants to learn the secrets of the virus so he can control Sadako's power. A mysterious voice exclaims, "I will never be controlled!" and John is supernaturally transformed into a monster, which Meg kills.

Shizuko appears once more, bringing Meg to a small chamber where the body of Sadako rests in a biotube. Sadako awakens, utterd the word "Sky" and then vanishes. Shizuko tells Meg that Sadako had been underground for so long she must have wanted to see the open sky again. She asks Meg to try and put Sadako to rest.

On the roof, Meg fights Sadako, whose powers have apparently been reduced to super-fast hopping, attacking with slashing hair, and turning into a flock of crows. Once Sadako falls down for good, Meg cradles her body in her arms, expressing remorse for the cruelty with which people had treated her and her mother. Sadako's body vanishes, leaving Meg with a sample of the vaccine. The game closes, showing Meg, once again in commando gear, (as RING was really an upload to the real world, Meg is a commando and not an Office Lady) watching over the city as a report on her walkie-talkie announces that the people demanding the vaccine have started to riot and will need to be contained. Behind Meg and out of her sight, a sinister-looking crow flies into the screen and Sadako floats above the city.

Notes

Not only is this game very poor from a technical or gameplay point of view (it's a crude, clumsy Resident Evil-style survival horror video game), it makes no sense to people who are unfamiliar with the Ring books, and seems like more of an excuse to try and cash in on the franchise. Throughout the game, Meg seems more concerned with Shizuko's suggestion that Robert may still be saved than with the fate of the world, and her maquette wears the same inane, bright-eyed smile, regardless of what's happening. The English voice acting is terrible (though that's not an unusual thing in translated video games) and the Ring-based story comes off as being nonsensical and confusing to the people who are, presumably, the target demographic for the game itself (especially considering that its Western release was totally unrelated to that of DreamWorks' The Ring. Admittedly, even if Infogrames had tried to associate it with The Ring, it still would've made no sense to bring it over.

There are all of four pieces of background music (one for each floor of the CDC building) that are repeated ad-nauseum throughout the game. The puzzles require no more than finding the right key, and most events are triggered by running through all the rooms repeatedly until you meet someone who hadn't been hanging around there last time. To add to the disappointing aspects of the game, there are also only five kinds of monster that you meet (giant lizard, gorilla man, bat man, chimpanzee man, and big-head devil man), although they have a few different colour skins which may or may not make them any stronger.

The only point of interest in the combat system is the aiming; there is no automatic lock-on, and Meg has to catch a monster in her gun's laser sight before she shoots it. There's a drawback to this, though: the monsters are so badly programmed that even when you're beyond their reach, they can suddenly appear stuck to Meg and biting her, at which point you have to run away and take aim all over again. There is (to go with the rest of the game's insufficiencies, I guess) a very limited range of weapons, and aside from the very exciting and crucial "get the grenade launcher before the monster with the huge head opens a door and kills your commando friend" sequence, you can get by perfectly fine with the handgun and the shotgun. There are no boss battles aside from the "Loop" world fight with Sadako, which is annoying and difficult because although Meg has four different weapons in the "real" world, all office-lady Meg gets is a crummy handgun.

Speaking of the Ring series' sinister antihero, Sadako appears (mysteriously enough) as a completely intact, healthy, middle aged Japanese woman, with dark auburn hair parted down the middle, wearing a mauve kimono with a flower pattern on it. It's nice to know that after the CDC disinterred her, they brushed her hair and gave her a clean change of clothes. No sense lying around in a cryogenic containment capsule if you're not nicely dressed, eh? Additionally, the whole "monster" thing makes no sense, aside from that I suppose you had to have something to kill in the game.

Everything about this game is sub-standard. Unless you're totally obsessed with the Ring franchise, you needn't bother investing any time or energy into the Ring video game, which stands as a pretty depressing homage to Ring.

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