Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Plot synopsis:
Following the introduction sequence set in Arkham Asylum psychiatric hospital, the game begins on September 6, 1915, as police detective Jack Walters (voiced by Milton Lawrence) is summoned to the siege of a decrepit manor house in Boston. The manor is inhabited by a bizarre cult called the Fellowship of the Yith, led by one Victor Holt who has asked specifically for Walters to come and talk to him. Taking cover from an ensuing firefight, Walters finds himself separated from the police and trapped inside the mansion, with no option but to investigate. When the rest of the police finally break in, they find the cultists dead by mass suicide and Walters apparently insane. He is committed to Arkham sanatorium, where he stays for six years.
Walters is released and becomes a private investigator. On February 6, 1922, he takes up a missing person case at Innsmouth, a xenophobic coastal town, and the site of the recent disappearance of Brian Burnham, a clerk that had been sent there to establish a local store for the First National Grocery chain. Arriving in the isolated town, which appears to be depopulated and in a state of collapse, Jack unsuccessfully asks around for Brian.
He stays the night at a hotel, where he barely escapes an assassination attempt and then flees from a chase by an armed mob. From that point forward, Jack is forced to sneak through the alleys, buildings and sewers of Innsmouth, avoiding murderous patrols of the town's corrupt police and the cultists looking for him. He acquires weapons to defend himself and meets undercover agent Lucas Mackey, who tells him that the town is under federal investigation.
Jack eventually finds Burnham and his girlfriend Ruth, but their car crashes when they escape from Innsmouth, killing Brian and injuring Jack (it is left unknown whether Ruth was killed or not). Jack recovers from the incident and, following a brutal interrogation, he is taken in by the FBI squad led by J. Edgar Hoover. On February 8, Jack helps Hoover and the FBI raid the Marsh Gold Refinery, where he is attacked by an ancient creature known as a Shoggoth and uncovers a Cthulhu shrine before the building is demolished.
After the refinery raid, the U.S. military begins a combined land-and-sea assault on Innsmouth on February 9. The only part of the town that proves resistant to the attack is the headquarters of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a cult devoted to two undersea demigods and Cthulhu that holds the whole town under its grip. The building proves unbreachable for the Coast Guard and the Marines, but Jack finds a way in through an old smuggling entrance that is guarded by a star-spawn of Cthulhu. Inside, Jack frees Agent Mackey, who has been kidnapped for a ritual sacrifice, and brings down the magical shield protecting the building.
After discovering a secret chamber, he falls through the floor of a tunnel which leads into the sea. Jack is rescued by the USS Urania, a Coast Guard vessel which is part of a group heading to Devil's Reef on February 10, following up on a lead provided by the FBI. On the way there, wizards on the reef summon powerful tidal waves to destroy the flotilla but Jack kills them. The humanoid fish-men known as Deep Ones launch a mass attack on the Urania and eventually Dagon emerges too. Jack manages to defeat the gigantic demigod, but Urania sinks.
Jack survives and finds himself on Devil's Reef, where he discovers old smuggling tunnels beneath the seabed, leading him to the underwater city of Y'ha-nthlei. The city is found to be located below Devil's Reef and is the home of the Deep Ones and members of the Order. U.S. Navy submarines attempt to torpedo Y'ha-nthlei, but are stopped by a magical barrier protecting the city. The Temple of Dagon is the source of the barrier, but the entrance is sealed off to prevent any interference. Jack finds another way in through ancient tunnels feared by the Deep Ones at the bottom of the city's foundations.
Apparently, this passage, which leads to the temple, is an ancient prison for flying polyps, the enemy of the Great Race of Yith. Jack manages to defeat them with the help of a Yithian energy weapon. Jack then enters the Temple of Dagon and kills Mother Hydra - whose song is generating the barrier - by deafening some of the Deep Ones to her song, allowing him to take control of them. With the barrier down, the submarines attack the city, while Jack escapes through a portal leading back to the Order's headquarters and collapses in front of Hoover and Mackey.
In the end, it is revealed that a Yithian swapped minds with Jack Walters' father during the moment of Jack's conception. In flesh, Jack Walters is human, but he inherited Yithian psychic powers, which was the reason for the cultists' interest in him, and explains why he has visions of coming danger and of the Yithian library-city of Pnakotus, as well as his ability to control Deep Ones in the Temple of Dagon. Returning to the introductory scene, confined in Arkham Asylum once more, Jack hangs himself on February 16, 1922, unable to handle the reality of himself and what he has witnessed. The game is supposed to be "based on the writings in Jack's journal, which were discovered in 1924."

Tags: good versus evil, insanity, cult

Review:
A true Lovecraft feeling..
I started playing this game about one week ago, and all I can say is that I can't get my hands of this true master-piece.
Why do I call it a master-piece?
That is very simple.
If you have read Lovecraft, you know that while you read, you feel in certain way.
Of course, the game makes you feel the same, and if I dare say, even more.
It is a FPS(first person shooter)-horror-adventure.
It combines these genres perfectly, because being a FPS you feel "in the skin" of the character (detective Jack Walters), so the feeling is much more intense, unlike the third person games, where you are not affected directly because you can see the character, so the relationship between you and your "puppet" is a little distant.
So, the first-person view increases the horror feeling and not only.
Another interesting aspect is the fact that when you are hurt, you don't just use a med-pack.
No...here, for each type of wound, you have a special type of medicine.
This is a first-time, because, until now, you used a med-kit, and you were at 100% again.
A little inconvenient is the fact that you can't run.
The graphics is special, and even it doesn't look like the latest games, it is decent, and I can say that this type of graphics fits perfectly with the game.
One advice: PLAY it, because it is unique, a true Lovecraftian experience..
A must buy for Lovecraft fans and others.
But before we get into the content of the game itself, let me say that this game has the most unique gameplay of any recent FPS and could even be classified as a revolution.
People who are not into Lovecraft may find the story and ending a bit strange since this title only covers a small portion of the Cthulu world but people who have already read Lovecraft's works may be familiar with the story.
There has been no game with such high production values for a long time.
The major weakness of this game is in the nonexistent lip syncing, which could have been much better given the amount of dialog in the game and its very difficult to make out what people are daying without reading the subtitles.
There are also plenty of bugs in this game which affect gameplay often..
Ambitious but not enjoyable....
Fans of Myst and Oblivion will most likely enjoy this game.
It's immersive, dark, and dreary.
The gameplay is heavy on puzzles, character dialogue is well developed, but running is neither necessary nor an option.
As far as I got, it would work just as well as a point-and-click.If you like to look around as opposed to tearing through the game at hyper speed, this title is NOT for you.
Every disturbing image--and there are plenty--costs you insanity points.
What this does is make the screen pulse, especially when you are looking at enemies.
By Chapter 3 this made the game unplayable for me personally.
I've never got sick to my stomach from a game before, and sadly it was not for a good reason.Another thing that the insanity score will do is slow down your character's movement speed.
Yes, it's a great thing to experience the first few times it happens, but after that it makes the game extremely tedious.I'm currently rating this title a 7/10 for the initial story, ambiance, level of immersion and the novel approach to interacting with the game world.
There is no HUD, so very little is left to remind you of the separation between you and the crazy world which you just entered.Unfortunately, some of the puzzles feel too contrived to be enjoyable...and this breaks the flow of the game.
When it comes down to stepping on exactly the right pixel at the right time, the game ceases to be fun.If you like shoot-'em-up atmospheric horror, check out The Suffering.
I will be watching a playthrough of this game, and when I'm done I will update my review..
This game is great!
This game is great!
And by a secure margin, it's better than 99% of adaptations of Lovecraft's stories to the cinema...And I don't have even finished it yet...For nowadays kind of game, the Graphics aren't the best, of course, this one is from 2005...But even that can't ruin the game, it's tense, and frightening.But it requires full working brain to finish without any walk-through, but I can't say if you will finish it with your brain intact...
:)This is a must if you ever wanted to play a great tense movie, ops, game :).
Great atmosphere, average gameplay.
It's easier to appreciate this game if you know its backstory: Dark Corners of the Earth went through such a development hell - more than five years, with many interesting ideas scrapped throughout, like nonlinear story lines and a cooperative mode - it's a wonder installing it doesn't cause your PC to be eaten by some eldritch abomination.This first person action/adventure is a shrine to Lovecraft's works, in particular The Shadow Over Innsmouth - some sequences actually come straight from the famous novella, like a chilling nocturnal escape from a seedy hotel.Dark Corners is one of those rare games which don't just borrow Lovecraftian imagery and elements (fish-like monsters, tomes of forbidden lore...), but also get the tone right.
The last Lovecraft- inspired game which mixed creepy lore and sinister atmosphere so well was the flat-out terrifying Infogrames adventure Shadow of the Comet, many years ago.Unfortunately, and here the game's troubled development rears its ugly head, gameplay isn't quite on par: combat is clunky, stealth clunkier.
After the umpteenth time I got insta-killed by a shotgun-wielding fish-man telling his comrades to "Shhhh-pread out!" as I inched my way through a tiresome stealth section, my admiration for the game "getting Lovecraft" was quite diminished.So ask yourself: how much do I value atmosphere in a game?
Enough to overlook questionable design decisions?.
Resident Evil Got Nothing On This!!.
(might contain spoilers, tried hard not too, nothing to severe) Being a Lovecraft fan, i was dying for this game for quite a while.
It looks/sounded perfect.
A Resident Evil type "survival horror" game in the "first person" view set in the Cthulu mytho's, you cant go wrong!!!
The thing i liked the most was how the game grew, the first bit of the game, upon arrival in Innsmouth, is pure detective work.
No weapons, explosions, no timers.
Just walking around a Creepy-ass town asking questions and performing good ole detective work.
sneaking in and out of crime scenes to gather clues behind the backs of the obviously corrupt local police department.
Next thing you know your working under cover for another "Agency" (don't wanna give away too much) and fully loaded with weapons kickin ass!!
..but still never forgetting your own agenda.
It just grows and grows as a game and a story.
Its plays more like a movie to watch, you really don't want to put it down.The graphics and audio are mindblowing.
Some people might argue that they are not up to par with a lot of xbox games (if you only play games for "eye-candy" don't bother) but it doesn't need too.
It achieved an incredible atmosphere that is creepy, scary at times, Asylum-like and always very, VERY, true to the Cthulu mytho's and H.P. Lovecrafts world.
audio and graphics both get a 5/5 from me for doing what exactly their job was...creep the poo out of you!
The voice acting is great too.
The main actor/character in the game, Jack, Almost has a subtle humour to him.
He reminds me of a classic 1930's detective with a bit of Ash from the Evil Dead movies thrown in.
there is a great amount of dialogue here too.
Most game characters say one thing only, over and over to drive you nuts.
In this game most characters will have at least 3 different things to tell you.
Which is espechially helpful for storyline when interacting with main players in the game.On that note, The story here is the bread and butter.
This story is absolute mind'blowing.
My girlfriend stopped to watch me play it the other day, and she ended up sitting on the couch for 9 more hours watching just because she was dying to see what comes next.
Need i say more.This game is exactly what i have been waiting for , for years.
I only hope to god they make enough $ off it to warrant a sequel.
Until then, i shall keep replaying this master piece!