The Ward is a decent horror game, but has quite a few flaws and bugs.. (contains spoilers)
You use the stylus to control where you look, the D-Pad to move in directions, the left button to shoot, and right button to switch between flashlight and a weapon of your choice. Speaking of weapons, this game allows you to collect a few different types of guns and melees such as a handgun, a shotgun, a nightstick, a sniper rifle, an M16, a buzzsaw, and more. Sounds all good, but for the bulk of the game you'll wind up using the pistol and buzz saw (once you find it that is)
For enemies, you fight a few. To start you fight different kinds of zombies, these slug/leech things that are not only the most annoying things to defend yourself from but they make this hideous squealing noise, you fight these banshee-yelling heads that come flying at you, the "Cleaver" who is this big fat, faceless monster who shoots this liquid goo at you with his syringe needle hand and tries to hack you in half with his cleaver arm. You also fight some weird guy in a wheelchair who has a gattling gun and finally some sort of doctor with telekinesis powers at the end.
The music is trash... at first it helps create the atmosphere, but when its repeated in EVERY stage it tends to hinder, not help, the game. Also, there are some hit detection issues with this title. Another flaw is the atrocious save system. Dementium is broken into chapters, and lets say you run through an entire chapter only to die at the VERY end... you have to start all over again. The only thing this game does is save your health and ammo status every time you walk through a door. Oh yeah thats another thing, every room and corridor look almost identical. Oh! Haha, also you can beat this game in less than 2.5 hours.
The story isn't fleshed out, and neither is the ending. Somewhere down the line, your character finds out he murdered his wife and his daughter witnessed it. Its never explained why or what exactly happened, but you find yourself in this ward most likely because of this action. At the end after the final boss fight, you find yourself laying on an operating table in the middle of brain surgery or something... the camera pans out, and the last boss you fought stands upright and says "He survived Phase One, proceed to Phase Two." Thats it.
Dementium: The Ward may not be as scary as it tried to be, the story may fall flat on it's face, and it may be plauged with a hundred other problems, but I can say that the atmosphere of the game was fun & interesting and the shooting aspect was pretty fun. Additionally, its one of the only FPS on the Nintendo DS so it earns itself a few more points, and it also uses the touch screen fairly well unlike many other DS titles. Overall, I give it a 7.5.