Dark Corners of the Earth
Its been a good week for cthulhu and myself, first i watched the new silent film, and now I'm beginning to play the game since it has finally, after 6 years of development, been released for the PC. If anyone is interested, I think I'll post events, reactions, and predictions.
***SPOILERS AHOY***
I've begun playing tonight, finally, after six years of waiting.
Opening the game for the first time was painless, the setup quick and easy, no issues of copy-protection, not even a CD key, which was actually pretty nice.
It appears that the issues surrounding Eternal Darkness had some effect on the developers of this game, as it opened with a warning that the visual elements on the game, specifically the sanity effects are disorienting, disturbing and intentional, so don't go thinking that the game is bugged when things look crazy. Well either that, or you, the player, have accepted the madness into your own mind and its not the games fault.
The main menu screen comes up, and its a fairly ugly hack job, I was hoping for a classier seemless book/journal interface, but it is in fact just a 2d non-descript game menu overlayed over an image, some nice audio cues though.
Starting a new game on "Private Investigator" difficulty, we watch the main character, babbling in an insane asylum with some mediocre voice acting, go on to attempt to hang himself. A rather ugly (Innsmouth-ish) asylum worker attempts to stop him/me from choking to death, and the screen pans away. Did this orderly's attempt to stop my/his suicide succeed or fail? Are we seeing the end of the game, or merely the middle I wonder? Is this merely a ruse to escape from this funny farm?
It then cuts to 6.5 years earlier. And I am finally given control over the game. The mouselook controls seem a bit sloppy so I turn down the mouse sensitivity a bit and the problem all but disappears.
Im supposed to cross the courtyard to talk to a cultist who, for some reason, requested me by name, but as I cross the courtyard the screen goes red and the cultist is blown away, gunshots errupt from both sides, and I run for cover, not sure if what Im seeing is really happening or some sort of vision of things to come, the screen turns back from being red and I see that, no, this really is happening. I wonder if I did something wrong.
Wandering through the house, while the gunfire continues, and madly pounding the use key on any likely looking items I came to three in game, and Four meta-game conclusions:
In game:
1) the cultists are dealing with the Yithians, who are the first great race, the historians of the mythos, who jump forward in time, and possess/brain-swap with people such that they might experience and record history after the end of their species, some eons ago.
2) these cultists are kinda obsessed with my main character, Im not sure why
3) They are impressive tunnelers
Meta-game:
1) At least at this stage of the narrative, it is in fact an adventure game of sorts, with the main character describing items that he comes accross, and picking up and/or reading items that seem important.
2) the voice acting is getting slowly, but continuously better, its reading more pulp-ish now.
3) The game looks like its been in development for 6 years, and by that I mean, there is a wide variety of levels of quality and craftmanship evident even within a single room. A candle may be given only a couple of polygons, but then right next to it is a high-resolution texture, and next to that, a low resolution drawing, next to something thats giving off some pretty good lighting effects that look suspiciously like bump-mapping. Its almost disorienting, but in other ways kinda neat.
4) Whereas the visuals are of mixed quality, the audio is consistantly excellent, elevating the mood, and giving me some forms of the heeby-jeebies. I cant wait to plug this game into my 7.1 speaker system back in at the appt.
A few dead cultists, shot by the police outside, or poisoned by their own hand, their bodies covered in glyph like scars, had my head reeling (fuzzing dissorienting effects). Following the rather deep and elaborate tunnel system under the house I arrived first at what appeared to be a morgue, and then... something like an alien vessel. There is a body, not really dead that has its organs made more... remote.. shall we say... classic migo (brain cylenders anyone?) more than Yithians I think. What Im not sure of is why this device designed to keep him alive, but with all of his organs remoted into the surrounding jars is also designed to electrocute him... taking the now sufficiently drained of energy (it was too hot to handle before) crystal power source i go down even lower and find an even more alien spaceship looking space, insert the power crystal and... omg open a portal that a couple of yithians pour out of (their models are pretty good) and the screen goes white, and I am told that essentially ive had amnesia and multiple personality disorder (been brainswapped) for the last six years. (im pretty sure thats supposed to be a mystery to people who dont know the mythos.)
Im pretty clear on everything that has happened so far, except for why my character specifically was drawn into this, and why the cultists were obsessed with me, only time will tell.
Now im back on the job and I am called away to a town called innsmouth (my meeting with my client glossed over as a journal entry) to investigate the disappearance of a store clerk.
The innsmouth residents look and sound just right, whoever did the character modeling and whoever did the sound recording for this game deserves a prize. They dont seem to pleased to see me, and were unwilling to even point out the building i was looking for was just accross the street. I sneak past the guard (sneaking and crouching at the same time means that snails run marathons around you for every inch you advance forward) and enter the store, shoving a bookcase in the way of the door to buy more time to search. inside i find a doorknob and another peice of evidence. the guard however has now found me confiscated both and cast me back out onto the street to try again. this game seems more forgiving than most GMs that would surely then have the guard destroy the evidence and probably the players character as well.
I stopped there tonight, I shall be poking more into dark corners later.
until then,
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!
***SPOILERS AHOY***
I've begun playing tonight, finally, after six years of waiting.
Opening the game for the first time was painless, the setup quick and easy, no issues of copy-protection, not even a CD key, which was actually pretty nice.
It appears that the issues surrounding Eternal Darkness had some effect on the developers of this game, as it opened with a warning that the visual elements on the game, specifically the sanity effects are disorienting, disturbing and intentional, so don't go thinking that the game is bugged when things look crazy. Well either that, or you, the player, have accepted the madness into your own mind and its not the games fault.
The main menu screen comes up, and its a fairly ugly hack job, I was hoping for a classier seemless book/journal interface, but it is in fact just a 2d non-descript game menu overlayed over an image, some nice audio cues though.
Starting a new game on "Private Investigator" difficulty, we watch the main character, babbling in an insane asylum with some mediocre voice acting, go on to attempt to hang himself. A rather ugly (Innsmouth-ish) asylum worker attempts to stop him/me from choking to death, and the screen pans away. Did this orderly's attempt to stop my/his suicide succeed or fail? Are we seeing the end of the game, or merely the middle I wonder? Is this merely a ruse to escape from this funny farm?
It then cuts to 6.5 years earlier. And I am finally given control over the game. The mouselook controls seem a bit sloppy so I turn down the mouse sensitivity a bit and the problem all but disappears.
Im supposed to cross the courtyard to talk to a cultist who, for some reason, requested me by name, but as I cross the courtyard the screen goes red and the cultist is blown away, gunshots errupt from both sides, and I run for cover, not sure if what Im seeing is really happening or some sort of vision of things to come, the screen turns back from being red and I see that, no, this really is happening. I wonder if I did something wrong.
Wandering through the house, while the gunfire continues, and madly pounding the use key on any likely looking items I came to three in game, and Four meta-game conclusions:
In game:
1) the cultists are dealing with the Yithians, who are the first great race, the historians of the mythos, who jump forward in time, and possess/brain-swap with people such that they might experience and record history after the end of their species, some eons ago.
2) these cultists are kinda obsessed with my main character, Im not sure why
3) They are impressive tunnelers
Meta-game:
1) At least at this stage of the narrative, it is in fact an adventure game of sorts, with the main character describing items that he comes accross, and picking up and/or reading items that seem important.
2) the voice acting is getting slowly, but continuously better, its reading more pulp-ish now.
3) The game looks like its been in development for 6 years, and by that I mean, there is a wide variety of levels of quality and craftmanship evident even within a single room. A candle may be given only a couple of polygons, but then right next to it is a high-resolution texture, and next to that, a low resolution drawing, next to something thats giving off some pretty good lighting effects that look suspiciously like bump-mapping. Its almost disorienting, but in other ways kinda neat.
4) Whereas the visuals are of mixed quality, the audio is consistantly excellent, elevating the mood, and giving me some forms of the heeby-jeebies. I cant wait to plug this game into my 7.1 speaker system back in at the appt.
A few dead cultists, shot by the police outside, or poisoned by their own hand, their bodies covered in glyph like scars, had my head reeling (fuzzing dissorienting effects). Following the rather deep and elaborate tunnel system under the house I arrived first at what appeared to be a morgue, and then... something like an alien vessel. There is a body, not really dead that has its organs made more... remote.. shall we say... classic migo (brain cylenders anyone?) more than Yithians I think. What Im not sure of is why this device designed to keep him alive, but with all of his organs remoted into the surrounding jars is also designed to electrocute him... taking the now sufficiently drained of energy (it was too hot to handle before) crystal power source i go down even lower and find an even more alien spaceship looking space, insert the power crystal and... omg open a portal that a couple of yithians pour out of (their models are pretty good) and the screen goes white, and I am told that essentially ive had amnesia and multiple personality disorder (been brainswapped) for the last six years. (im pretty sure thats supposed to be a mystery to people who dont know the mythos.)
Im pretty clear on everything that has happened so far, except for why my character specifically was drawn into this, and why the cultists were obsessed with me, only time will tell.
Now im back on the job and I am called away to a town called innsmouth (my meeting with my client glossed over as a journal entry) to investigate the disappearance of a store clerk.
The innsmouth residents look and sound just right, whoever did the character modeling and whoever did the sound recording for this game deserves a prize. They dont seem to pleased to see me, and were unwilling to even point out the building i was looking for was just accross the street. I sneak past the guard (sneaking and crouching at the same time means that snails run marathons around you for every inch you advance forward) and enter the store, shoving a bookcase in the way of the door to buy more time to search. inside i find a doorknob and another peice of evidence. the guard however has now found me confiscated both and cast me back out onto the street to try again. this game seems more forgiving than most GMs that would surely then have the guard destroy the evidence and probably the players character as well.
I stopped there tonight, I shall be poking more into dark corners later.
until then,
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!