Call of Cthulhu

[esper]

Finally. After four years of being told it was going to be released, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is available for XBox, although not for PC as it was originally intended.

I figured I would tell everyone about this game, because on the whole, no one knows about it. Even the guy at my local EB Games, who knows everything video game related, knew nothing about it.

CoC:DCotE is a role-playing game, an adventure game... But wrapped in the shell of a FPS. There is actually little S'ing involved, since the creatures that roam the dark Lovecraftian realms of CoC can't be harmed by armies, never mind any manner of gun you may collect in the game. What distinguishes the game is that the only reason they used first person was for deeper immersion. Horror just isn't that scary when you aren't the person going through it. There is no target reticule. There is no HUD. You want to know how badly you're hurt? Look down at yourself. You want to know how many bullets are left in your revolver? Open the chamber. You want to get a piece of inventory? Fiddle around in your pockets... (but not too deeply... Don't want to be accused of playing pocket pool)

The other thing that makes the game absolutely fantastic is your ability to go mad. They were thinking they were going to have a problem with this because Nintendo, like the asshats they are, decided to COPYRIGHT sanity systems (not the particular sanity system used in Eternal Darkness... no... Sanity Systems in general. I say Microsoft should copyright the health meter...) but the sanity system in Call of Cthulhu is completely different than anything else. You can hear voices, you can see things that aren't there (as a matter of fact, in the first section of the game, look in all the windows on the first floor of the buildings in the city... You don't need to be crazy to see things then!)... Your character will sometimes start seeing innocent civilians as monsters, and he might even try firing off a few shots that you didn't command him to. As a matter of fact, if things are going really badly for you, put your gun away, because the main character has been known to spontaneously commit suicide...

Based on the story "Shadow Over Innsmouth" by H.P. Lovecraft, Dark Corners of the Earth is definitely worth a look. The graphics are a little dated (since they were supposed to release this game four years ago) but the whole reason I'm even giving this review is because this community generally cares more about story than graphics... But they still are good, even if outdated.

www.callofcthulhu.com

[Chrille]

I've been waiting for it since it was announced as well.

So far I've played about 4-5 hours of it and I must say I am relieved because I'd heard lots of bad things about it as it was nearing release. It is a very good game so far. I guess you can call it an adventure game since you explore, look for clues and talk to people etc.. There aren't really any "classic" adventuregame puzzles though, which feels quite good. You can compare it to Deus Ex in terms of the trouble solving (reading diarys and notes to find a code to a safe etc.).

Right now I'm at a part where the "little S'ing"-claim is shot to bits. Because the locals of Innsmouth are angry and appearently have a weapons factory somewhere since it seems all of them carry guns. It doesn't really feel out of place though because it ties into the story quite well and things never goes Rambo or anything like that, but I don't see how someone who likes adventures and not FPS-games is going to be able to get through this because if you're not used to FPS-games it's hard. I hope it returns to being more of an adventure soon. If the rest of the game carries on with this shooting gallery thing there won't sadly be much to make it different from anything else out there. Right now it feels like unique and nice little game. Nothing great, but very good.