Horror Game Classics – Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

I really enjoyed this and I agree with Lightice, it's a lot easier with the PC.

I loved the sanity system (very well implemented from the pen and paper RPG). Oh and I died from my first battle with Dagorath by loosing so much sanity that it killed me. I really want to experience where you loose enough sanity that you can hallucinate (the friendly NPC's turn into monsters and attack you).

You know, this one is a good game, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a classic. Penumbra series are far more creepy than this one for me. Those games catch Lovecraft's atmosphere way beyond this one. Sanity loss and panic are far more effective there than they are in Dark Corners (heart beat and breathing as your character panics, are more realistic to me than just blurry screen). Also, here are not that many monsters or encounters, but when they do happen, you just want to hide somewhere in the dark corner and look away. The game system forces you to do this, because monster can hear you breathe when you panic, and more clearly you see them as your senses sharpen in the dark... well, enough about that.

Awesome fucking game, thought. Also pretty fucking impossible to beat without help.

you know if that were me and i went up to a door with the sound of an ailen queen behind it i would tend to not look in there

This game is A LOT easier with a PC than XBox. Most of the control issues stem from the fact that it wasn't designed to be played with a pad to begin with, and that can make instances almost impossible.

"I mean, all you got to do is put an octopus on Ken Davitian’s head, paint’em green, and put some wings on him, and boom, you pretty much got the gross anatomy of Cthulhu, which is really a shame when you compare it to the things that I listed earlier."

That's not Cthulhu - that's just what artists have been passing as Cthulhu for decades, based on the much more vague description given in the actual short story. I've seen Cthulhu-statuettes that are much, much more alien, and suit in the description far better than this theme park-version you're describing. Four limbs, two wings, and vaguely octopoid head don't necessarily make a humanoid-Godzilla - do the proportions right, and any silliness that you may find in the design dissapears. Also, I think you're concentrating on the entirely wrong aspects of Lovecraft's literature. I'm the first one to admit that his prose had some huge faults, but he also pretty much single-handedly invented modern existential horror. His execution was flawed, but his ideas were ingenious.

Well first off, good little review, and while I say that the game had some decent scares, was a fairly faithful adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft game, and was a bit original for it's time I couldn't play too far, mostly for the fact of the technical difficulties on the PC as stated before. I will have to say that Zack Dolan really encapsulated what that game was like for me, the shock scares of seeing a Deep One or a Polyp for the first time was honestly scary, but then you die. Then you die, again, and again, and about the third time about it goes from fear to anger, then to hate, as a wise little green guy has stated. You just wanted to be able to DO something semi-intelligent than just gibbering, especially after you've been running into Deep Ones for several levels, you'd think the guy you were playing would be used to it by now. With a game like this you had to put in a sanity mechanic, but the way it was implemented was fairly ham fisted.

The other thing wrong is that the game does stick close to the H.P. Lovecraft stuff, which I know I'll probably be burnt at the stake for but just don't really get most of the stuff. Yes there's some gems in there, but there's a lot of silly stuff and purple propose to wade through to get to it, as well as the fact that I think that I might not come from the right cultural background/time period/mindset to get some of his stuff. I will admit that he did come up with some really weird aliens, it's sort of hard to find things weirder than the Elder Things, Yithians, or Mi-Go that you know function on some sort of logic but different from your own. When you get into things more complex than that.... well... I honestly don't know what's so horrifying about Cthulhu. I mean yea, if you see him, you'd crap your pants, but no more than seeing King Kong or Godzilla because it's a big thing going to eat you, and in the end is incredibly anthropomorphic. I mean, all you got to do is put an octopus on Ken Davitian's head, paint'em green, and put some wings on him, and boom, you pretty much got the gross anatomy of Cthulhu, which is really a shame when you compare it to the things that I listed earlier. Not to mention the fact that the writer was coming from a very prim and proper New England xenophobic direction, hell the man freaked out just by finding out his Grandma was Welsh. Personally I think that whole 'corruption by the blood' thing that comes into his stories quite a bit is well worn out and just a bit more like a cop out to drive the story along.

That is just my opinion, and sorry if I went a bit off base here, but that's just my opinion on the subject.

One of the, if not the best horror game I know of. I think it was really ambitious, using a FPS style to do something rarely done (especially at that time), a more realistic and immersive game. No HUD, sanity effects, more adventure-style parts in the game, etc... A shame they never did iron out the bugs of the game or corrected the problems, and an even bigger shame that no one tried to do anything similar. I don't know why most game developpers make horror games with a third-person view (like the Silent Hill and Resident Evil series), horror is immersive and the best way to do that is with a first-person POV, otherwise everything that happens just happens to that character on the screen.

I remember my brother having a game called 'Full Throttle'... for some reason, the main male voice from this clip reminds me of the lead character voice from that game. The voicing sounds very similar.

I'd like to see a 'let's play' of Full Throttle, while I never got to play it, I loved the story an music from the watching point of view.

I bought that gmae when i head to the shop to buy a new ventilator for my PC since the old one broke and LOVED the game. I should give it another spin some time.

wow, I gotta check this out if I ever get the opportunity

I love the sanity system in both ED and CoC, each as different flavors of the same principle. In ED, sanity was a resource, somewhat like health, and it was particular enemies which took it from you, aside from some special areas and scripted sequences (It's been a very long time since I played it, so forgive me that much). The sanity effects, while crazy mindbending, ultimately didn't affect the gameplay too much. You could play for a long time (as I did) with next-to-no sanity left, and still manage to play the game. Further, as a third person game, the sanity effects weren't as often felt as part of the character as part of the game itself.

CoC, on the other hand, as a first person shooter, meant that the sanity was much more ingrained into the game mechanics itself. I remember one point when fighting a truly frightening boss that your character would basically quake at they very _sight_ of the thing, making even running away from the thing difficult. I had to purposefully _look away_ from the the boss as I ran to safety, making for some really interesting gameplay. You really had to keep your characters sanity, otherwise you could not act. I think it gave a much more personal and powerful version of Lovecraftian horrors: Creatures which were almost as dangerous to look at as they were to interact with directly.

To some degree, I think that ED's fear effects were far more clever and interesting, but both truly have different ways of operating, and are awesome in their own right.

*** HP Lovecraft***. Sorry Lol

I Loved this game. And that's as simple as I can put it. A True Horror Game Classic.

Cool Side-Note: HB Lovecraft actually based Innsmouth (The setting of the game) off of my hometown.

P.S. My hometwon is NOT as cool or twisted as Innsmouth.

That was simply one of the BEST games i have ever played. There was a ton of annoing bugs and impossible driving stages but the rest of the game, especially the first "no weapon" part were great!

This is no doubt one of my favourite games. Also the song in the intro is awesome.

Man, I really wish the sequel didn't get canned. This is pretty much the only game I ever played that truly scared the piss out of me. Shame it got so ridiculously hard near the end, if only due to the lack of savepoints.

I really love this game, but at the same time, there's much I hate about it too.

First is the respawning. There are moments in the game where there is clear that the developer wants you to sneak even if you have tons of guns. But instead give you the choice of fighting or sneaking, they force you to sneak by making the enemies respawn like 5-10 seconds after you killed a guy!

Second thing is the technology(Speaking from a guy who played the PC version). If you turn up the screen-resolution more than 640*480, the character will walk/run/sneak slower. This make some sneaking part almost impossible to beat. It also makes the end part of the game unbeatable! Fortunately some fans created an editor where you could change the walknig speed(And a lot of other stuff) so you could make the character walk at normal speed.

Even with the flaws, it's still one of the best horror game on the market and the best Lovecraftian game.

I liked this game.

Terribly difficult, but very well made.

Wes, CoCDCotE and Eternal Darkness (love that game too, btw) had quite different sanity systems going on.

CoC's was entirely character based, in that everything that was happening was making the character go insane. Things like vertigo, desecrated corpses, mosnters and eldritch abominations. ED's was more insidious, in that it starts to make the player go a bit insane. If CoC had error messages, hard drive deletion fakeouts, control rearrangements and others, yeah I'd say it was just based on ED. However, CoC's sanity system isn't a fourth-wall breaking one, it's all entirely within the context of the game itself.

So although ED did have a very innovative and powerful sanity system, it isn't fair to call CoC's a direct ripoff, since the mechanics and style are fairly different.

I remember the part with the mob really well.
But another memorable moment was when you were at the Marsh Refinery and you have just escaped a room where a Shoggoth was placed by a member of the Marsh family, as you walk down this long corridor, you hear the heavy metal doors behind suddenly burst open like if they were paper and right behind you is the Shoggoth!
That part really really made my pulse go through the roof, it was that tense.

I loved this game, BUT one thing I hated was I could'nt finish it, this was'nt due to lack of skill or difficulty, this was an inherint problem with the PAL EU version, when I reached the boat level and had to sneak into the captian quarters, it'd ALWAYS crash and I had heard you can load an older save to get past it, but you can't it just seems to keep crashing over and over. A pity really, I'm a huge HPL fan and would give my right arm to finaly get a copy of this game I can complete.

wow I can't believe other people have played this game!!! I always though this was one of those little oddities that made gaming store clerks cock their heads to the side and make a confused little grunt like a dog watching fireworks. I LOVED this thing, no matter how many basically game breaking bugs would crop up (control being a huge problem, and as i think someone mentioned, the collision detection and sneaking stuff was basically non existant and the sanity meter, while a very interesting concept, usually just bugged out and resulted in you randomly shooting yourself in the face, which got REALLY annoying especially later in the game when you would have to see a rapid succession of "spooky shit' at one time) but it was one of the first...maybe only games i ever played that really captured the essense of lovecraftian horror. especially that early scene in the hotel, the "attack of the fishmen" i think it's called, it is one of the most intense and genuinely frightening sequences i've ever played in a game. in fact, the parts without a weapon are some of the best, not only because they provide you with genuine fear and helplessness, but they were actually a little easier. as when you didn't have a gun, you pretty much knew "well, i better beat cheeks outta here and be quiet about it" which is what you were pretty much meant to do 9 out of every ten times anyway, but when you had a gun, the temtaption was too high to start blasting fishmen for making you wet your pants earlier and it almost always resulted in you getting mauled by all his buddies.

though i must admit, the very first thing i did upon getting the pistol and shotgun was to save my game, prepared to shortly reload later, cocked my boomstick and marched outward into the streets and expended every round i could find into those bug eyed gill neck bastards. my brother watching me do this asked just what the hell i thought i was doing to which i replied "I'm going...to sort it out..I'm going to show those sturgeon faced commies what for!!!"

though as a side note, i would reccomend seeing the movie "Dagon" that came out around the same time, if not a little before the game. they are both based heavily on the shadow over insmouth and though it's not nearly as awesome as the game (it's a little too close to the older "full moon productions" style of it's predeccessors at times, and that really can't be helped, but it doesn't sink the whole movie), it stays true to a lot of the lovecraftian elements that made the game so awesome (plus that awesome lynchmob chase is in the movie and it's pretty much as awesome as it was in the game)

I honestly think there has never been a "good" lovecraft movie, but dagon is as far from bad as they will get for now, so give it a look if you haven't already.

I think that this is the chase that you were talking about.Skip to about 5:09
http://www.youtube.com/user/helloween4545#p/c/4...

Much as I hate to be accused of granting 'armchair praise' which might influence anybody, I have to say, thanks for including my favorite video game of all time.

Great horror game, mediocre FPS. I loved the sections where you were defenseless, for me that IS the Cthulhu experience, running away from elderbeings that want to eat your soul. Running around blowing things away with you guns, eh not so much. The fishfolk don't hold the same kind of terror when you can kill them from afar.

The sanity effects were awesome, I don't care what anybody says. Sure shit didn't drip from the walls and it didn't go meta on you, but when you are trying to fight things where even looking at them for more than a few seconds gets your vision blurry and your character having a panic attack, it adds to the atmosphere and makes you feel afraid.

I played through it for the first time not that long ago for the first eat-sleep-game.com gameclub and had a blast. It's not without its flaws, but its still got some good scares.

Not much to say that hasn't already been said. Great atmosphere with some awesome moments (fleeing the hotel while trying to block the doors with furniture and locking doors), but ridiculously frustrating and difficult at certain points that make you want to rage quit.

Sanity effects were done way back in Eternal Darkness, in 2002. They weren't a new feature.. and.I don't know why people are claiming it's the godsend of this game since it was done 2x better in ED. It fucked with your mind; you'd get messages that your controller was disconnected when it wasn't, tell you that your saves has been deleted, make the walls bleed, draw insects on the screen, turn you into a zombie, make you walk on the ceiling...Seriously, play ED is you thought this was good.

Also if I remember correctly, "Cthulhu" can't even be pronounced correctly by human tongues.

Gotta say, I agree. Mind, I couldn't go on after it became a FPS, as I died every two seconds and... well, I flat-out got 100% stuck.

But GOD, that hotel scene. I thought I blocked the door behind me, but something went wrong at one point... and as I was about to perform a jump that I had died from just before, I hear something, turn around, and THERE'S A MAN RUNNING AT ME WITH AN AXE.

I was so startled that I literally jumped so hard that the controller flew in the air. This caused my character to jump. Out the window. To my leg-crunching death.

sigh.

Being on top of tall things, I will add, was incredible. I am not afraid of heights. At all. But the sanity effects that imitate the feeling... made me sortof experience the symptoms. Top-notch job there.

Hooray for The Thing That Should Not Be!

doesn't this game have what is known as the giant spook man?

"what are you doing, snooping around here? get out!"