Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth has to be the most conflicting video game I have ever played. For every thing it does right, it does another thing wrong—sometimes to detestable degrees. During the final stretch of the game, I found myself angry enough to contemplate quitting the game altogether, but strangely enough, I desired to continue playing it after having cooled off.
Loosely based off of H.P. Lovecraft’s "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "The Shadow Out of Time", Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth has surprisingly little to do with "The Call of Cthulhu". I originally believed this to be a simple marketing decision, appealing to the best known entity in Lovecraft’s work to help the game sell, but I later learned of a tabletop game using the name and this game’s decision to draw from it. That being said, the game does a mostly great job of creating a believable world in the Cthulhu mythos.
The game’s strongest points are in its atmosphere, world, and knowledge of the source material. I have seen a handful of films based on Lovecraft’s work and played a few video games drawing from his writings, and this is by far the most accurate to his mythos. The opening moments are fine enough, but once Jack arrives in Innsmouth, I found myself enamored with it. Everything from the visual design to the faithful recreation of several key scenes from "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" had me looking forward to what was in store for me. Voice acting is mostly fine or believable with the sole exception of Jack himself. The guy's bored stiff regardless of what extra-terrestrial monstrosity is attempting to tear him apart. The tone and pacing do suffer here and there, often times when Jack is thrown into warlike situations he has no business being in, but the positives of the setting and atmosphere outweigh the negatives. I wish the same could be said for the combat.
If the atmosphere and world are this game’s zenith, then the combat is by far its nadir. Never before in a video game have I loathed fighting anything so much as I did in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I understand the developers were aiming for realism and immersion when removing any kind if HUD elements, but the game’s loading hints flat out tell the player to only engage in combat as a last resort. Only problem is that Dark Corners of the Earth demands you fight and kill a ridiculous amount of Innsmouthers, Deep Ones, and even beings beyond human comprehension. While the world-building is mostly faithful to the source material, the fact that an average joe private eye or rookie sailors can gun down these mythical beasts as if they were ordinary hunting game really betrays the otherwise accurate depictions of Lovecraft’s work. If this game had foregone the combat altogether, or at the very least added a crosshair and removed the many forced scenarios, then this game would be an absolute favorite of mine.
In addition to combat, there are three additional mechanics central to the game’s system—stealth, sanity, and mending wounds. The stealth is pretty bare bones, like many other games not centered around it. Crouching, keeping your noise to a minimum, and staying out of sight. The stealth is all but broken because of the enemy AI’s inconsistency. One moment you can be standing in front of a blind Innsmouther, unaware to your presence, and the next you could be shrouded completely in darkness as they find you in an instant.
Luckily, the sanity mechanic is more interesting. Being exposed to dire situations such as climbing great heights, being hunted by murderers, or even witnessing the detestable cosmic entities can all affect Jack’s psyche. This can cause conditions ranging from increased heart rate, muttering to himself, your vision blurring, color fading, sound not working correctly, and potentially even the controls acting against you. While I never experienced the controls working against me (outside of their poorly designed jank) I found this mechanic to be rather engaging and immersive.
The last mechanic, mending wounds, is one part immersive and another infuriating. Jack must sit down and methodically heal his wounds using medical kits and their respective tools found inside. Rather than a quick button press and his damage is recovered, Jack takes the time to slowly fix himself up. This creates a level of tension and needed decision making in dangerous moments, but during forced combat scenarios (like the god-awful truck escape) this boils down to luck. You must hope that a stray bullet doesn’t get lodged in your skull as you take your sweet time bandaging yourself up from your partner’s wretched driving ability.
So, should you play Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth? Well, that’s a very difficult question. Are you a fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror mythos? Are you able to put up with jank and frustrating sections with awkward controls? Can you deal with having to shoot at people’s heads without any sort of crosshair, using only a suggestive iron sight to get the job done? If you answered yes to all three of these questions, then I would recommend it. If not, I suggest looking up some gameplay first.
It feels very refreshing to play a Lovecraftian game made by people that actually did the reading, but I think they should have spent some time reading some basic game design books on the side. Dark Corners of the Earth has a lot to offer, and a lot you must deal with. I sympathize with both sides that love this game and hate it, and that in and of itself is an interesting experience. I personally am glad I played this game, but I think I will stick to a lower difficulty if I ever replay it. Anything to alleviate the terrible, forced combat is a requirement.
Note: I played this on the Xbox 360 using an original Xbox copy. I imagine PC mouse controls could help in aiming weapons to the point of trivializing the combat, rather than making it unbearable. So, I must recommend you play that version if at all possible over the Xbox version unless you are feeling really confident in your ability as a console gamer.
Loosely based off of H.P. Lovecraft’s "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "The Shadow Out of Time", Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth has surprisingly little to do with "The Call of Cthulhu". I originally believed this to be a simple marketing decision, appealing to the best known entity in Lovecraft’s work to help the game sell, but I later learned of a tabletop game using the name and this game’s decision to draw from it. That being said, the game does a mostly great job of creating a believable world in the Cthulhu mythos.
The game’s strongest points are in its atmosphere, world, and knowledge of the source material. I have seen a handful of films based on Lovecraft’s work and played a few video games drawing from his writings, and this is by far the most accurate to his mythos. The opening moments are fine enough, but once Jack arrives in Innsmouth, I found myself enamored with it. Everything from the visual design to the faithful recreation of several key scenes from "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" had me looking forward to what was in store for me. Voice acting is mostly fine or believable with the sole exception of Jack himself. The guy's bored stiff regardless of what extra-terrestrial monstrosity is attempting to tear him apart. The tone and pacing do suffer here and there, often times when Jack is thrown into warlike situations he has no business being in, but the positives of the setting and atmosphere outweigh the negatives. I wish the same could be said for the combat.
If the atmosphere and world are this game’s zenith, then the combat is by far its nadir. Never before in a video game have I loathed fighting anything so much as I did in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I understand the developers were aiming for realism and immersion when removing any kind if HUD elements, but the game’s loading hints flat out tell the player to only engage in combat as a last resort. Only problem is that Dark Corners of the Earth demands you fight and kill a ridiculous amount of Innsmouthers, Deep Ones, and even beings beyond human comprehension. While the world-building is mostly faithful to the source material, the fact that an average joe private eye or rookie sailors can gun down these mythical beasts as if they were ordinary hunting game really betrays the otherwise accurate depictions of Lovecraft’s work. If this game had foregone the combat altogether, or at the very least added a crosshair and removed the many forced scenarios, then this game would be an absolute favorite of mine.
In addition to combat, there are three additional mechanics central to the game’s system—stealth, sanity, and mending wounds. The stealth is pretty bare bones, like many other games not centered around it. Crouching, keeping your noise to a minimum, and staying out of sight. The stealth is all but broken because of the enemy AI’s inconsistency. One moment you can be standing in front of a blind Innsmouther, unaware to your presence, and the next you could be shrouded completely in darkness as they find you in an instant.
Luckily, the sanity mechanic is more interesting. Being exposed to dire situations such as climbing great heights, being hunted by murderers, or even witnessing the detestable cosmic entities can all affect Jack’s psyche. This can cause conditions ranging from increased heart rate, muttering to himself, your vision blurring, color fading, sound not working correctly, and potentially even the controls acting against you. While I never experienced the controls working against me (outside of their poorly designed jank) I found this mechanic to be rather engaging and immersive.
The last mechanic, mending wounds, is one part immersive and another infuriating. Jack must sit down and methodically heal his wounds using medical kits and their respective tools found inside. Rather than a quick button press and his damage is recovered, Jack takes the time to slowly fix himself up. This creates a level of tension and needed decision making in dangerous moments, but during forced combat scenarios (like the god-awful truck escape) this boils down to luck. You must hope that a stray bullet doesn’t get lodged in your skull as you take your sweet time bandaging yourself up from your partner’s wretched driving ability.
So, should you play Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth? Well, that’s a very difficult question. Are you a fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror mythos? Are you able to put up with jank and frustrating sections with awkward controls? Can you deal with having to shoot at people’s heads without any sort of crosshair, using only a suggestive iron sight to get the job done? If you answered yes to all three of these questions, then I would recommend it. If not, I suggest looking up some gameplay first.
It feels very refreshing to play a Lovecraftian game made by people that actually did the reading, but I think they should have spent some time reading some basic game design books on the side. Dark Corners of the Earth has a lot to offer, and a lot you must deal with. I sympathize with both sides that love this game and hate it, and that in and of itself is an interesting experience. I personally am glad I played this game, but I think I will stick to a lower difficulty if I ever replay it. Anything to alleviate the terrible, forced combat is a requirement.
Note: I played this on the Xbox 360 using an original Xbox copy. I imagine PC mouse controls could help in aiming weapons to the point of trivializing the combat, rather than making it unbearable. So, I must recommend you play that version if at all possible over the Xbox version unless you are feeling really confident in your ability as a console gamer.