Your older sister Rebecca is getting married to the son of a wealthy Romanian Count. The Patterson family and some of their closest friends arrive at Castle Malachi for the celebration; they are greeted instead by evil devastation. Of course they all become prisoners inside the huge, dark castle and you have to rescue them before it’s too late.

Nosferatu The Wrath Of Malachi does a good job at creating a creepy atmosphere by scaring the hell out of you every time you turn a corner. I jumped out of my seat on more than one occasion. For that alone I would recommend this game to horror buffs, but there are several nagging glitches that keep Nosferatu from attaining greatness.

The good qualities in Nosferatu include a very easy control configuration. Any shooter veteran will find the keyboard setup familiar territory and newbies craving a spine-tingling jolt won’t have much trouble navigating through the castle. The music is full of haunting themes, dark chilling melodies and descriptive event sensitive moments. The short movies that play when you reach an area of interest are actually unsettling. In one particular part I failed to rescue a member of my party and the quick cut-scene made my chest pound in my throat. The monster models are not cutting edge, but their lightning speed and viscous attack will make you shudder.

The game has a random spawn feature. If you defeat the game and wish to play it again this randomness will undoubtedly add replay value. The castle remains the same, but the rooms are shuffled. This also means that if you save in one room during the game because it appears to be safe, that is not entirely the case. When you reload you might be looking at a blood lusting hell spawn that wasn’t there before. If you are low on health this could be a problem. If you rescue a family member in one room only to die, that same family member might not be in the same room when you reload. On the one hand this can prove quite frightening when a monster appears suddenly, but it can also become a bit irritating. The castle is large and full of twisting stairwells and long corridors. Unfortunately this randomness makes a custom map pointless.

There are several difficulty levels, but even on the easy setting the game is challenging. Each monster can be killed by one of several different weapons. For instance a shadow vampire can be dispatched with a crucifix or some holy water. A zombie can be dealt with by shooting it or hacking it with a sword. Problems develop when multiple enemies are in one room. You must be able to swap weapons quickly in order to avoid considerable damage. Some weapons take an eternity to reload and the weapon scroll is a bit cumbersome.

The story doesn’t offer much complexity, but it doesn’t really have to. You basically run around the castle searching for family members and killing every single wicked aberration in sight. Each member will have a useful item to give you. There are stronger, more gruesome vampires hidden in different locations within the castle. They resemble end level bosses because they are much more difficult to defeat and they each have a special key you must obtain in order to progress further. One in particular was especially nasty looking like a cross between the Rancor monster in Return of the Jedi and a deformed McFarlane action figure.

The environments are suitable, murky and deserted, but lack any real depth. Just enough variation was added in order to keep monotony at bay. There is a grainy texture over the screen that resembles an old silent film, which I thought was a very nice touch and really made the whole horror package complete. The character models are weak by today’s standards, but each person is given a personality with decent voiceovers. One character may be a whiner, while another will have a humorous, nervous laugh.

All in all Nosferatu delivers enough thrills, screams and suspense to satiate horror fans. The good qualities surpass the negative ones, and the price of admission is very reasonable.

Gameplay:  8
Enemies are very fast, they appear from nowhere and some of them have a violent attack. Escorting family members back and forth through the castle does get to be a little tedious at times. A map would have been nice, but impossible due to the randomness feature.

Graphics:  7
The environments are decent and atmospheric, but the character models appear dated. There are also several clipping problems and poor collision in particular areas.

Sound: 8
The excellent music and creepy effects are what really make this game scary. Unfortunately there is no directional sound support.

Difficulty: 8
Challenging at times because of multiple enemies that are very fast with different weapon requirements.

Concept: 7 
Creepy castle, assortment of bloodsuckers set within the confines of classic shooter style gameplay.

Overall: 8
Nosferatu doesn’t have quite as much depth as Clive Barker’s Undying, but it does deliver some thrills despite a handful of minor flaws.