Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

There's a hole behind one of the agents you have to crawl into and around all the crates, it should be on the left side when approaching the machinegun.

Reviewed this a while ago in my chocojournal, might as well re-post it here:

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Developed by Bethesda Softworks, CoD: Dark Corners of the Earth for Xbox and the PC is a first person survival horror based on the horror universe of H.P. Lovecraft. In Dark Corners, the player plays Private Investigator Jack Walters, who is called to negotiate with the leader of a bizarre cult located outside of Boston. 6 years later, Jack suffers from amnesia, and the entire six years prior to the current point in time (1922) is unknown to him. Jack is then called to investigate the disappearance of a general store manager in the isolated community of Innsmouth.

What DCotE does right is atmosphere. Tons of it. The streets of Innsmouth are decaying from the centuries of exposure to seawater, and the darkness that permeates throughout its streets creates a fitting setting to complement the hostility of its inhabitants. The visuals center mostly around Innsmouth, and actually become pretty monotonous. It isn't until the phenomenally designed Gold Refinery and underwater city (note to fans: Not R'lyeh) that the art direction and level design truly blast off.

Lovecraft's bestiary is also faithfully recreated. The Shoggoth truly fits the bill as an indescribable horror, and the Deep Ones never fail to intimidate. The game's lineup also features some more heavy hitters that I'd rather not spoil.

The story borrows heavily from famous short stories The Shadow Out of Time and Shadow Over Innsmouth. Situations in the game are also lifted from the Call of Cthulhu board game "Escape From Innsmouth." The end result being a game that feels more like an homage to Lovecraft games than an actual original game based in Lovecraft's works. This narrow focus in regards to the game's storytelling makes it incredibly linear. When things start to go down, the player is confronted with a chase scene lifted almost directly from Shadow Over Innsmouth. However, this scene requires a machine-like motion in which the player must close doors, slide bolts, and move dressers in order to keep Innsmouth's tainted from giving you a gaping new axe hole. The end result is a lot of reloading as the player dies from being unaware of the required process, or executing it imperfectly (the lack of a HUD means that manipulating bolts independently of the doors can sometimes be difficult, particularly for Xbox players). This cycle repeats itself throughout the game, and while no sequence is quite as demanding as the chase through Innsmouth's rooftops, there is always one certain way to do things that involve stealth or combat, and the game is usually balanced towards accomplishing tasks the stealthy way until the late game.

The game's hyped insanity feature aims to please. When confronted with horrifying, or disgusting imagery, Walters begins to suffer from mental afflictions, among which include blurred vision, temporary deafness, and disembodied voices. It's a great way to draw the player into the game, and a massive insanity failure will result in Jack killing himself either with the weapon on hand, or with his bare hands. There are several points, however, during combat where psychological effects act as a detriment to one's ability to fight. Reloading a previous save also seems to cause a finicky response to sanity effects, where they may not activate altogether.

Combat can be exciting at times, but for the most part is underwhelming. Since the player has no HUD, he also has no aiming reticule. Aiming accurately requires shouldering a weapon and aiming down its iron sights. Aiming for too long, however causes Jack's arms to tire and sway, reducing accuracy. The game claims that there's a best weapon for every situation, but to be quite honest, the player needs to be able to get off headshots with the revolver, because otherwise he'll probably be facing the loading screen quite often. Corpses also fade away far too fast for the player to admire the carnage in any appreciable way. The weapons are period-faithful, among which include a Springfield rifle and Tommy Gun. However, the player loses these weapons quite often throughout the game, and having to get them back is annoyingly repetitive.

As mentioned before, there is no HUD. The player gauges how many bullets he has left by the amount of shots he's fired, and health by the damage indicated on the screen. Blood splatters indicate minor damage, while serious blood loss causes time to slow down and the colors to bleed away to black and white. Healing requires application of bandages, splints, and such through the inventory screen, but pressing the H button circumvents that process and applies the necessary medicines to the proper places. However, the player has a limited amount of medical supplies which he must bear in mind, though medkits are abundant throughout the levels.

Is DCotE scary? It certainly has its share of frights, but the tension is more often than not artificially expanded by the annoying save system, which leads to the vast majority of reload-related frustrations. Fans of Lovecraft with some FPS skills will want to pick this up, but if you've never read Lovecraftian works and don't like the idea of being forced to do one certain thing at a time throughout the entire experience, then this isn't a game for you.

Jam it back in, in the dark.