Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

and i thought i was reaching back.

 

What coincidence. My brother just got through playing this game (I bought it in a bargain bin, but gave it to him first since I had a few other things to play). He typically likes niche games like myself (those you find from russian developers or such, low budget, but high in 'depth' and story or whatnot)... He really liked it, and apparently there are some cool moments towards the end. The game mechanics have always interested me, and it looks like a good little play, so I'm installing it tonight and giving it a shot... Looking forward to it too.

 

so how did it go?

 

Installed it, started it, crashed, refused to start again, uninstalled. Then life got in the way and I've spent what precious spare moments I have playing either TF2, watching through backlogged TV shows, or replaying old games I love. I've got this reinstalled though and I promise I'll give it a shot either today or tomorrow (likely tomorrow since I get off work early and have all night to play games).

 

Wrong game/thread. Sorry.

 

Cool, got it installed and working again just fine last night (I've since switched back to a much earlier videocard driver version which seems to have helped), the only problem left is that rain effects that trickle down the screen (like in Need for Speed titles) are these diamond shaped, single coloured blurs. But anyway...

The game? Hard to say right now, I think I definitely need to play it for quite a bit longer to appreciate it fully. I'll start by saying that the voice acting is budget, not very believable, but also not bad enough to ruin anything. The game starts out nicely with a sutiably depressing opening cutscene followed by a flashback, which was actually pretty good. One of the first things I noticed with this game is that you can interact with everything. While just trying to get used to my key bindings I ended up hitting Use on the car near me, and my character says "It's the police officers' car". Hitting use again gave me "It's just the officers car, should probably go see him", and so on for a few more levels of chatter until he said something along the lines of "No time to dawdle, I've gotta get up there and see what's going on", and refused to comment on it any more, which I thought was cool.

Other characters voice acting is actually pretty good, and suits the depressing atmosphere of the opening level quite well. Visually, it's nothing spectacular but it definitely does the job - there's usually a slight noise filter in place as you wander around certain areas. Walking into the initial levels big, creaking old house was actually quite spooky (playing late at night, lights off, sound up). Sound is done excellenty in this game, everything sounds totally realistic, from gunshots to creaking sounds and ghostly whispers. Again, inside this house the interactivity level just goes through the roof. Every light, door / handle, staircase, cobweb, cupboard, window, hole in the floor or stain on the ceiling seems to have its own series of comments your main character can blurt out, it's actually pretty fun to listen to. "For a bunch of redneck creeps, they certainly are literate" made me laugh There are some pretty feaky bits in the house too, like hearing these (shockingly realistic) screams from some room, only to find a secret doorway and crawl your way down underground through crumbling 'mines' or somesuch).

Anyway, the story goes on from there and you essentially enter a Half-Life-style train ride intro, which is pretty much where I'm up to, though I did a heap of running around and, once again, interacting with everything and everyone I saw. They've definitely got the moody atmosphere down really good, and the bus driver on the way in has one funny voice (strong lisp). I know that from what my Brother told me that this game definitely gets better the longer in you play, so I'm getting stuck right back into it tonight and hopefully I'll reach some really scary bits later on. My brother commented about one of the later levels where you're on a boat being attacked by Cthulu (or something spawned by it) and as you get thrown around you have to use that good ol' interaction once more to grasp onto railings and the like... Sounds excellent to me.

I'll let you know some more once I really get stuck into it. So far, looks like a quiet winner to me

 

I gave up on it somewhere around the third chapter... can't fully remember why, but something about the health system and the movement control made it extremely difficult for me not to die every three steps once things got heavy.

 

For some reason this game has me hooked. I play it for an hour or so solid then quit, and instantly find myself wanting to go right back to playing it. Currently doing a runner from the fishmen... Very enjoyable game. Dark, serious (as serious as can be with some of the voice acting and corny lines), very adequeate visuals, and some really scary sound quite often. Been spooked a fair lot while running around some of the sewers... "She's here... I know it. I can feel it. Why wont she die?! Shit, shit! She's coming for me..." only to turn a corner and catch a silhouette of the girl running from behind some bars. Reminds me of FEAR's scares on some occasions, just done better.

Definitely a favourite in my book. Can't wait to finish it, but also don't want to

 

I liked this one too. I think that, for me, the storytelling and general atmosphere made the whole a better gaming experience than the sum of its parts.

 

Cripes. I'm STILL playing through this (one long and engrossing game, this one). That bit on the ship with the railing-grabbing and waves and whatnot was downright awesome... Sound effects, visuals, all spot on. I'm near the end now, but I think this is one game that I'll likely play around with down the line...

Oh, and it sure is pretty in some parts (I generally like the visuals this engine produces to be honest);

 

Just finally finished it. Wow.

What a fucking game. 10/10 from me, no damn doubt about it.



My only problem? The ending glitched just as it was supposed to go the credits (so my brother tells me), instead of rolling the credits I got a half blank screen. Nothing bad since the credits are available at the main menu an my brother cleared it all up for me though.

 

It's too bad these guys went out of business. The game wasn't perfect but it had an excellent flair for the dramatic.