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Product Description

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a spine-chilling story with classic survival/horror gameplay, where you face evil that seems impossible to stop. Set in the 1920s, you'll be thrown headfirst into the world of H.P. Lovecraft's famous Cthulu mythology. The storyline brings to life all the unthinkable evils, psychic possessions, and mythical worlds it pioneered. Draw upon your skills in exploration, investigation, and combat while battling evil incarnate.

Customer Reviews:

• The horror of the unknown
  Let's admit it - most modern games baby the player. Helpful hints and arrows, spotlit items, bosses sporting "shoot me here!" spots....even top-notch titles like God of War and Resident Evil 4 fall prey to these unfortunate conventions. As games have become more complex, developers have felt the need to include these hints to keep from alienating players. Understandable, sure, but something gets lost from the immersion factor as a result.
  
  What if someone made a game that tossed all these safety features out the window -- a horror title that abandons players in the literal and figurative darkness, leaving them only paltry clues to decipher? As the players slowly understand what is happening, they are given glimpses into a world-shattering truth that tears at the very fabric of reality, threatening to drive them mad with its ancient revelations! Maybe it's best to close your eyes and ignore what is happening....or perhaps you will discover something beyond your imagination.....
  
  If this sounds good to you, your game has arrived.
  
  Behold U.K.-based Headfirst Productions' oft-delayed, long-awaited title, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and Chaosium's pen-&-paper role-playing game. This is not a title destined to be a Platinum Hit, nor is it one trying to cater to all comers. It is a challenging title that demands much of the player, and not surprisingly, pays off in many ways as a result. The Xbox has a disappointingly small number of horror games (and fewer Xbox-only ones), but Dark Corners fills that void with a flourish. It must be mentioned that you don't need to be familiar with H.P. Lovecraft to appreciate it, although fans will notice numerous nods to the author's influential work.
  
  On the surface, Dark Corners is a somewhat awkward game: it's not that pretty to look at, tends to be buggy, and has clunky controls and combat. Fortunately, these technical issues don't have a major impact on the more important stuff: gameplay, story, and atmosphere. In fact, its shortcomings make the experience that much more haunting and realistic, making the player concentrate on the task at hand rather than gawking at eye-popping animation and effects.
  
  As with most of Lovecraft's universe, the plot is essential, so I won't go into much detail here. You play as Jack Walters, a private investigator who's hired to find a missing person in the New England coastal town of Innsmouth. Things spiral out of control from there, as Jack quickly discovers there's much more to the town than its fishy appearance.
  
  The game is played from the first-person perspective, and there's thankfully no on-screen icons to distract you from the surroundings. Dark Corners is all about living through Jack's eyes, and he quickly learns what you don't see is as important as what you do see. Unfortunately for Jack, what he faces is so unspeakable that it can actually drive him insane enough to commit suicide (a creepy thing to experience in first-person). There is a sanity system in place that is miles more effective than the superficial one used in the Gamecube's Eternal Darkness, and the player must be careful at all times.
  
  Dark Corners is not a shooter. The game feels something like an evil combination of Shenmue and Thief, with some stealth content, a sprinkling of platforming, a few shooting sequences and Metroid-ish boss puzzles. It doesn't start slowly despite the fact you will not receive any weapons for the first third of the game. The feeling of dread and helplessness Jack feels as a result gives the game a horror aspect unlike anything Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or Fatal Frame can produce (and it's only slightly reduced once you do arm yourself). Jack must use his wits to survive, and the game excels at making the numerous situations and obstacles challenging in a realistic fashion. You'll have to pay a lot of attention to clues you find, the environment, even noises and conversations you hear. You will more than likely get stuck, possibly numerous times, but the solution is always logical and close at hand. Like the manual states, "You're a detective, not a soldier!" Paying attention pays off big time here.
  
  Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth has been a long time coming, but it's more than worth the wait. Fans of Lovecraft and horror in general will wonder why it took so long for someone to make a game with this kind of effective design. What Headfirst may lack in programming and artistic expertise, they more than make up for with cleverness, challenge, innovation, and atmosphere. The result is one of the best Xbox games of the year, and one of the best horror games ever made.
  
  ...more info
• Slow, Steady Spiral into Insanity
  If you're a fan of horror stories, then you know that one of the founders of this genre was HP Lovecraft and his Cthulhu stories. Lovecraft was born in 1890 in Rhode Island, and his Cthulhu storyline was based in a seacoast town of Massachusetts of the 1920s. Lovecraft's own father went insane when Lovecraft was 3, and Lovecraft himself had a nervous breakdown in high school. His stories were developed from his own severe nightmares.
  
  This game title has been in development for many years, so the graphics in the end product aren't necessarily cutting edge, especially for the XBox platform. It's important to just accept this up front. The load times are also exceedingly long. Strangely, when we played this on our XBox 360 (in backwards compatability mode of course) the loading screens were super long - but the individual messages that would cycle through would not stay on the screen long enough to read. It was an odd combination.
  
  I found it best not to think of Call of Cthulhu as a traditional horror game like Doom or Half-Life. This game isn't about constant action and harassment. It is much more like a steady epic that unfolds over time. It's not about in-your-face blood and guts, although there is plenty of both. It is more of a psychological gnawing away at you. It's a game that you need to set aside a long weekend, a bottle of wine and turn on the answering machine for. It's immersive.
  
  So how does it play out. You are Jack Walters, a detective called in to help with a cult that has holed up in a gothic house in Massachusetts. Strangely, you have no gun. You and a few cops approach the house, and the cultists shoot your cop pals down. You try to pick up one of the downed cop's guns and the system says "Ewwww a dead body". Hmmmm. You go in and find that the cult is obsessed with you for some reason, and find a few dead cultists. You spot a trap door in one room - and when you open the trap door, you mysteriously can't walk around the room any more - your feet are now unable to step over the tiny ledge that lines the hallway. You go down, and see .... things go dark.
  
  Fast forward to six years later. Now you're a PI, suffering from amnesia from that horrific event. You are sent into a small town to track down a missing "lad". The town is typical New England - dark, dreary, grey, with people who speak in monosyllables. I live here, I know this type of town ;) You're now ferrying items to get clues, doing sneak-avoidance to get into areas, and solving puzzles. You don't even get a weapon for about the first third of the game.
  
  There are interesting twists because of the "going insane" aspect of this story. If you spend too much time in a scary area, your vision goes blurry and you have other issues. You can't always trust what you see. You have to plow through trying to do the best you can, as quickly as you can.
  
  There is a group of horror players who will probably find this game "too slow". Players who are hooked on the constant action of Halo etc. probably won't do well with the long loads and exploring sequences. On the other hand, I really recommend that they stick with this. Fast adrenaline can be a shallow thrill. A slow-building insanity can really get to you.
  
  If I have complaints about the game, it stems from some of my commentary earlier. The game elicits laughter when obviously it wasn't meant to. It seems that 99% of the doors you encounter are mysteriously glued shut. The dialogue is repetitive and sometimes inane. You're being shot at but can't pick up a gun?
  
  That being said, every game has its dumb idiosyncracies. The guy in Grand Theft Auto could take down hordes of drug dealers but would drown in 1" of water. You just have to accept these things as part of the game environment.
  
  I definitely recommend this game for adventure gamers who can handle the mature rating. If you're more of a shoot-em-up, at least rent the game to see if you can get into the flow of things. You might find that you really can enjoy something that has a slower pace.
  
  ...more info
• Lovecraftian fun
  Those who ever dreamed of experiencing the dark and fantastic world of Lovecraft will rejoice that Call of Cthulhu is a game that fairly captures that world.
  
  Much like the writer's long list of stories, in this game you start as a normal human being whose life takes a subtle, but very absolute descent into madness. You assume the role of Jack Walter, a 1920s Private Detective who is summoned to a house by the local authorities of Arkham. The house is the dwelling of an infamous cult that has gone too far in their religious practice and are unwilling to cooperate with the authorities until they talk to you.
  
  You are committed to an asylum after your body was recovered from the house, being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Six years later, you abruptly recover from your mental absence and are released from the asylum's care. Having no memory of the events that occurred within that household or of your hospitalization, you try to discover for yourself what caused your sudden illness by delving into books which you yourself purchased while you were not yourself. But the answers you seek sure enough find you when you receive a mysterious phone call by a Mr. Anderson, who wants you to investigate a missing person's case in the infamous seaport town of Innsmouth.
  
  This fateful telephone call is what starts you on a long and dangerous ride into earth's remotest history and darkest corners, where you will meet the Things from that history and see firsthand what Lovecraft so often referred to as, "the unimaginable."
  
  One of the greatest aspects to the game is its number of unique locations and settings. The Occult house. The town of Innsmouth. A refinery. The Marsh dwelling. Devil's Reef. And eventually the underwater city where the prison of the flying Polyps reside (people who have read the stories would know what I am talking about). You even embark on a sea voyage on a US Military ship.
  
  Stealth is used when you are weaponless, and you often times are, while at the same time you can take a more direct approach once you have obtained numerous guns, including a Tommy Gun. People have complained about difficulty aiming in this game since there is no crosshair to assist you, but I found the absence of a crosshair and a lifeline obstructing my vision actually made the game more immersive and believable.
  
  Another feature, or a mistake depending on who you read from, is the Insanity Meter. The more pressure or horrific events you encounter affects Jack's mental stability, as it would anyone. The way the game attempts to portray mental instability is by blurring your vision, waving the screen, magnifying objects, heavy panting, mumbling to yourself and slowing down all physical motion. A great idea, but even a permissive player will object to the way a mentally unstable Jack Walter can affect game play. The panting and mumbling to yourself in panic is good, but I don't think your vision should be impaired or your actions slowed. Perhaps if he screamed, or even laughed in his moments of extreme peril...will surely get the message across that he is being driven completely insane. And another thing extremely disturbing about this whole concept is after you have escaped the horrors one moment, the next moment you seem totally calm and ordinary. You go from an uncontrolled state of frantic mumbling and panting to a normal state of composure, just because you activated a talk sequence with another character in the game.
  
  Some parts of the game have an unlimited supply of enemies, namely the refinery, which makes elaborate puzzle solving and a thorough search of large levels tedious. I would have also liked to see my fallen enemies to remain fallen, not just disappear.
  
  Graphics are moderate.
  
  But the biggest fault the game has is with its countless glitches. After some online research I've come to learn that these glitches are prevalent in both the Xbox and the Computer version. Most are activated when you do not do game puzzles in a correct sequence and are fixed simply by reloading your last save. But there is one glitch that may require you to restart the game. I encountered it on the chapter, "A Dangerous Voyage." What it dose is freeze up the moment you reach a certain point in the chapter. I asked technical support on the game's official website for a remedy to the problem and of course they did not reply. The only sure way to avoid this glitch is to not save on the chapter until you have successfully entered the Captain's quarters. If you should encounter the glitch before the Captain's Quarters is infiltrated, you are inclined to reload your last save in the previous chapter and fight your way back up to that point. If ever you save on the corrupted chapter before surpassing the glitch, you will literally have to restart the game or reload a secondary save file, because reloading a saved game on that corrupted chapter will not correct the glitch, because the save file itself is corrupted! What I did is save a game right after the Captain's Quarters have been infiltrated on a separate file should I encounter that glitch again during another play through.
  
  However much the game's numerous faults interrupt the experience, the Lovecraftian authenticity that this game has managed to savor cannot be denied and therefore remains to be one of greatest horror games ever made and I look forward to playing the two more expected to follow.
  
  "Primal myth and modern illusion joined in their assumption that mankind is only one--if not least--of the highly evolved and dominant races of this planet's long and largely unknown career. Things of inconceivable shape, they implied, had reared towers to the sky and delved into every secret of nature before the first amphibian forbear of man had crawled out of the hot sea three hundred million years ago."
  
  My favorite quotation among the many I come to like from his stories.
  ...more info
• Wasted Opportunity
  Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth started out as being one of the best representations of the H.P. Lovecraft world that I have ever seen in a computer game. The game started out great, being totally immersive with a great story line. But the game ultimately failed due to a sanity system that makes the world go blurry, controls not work, and the character move slowly. As the world goes uncontrollably blurry, you are expected to run, shut and lock doors, climb ladders, jump balconies all while baddies easily hack away at you.This game should come with a motion sickness warning. I can not believe that this game was actually play tested. If you must have this game, rent it. ...more info
• had potential
  I gave up on this during the chase scene when those guys were chasing you in the hotel due to slow controls, blurry screens and slow movement. Very annoying, this game should have been alot better....more info
• great survival game
  For the price it is a great survival and adventure game.Plays well on xbox 360 too....more info
• Too much for the Xbox.
  Without a doubt, Dark Corners is an ambitious game. The setting is wonderful, the graphics, sound, and level design good, the HUDless system innovative.
  
  Unfortunately, it's too ambitious for the hardware. In the early levels it's adequate, but by the end of the game Dark Corners becomes a sludgefest of stuttering sound and graphics. How does this happen on a console game? The designers had to know what resources they had available, and should have reduced the effects to make it playable.
  
  On a fast PC - with fixes for the minor bugs - this would be a 5 star game, but the inexplicable failure to tune the game for the platform is completely unacceptable....more info
• oh my gosh
  phenominal game. like the other guy, i am about 21 percent through the game but i found the chase exhilerating, like no other in any game. the blurryness is from your panic and if you do well, you won't be very blurry but if you keep looking at the guys breaking down doors that you lock behind you, or get shot a couple times, it goes downhill fast, but that is what makes it so intense. i wish they made more games like this where you actually do things and flesh out the story before going in guns blazing (like half life 1). overall one of a kind game and actually pretty scary and intene. I don't even find games like resident evil or silent hill 2 to be scary or intense like this. hell of a game with great graphics on my 360 and great surround sound with an enthralling storyline and detailed world. very good for a mature gamer who has other games like devil may cry and halo to satisfy my bloodlust....more info
• Call of Cthulhu
  A great underlying story. Even though this is an older game - it retains the characters and settings that make these games fun to play...more info
• Wah!!!!
  Being a huge H.P.L. fan, I was hyped beyond all compare when they announced the release of this game...ABOUT 6 YEARS AGO!
  
  Anyway, after hearing date push-back news for years, I gave up. Then, one day at Bookman's I see it used for 19 bucks!! I think "SCORE".
  
  I should have known that when I tried to tell the sales person the name of the game so he could take it out of the locked cabinet and while pronouncing it, I spit all over his face and he punched me in the eye, that I should leave this one alone.
  
  Of course, I have to do eveything the hard way, I ran home with it...then wondered why I didn't drive.....oh well.
  
  The game sticks really close to the HPL stories and has nice, super-creepy visual scenery, but it plays about like games from the early days of playstation. the whole time I played it, I wondered, "where's all the neato, high-speed things they kept talking about, like non-track, and all the interactive things that don't exist?"
  
  Trying to get past the Innsmouth folk was a nightmare, and caused my game controller to riccochet off of every wall in the house. there was other spots that were equally hard, but i don't want to ruin the game for others.
  
  I guess I could have just said, "okay, if your a gamer that loves HPL stories, try it out", but I drank too much coffee today, so I felt I had to ramble....more info
• How do you pronounce that?
  I recently bought this game used, after trading in my copy of the -less-than-two-weeks-old copy of Astonishia Story for PSP (don't f***ing buy that tripe; wait for Valkyrie Profile), I picked this up. I have been intrigued by the premise for a while, but was timid due to the overwhelming number of lackluster titles currently available. Feeling like taking a chance, I decided to bite the bullet.
  
  Overall, this game is pretty okay. It's not outstanding in any sense, but it does the trick. I'm only 21% of the way through the game, and have already picked out a couple of gripes.
  
  First off, it's touted as a first person shooter. I'm almost a quarter of the way through a game, and have yet to find a gun or any form of melee weapon. That's not to say that there haven't been tense moments in the game, but if there's not much shooting, why call it a shooter? This title would have been much better had the developers adopted more of a third-person perspective a la Silent Hill or Resident Evil.
  
  Second off, and the biggest gripe thus far, THE CONTROLS SUCK. Again, if it was a third-person view, it would be a metric buttload easier to judge some of the jumps you have to make. In one particular chase scene you have to hop out of windows, onto balconies, and across alleyways in order to avoid hatchet- and shotgun-wielding bloodthirsty cultists. I plummeted to my demise numerous times before I finally passed that particular chapter.
  
  It's not all bad however. Call Of Cthulhu is definitely atmospheric enough to hold the stigma of a survival-horror game. It's dark and brooding, and the character design I have encountered thus far has only made the in-game world that much more creepy. The storyline is at least intriguing enough to keep one interested...
  
  Overall, I'm glad I took the chance with this game. I have a ways to go, but I'm glad. ...more info
• Probably the most Lovecraftian game ever to be made
  I waited years and years for this game to come out, checking in on the forum belonging to the now vanished company again and again for news about this game based on the literary works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the well-known author of horror and weird tales in the early 1900's. To make a long story short, through the work of a single individual with helpers, the game finally came out AFTER the company was gone, and that is the reason for the few bugs remaining in the game (there might be an update available by now, I don't know). There is though help available for how to avoid the bugs, and thereby enable you to enjoy this magnificent game. The story is mostly based on "The Shadow of Innsmouth", a classic tale of degeneration and despair, and one of my 3 personal favourites in the HPL canon.
  
  The pc-game really is an electronic version of the classic pen & paper RPG "The Call of Cthulhu", and I enjoyed every second of it to the fullest. You will crawl and run and sneak around investigating why someone is trying to kill you in Innsmouth, what happened to a missing grocery clerk and basically what is really going on in and around town, with all kinds of scary incidents occurring. Basically, if you've read the tale, you'll now play it. The game is excellently made, and if they had only made more games so true to HPL's fantastic tales, I would be a much happier man.
  
  The few bugs in the game are easy to crack, and once you've done this, you'll have on your hands a game that is almost right-along up there with "Planescape : Torment" in depth and story.
  
  (I played the PC version)...more info
• Mildly amusing. Highly annoying
  While this game certainly passes the time, I for one found it to be more annoying that anything else. Puzzles are great. I like puzzles, but in MODERATION! For crying out loud, once one puzzle is finished in this game, another one starts. There are occasional gun fights and chases with the bad guys, but overall this is a puzzle game. Games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill have richly layered stories and a wide variation in the actions required by the player. This game, however, is closer to Tetris in that it focuses so much on the puzzles. All of this pales in comparison to the one feature that really makes this a C- / D+ level game. Folks, I am talking about one of the most annoying features ever in a video game: the blurry screen. Whenever your character takes damage, starts to lose him mind, or encounters a ledge (he's afraid of heights, see), the screen becomes blurry to reflect his conditions, and you will barely be able to see what's going on. The result is that you will basically be unable to control your character until the blurriness passes, which can take 10-20 seconds. In the meantime, you will flee into enemies or towards a drop-off. This frequently happens at inopportune times and will result in your death. It's so annoying that I cannot believe this feature made it out of the test phase.
  
  In my opinion, Resident Evil and Silent Hill are far superior to this. Fortunately for me, this game was a gift, and I am selling it back as soon as possible....more info
• I am Not A Fan Of 1st Person players
  So far, that i am into it. I do not like the fact that it is 1st person. I find it very annoying. But the effects are creepy, and cool. Love the vibrations. Storyline is cool, and mysterious. But overall disappointed by 1st person character player....more info
• Pretty good
  Ill admit, im not to big into mystery games and solving puzzles. But for some reason, this game kept my interest, and it still does, because I havnt beaten it yet.Im planning on succsefully completing this game although I have been using alot of cheats....more info
• Great concept, sloppy execution
  First of all, I really wanted to like this game. Any game based on an H.P. Lovecraft tale must be spooky, creative and tons of fun, right? I think any educated gamer with a respectable sense of survival horror would have to ultimately say "no" after playing Call Of Cthulhu. It pains me to speak ill of this game as you can tell the developers tried their utmost to give CoC an eerie atmosphere, tense moments, challenging puzzles and fierce enemies. The only one of these aspects they succeeded on is the puzzle part as you will find it an extreme challenge to not throw your controller through the TV screen. It's not even because the puzzles are so hard, it's more to do with the fact that the puzzles are boring and after trying the same tired old "jump the chasm, pull the lever, beat the timer" nonsense, you find yourself losing interest very quickly. Which leads me to the next major annoyance. When you die, and you WILL die, the deaths tend to happen (obviously) at a time where monsters are lurking, guns are blazing and puzzles are stumping and coincidentally, most of these moments in the game come right after a cut scene. Why does this make a difference, you ask? Because you can't push a button to skip the cut scenes! There were at least five instances where I died multiple times right after a cut scene and had to sit through these four or five minute interludes EVERY SINGLE TIME. That's just sloppy development in my book and it seriously hinders the gameplay experience. My other major gripe is the "insanity" of the character (a blatant rip-off of Eternal Darkness, a game which pulled this off FAR more effectively). In Eternal Darkness, your insanity would manifest itself with lucid and horrific hallucinations and you truly didn't know what was happening. It was freaky and a rare new experience. In CoC, your "insanity" makes itself evident with the screen getting blurry and your character moving as slow as molasses. It gets so blurry at times that you literally can't see a single thing. How is this fun? Keep in mind, while you're blurry-eyed and vulnerable, this doesn't stop the enemy from attacking you so it ends up being a prolonged death where you just sit and stare at a blurry screen, not knowing what the hell is going on. Lame!
  And what's with the fishmen? Were they pulled right out of Resident Evil or what? Those of you familiar with the "creatures" from R.E. will scoff at these human frogmen jumping at you and easily being mowed down with a well-aimed shotgun.
  The main problem I have with CoC is that it can't decide what it wants to be. I loved the first part of the game where your survival depends on stealth and cunning, not bullets and jumping (I'm a big fan of Thief so I guess that might tell you something). When the game opens, it sets a great mood and tone that ends up dwindling into a Tomb Raider type shoot, jump and lever-pull festival that eventually turns into a jaw-breaking yawn. It really has no new concepts whatsoever. It pulls ideas directly from Thief, Resident Evil and Eternal Darkness but really bringing nothing of its own to the table. More importantly, this game really doesn't create a forboding atmosphere and couldn't be less scary by the time you get to the middle of the game. That's where its creativity should be abounding, not sagging.
  Go rent Eternal Darkness and Thief instead. They're both far superior and honestly, Call Of Cthulhu (the game, not the story) wouldn't exist without them....more info
• MASSIVE SANITY HIT!
  Based on author H.P. Lovecrafts many works involving the town of Innsmouth and the sea god Dagon, Bethesda struck right on target with Dark Corners of the Earth.
  The game contains many different gameplay elements, manifest through different parts of the game. from stealth to investigation to shooter to an indescribable scramble for safety, this game delivers fright and fun.
  My favourite aspect of the game was its "extreme first person" in other words, you NEVER leave the first person perspective, there are NO indicators or even a heads up display (no aiming reticle, health bar, sanity metre, ammo indicator, etc.) this viewpoint offers an initial challenge when it comes to aiming, but with practice it is easy to overcome.
  The game is highlighted with mind-wracking puzzles, intense action sequences, a wonderful storyline, and (of course) plenty of horrifying themes and imagery. Outrunning the innsmouth townfolk was one of my favourite gaming moments.
  This game also uses a feature Eternal Darkness fanss will be familiar with- dynamic sanity affects. As you progress, you're player will be exposed to horrible images and situations that will test his (and your) sanity. As you lose sanity your vision will blur, weapons will misfire, you'll hear voices, etc. Eventually you will commit suicide. (that scared the hell out of me the first time it happened!)
  The health system is hard to master, but you'll get the hang of it eventually. you're player is displayed with any injuries h has sustained, and you much choose which to heal, and which to leave open. different types of damage make this fairly strategic. minor bleeding will slow you down, enough major bleeding will kill you, broken bones create bad mobility, etc.
  The games plot is extremely good, and the cinematics are executed very well, again never leaving first person
  IMPORTANT: another review claims that you cannot skip cinematics, apparently this person hit every button exept BACK, it will skip cinimatics.
  The shooter element isn't very dominant (i was at 43% completion before i even obtained a gun) but that helps add to the horror element, and should not be viewed as a fault. the only fault i can think of is difficulty. every situation has a very logical method to complete the task (except for the final battle) but sometimes the method is a little hard to notice, or easy to overlook. just keep looking, youll figure it out eventually.
  The game is well detailed and well designed and remember***
  PAY ATTENTION TO EVERYTHING even trivial dialogue can serve a purpose! the game DOES NOT carry you through the puzzles, just keep your eyes and ears open and you should be ok (and the loading screen hints are VERY useful)
  Overall this game is VERY good. and is a must have for any horror or cthulhu fan. i hope you find this useful ...more info
• i've played better, i've played worse
  i'm a huge lovecraft fan, so when i first played this i was pretty excited. unfortunately, this isn't very scary as it is annoying hard at some points. not in a fun way either, but in a have to play it again and again and again cause you keep making a stupid mistake cause it's not that well made of a game. the controls are alright, but the maps are pretty much garbage, and the worst part of this game is that guys you've killed just regenerate when you go further into the level, which means if you have to go back you've got to kill them again. sometimes that's alright...like in donkey kong country, not something like this....more info
• All that's going for this game is its Lovecraft roots.
  I saw an ad for this game in an old issue of Game Informer. They advertised First Person action, insanity meter, and of course Cthulhu. I was thinking Doom when I read First Person, Eternal Darkness when I read insanity meter, and "Thank the gods, they finally made a H.P. Lovecraft game!" when I saw the title. All right, turns out to be 2 strikes and one ball. The first person action, well there really isn't any. You spend most of your time running away from creepy villagers, and not in the fun way like in RE4. The insanity meter is pretty bad, no mind-blowing hallucinations like in Eternal Darkness, just a bunch of pounding and blurred vision. Their concept of going insane is my idea of a DWI stop. You really can't screw up the story of Cthulhu, so that bit was all right but done very sloppy. It was as if they had to change the storyline to make the game play better, but really they ruined up the only thing they had going from the start. The details are great and I have spoken with others who absolutely adore the game. A warning to those who aren't into H.P. Lovecraft, you will most likely hate this title. Imagine playing through Silent Hill without getting your first weapon until you're in the hospital. Sounds hard right, yeah well this game is ridiculous when it comes to survival....more info
• You have got to be kidding me!
  All these people rating this game so low! Are you serious? This is the greatest horror game I have ever played. The atmosphere is amazing and it has so many intense moments. Everyone is complaining about how "difficult" and "unfair" it is. I completed the "Attack of the Fishmen" part (the one everyone seems to complain about) after three tries! Just be patient when playing this game. Some people are just too used to other types of games. That's one of the reasons why I love this game, you can't just rush through a level or mission, you need to take your time and study the environment. Everyone is going to disagree with me, but this game, in my opinion, is much better than any "Resident Evil" game or anything else. Also, I am a fan of H.P. Lovecraft's stories, and it helps to be a little familiar with some of the things in the game (mainly "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and some of "The Call of Cthulhu" are partly what this game is based on). The length is great, and it is cool how you have no weapons until almost the middle of the storyline. I agree, it is a fairly difficult game, but you won't have too many problems if you just take your time and also look for help online (I needed walkthrough help a few times)....more info