3/29/06 - Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (PC)

[schild]

Some of you had been waiting for this to come out on the PC. Well, here it is. ^_^

[Samwise]

 

[HaemishM]

Is it as buggy and uninteresting as the X-Box version was reported to be?

[Fabricated]

All I have heard about it are great things.

Supposedly there's a chase scene that's incredibly intense and taken straight from the source books. Also, I've been told that a lot of people who didn't like the game probably didn't explore enough, since I guess there's all sorts of crazy sanity-hurting shit that you can see if you evesdrop at every opportunity.

[Sky]

O, Oblivion, how you have put off much gaming goodness in my domicile.

I'll have to grab this in a month or so :)

[Stormwaltz]

Supposedly there's a chase scene that's incredibly intense and taken straight from the source books.

Oh please, please let it be the Shoggoth from The Mountains of Madness...

[Fabricated]

Supposedly there's a chase scene that's incredibly intense and taken straight from the source books.

Oh please, please let it be the Shoggoth from The Mountains of Madness...

Actually, I think the chase in question is taken from the Shadow over Innsmouth. I don't think it's a retelling of the story though, the game's story is original in that you're not playing anyone from the story.

[Mazakiel]

Unless there's one further along, it is from Shadow over Innsmouth.  Very well done, though also annoying as hell.  On the X-Box version at least, I had a problem with the people...well...things chasing me ignoring the door slamming into their face and just walking through it.  That made it even more annoying.  Very little room for error. 

[schild]

Samwise, this game is FANTASTIC. Go buy it. Go buy it now. That is, if you haven't already.

As for the chase seen, I'm a little past it but I think my heart might have been pounding more than the protagonists. It didn't help that the game decided to go into PSYCHO VISION FREAKOUT MODE right as I jumped to the balcony.

[Samwise]

I was waiting to make sure it didn't need a patch to be playable.  I take it it's stable enough to enjoy, then?

[schild]

Yes, it is.

[Sky]

Picked this up when I bought HoMaM5, played through the prologue. Pretty cool stuff, but boo on the shoddy port job. Goddamned consoles. Not enough to ruin the game, but enough to make it annoying. Even my non-gaming girlfriend can easily see a console port or pc-centric game. Boo on the lazy industry, I probably should have just bought a used xbox version.

[Morfiend]

If anyone cares, this is at www.direct2drive.com for $19, I have been consiudering picking it up. Can any one elaborate on the gameplay? How scary is it, also, how much combat is there?

[Miasma]

I thought that the game started out pretty good because it seemed open and non linear.  Then the action/combat scripts started.  I found them extraordinarily annoying, it was like playing Dragon's Lair in the arcade where if you push left instead of right you're dead.  You have to memorize and replay the same scenes over and over again.

I didn't get too far into the game but I found it more gross/shocking than scary.  The scripted combat scenes are definitely intense but I wouldn't call them scary.

The storyline isn't helped by the fact that the game shows you the end result right at the beginning.  Of course I never bothered to finish it so maybe there is a twist.  For only twenty dollars you might as well try it though, so long as the scripted combat scenes don't turn you off.

[Samwise]

You have to memorize and replay the same scenes over and over again.

No quicksave?

[schild]

Scenes aren't that difficult. You can generally figure out and beat them in 1 to 4 tries. I've gotten through some of the harder stuff just 1 time through. I couldn't imagine doing the warehouse on the Xbox version though. Uggity ugh.

[Sky]

I decided to read Shadow Over Innsmouth before I play it, just to get in the mode. I dabbled a bit last night and got chased out of the grocery store by a cop, it was pretty cool. I nick something from a safe and something starts bashing on the shelf I put in front of the door. I had no idea where to run, but I'm guessing I should have hidden instead of panicking looking for another exit :) But it was cool.

The stealth effect kinda bothers me, though.

[Yegolev]

I dabbled a bit last night and got chased out of the grocery store by a cop, it was pretty cool. I nick something from a safe and something starts bashing on the shelf I put in front of the door. I had no idea where to run, but I'm guessing I should have hidden instead of panicking looking for another exit :) But it was cool.

I got about that far and took a break, since that's where I had my first Dragon's Lair flashback.  But yeah, it's pretty cool and not really like Eternal Darkness.  Playing the Xbox version.

[schild]

Ok, spoiler. Cuz I got a little dumbfounded there also.

You need to grab that handle from the office, run behind the counter, and look down. There's a door you use the handle on. I'm gonna try and keep stuff down to actual gameplay spoilers with no storyline stuff.

[Sky]

That's what I was running around in a panic looking for. I only tried once, as I mentioned, I've dusted off my copy of Lovecraft tales (ok, it's a shiny new excellent Library of America version that tries to get the authoritative versions rather than the Weird Tales edits).

[Yegolev]

I only highlighted the first bit of that spoiler, and it's what I had concluded except I didn't really want to redo the scene eleven times before I figured it out.  Thanks.

The Google ads linked me to Cthulu The Movie.  Warning: Tori Spelling

[Engels]

Heh heh, that 'studio' is literally 2 blocks from my house. Its a cinderblock smallish building with a badly spray painted wall stating its purpose. Its stuffed between a church and a laundromat. If I had a digital camera I would take a picture and host it. Alas I do not. However, that said, I'm rooting for 'em!

[Mortriden]

So far the Warehouse portion has been the most difficult for me.  That and not having a weapon yet to defend myself really sucks my left nut.  What kind of PI doesn't even have a pocket knife?    

But I've got Morphine!  WOOT!   

[Surlyboi]

Finished it on X-Box back in the day. Loved it.

Was it buggy? Sure, but none of the bugs were game breaking. And that chase scene? I still wake up screaming sometimes. 

[bhodi]

Samwise, this game is FANTASTIC. Go buy it. Go buy it now. That is, if you haven't already.

As for the chase seen, I'm a little past it but I think my heart might have been pounding more than the protagonists. It didn't help that the game decided to go into PSYCHO VISION FREAKOUT MODE right as I jumped to the balcony.

Mine did too. You looked down, that was your mistake and mine as well.

The vision effects are top notch and done perfectly. That chase scene freaked me out, they timed all the events just right. It's probably the best part of the game so far.

I haven't finished it yet, and still don't have a weapon. I wonder how long this game is!

[Mortriden]

We you get a weapon you'll soon wish you hadn't.   

The next few scenes after you do are a real pain in the ass.

Small Spoiler | I HATE the infinate respawns in this game.  It drives me batshit.  If I clear a god damn area out, and lock all the fucking doors, some fish eyed fuck shouldn't be there when I come through again to double check something. |

Your character is afraid of heights.  There is another scene later on that you'll find yourself looking up a lot just to get your vision to settle down.

[Sky]

I hit an odd thing where I seemed to freeze. Some guy had hung himself in the corner of a back room of the old printing press. I went one way to leave the building, then doubled back to check that other door...blam - freak out noise and then I couldn't move. I let it sit for a few minutes before I assumed the guy had become a drooling retard or something. Kinda sucked since I had to go back to the first save in Innsmouth again, I just shut off for the night.

To Mortriden's gripe:

And yet I saw them in a limitless stream - flopping, hopping, croaking, bleating - urging inhumanly through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant saraband of fantastic nightmare. And some of them had tall tiaras of that nameless whitish-gold metal ... and some were strangely robed ... and one, who led the way, was clad in a ghoulishly humped black coat and striped trousers, and had a man's felt hat perched on the shapeless thing that answered for a head.

I think their predominant colour was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly wed tar articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked.

But for all of their monstrousness they were not unfamiliar to me. I knew too well what they must be - for was not the memory of the evil tiara at Newburyport still fresh? They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design - living and horrible - and as I saw them I knew also of what that humped, tiaraed priest in the black church basement had fearsomely reminded me. Their number was past guessing. It seemed to me that there were limitless swarms of them and certainly my momentary glimpse could have shewn only the least fraction. In another instant everything was blotted out by a merciful fit of fainting; the first I had ever had.

:-D

[Yegolev]

I hit an odd thing where I seemed to freeze. Some guy had hung himself in the corner of a back room of the old printing press.

You just hung (nyuk nyuk), maybe try again.  I went through that scene without a hiccup.  Well, my Xbox did, that is.

[Mortriden]

I hit an odd thing where I seemed to freeze. Some guy had hung himself in the corner of a back room of the old printing press.

I didn't have a problem there.  Seems like another "B" bug.  PC version here.

Oh that's not it at all.  If the game was going to hoard me with forth stagers I wouldn't have a problem.  But god damnit, when I have to kill the same mofo, at the same door, every damn time (and I only have to go through that stupid door again because of a bug) I get a tad bit annoyed.  In short:  Mythos creatures: fine, they fucking brutalize you anyways.  Standard Hippies:  Horseshit, the town ain't that big.   :-D

Please add Mythos to the spell checker.

[bhodi]

I hit an odd thing where I seemed to freeze. Some guy had hung himself in the corner of a back room of the old printing press.

I didn't have a problem there.  Seems like another "B" bug.  PC version here.

Oh that's not it at all.  If the game was going to hoard me with forth stagers I wouldn't have a problem.  But god damnit, when I have to kill the same mofo, at the same door, every damn time (and I only have to go through that stupid door again because of a bug) I get a tad bit annoyed.  In short:  Mythos creatures: fine, they fucking brutalize you anyways.  Standard Hippies:  Horseshit, the town ain't that big.   :-D

Please add Mythos to the spell checker.

I had a problem there on the PC version, and at the counter to the inn getting a room as well. The game just froze and I had to reload from a previous save; This issue I fixed by walking in looking at a different angle, and the inn I fixed by walking out side and letting him tell me that the van was broken, then walking back in (I ignored it the first time through)

[Samwise]

I just finally got a copy of this and started playing it.  I like.

[Furiously]

I just ran out of steam once I got the guy out of jail. Does it get any better?

[Samwise]

So far I've only done the first scene.  Need to set aside decent-sized chunks of time to play it.

[HaemishM]

I just ran out of steam once I got the guy out of jail. Does it get any better?

Yes. That's pretty early on IIRC. Once you get past that, it gets more shooty with some sneaky bits as opposed to the "avoid anyone" stance of the early game. The boss fights later on are pretty good. It doesn't get easier, though. I am not ashamed to say I used a walk-thru to get through the game.

[Furiously]

I found myself using a few to get to that point, but it's like Dreamfall I suppose (which probably hurt this game as Dreamfall was so good and I had bought them at the same time.) in that both are primarily about the story.