Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

ironzealot

I'm a fairly new listener, and as of late I have been browsing some of the old Geeknights archives. I came to the podcast in which you discussed Cthulhu and the works of HP Lovecraft. While I enjoyed the podcast, I was moved to action when you stated that the Cthulhu video games are all pretty bad.

A game entitled "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" was released for the XBOX and the PC in 2006, the game is basically a prequel to one of the more well known Lovecraft novellas called "The Shadow over Innsmouth." It is a first person action/adventure in which you play the role of a detective sent to Innsmouth to investigate the disappearance of a grocery store employee. The people of Innsmouth behave very strangely and are hostile to you when you enter the town (if you've read the Lovecraft novella you will know why), and general pants-shititude occurs.

This game has been called an FPS, but you actually don't ever pick up a weapon until very late in the game. It is more of an adventure/horror game where you run from enemies as often as you shoot at them. The chase scenes are very cinematic and quite scary. DCOE actually shares an element with Eternal Darkness in that depending on your characters level of stress he will go insane and start to hallucinate, and if you go too insane, you will kill yourself and lose the game.

In fact, you never even face any threatening enemies for about the first third of the game. You simply wander around this creepy town trying to figure out what's going on. It's only after you begin to unravel the mystery surrounding everything that the locals and other scary things start attacking you, and you can only run and hide until you finally aquire a weapon. The game never turns into a frenetic action shoot-em-up however, if remains slow, gritty, atmospheric, and excruciatingly creepy throughout.

I don't want to go into too much detail, but the game will generally scare the shit out of you. It is highly immersive, very cinematic, very realistic, and perfectly captures the Lovecraftian creepiness that makes his short stories and novellas so enjoyable.

I can confidently say that anyone able should play this game, especially if you are familiar with the Cthulhu mythos to even a limited degree. If you are skeptical, I suggest you check out some of the professional reviews available on IGN and Gamespot (especially gamespot's video review). I don't know the policy on hotlinking, so I'm not going to risk it.

If you like Lovecraft, at the very least check out some of the info available for this game, I think you will be intrigued. If you can't find it in stores, it's available for a paid download on direct2drive.com.

ironzealot

fuggit!

here is the link to the review/video review of COC:DCOTE on gamespot, I think you might need to be a registered gamespot member to watch their video content, but basic membership is free and you really should be a gamespot member if you're at all interested in gaming. If nothing else, at least check out this video review, and try to tell me it doesn't make you want to play this game.

ironzealot

here are pictures of some of the Lovecraftian creatures in the game.



Behold the Shoggoth!

Cthulu's underling, Dagon!

Apreche

I never played this game, but I remember hearing someone say it was pretty bad. Whether it was actually someone, or if it was nothing, I am confident that Eternal Darkness is the best Lovecraftish-game so far. That's a game that has everything right except it has its own mythos.

HMTKSteve

Is this the game you are talking about?

ironzealot

Isthisthe game you are talking about?

yes

ironzealot

I never played this game, but I remember hearing someone say it was pretty bad. Whether it was actually someone, or if it was nothing, I am confident that Eternal Darkness is the best Lovecraftish-game so far. That's a game that has everything right except it has its own mythos.

eternal darkness probably has better gameplay, but Cthulhu has better atmosphere, immersion, scares, story, and insanity effects.

All in all ED might be the better of the two games, but dark corners is my favorite and HPL fans (as it states in the above review) will cum over it.

Dave

I never played this game, but I remember hearing someone say it was pretty bad. Whether it was actually someone, or if it was nothing, I am confident that Eternal Darkness is the best Lovecraftish-game so far. That's a game that has everything right except it has its own mythos.

You could be thinking of me. I thought it was one of the worst games that came out that year. It was terrible, and it didn't even get the atmosphere right (ship cannon > Dagoth, lol). The gameplay was total asinine and some of the puzzles made absolutely no sense. Checkpoints were not generous, and the set pieces where you had no weapons felt like Dragon's Lair rooms (get to a place, die, figure out the correct button, get to the next place, die, figure out THAT correct button, repeat until you escape).

Even for free I question this game's worth... and I assert that Eternal Darkness was a better Lovecraftian game. It had a more fully realized mythos and the gameplay didn't make me want to tear my eyes out.

ironzealot

I never played this game, but I remember hearing someone say it was pretty bad. Whether it was actually someone, or if it was nothing, I am confident that Eternal Darkness is the best Lovecraftish-game so far. That's a game that has everything right except it has its own mythos.

You could be thinking of me. I thought it was one of the worst games that came out that year. It was terrible, and it didn't even get the atmosphere right (ship cannon > Dagoth, lol). The gameplay was total asinine and some of the puzzles made absolutely no sense. Checkpoints were not generous, and the set pieces where you had no weapons felt like Dragon's Lair rooms (get to a place, die, figure out the correct button, get to the next place, die, figure out THAT correct button, repeat until you escape).

Even for free I question this game's worth... and I assert that Eternal Darkness was a better Lovecraftian game. It had a more fully realized mythos and the gameplay didn't make me want to tear my eyes out.

let's try to avoid obvious hyperbole here. It certainly wasn't the worst game ever, and to say that the atmosphere was wrong simply because Dagon was dispatched too easily isn't logically sound. The atmosphere was spot on, and most press reviews seem to agree on that fact. Some of the early chase scenes can be a pain in the ass, but they really aren't all that difficult.

The average press score for this game seems to be about 8/10, so it clearly isn't an objectively bad game. I think most people will like it, especially if you're in to HPL.

Dave

Well, I said worst game of THAT YEAR, which, if you don't include games that are outright unplayable, I stand by. It was far in the bottom rung in a year when many games came out. Buying Call of Cthulhu felt like flushing $50 down the toilet.

Dagon being killed by a ship's gun definitely -does- factor into the atmosphere. The whole 'Nyah, I'm J Edgar Hoover, see! Nyah!' segment didn't do anything for me. I think you need a little more than fishmen and wavy vision to really 'get' Lovecraft. I really think Lovecraft's mythos is something that's so readily and easily pissed (see: the whole clutch of Sci-Fi Pictures Originals) that whenever something comes out that's actually playable, people act like it's the second coming of christ.

I really liked the game before you got weapons. I thought it was interesting and new (though some of the key actions needed to progress the story were just way too obscure). Once you got guns it was just a piss-poor FPS that masqueraded its poor design behind quirky things like having no HUD. How about that injury system, huh? That was a really big deal, right? It was really intense having to apply splints to your legs or suture wounds! Except... they had a 'heal all' button, and you never ran short of specific healing supplies so it was basically moot anyway.

And the combat was just awful. You either breezed through it or sat there for interminably long swatches of repeats, followed mostly by guesswork. The ride in the back of the truck was especially irritating, and basically only beatable by the Dragon's Lair scenario I just cited. You played it over and over again until you figured out exactly what guys you had to shoot in exactly what order to continue. Doesn't sound like fun to me!

What's more, that AI was laughably bad, and the game is just another example of a stealth system tacked on where there should've been no stealth system. Either you stepped on a creaky board and every guard within 400 meters was alterted, or you shot a badguy in the back of the head and he kept walking like he didn't even notice it.

Not to mention the game killing bugs on the clipper, or the extra-ordinarily fun instant death holes all over the reef near the end of the game.

Or how about the fact that it outright ignores the lore? There's events in the game that directly contradict A Shadow Over Innsmouth. That wouldn't be a deal breaker if the game was actually fun, or if I felt the story was actually well executed, but as it is... just another nail in the coffin.

Nearly two years after it came out I still have all this moments (and more!) of ill will towards it. It's beyond me how it scored as well as it did. I thought it was terrible, Cthulhu or not.

ironzealot

Your points a more or less valid (with the exception of the point about the story being poorly executed), but I simply don't share your overall appraisal of the game. It's true that the AI is shit, the action is so-so, and that some segments of the game are absurdly difficult.

I still enjoyed the overall experience, and from what I've seen so did most others. It's far from perfect and everyone has their own opinion, but I still found the game to be well worth the effort.