The third and so far final Nosferatu game falls somewhere in between the two previous efforts. It's not directly based on any of the movies, but takes a lot of care to try and capture the general athmosphere that is associated with the original while still being solidly grounded as a typical gameplay genre piece - in this case a first person shooter.

At the outset, the protagonist appears late at the scene in a Transylvanian castle, where his sister was supposed to be wed to the son of Count Malachi. All that remains of his family at the castle entrance is their left behind luggage, so there's nothing he can do but explore the unnerving place. Stepping into the inner courtyard, he is almost hit by one of the priests who joined the family to conclude the marriage as the cleric is tossed out of a window. Badly wounded, he begs the hero to find and bring Doctor Amersfield, who can tend to his wounds.

Thus begins a quest for all family members and associated personnage throughout the three major buildings within the castle walls, all in all sixteen persons and Aunt Sophie's dog Buster. Once a victim is found and freed, they keep following the player until they're escorted to the entrance, which is plasterd with crucifixes and thus provides a safe haven for everyone. Some, like the hero's tough brother or the trusty dog buster, can even help out in a fight, but once they're killed they stay dead and cruelly get crossed out from the hero's album of family photos. What's worse is that the game runs on an internal clock, and certain family members end up getting sacrificed if they're not rescued in time.

The family album - they all await rescue from the clutches of the vampires

But of course the inhabitants are not keen on having their feast snatched from them, and hunt the protagonist on every step. At first he encounters mostly the count's human servants and hounds, whom he has a good chance to deal with using the sword from his own coffer. But soon fiends start spawning from dark portals endlessly, and vampires rise from their coffins, so melee stops being a viable option fast.

Although ammunition lies around here and there, the only way to get a better arsenal is to rescue people so they reward their savior with a gift from their luggage. Sometimes these are consumable temporary aids, like garlic to repel vampires or elixirs that boost speed or reistance, but early on he'll be rewarded with a flintlock pistol that allows to take out fiends from afar. The downside? Ammo is severely limited, especially in the beginning, and reloading takes a lot of time, giving the monsters ample opportunity to take the hero apart. This never takes particularly long, and even the subsequent musket and sixshooter only slightly alleviate the problem, so much of the early game is a hide-and-seek, jump in and out of cover survival experience.

Often it is mandatory to act cleverly to conserve health and ammunition. Vampires can easily be disposed of if only you manage to get to them before they awake and ram a stake through their heart. A crucifix, when held toward a supernatural aggressor, can incapacitate them. It is impossible to attack at the same time, but it can be used to flee or enable a temporary companion to wail onto them without resistance. Eventually it gains the ability to make water holy, which can then be ladled into a chalice to splash onto attackers - not even a nuisance to hounds and humans, but very deadly to creatures of the night.

Hold the monsters off while Buster goes in for the kill.

Unfortunately, it all falls apart once you get the machine gun. It mows down even winged demons within seconds, and when well-combined with the virtually endless supply of holy water splashes, it never has to run out of ammunition, especially in the main building with the count, where the entrance hall is full with bullet pick-ups. The multiple difficulty levels don't make things better either, because the start of the game is always so much harder than the final parts. In a better game, the superior weapons would be balanced with greater enemy numbers and devious level design, but there's the other problem: Nosferatu's castle halls and rooms are stringed together at random when the game is first started, leading to the usual Diablo problem that every room is more or less the same as all the others.

There are a few central areas that are uniquely designed, though, most of all the boss chambers. But they all mostly rely upon the higher vampires taking an insane amount of abuse before they retreat into their coffins. The hero then has to follow them to their resting place and stake them. Their crypts are all very eerie and the hunt is filled with an atmosphere the random string of rooms can only hint at.

When it works, though, the athmosphere is the game's strongest point. Environments are not very detailed, but the dark shading and pale coloring makes them scary nonetheless, and everything is covered with a thick film grain filter. Monsters attack out of nowhere and chase the player through the entire castle if they have to. When they slash at the protagonist, glowing red claw marks flash on the screen that are as panic-inducing as they are disorienting. The music starts out slow and eerie, but escalates into an unnerving staccato as monsters start jumping at the player from everywhere - not even already visited rooms are safe.

If you only look at the bare mechanics, Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi can only be described as a mediocre first-person shooter that doesn't bring anything new to the table that actually enriches the gameplay. The athmosphere and unusual gimmicks, however, make it an unique experiment that doesn't always work, but displays a range of ideas that would be worth getting explored further in more refined games.

At least they got the look for the count down.