Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet, originally just Shadow of the Comet, is a Lovecraft themed 1993 point-and-click adventure game for the PC DOS. Its character portraits are just the tracing of famous actors, its interface was already outdated by the time it came out, and worst of all, its puzzles fucking suck. But, in conjunction with that all, Shadow of the Comet features a unique setting, awesome monsters, and some absolutely chilling scenes. All in all, it resulted in it getting this sort-of hated soft spot in my heart lol.
The weakest point in the entire game are its puzzles. Shadow of the Comet's puzzles are genuinely terrible, and impossible to figure out without a guide, as a significant number of them are also timed! The first true puzzle you run into in the game involves developing photos with the game giving you 8 chemicals to choose from. You only need to use 4; in a specific order mind you. There are absolutely no hints, except for expecting the player to know the scientific terms for the chemicals that make up the developer and what order to use them… naturally of course! All the other puzzles are not any better, in fact the game starts to make you time everything right with a countdown on top of it all. The last in-game day is impossible without a guide, genuinely. At least the creators seemed to release a guidebook about a year after the release of the game… but honestly, as a kid, I probably would have just dropped the game instead of searching for a guidebook.
The graphics, sound and interface are all a bit dated, even when it was first released in 1993. I mean like, come on, Myst and Day of the Tentacle came out the same year and were infinitely more impressive (Myst) or charming (DotT). Shadow of the Comet has a lot going for it, taking the lore of Lovecraft, something that uses the reader's imagination to physically shape their deepest fears, and using an interactive medium to tell it. I think the especially ghoulish scenes, such as the cemetery and jump-scare monsters are where the game really shows its strengths, making a really thrilling point-and-click adventure game. Just wish it focused on it a bit more. Sound wise, there’s I think 3 unique songs in this game, one of which only plays when you leave the town at the end. It gets annoying pretty fast.
Overall, I don’t think I would recommend Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet to too many, unless you’re dying to try a Lovecraft themed point-and-click. It’s not very fun because you really do need to look up everything you have to do, since so much of it is timed, you don’t have time to mess around and try stuff out. Cthulhu isn’t even really in the game! You see its tentacles kinda at the end, but that’s it. They should have just kept it named Shadow of Comet, since that’s what the game focuses on more, but I guess it doesn’t sound as scary. Some cool scenes, but pretty forgettable overall.
2/5
The weakest point in the entire game are its puzzles. Shadow of the Comet's puzzles are genuinely terrible, and impossible to figure out without a guide, as a significant number of them are also timed! The first true puzzle you run into in the game involves developing photos with the game giving you 8 chemicals to choose from. You only need to use 4; in a specific order mind you. There are absolutely no hints, except for expecting the player to know the scientific terms for the chemicals that make up the developer and what order to use them… naturally of course! All the other puzzles are not any better, in fact the game starts to make you time everything right with a countdown on top of it all. The last in-game day is impossible without a guide, genuinely. At least the creators seemed to release a guidebook about a year after the release of the game… but honestly, as a kid, I probably would have just dropped the game instead of searching for a guidebook.
The graphics, sound and interface are all a bit dated, even when it was first released in 1993. I mean like, come on, Myst and Day of the Tentacle came out the same year and were infinitely more impressive (Myst) or charming (DotT). Shadow of the Comet has a lot going for it, taking the lore of Lovecraft, something that uses the reader's imagination to physically shape their deepest fears, and using an interactive medium to tell it. I think the especially ghoulish scenes, such as the cemetery and jump-scare monsters are where the game really shows its strengths, making a really thrilling point-and-click adventure game. Just wish it focused on it a bit more. Sound wise, there’s I think 3 unique songs in this game, one of which only plays when you leave the town at the end. It gets annoying pretty fast.
Overall, I don’t think I would recommend Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet to too many, unless you’re dying to try a Lovecraft themed point-and-click. It’s not very fun because you really do need to look up everything you have to do, since so much of it is timed, you don’t have time to mess around and try stuff out. Cthulhu isn’t even really in the game! You see its tentacles kinda at the end, but that’s it. They should have just kept it named Shadow of Comet, since that’s what the game focuses on more, but I guess it doesn’t sound as scary. Some cool scenes, but pretty forgettable overall.
2/5