The Ring: Terror's Realm

The Ring: Terror's Realm
264px North American Dreamcast cover art
Developer(s)	Asmik Ace Entertainment
Publisher(s)
Platforms	Dreamcast
Release date(s)
Genre(s)	Survival horror
Mode(s)	Single-player

The Ring: Terror's Realm (known simply as Ring (リング Ringu) in Japan) is a survival horror video game developed and published by Asmik Ace Entertainment in Japan and published by Infogrames in North America. It was released for Dreamcast on February 24, 2000 in Japan and August 22, 2000 in North America. It is based on the Ring series of novels by Japanese author Koji Suzuki, which also inspired the Japanese film Ring (1998) and its American remake, The Ring (2002).

Plot

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, inside the CDC Meg must find out the truth behind Robert's death and the "RING."

Characters

Meg Rainman -

The Game's protagonist and main character, takes Robert's Position at the CDC after he dies at the start of the game.

Robert -

Researcher at the CDC, was working on the Ring virus before he and three other colleagues die on the same day.

Jack Nikson -

Works as a reporter, neighbour and friend of Meg and Robert.

John Brad -

Boss at the CDC

Chris -

Co-worker at the CDC, works on the ground floor.

Kathy -

Co-worker at the CDC, has a striking resemblance to Tina Turner, likes to cause trouble and is girlfriend of Lukino.

Timothy -

An old doctor working at the CDC

Lukino -

The CDC's security chief, has six piercings, two on both ears and one on the nose and left eye, and is boyfriend of Kathy.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score GameRankings 35.24% Review scores Publication Score AllGame EGM 4.66/10 GameSpot 4.6/10 GameSpy 1/10 IGN 5.4/10

The game was met with mostly negative reviews, as GameRankings gave it a score of 35.24%.

In a review submitted to "the ringworld", a fansite dedicated to Ring, contributors C. Gavlas and K. Gavlas called it "a crude, clumsy Resident Evil-style survival horror video game" and "a pretty depressing homage to Ring." Those unfamiliar with Suzuki's works were equally unimpressed. Jeremy Dunham of IGN said, "The lowest rung on the ladder of Dreamcast survival horror games, The Ring: Terror's Realm is just an average jaunt into the dark side," while a contributor to the PlanetDreamcast website (a part of GameSpy) declared it "hands-down the worst thing I've ever experienced on the Dreamcast." Greg Wilcox of GameTour.com described it as "one of those games that will make you wonder what sort of legal or illegal substances the developers were taking while they were making this one. The game is a combination of bad and weird, mostly leaning toward the bad". Wilcox also noted that one of the Ring films he'd seen was, in his opinion, "a hell of a lot scarier than what's here."

External links

• The Ring: Terror's Realm at MobyGames