Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a product of the "Cthulhu Mythos" created by horror writer HP Lovecraft. Lovecraft's stories speak of humanity's encounters with the forces of ancient, terrible gods that are so hideously deformed and savage that the mere sight of one can permanently relieve you of your sanity. His ideas have been expanded upon by subsequent authors, and the pen and paper RPG by Chaosium, on which this game is based.

You play Jack Walters, a Private Eye who is called upon to look into a robbery and disappearance in the town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. That's a location that will be very familiar to fans of Lovecraft. The people of Innsmouth welcome Jack with slightly less warmth than they would the outbreak of flu season, and they plan to get all Wicker Man on Jack (horror aficionados will know what I'm talking about there). Something is very wrong with this town, and Jack must get to the bottom of it, at great risk to his life and sanity.

Dark Corners of the Earth has a lot going on in it. It is part adventure game, part stealth game, part first person shooter. The game's other hook is its Sanity system. A bit like the GameCube game Eternal Darkness, you have to worry about your mental health as well as your physical. Seeing gruesome and unnatural things, like corpses or strange creatures, will reduce your sanity. This will have effects on your character. They are not as outlandish as the ones in Eternal Darkness, but you will experience auditory and visual distortions, your character might slow down, or your control sensitivity might get cranked way up. The game is willing to go one step further than Eternal Darkness too: if you really go off the deep end, your character will kill himself. It's really quite unsettling. In a good way.

While it doesn't have wall-to-wall scares, every now and then Dark Corners of the Earth will hit you with some effectively creepy imagery, like an inhuman shape drifting in the distance, or a half-human, half-something attacking you. Story is quite strong, and very in the Lovecraft vein. If you're a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos, you should be very happy with what you see here. I've read a little Lovecraft in my time, but I'm by no means an expert. Still, I caught references to stories such as The Rats in the Walls, The Call of Cthulhu, and of course, The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I'm sure there are many others I missed. You also fight Lovecraftian creatures such as Deep Ones and Shoggoths.

Tripping up Dark Corners of the Earth are some game pacing and technical issues. It starts out pretty slow, so much so, that you wonder if certain aspects of the game are ever going to show up. You go through the first third of the game without a weapon, and must instead rely upon stealth and running away. I wouldn't mind this so much, but the game can be pretty harsh on mistakes. For example, early in the game there is a pretty cool sequence where you're on the run, and must bolt doors and push heavy things in front them in order to hold back your pursuers. But if you don't do things in the right order, you'll have a bunch of homicidal goons stuck in the room with you, and they'll kill you while you try to perform the next task. You'll have to replay the sequence over and over again until you get it right. I found myself wishing for quick saving, or Prince of Persia's ability to rewind time.

Dark Corners of the Earth also has a few glitches. While the AI can be pretty aggressive and believable--they use cover and will climb down ladders--too often they have some startling lapses. Like a guy running up to you and staring, rather than firing. Events and tasks can also get sticky. Once the game wouldn't let me jump onto a mobile game object for no obvious reason (and yes, it was part of the solution).

There are those who say the graphics are a little lacking, but I don't agree. Dark Corners of the Earth has a very effective art style and appearance. Everything from the buildings to the people look old, worn out and dreary, perfect for the mood of the story. Walter's hallucination sequences are also very convincing. As the game gets more and more supernatural, the graphics get wilder, particularly with the monsters. That's one nice thing about a Lovecraftian setting for a game: it lets the artists' imaginations roam where saner people dare not go.

Headfirst Productions, the company that developed Dark Corners of the Earth, is working on a new Call of Cthulhu game, Destiny's End. I'm looking forward to it. Although Dark Corners of the Earth is flawed and needs a little more tuning up, it's worth at least a rental and it shows loads of potential. Hopefully Destiny's End will smooth over the unpolished bits and deliver the definitive game featuring the Great Old One.

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