I think I’m in love*.
A few days ago I got a belated Xmass present from my aunt. W00t, $50! I’ve been bitching about needing a new video game to play, as my normal Scarface + Godfather + The Warriors combo was getting old, and my computer game selection is even worse, with me really only playing Freedom Fighters and Deus Ex (the first one, and I refuse to acknowledge the second one). All great friggin’ games one and all but I need some new blood. Yea, I got Guild Wars Nightfall for Xmass, but that was really just tacking on to an already established game I’ve had for over a year now.
To EB I went.
I almost bought Yakuza since I heard it was pretty good, but I think I need a break from free-roam criminal games (at least until a ground-breaking one comes along). Still, with my $50 smooshed in my sweaty hands I had the Yakuza box all ready to go. As I approached the register I had this feeling nudging me to check the PC games (that feeling is something called “experience”). They had a decent enough selection but dammit I wanted something that REALLY called out to me. And there I found it. The box was smashed like a steamroller decided to park on it, but clear as fuckin’ day I could see the title: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.
BOOYAH!
I knew this mofo was coming out, but I didn’t know it actually came out for PC. The PS2 one got cancelled, so I expected the same fate for the PC version (the XBOX version’s been out for a bit now). WOOOO! The Lovecraft fanboy inside of me rejoiced. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
So… I get home and install it. The game flat out tells you that it’s dark… really, really dark, and the only way to see what’s going on is to play in the dark (which is also good for mood and creep factor). Aight. I had to wait a bit. Truth be told, at first I didn’t think the wait was worth it. The opening scene/level was alright, but kinda cheesey. But after that… dude… DUDE! I had the shit scared out of me a few times. I think this just might be the scariest mind-fuck I’ve ever played on the PC (and maybe PS2 as well). Four things stand out about this game, things that make it a gem among other games:
(a) No HUD. That’s right, there’s no “game” things on the screen. You have no health bar, ammo meter, sanity warnings, nothing. There’s only what your character sees. It’s INSANE (pun). You know you’re hurt by the way your character walks or attacks, blood splatters on the screen, breathing and heartbeat rates, etc.. When you walk on a broken leg you hear it crunching as you limp and grunt along. There’s no crosshair to aim by. You only know how many bullets you have by… well… remembering or reloading. You know your sanity meter is getting low when… ah, I’ll save that for the next point.
(b) The sanity effects in the game rule. First of all, your character is afraid of heights. Nice touch. You take sanity hits when you witness truly horrific or mind-shattering events, such as a dead body, a creature, torture, or blasphemous objects. You start to hear voices, or talk to yourself, or see things that aren’t there, and on and on. I really like how they implemented sanity. It fits the genre. The fact that you get vertigo and breathe heavy when your fear of heights hits is awesome.
(c) The lighting is moody as fuck (and we all know how moody fuck can be). Yea, the game looks a bit dated. They kept pushing back the release date so much that the engine is somewhat antiquated. Don’t get me wrong, it still looks really good but it’s not the cutting edge. The lighting really sets the mood. The lighting can also save your life, as sneaking around plays a bigger part than combat, especially since you don’t have a weapon for the first five parts of the game and have to rely on running and hiding (very true to genre). Five whole long and terrifying levels without anything to attack with (for some reason you can’t punch; I guess cuz no weapons makes it scarier).
(d) The genre is true to source. It actually sticks to the Lovecraftian genre. Fucking amazing. There’s so many piss poor attempts at doing Lovecraftian stories, movies and games that I often wonder if ol’ Lovecraft was wrong to leave his creations as “open source”. But this one got it right.
I do have some minor quibbles with the game. First off, the voice acting can be downright horrible at times. When it shines it shines, but sometimes it’s agonizing. The main source of this is when the guy talks to himself, describing whatever you click on. He always sounds calm, like, “This decaying dresser contains nothing I need right now”. That’s fine and dandy when you’re strolling about and not panicking. But when your guy is losing his fucking mind and talking to himself, then you click an object and he describes it like he’s talking to his mother it seems a bit “off”. Another qualm I have with the game is the AI sometimes seems retarded. There’s been a few times that I’ve shot a motherfucker and he just stood there looking around. Blegh. Another thing, which isn’t the fault of the game at all, is that I know most of the first half of the story. If you’ve seen the movie Dagon and/or read Shadows Over Innsmouth most of the scares in the first five levels won’t surprise you (except for a few deviations). Whatever.
This game is spot on, all in all. Most people will enjoy it, but Lovecraft fans will cum over it. I just thought the world (i.e. my blog) should know this. I can really appreciate a game that has more puzzles and flight (as in running for your life with your sanity going down, voicing in your head telling you to kill youself, and things trying to kill you) than combat. But there’s some combat too, so people that like to kill shit shouldn’t be turned off. You can beat boards a few ways.
Mmmm… Deep Ones.
-=Grim=-
*Well, beyond Val. You know what I mean.