Nocturne

Yes, yes---Nocturne is dark, gritty, spooky and one of the best-looking games of 1999...but there�s more. There�s a constant, pervasive (and usually wrong) human belief that seems to span most cultures and eras---it may be an inherent psychogenetic trait, and somebody who�s not me should definitely look into this---that The Old Days were the best, and the simplest, and the purest; that things are messed-up and complicated and vulgar and unpleasant today, but they were much better back in The Day [this goes back as far as you like; insert, for example, the mental image of a gawker at the Crucifixion grumbling that, in his day, they didn�t have troublemakers, and if they did, they simply clouted them with a rock...].

You either hold such an indignant, in-my-day view, or you are of the segment of the population who tire of hearing them---and you latter kindred souls are in for an idealogical (and visual) treat with Nocturne. It turns out the early 1900s were so screwed-up that Teddy Roosevelt himself covertly comissioned a black-ops governmental agency following his face-to-fangs encounter with an honest-to-Luna werewolf. The agency�s job---to locate supernatural threats worldwide and air them out; its name---The Spookhouse; its A-list ghostbuster---The Stranger.

You�ve done it, why can't someone else?

Nocturne follows in the grim bootsteps of cinematic horror action games such as the Resident Evil series, the derivative-of-same Dino Crisis and (of course) the one that started it all, Alone in the Dark. In Nocturne, you take the role of the enigmatic Stranger, a kind of hard-line, bad-ass, G-man mo-fo with the look of a private dick, the voice of a killer, the hands of a gunslinger, the soul of an executioner and the luck of the damned; throughout four temporally-linear but randomly-accessible �episodes,� The Stranger must wipe out werewolves in Europe, bust apres-grave mobsters in Chicago, confront the walking undead in (where else) Texas, hand vampires their asses (technically, their hearts) on stakes, and just generally act as a US-government sanctioned thorn in the side of supernatural evil everywhere (one perhaps unintentionally funny aspect is that the pathologically supernature-hating Stranger must work alongside fellow operatives who are clearly not all that...human). In general, the presentation of the game will be familiar fare to anyone who has played Resident Evil or one of its clones: fixed but extremely dramatic camera-angles (wide-angles on desolate nighttime Texas roads, or ominous Kubrick-esque shots down the gloomy interior lengths of train-cars, for example) combined with the player-manipulated movements of the main character and the wanderings of the non-player characters. Where Nocturne breaks from its visual predecessors is in sheer dark good looks; Nocturne (which, let�s be clear here, will really only run optimally on very fast systems approaching a hundred megs of RAM, no matter what the system specs tell you) is in many ways a visual masterwork. Before you even get to play, the game will ask your patience in running through a monitor-calibration process to determine just how much atmospheric dark your system can maintain, in order to provide the maximum dramatic effect. It�s a nice touch in the name of Art, even if it leaves many workaday systems out there in the dust. Some of the resulting visuals are jaw-dropping: The Stranger�s trenchcoat flaps and ripples to the last hanging fold with hyper-realistic fluidity; the laser sights on his twin automatics cut and flicker through the Obligatory Spooky Mist; and believable, liquid shadows (some of which you just know are going to start moving of their own accord) ripple, leer and duplicate as The Stranger passes various light sources and obstructions. The just-so monitor calibration seems like a pain in the butt at first, but it pays off in cold-flowing blood the first time you�re inching forward into a poorly-lit chamber, guns drawn and sweeping the room, ready for the worst...and you just barely notice a section of the pervading gloom detach itself from the wall and start toward you, its progress all hints and tints and highlights. Impressive stuff.

Everyone goes south every now and then

All the visual mammer-jammery aside, Nocturne has a few noteable problems. First, the control isn�t that good---The Stranger swings around a little too fast when it comes time for gunplay (plus: he autotargets. Minus; sometimes the best, most lethal shot involves awkward manual targeting), and despite those impressive glowing-ruby lines of laser sight, it�s not always easy to tell whether the panicked shots you�re cranking off are actually doing any good or not. Second, the aforementioned autotargeting tends to bring actual supernatural confrontations down to pure button-whack fests; and third, as a direct result of the latter, this dark and stylish venture ends up being....well, not terribly creepy. While two of the four Episodes are decidedly more tensely-paced than the other two, Nocturne still ends up feeling mostly like a shooter---whereas Alone in the Dark, Silent Hill and even Resident Evil never quite came off as �shooters,� despite their decided emphasis on gunplay. Finally, the oft-shrieky music can be way over the top; sometimes less is indeed more.

You may never understand how the stranger is inspired

Even with these missteps, the fact remains that if your system can handle it, Nocturne will be a valued, atmospheric addition to your sadly-limited choices for computer horror. Those who care deeply about such things will be heartened to know that Terminal Reality has already, at the time of this writing, forged deals with Haxan Films (the people behind The Blair Witch Project) for at least one game using the same incredible engine, but based within the disturbing mythos of Blair/Burkittsville and the legend of The Blair Witch [insert lame, obligatory shake-cam/profanity jokes]---if there was ever a dark, messed-up universe begging interactive translation, TBWP is one of them (the question is, whose side will we be on?). In addition, we may see more of The Stranger�s semi-supernatural Spookhouse croneys, who aren�t always evil and aren�t always wrong.

Pros

Cons

Bottom Line