The story The Ring: Terror's Realm begins as our happy heroine, Meg, finds that her boyfriend, Bobby, has been turned into a dead, dried-up fig of a thing. He was a husky hunk before; now, he's just a husk. Obviously disturbed, Meg emerges determined to solve the mystery by examining the line of research that Bobby was conducting at the local branch of the Center for Disease Control.

At the lab, she learns that Bobby and two other recently departed staffers were running a top-secret computer program known only as [RING]. By crashing the still-running program, Meg gets downloaded into an alternate world. Decked out in nifty body armor and sporting lead-spittin' weaponry, Meg is able now to take her personal vendetta to a new level.

All of this would be cool, except that Meg is tutored on how to "off" people in the [RING] universe, and then sent off to destroy others called "them" without any other explanation or motivation. Where's the logic in that?

At first, the action is rather absorbing, and there are plenty of elements to move the plot along. As time goes by, The Ring grows tired, and the production team does little to revive it once it begins that long, slow journey into night. Late rehashing of early plot segments is tiring; being sent on increasingly trivial item-retrieval missions is worse; chugging around the game's locales again and again is tedium that becomes nearly unendurable as the game nears its conclusion.

To make matters worse, the game's production values aren't enough to warrant consideration for a lengthy gameplay experience, either. Any thought of this game passing as a Resident Evil clone goes right out the window when you start firing at a creature that's right in front of you, and the bullets magically fly right through its body without leaving any damage at all.

While The Ring: Terror's Realm seemed like a good idea at the start, it just goes to show what happens when a d

Survival horror has entered a new Realm. A deadly computer virus is killing humans. You have been infected and have 7 days to live unless you find a cure and stop the dreadful virus from spreading. Search for clues and unlock the deadly secrets that lie between two worlds.

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In fact, you can see exactly where the developers and programmers wanted to go. It could have been a very intriguing mystery/survival horror mix with just enough difference from the Resident Evil/Silent Hill genre to keep it interesting. They just needed to have a brain in their heads before the project began.

4 of 5 found the following review helpful:

A Vicious CircleSep 09, 2001
By PKHauntUS
The premise of the 'The Ring' is frightfully similar to actually enduring the game itself. Based on Japanese horror movies of the same title, 'The Ring' is about a computer game of the same title which when played results in the player experiencing dizzy and fainting spells that eventually result in death. In reality 'The Ring,' as in the Dreamcast game, does much of the same. The strident music, uninspired visuals and putrid control are headache inducing and I'm positive that prolonged exposure to this title may result in bodily harm.

As far as the story is concerned, 'The Ring' seems like it could kicked some life into the increasingly tiring survival horror genre. The truth be told, despite the horrible FMV intro which is entirely farcical and flimsily animated, I was pumped to play 'The Ring.' That sensation 360'ed the instant the game loaded up. There is no other way to put it; 'The Ring' is ugly. The animation is stiff and miles away from anything remotely resembling realism. The environments are barren of anything half-interesting to look at. Unless you have an abnormal fascination with desks, plants and cabinets, your jaw definitely will be nowhere near the floor. Also, the wall/floor visuals appear granular while the chairs and other objects look crisp. This juxtaposition mares any stab the developer may have been taking in regards to visual flare.
The alternative universe of 'The Ring' looks suspiciously like that of the Playstation fright-fest 'Silent Hill.' It's dark, grimy and a flashlight is needed to navigate properly. Despite some impressive real-time lighting, it's is not as foreboding and grotesque as the rustic hell found in 'Silent Hill.'

As far as gameplay is concerned 'The Ring' does nothing close to satisfactory. The controls are standard survival horror fare yet manage to be completely unresponsive. Your character moves ever so slowly and there is an unforgivable one-second delay when executing actions like running and drawing weapons. Wait till you attempt to aim your gun towards to ground, you'll be cussing like a maniac. On top of that, collision detection is spotty at best; opening cabinet and picking up items becomes taxing quickly. These downfalls result in a absolutely frustrating experience.
Plot progression is comparable to getting your teeth drilled. You must talk to the right characters, or pick up an obscure item just to move along then you are forced to play the absolutely uninteresting 'game.' `The Ring' is as linear as linear can be. Furthermore the flow of the 'The Ring' feels routine and convoluted. From time to time I was eager to see what was next just to be disappointed by having to go into the 'game' again and look for more inconspicuous items in the dark and fight absolutely inept monsters.

Musically, I can't imagine the 'The Ring' could get any shoddier. The score, if you want to call it that, is comparably to a high pitch shriek that loops indefinitely. This is the first game I ever had to mute for sanity sake. The voice acting is also next to unbearable. Some characters have decent vocalization, while others sound downright dreadful.

`The Ring' is barely bargain bin entertainment. There is nothing to justify the purchase of this title unless you are extremely desperate for a survival horror fix. My suggestion is to play through `Resident Evil: Code Veronica' one more time.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:

Only for die hard RING fansSep 05, 2001
By Chris17333@aol.com
Being a fan of the Japanese horror movie, this game was a must for me, if only for the plot. All three movies were excellent and I really wanted to see the story continued, and was shocked to see this game brought into America. I suppose they thought they could jump in on the survival horror band wagon with Resident Evil being so popular over here. Most people have never heard of the ground-breaking Japanese movies, although Dreamworks is in the works on an American remake, which will hopefully help Americans to enjoy this masterpiece.

Unless you have seen the movies and know the characters from them like I do, there is NO reason to pick up this game. The graphics are very sub-par, with the heroine always with a goofy smile on her face the whole adventure. Only a couple of the characters in the game that you meet actually have mouths that move, while others just blatantly don't. The flashlight effects are well done in the dark sequences of the "RING" but that was the only thing that looked good.

The game has attrocious sound, with ONE tune for each floor that repeats over and over again. It is a little catchy, but quickly gets annoying after a few hours. There is no excuse for the voice acting, either. The ending is almost compleyely ruined by horrible and out of place voice being put in after the rest of the game has none.

Overall, the story was very good, and had a lot of potential. The premise was the only thing helping me get through to the end. The series was so good and the premise for the game was great, but it was fouled up in the implementation, making this one of the very few bad Dreamcast games.

I strongly suggest this if just as a part of a "The Ring" collection for any fan of the series to just see the plot. Otherwise, if you haven't seen or didn't love the movies, I stronlgy suggest avoiding this one - at all costs!!

BoringNov 01, 2008
By A. Edwards
This game is super boring and it reminds me of an old DOS PC game. Lame, and after trying it once I never played it again

3 of 6 found the following review helpful:

SCARIER THAN SILENT HILL and RE!!May 15, 2001

Base on a popular Japanese manga and movie, Ring takes our heroine, Meg, on a terrifying adventure that alternates between the real world and a nightmarish parallel universe.

The atmosphere and lighting effects of this game are simply so spectacular that I was really scared playing this game. The music is bone-chillingly weird and the storyline makes the player think about the morals of the human condition. And to top it off, the office building environments are modeled in 3d and NOT PRE-RENDERED! That means you can play the game in either a fixed camera mode (ie. Resident Evil), "Tomb Raider" follow camera, or (my fave and bet the other reviewers didn't know about this one:) first-person virtual environment point of view! The last option is the the coolest because you get to move and fight in this view! Not even Code Veronica can do this!

On the down side however, the character models are kind of odd looking, which further contributes to the weirdness of this game (by the way, I think this is great IMHO), that may turn-off a lot of gamers. The dialogue and acting in the opening trailer (but not near the end) are hilariously weird and sounded like they were taken from a funny B-movie (again another creepy plus for me). But the major gripe of mine about this game is the stiff control over the main character. Then again, the Resident Evil series have bad controls too and no one seems to mine.

It's a shame to see this weird, creepy little game get underrated when compared to the same old "getting-less-scary" formula of zombie-blasting survival horror. Although this game has monster-blasting action, it's the setting and story that that will terrify you, not the cheap "jumping-out-of-the-closet-zombie" trick that's getting old. Buy the game now, 'cause it's getting harder to find!

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