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This thread has been linked to the game 'Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth'.
Little alarm bells started ringing in my head when I first heard that there was going to be a game based on the work of horror author H.P. Lovecraft. Not because I have a deep-seated hatred for Lovecraft's work - in fact, I'm something of a fan - but because his work is notoriously hard to translated into any other format than the written word. Yes, Re-Animator was a good film, but that was a fairly loose adaptation of a fairly non-typical Lovecraft story. The problem is that Lovecraft's never really describes of the horrors that crop up in his stories. Rather, the horror is left to the reader's imagination, the author generally talking about the creatures from his Cthulu mythos as being beyond human comprehension, often driving those who see them completely insane. Which is what makes actually putting the aforementioned creatures up on the movie screen or indeed any visual format somewhat difficult.
Thankfully, this hasn't been lost on the makers of Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth. While they obviously couldn't make a survival horror game where you never actually got to see any monsters, they actually hold of on showing you more than the briefest glimpses of any nasties until you're about halfway through the game. And by that point, you're so spooked that even a Care Bear popping into view would be enough to scare the living daylights out of you. Your real foes, up until that point at least, are the inhabitants of the small fishing town that your character, a private detective, has been sent to investigate. Sound familiar? It may do, if you're a Lovecraft fan, because the 'Call of Cthulhu' in the title of the game actually refers to the role playing game series of the same name, elements of which crop up in the game. Dark Corners' storyline is in fact largely taken from 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth', a story about an isolated port where the locals are less than friendly and especially don't appreciate people poking around in their foes. It's these locals that you find yourself having to deal with initially. And by 'deal with' I mean 'flee from' because you actually don't a gun or any way of defending yourself till a third of a way into the game. Forget sneaking around, just running like hell is your best option.
Things don't actually get much easier when you find a gun, since that's when the game starts throwing more numerous foes at you, and eventually pits you against enemies who are distinctly less than human. I got the distinct feeling that the designers were trying to make stealth a viable option, but the whole sneaking mechanic seems so wonky, the sneak control randomly alternating between 'move slowly forward' and 'look round corner' that it doesn't really work. Fortunately, you generally have enough ammo and medikits to survive as long as you have the sense to duck behind a wall when you're being fired at. Should you take damage, you won't die instantly unless you're really badly hit, but various parts of your body do start bleeding, and if left unchecked will lead to your death. It's not just your physical wellbeing you have to worry about either - should you let your character witness too many horrific events, without taking a breather in between, he may well use his gun take to his own life. The whole 'sanity' system isn't as advanced as the one found in Eternal Darkness for the Gamecube, but it does fit in well with the mythos, Lovecraft's characters often ending up insane or suicidal.
As you might expect, none of the locations in the game are particularly cheery or well lit, although the game avoids the 'What's that in the darkness? Oh, it's a giant monster jumping straight at me' shenanigans of Doom 3. In fact, Dark Corners has more in common with the subdued horror of Silent Hill than the balls-against-the-wall monster-slaughtering Resident Evil series. As an attempt to get across the spirit of Lovecraft's series, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth actually succeeds. And although it does become slightly less horrifying as the game progresses and you end up encountering enemies face on, it's still pretty damn frightening. I'd like to say that H.P. Lovecraft would be proud of this game, but given that he didn't seem particularly proud of much of his work, I can't imagine him praising anyone's take on his mythos. He'd probably point out, and rightly so, that once you've played the game through once, there's not much reason to go to back to it. After all, it's hard to be scared by the same scripted event twice. Nevertheless, Dark Corners is a worthy acquisition for any Lovecraft enthusiast, or any survival horror fan, especially now it can be had for the princely sum of fifteen pounds or below. Just don't blame me if you have nightmares.
Thankfully, this hasn't been lost on the makers of Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth. While they obviously couldn't make a survival horror game where you never actually got to see any monsters, they actually hold of on showing you more than the briefest glimpses of any nasties until you're about halfway through the game. And by that point, you're so spooked that even a Care Bear popping into view would be enough to scare the living daylights out of you. Your real foes, up until that point at least, are the inhabitants of the small fishing town that your character, a private detective, has been sent to investigate. Sound familiar? It may do, if you're a Lovecraft fan, because the 'Call of Cthulhu' in the title of the game actually refers to the role playing game series of the same name, elements of which crop up in the game. Dark Corners' storyline is in fact largely taken from 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth', a story about an isolated port where the locals are less than friendly and especially don't appreciate people poking around in their foes. It's these locals that you find yourself having to deal with initially. And by 'deal with' I mean 'flee from' because you actually don't a gun or any way of defending yourself till a third of a way into the game. Forget sneaking around, just running like hell is your best option.
Things don't actually get much easier when you find a gun, since that's when the game starts throwing more numerous foes at you, and eventually pits you against enemies who are distinctly less than human. I got the distinct feeling that the designers were trying to make stealth a viable option, but the whole sneaking mechanic seems so wonky, the sneak control randomly alternating between 'move slowly forward' and 'look round corner' that it doesn't really work. Fortunately, you generally have enough ammo and medikits to survive as long as you have the sense to duck behind a wall when you're being fired at. Should you take damage, you won't die instantly unless you're really badly hit, but various parts of your body do start bleeding, and if left unchecked will lead to your death. It's not just your physical wellbeing you have to worry about either - should you let your character witness too many horrific events, without taking a breather in between, he may well use his gun take to his own life. The whole 'sanity' system isn't as advanced as the one found in Eternal Darkness for the Gamecube, but it does fit in well with the mythos, Lovecraft's characters often ending up insane or suicidal.
As you might expect, none of the locations in the game are particularly cheery or well lit, although the game avoids the 'What's that in the darkness? Oh, it's a giant monster jumping straight at me' shenanigans of Doom 3. In fact, Dark Corners has more in common with the subdued horror of Silent Hill than the balls-against-the-wall monster-slaughtering Resident Evil series. As an attempt to get across the spirit of Lovecraft's series, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth actually succeeds. And although it does become slightly less horrifying as the game progresses and you end up encountering enemies face on, it's still pretty damn frightening. I'd like to say that H.P. Lovecraft would be proud of this game, but given that he didn't seem particularly proud of much of his work, I can't imagine him praising anyone's take on his mythos. He'd probably point out, and rightly so, that once you've played the game through once, there's not much reason to go to back to it. After all, it's hard to be scared by the same scripted event twice. Nevertheless, Dark Corners is a worthy acquisition for any Lovecraft enthusiast, or any survival horror fan, especially now it can be had for the princely sum of fifteen pounds or below. Just don't blame me if you have nightmares.
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Little alarm bells started ringing in my head when I first heard that there was going to be a game based on the work of horror author H.P. Lovecraft. Not because I have a deep-seated hatred for Lovecraft's work - in fact, I'm something of a fan - but because his work is notoriously hard to translated into any other format than the written word. Yes, Re-Animator was a good film, but that was a fairly loose adaptation of a fairly non-typical Lovecraft story. The problem is that Lovecraft's never really describes of the horrors that crop up in his stories. Rather, the horror is left to the reader's imagination, the author generally talking about the creatures from his Cthulu mythos as being beyond human comprehension, often driving those who see them completely insane. Which is what makes actually putting the aforementioned creatures up on the movie screen or indeed any visual format somewhat difficult.
Thankfully, this hasn't been lost on the makers of Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth. While they obviously couldn't make a survival horror game where you never actually got to see any monsters, they actually hold of on showing you more than the briefest glimpses of any nasties until you're about halfway through the game. And by that point, you're so spooked that even a Care Bear popping into view would be enough to scare the living daylights out of you. Your real foes, up until that point at least, are the inhabitants of the small fishing town that your character, a private detective, has been sent to investigate. Sound familiar? It may do, if you're a Lovecraft fan, because the 'Call of Cthulhu' in the title of the game actually refers to the role playing game series of the same name, elements of which crop up in the game. Dark Corners' storyline is in fact largely taken from 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth', a story about an isolated port where the locals are less than friendly and especially don't appreciate people poking around in their foes. It's these locals that you find yourself having to deal with initially. And by 'deal with' I mean 'flee from' because you actually don't a gun or any way of defending yourself till a third of a way into the game. Forget sneaking around, just running like hell is your best option.
Things don't actually get much easier when you find a gun, since that's when the game starts throwing more numerous foes at you, and eventually pits you against enemies who are distinctly less than human. I got the distinct feeling that the designers were trying to make stealth a viable option, but the whole sneaking mechanic seems so wonky, the sneak control randomly alternating between 'move slowly forward' and 'look round corner' that it doesn't really work. Fortunately, you generally have enough ammo and medikits to survive as long as you have the sense to duck behind a wall when you're being fired at. Should you take damage, you won't die instantly unless you're really badly hit, but various parts of your body do start bleeding, and if left unchecked will lead to your death. It's not just your physical wellbeing you have to worry about either - should you let your character witness too many horrific events, without taking a breather in between, he may well use his gun take to his own life. The whole 'sanity' system isn't as advanced as the one found in Eternal Darkness for the Gamecube, but it does fit in well with the mythos, Lovecraft's characters often ending up insane or suicidal.
As you might expect, none of the locations in the game are particularly cheery or well lit, although the game avoids the 'What's that in the darkness? Oh, it's a giant monster jumping straight at me' shenanigans of Doom 3. In fact, Dark Corners has more in common with the subdued horror of Silent Hill than the balls-against-the-wall monster-slaughtering Resident Evil series. As an attempt to get across the spirit of Lovecraft's series, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth actually succeeds. And although it does become slightly less horrifying as the game progresses and you end up encountering enemies face on, it's still pretty damn frightening. I'd like to say that H.P. Lovecraft would be proud of this game, but given that he didn't seem particularly proud of much of his work, I can't imagine him praising anyone's take on his mythos. He'd probably point out, and rightly so, that once you've played the game through once, there's not much reason to go to back to it. After all, it's hard to be scared by the same scripted event twice. Nevertheless, Dark Corners is a worthy acquisition for any Lovecraft enthusiast, or any survival horror fan, especially now it can be had for the princely sum of fifteen pounds or below. Just don't blame me if you have nightmares.
Thankfully, this hasn't been lost on the makers of Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth. While they obviously couldn't make a survival horror game where you never actually got to see any monsters, they actually hold of on showing you more than the briefest glimpses of any nasties until you're about halfway through the game. And by that point, you're so spooked that even a Care Bear popping into view would be enough to scare the living daylights out of you. Your real foes, up until that point at least, are the inhabitants of the small fishing town that your character, a private detective, has been sent to investigate. Sound familiar? It may do, if you're a Lovecraft fan, because the 'Call of Cthulhu' in the title of the game actually refers to the role playing game series of the same name, elements of which crop up in the game. Dark Corners' storyline is in fact largely taken from 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth', a story about an isolated port where the locals are less than friendly and especially don't appreciate people poking around in their foes. It's these locals that you find yourself having to deal with initially. And by 'deal with' I mean 'flee from' because you actually don't a gun or any way of defending yourself till a third of a way into the game. Forget sneaking around, just running like hell is your best option.
Things don't actually get much easier when you find a gun, since that's when the game starts throwing more numerous foes at you, and eventually pits you against enemies who are distinctly less than human. I got the distinct feeling that the designers were trying to make stealth a viable option, but the whole sneaking mechanic seems so wonky, the sneak control randomly alternating between 'move slowly forward' and 'look round corner' that it doesn't really work. Fortunately, you generally have enough ammo and medikits to survive as long as you have the sense to duck behind a wall when you're being fired at. Should you take damage, you won't die instantly unless you're really badly hit, but various parts of your body do start bleeding, and if left unchecked will lead to your death. It's not just your physical wellbeing you have to worry about either - should you let your character witness too many horrific events, without taking a breather in between, he may well use his gun take to his own life. The whole 'sanity' system isn't as advanced as the one found in Eternal Darkness for the Gamecube, but it does fit in well with the mythos, Lovecraft's characters often ending up insane or suicidal.
As you might expect, none of the locations in the game are particularly cheery or well lit, although the game avoids the 'What's that in the darkness? Oh, it's a giant monster jumping straight at me' shenanigans of Doom 3. In fact, Dark Corners has more in common with the subdued horror of Silent Hill than the balls-against-the-wall monster-slaughtering Resident Evil series. As an attempt to get across the spirit of Lovecraft's series, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth actually succeeds. And although it does become slightly less horrifying as the game progresses and you end up encountering enemies face on, it's still pretty damn frightening. I'd like to say that H.P. Lovecraft would be proud of this game, but given that he didn't seem particularly proud of much of his work, I can't imagine him praising anyone's take on his mythos. He'd probably point out, and rightly so, that once you've played the game through once, there's not much reason to go to back to it. After all, it's hard to be scared by the same scripted event twice. Nevertheless, Dark Corners is a worthy acquisition for any Lovecraft enthusiast, or any survival horror fan, especially now it can be had for the princely sum of fifteen pounds or below. Just don't blame me if you have nightmares.