Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Review (PC)

  Decade old first person stealth. Trial and error gameplay. Clumsy first person shooting. Game breaking bugs that were never officially fixed by the developers, making the vanilla game you just purchased all but completely unplayable. The only way to (currently...) make the game run without crashing that I found was to download and install a fan-made patch (http://www.moddb.com/games/call-of-cthulhu-dark-corners-of-the-earth/downloads/dcote-unofficial-patch-v15), download and run video capture software called Bandicam (http://www.moddb.com/games/call-of-cthulhu-dark-corners-of-the-earth/downloads/dcote-unofficial-patch-v15), and also go into your video card settings to turn native V sync on. You probably want a walkthrough handy as well (http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/470998-call-of-cthulhu-dark-corners-of-the-earth/faqs/39789) to make sure any problems you run into aren't bugs, and there are some solutions to puzzles that are not so much too difficult or counter-intuitive as you'll walk past key elements a hundred times due to muddy graphics or poor signposting. I say that as someone who is very anti-walkthrough in most cases, but trust me... unless you want to turn a ten hour adventure into forty hours of walking in circles use the fucking guide when you're stuck.

  Still with me? Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is an excellent survival horror/adventure game and I highly recommend it. I had to start off with the negative points to put it into perspective: to get to the good parts of this game you're going to have to swallow some shit, but it's worth it.

  You play the game as Jack, a hardened, somewhat stereotypical detective of the Elliot Ness variety. It's 1930's American prohibition era New England, so take the tough guy attitude and film noir/Dragnet speak to the extreme, calmly making strictly factual observations about the world around you, even while being tortured with a car battery by J. Edgar Hoover or staring into the unspeakable eyes of fish monsters and ancient gods. In a game explicitly about Lovecraftian horrors and utter madness, the one note voice acting of Jack provides endless comic relief. Whether it's intentionally funny or not is up to debate. Nothing phases this guy...

  Jack is on the case of freeing a prisoner from the eerie, not-quite-right town of Innsmouth. The few sane inhabitants of the town warn him of cult activity and that the fishy smell that permeates the streets might have a more malicious point of origin than the cannery. What follows is quite an adventure into increasingly alien, hostile environments that is surprisingly ambitious in scope. While the first third or so of the game takes place in Innsmouth, you'll be boarding a Navy vessel under siege by Dagon's minions and exploring impressively sprawling, twisting caverns as well as an underwater city. If you just gasped and muttered, “Spoilers...”... The game is called Call of Cthulhu. Read some Lovecraft.

  The game is a true eclectic mix of genres: stealth, FPS, old school adventure and puzzle solving, exploration, what would be considered some light modern “survival” elements. You can converse with NPCs and complete optional side quests. This is a true jack of all trades, and like most times that cliché is used not many of the gameplay mechanics are “good” in the traditional sense. Stealth is unreliable and usually frustrating as enemies seem to spot or hear you when they feel like it. The weapons you get early on feel almost useless with either a random spread pattern and/or a cockeyed aim down sight perspective, but there are instanced where you are forced to fight. Good luck. The most consistent thread is the adventure elements where you're using items from your inventory to solve puzzles and combing the playspace for clues. Though, with some poorly placed checkpoints combined with the aforementioned shaky stealth and combat you'll have to repeat in many instances... see above for a walkthrough link.

  There are a few standout systems, most notably how the game handles health and sanity. When you take damage it is represented both by the bodily location of the wound and the type of injury. You might get grazed in the chest, which can be fixed by applying some bandages from the inventory of which you usually have plenty. Something deeper might require sutures to close a gash, otherwise you'll bleed out. If you fall from a good height you will break a leg (or two), and you'll physically limp, causing a sickening crunching sound and snail paced movement until you attach a splint. The healing items are all tracked separately so there's no Cure All to speak of save a shot of morphine which won't actually heal you, just provide temporary pain relief while you desperately search for a medkit. I really like this system: yeah, it's kind of goofy that Jack goes from a bloody mess with exposed bone and torn clothes to a-okay in five seconds, but it's the perfect compromise between nitty gritty hardcore micromanagement survival and typical hording.

  When you get injured or see anything particularly unnerving (which you will), Jack starts to lose his mind. He's no longer the monotone detective; as his vision distorts and he loses control he sounds convincingly terrified as he mutters to himself, questioning his sanity and his purpose and his will to go on. Sanity effects aren't new or rare for these games, but whatever filter they are using to convey being disorienting is extremely effective. Something as simple as looking down while descending a ladder brings out Jack's vertigo, and let him freak out for too long and you'll get a gut-churning empathetic feeling yourself.

  Again, I may sound overly negative when picking apart certain aspects of the game, but overall it rises above it's shortcomings. The janky, low budget nature can work in it's favor; you don't entirely trust the game to play by the rules. While not a jump scare/gorefest, it's does not shy away from generally taboo subjects: dead kids, an upside down take on beastialitality, torture, sacrifices, all that good stuff. Just when you're laughing at Jack's oblivious take on fishmen, you'll bear witness to something genuinely unsettling. When the game hits, it hits hard. And it's paced impeccably; curse repeating the same chase sequence all you want, once you go further down the rabbit hole there just seems to be a reason for everything. It's one of those games that you question why you're playing, but you can't stop. You have to see it through to the end, whether it drives you mad or not. Even the very last sequence took me many, many tries to the point where I was ready to give up and just watch the ending on YouTube and write a damning review about how broken the game is (and I already wrote one before taking the time to patch it), yet I persisted. And then as the credits rolled I just sat back and though, “What a great game.” It's fitting, I guess.