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Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (Xbox)

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: Headfirst Productions
Publisher: 2K Games
Platform: Xbox
Genre: Survival Horror
UK Release: 28th Oct 2005
Article Date: 07th Nov 2005
Difficulty: Hard
Price: £39.99
Score Breakdown
Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:


Overall Score: 85%
Discuss this review in the Forums
Pros
  • Great Story
  • Attention to detail
  • Atmosphere
  • How Survival Horrors should play
    Cons
  • Slow Pace may annoy
  • Strong need to pay attention
  • Frustrating in places
    Screenshots

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    Well cover me with batter and call me a deep fried Mars Bar. It’s taken game developers this long to finally make a decent ‘First Person’ survival horror. ‘Headfirst Productions’ are the team responsible for bringing some HP Lovecraft weirdness to our favourite consoles, and we are as pleased as anyone to see what a cracking job they have done.

    The plot might be a slow moving affair at first but it’s exactly how games should be played out in our humble opinion. Valve, with their award winning ‘Half-Life’ were the early adopters of allowing gamers to play out introduction sequences and Headfirst Productions have brought this idea to a whole new level, so much so that you’ll not come across a decent weapon for at least a few hours. You see a large portion of the early sequences were built exclusively to get you in the mood, and get us in the mood they certainly did.

    But enough mindless meandering about the beginnings, now you probably all want to know a little bit about that creepy plot. Well you begin the game as hot Police recruit Jack Walters famed for solving the most impossible of cases without much effort, so much so that the most bizarre cases get thrown your way as a matter of course. One night Jack gets a case that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Enter a house filled with dead people and weird alien technology and see if you walk out sane!

    After the traumatic experience it was no wonder that Jack ended up in a mental asylum. Unable to cope with his life or job and diagnosed with acute schizophrenia it was almost six years before the star detective was able to be released back into society, and ultimately get back to work. Not long after, things soon start to pick up and Jack bags his first case as a private detective. At first it just seems like a simple case of a missing person after a bungled robbery, but after spending the night in the town it seems Jack is again heading into even more trouble.

    The graphics look good for a game that has been in development for over five years. The overall atmosphere replicates the early twentieth century to a tee, and with the abundance of new locations to trawl in search for clues, it’s rare to find yourself with little to see and do. As the game suggests playing in the dark is more rewarding, as playing in any other environment you may need to increase the contrast somewhat. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a dark game in not only subject matter but also in the locations you constantly traverse. There is also a distinct grainy filter covering the action at times which sadly cannot be disabled, but apart from that the time this game was in development, was time well spent.

    There’s also an astonishing amount of voice acting at work here, and for most parts all the actors responsible for their lines do an adequate job even if they do sound a little wooden at times. There are the occasional stock phrases and other hiccups but nothing that destroys the intense overall atmosphere and that’s all that matters. Of particular merit however are the harrowing sound effects, with constant groans and creepy screams aplenty that genuinely gets the spine tingling and serve as a gruesome reminder of what could come.

    There are no real extras, apart from the cinematics, and no online multiplayer either which is normally a testament to either a rushed job, or a team that solely concentrated on making the single player game as enjoyable as possible, personally we side on the latter. You can replay the game in the other difficulty levels and your success is tracked but apart from that anyone looking for bonus footage will be disappointed.

    So after brief cinematics you find yourself heading for the creepy town of Innsmouth in search of the missing person. After exploring the dingy town centre you soon realise that the inhabitants have a strange secret to keep. Not only are they keeping schtum about what they know, but they also seem to suffer from the same zombie like infliction. Not everyone is hostile though and a few even have loose tongues that offer up clues that push you in the right direction.

    Like the third person action adventure ‘The Getaway’ from Soho Studios, Call of Cthulhu features absolutely no heads up display. You won’t know how many bullets you have in your gun (when you eventually find one) and you also also won’t know how hurt you are. You’ll see nice touches like drips of blood on the screen but nothing more, personally we liked the approach and it did help beef up the atmosphere.

    The same is true of the whole damage system. Unlike most first person games your actual physical movement will become impaired as you take damage. At first you’ll just see blood on the screen, but the more damage you take the more colour will be drained from the screen until eventually the screen blurs and fades to grey signalling that death is imminent.

    The healing section is quite detailed in that you can manually patch up your own wounds when they occur. To do this you must first enter the inventory section by pressing the black button on the Xbox controller (which will pause any attack). You must then apply bandages, splints, sutures or any antidotes to the specific wound that’s causing you gip. Each of the six damage areas can be treated separately (the head, legs, arms and torso) using the medical supplies that the town folk thoughtfully leave behind. Anyone without a medical degree need not worry though; you can only use the right equipment for the right wounds. Unfortunately, this novel approach becomes superfluous when you discover that you can quick heal yourself anyway. This automatically applies the correct equipment to the right wound and renders the detailed approach pointless.

    Not only will you have to patch yourself up physically but you’ll also have to make sure your mental wellbeing is on top form as well. Just like your health and ammo count there is no physical display to show how freaked out you are. Instead you’ll have to pay attention to the environment to gauge your sanity level. Whenever you see any of the game's disturbing imagery or enemies the screen will start to distort and shift signifying that something is amiss. Prolonged staring at said imagery will eventually make you go nuts and suffer a sanity failure which normally ends in you taking your own life with whatever weapon you currently have on you.

    Call of Cthulhu is certainly a game that will please anyone who loves a good horror story. There is plenty of vocal work on offer and the story is a perfect compliment to HP Lovecraft’s work. While it may be relatively short overall, it’s definitely one for people that like to solve a mystery, rather than just run through a game without taking anything in.
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