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This thread has been linked to the game 'Eternal Darkness'.
Oh don't we know it. Nintendo and their second party developers are infamous for bringing us a plethora of games full of cute characters, joyous sound effects, bright and cheery environments and colourful soundtracks. From Nintendo's very own Super Mario series and the Hal developed Pokémon series, to the Kirby range and ex-second party developer Rareware's Banjo Kazooie series. Although I am not complaining as these were all quality titles, it is just great to see Nintendo, with the aid of Silicon Knights, have come up with something that's dark, atmospheric and full of horror enough to make me wonder what that bump in the night was!
So what is Eternal Darkness? Well, for the Playstation 2 fans or the X-box fans who wont touch a Nintendo game, not even with an extremely long stick used for pole vaulting and comedy 'accidents', because of the image surrounding Nintendo, Eternal Darkness is a horror/action game in which you have to link to the minds of people fron the past, telepathically, to save the world from a great evil that would devour the Earth and keep it in a state of (you guessed it) eternal darkness. There's not one single cutesy character in the game, and there isn't an ounce of Mario Kart 64's brightly coloured settings to ruin the atmosphere generated by the audiable and the visual in game.
Hang on a second! Eternal Darkness, being a horror/action and survival game, has been released just over a month after Capcom's Resident Evil series. Both games are set in mansions and they both focus on mutated humans. Have Nintendo made Eternal Darkness too similar to Resident Evil? Suprisingly, no. Eternal Darkness goes a completely different route from Resident Evil, adding a few elements from role playing games such as spells and wizardry as well as bringing in something entirely new in such a game. A sanity meter.
The sanity meter is basically a bar indicating your state of mind, much like a health bar most commonly seen in games such as Capcom Vs SNK 2, decresing as you get hurt. How the sanity meter works is simple. You see some kind of horror, a zombie, a demon, anything living and out of the ordinary, and you lose an ounce of sanity, but there is one way to gain it back, and that is to 'finish off' your foes by making sure they're dead once they're slain. Basically, cutting them up into thin slices of meat fit to be served in a sandwich. If you lose enough sanity, you'll begin to hallucinate. The camera's angles will go wonkey and strange things will begin to happen. I was very suprised to see my TV suddenly display 'mute' and the sound go off, only to find it turn back on just before I had enough time to reach my remote. Five minutes later, the volume bar on my TV went down, and back up again. It wasn't until I decided to test to make sure my TV's settings were ok that I realised that my TV displays those messages in cyan, not the lime green in which they displayed! It got me freaked though! Ofcourse, a character from mid millenia A.D. wouldn't even know what a television is, so obviously the sanity meter works to effect you as well as your character.
Resident Evil worked in such a different way though. Resident Evil was slow, enclosed and had very little music or sound effects, only when needed. And with the limited ammunition and the fear that a zombie could jump out at you and start taking chunks out of your pulsating neck, you would feel the adrenaline rush in a much different way. Eternal Darkness tries to play tricks with your mind, Resident Evil just tries to scare you out of it, and they're both as effective as each other, despite being so completely different.
I have to say I am more than just pleasantly suprised by what Silicon Knights and Nintendo have achieved. I really did think Eternal Darkness was going to be a spinoff of Resident Evil, but Nintendo's first 'mature' (if that's what you can call it) title, for a long, long time anyway, is a quality piece of gaming that I am proud to have as part of my ever growing collection of videogames. Nintendo for babies? I think not. Nintendo only produces 'kiddie' games? I think not. Nintendo have done something out of the ordinary, and in turn have brought us a game that is way out of the ordinary junk that hits the shelves. I like it.
So what is Eternal Darkness? Well, for the Playstation 2 fans or the X-box fans who wont touch a Nintendo game, not even with an extremely long stick used for pole vaulting and comedy 'accidents', because of the image surrounding Nintendo, Eternal Darkness is a horror/action game in which you have to link to the minds of people fron the past, telepathically, to save the world from a great evil that would devour the Earth and keep it in a state of (you guessed it) eternal darkness. There's not one single cutesy character in the game, and there isn't an ounce of Mario Kart 64's brightly coloured settings to ruin the atmosphere generated by the audiable and the visual in game.
Hang on a second! Eternal Darkness, being a horror/action and survival game, has been released just over a month after Capcom's Resident Evil series. Both games are set in mansions and they both focus on mutated humans. Have Nintendo made Eternal Darkness too similar to Resident Evil? Suprisingly, no. Eternal Darkness goes a completely different route from Resident Evil, adding a few elements from role playing games such as spells and wizardry as well as bringing in something entirely new in such a game. A sanity meter.
The sanity meter is basically a bar indicating your state of mind, much like a health bar most commonly seen in games such as Capcom Vs SNK 2, decresing as you get hurt. How the sanity meter works is simple. You see some kind of horror, a zombie, a demon, anything living and out of the ordinary, and you lose an ounce of sanity, but there is one way to gain it back, and that is to 'finish off' your foes by making sure they're dead once they're slain. Basically, cutting them up into thin slices of meat fit to be served in a sandwich. If you lose enough sanity, you'll begin to hallucinate. The camera's angles will go wonkey and strange things will begin to happen. I was very suprised to see my TV suddenly display 'mute' and the sound go off, only to find it turn back on just before I had enough time to reach my remote. Five minutes later, the volume bar on my TV went down, and back up again. It wasn't until I decided to test to make sure my TV's settings were ok that I realised that my TV displays those messages in cyan, not the lime green in which they displayed! It got me freaked though! Ofcourse, a character from mid millenia A.D. wouldn't even know what a television is, so obviously the sanity meter works to effect you as well as your character.
Resident Evil worked in such a different way though. Resident Evil was slow, enclosed and had very little music or sound effects, only when needed. And with the limited ammunition and the fear that a zombie could jump out at you and start taking chunks out of your pulsating neck, you would feel the adrenaline rush in a much different way. Eternal Darkness tries to play tricks with your mind, Resident Evil just tries to scare you out of it, and they're both as effective as each other, despite being so completely different.
I have to say I am more than just pleasantly suprised by what Silicon Knights and Nintendo have achieved. I really did think Eternal Darkness was going to be a spinoff of Resident Evil, but Nintendo's first 'mature' (if that's what you can call it) title, for a long, long time anyway, is a quality piece of gaming that I am proud to have as part of my ever growing collection of videogames. Nintendo for babies? I think not. Nintendo only produces 'kiddie' games? I think not. Nintendo have done something out of the ordinary, and in turn have brought us a game that is way out of the ordinary junk that hits the shelves. I like it.
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Time_Warp wrote:
> Great game though, I just need to remember to save more often.
Play some PC FPSs, they teach you to quicksave like a madman. It's not a good thing, btw.
> Great game though, I just need to remember to save more often.
Play some PC FPSs, they teach you to quicksave like a madman. It's not a good thing, btw.
i will hire it definatly. saw some adds for it last night on c4 in the breaks between Angel.
Hire it to mow your lawn, or do your ironing! MAdness. But, also, a good idea.
Ironing??? Mow the lawn???
The good thing about hiring games is that when you've got to take the game back the games memory still lies on in the mem card, so when you get the real game it's still there where you left off from.
I prefer to take gambles, and usually they pay off. I'd rather buy the game and not hire it, and if I don't like it (which has only happened one or two times) I take it back...
Or forget to do so within the guarantee and instead trade it in for something else.
Or forget to do so within the guarantee and instead trade it in for something else.
I don't hire, I buy, I always have enough money when the time comes because I a sort of person that plans ahead.
Edgy wrote:
>
Shouldn't you enchant it first?
Yes this game does rule, so much different in style to Resident Evil but still as much fun. I think it could be classed as a lot more adult than the majority of so called 'mature' titles these days, no cause of the gore and the ability to hack peoples arms off (which rules) but cause of the whole storyline, unlike a lot of games it doesn't feel like the developer scrawled it down on the of a napkin on one of their coffe breaks, it really is involving and well thought out.
>
Shouldn't you enchant it first?
Yes this game does rule, so much different in style to Resident Evil but still as much fun. I think it could be classed as a lot more adult than the majority of so called 'mature' titles these days, no cause of the gore and the ability to hack peoples arms off (which rules) but cause of the whole storyline, unlike a lot of games it doesn't feel like the developer scrawled it down on the of a napkin on one of their coffe breaks, it really is involving and well thought out.
Indeed, I've not seen a storyline so complex and gripping since...well...ever! In a videogame that is. That's what makes me want to continue all the time - to see what happens next.
Uh-oh, the volume controls of my TV are lime green. I'd better finish every zombie real good, huh?
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