My there! My name is Steve Kwan. User experience design is my passion.

Review: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

(May 25th, 2006 - 11:52PM)

Row, row, row the boat...

(3.5 / 5 stars)

One sentence summary: Despite some graphical and audial shortcomings, it manages to create an immersive environment.

Dark Corners of the Earth is a new survival horror game from Bethesda Softworks, the makers of Oblivion. Funny how "survival horror" is a game genre now. What ever happened to the good old days of "action," "adventure" and "puzzle?"

Things I liked about Dark Corners of the Earth:

• It's not your usual horror game. Instead of fighting an army of demons or zombies, you battle fishmen. Yes, fishmen. And despite such a strange premise, the game still manages to be frightening. For its uniqueness alone, this game is worth checking out.
• It's got a great story. I understand that this game is based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft, author of The Call of Cthulhu and related writings. Maybe that's why it's so good.
• It manages to scare. Although there are far more frightening games, this one has at least one very memorable scene. I won't discuss it in detail here. If you want to know what I'm talking about, play the game.
• You're unarmed for quite a while at the start of the game. Instead of dropping you into firefights from the beginning, the game emphasizes story. That might drop replay value a bit, but it makes for a good first time.
• The weapons are fun and satisfying, especially the magnum and the rifle.
• Despite graphical problems that we'll discuss later, the environments are very well-rendered and engaging.
• The game is just the right length. Not too long, not too short. It ends when it should.

Things I didn't like about Dark Corners of the Earth:

• It looks dated. I understand the game was in development for a long time, which explains why its visuals look several years old. I know graphics shouldn't be a key factor in an overall gaming experience, but unfortunately sometimes they are. When you're playing a survival horror game you're expecting to be scared, and the imagery goes a long way toward making that happen. What would Doom 3 have been like without the excellent shadow effects? Dark Corners of the Earth's lack of such effects really makes it difficult to be drawn in.
• Some of the voice acting, particularly that of your enemies, is just awful. Also, many times during the game I heard my character say two things at the same time. In some cases, he'd say one thing in a frightened voice and something else in a confident voice at once. That makes it hard to suspend disbelief.
• The AI is some of the worst I've seen in years.
• You have to monitor your sanity in the game, which feels phony. Exposure to disturbing images causes your character to lose his sanity, which makes the screen wobbly and blurry. You know what? If a game is really scary, it should feel scary to me, not the character in the game. Just because my character is losing his sanity and having difficulty aiming doesn't mean I'm scared.
• There's no quick save feature, just save checkpoints. I'm normally fine with this, but some of the save points are placed in annoying locations where you're forced to sit through lots of unskippable dialogue every time you load a game.
• There are a lot of puzzles in the game, and some of them are just stupid.
• The ending sucks. As I played the game, I was impressed by how the plot was understandable despite having no exposure to H.P. Lovecraft's writings. However, the ending made no sense to me. Apparently it makes more sense if you're familiar with the books. Unfortunate.