Dark Corners of the Earth is probably one of the first and most faithful Call of Cthulhu based games. Its a sort of mix between adventure game inspired by point and click in finding objects and solving puzzles, a first person shooter, and a stealth game.
It has every foundation to be an absolute masterpiece, the graphics are sufficiently creepy and interesting, the writing is really edgy and mature with lots of themes of insanity, mental institutions, weird creepy cults, suicide, 1920s noire grim detective work, all sorts of interesting and memorable characters, a bizarre and interesting starting town where everything has this creepy atmosphere of being a little off, strange myths and rumours around every corner etc..
Every facet of the concept and the atmosphere is amazing. So the game is great, right?
Unfortunately, and its so disappointing to say this, its actually one of the worst games I've ever played - if not THE worst game I've ever completed.
The few things it gets right: The atmosphere, the writing, the amazing unique inventory/status screen and health system where you have this giant location based grid and every piece of your body can be harmed that you must heal with various medical pieces, the ahead of its time realistic gunplay, the lack of HUD, the immersion, all of these things are so cool and unique
But the things it gets wrong make it a miserable, tedious, painful, torturous slog to actually physically play through
What it gets wrong is, well where do I start? I will be going through and reviewing basically the entire game, every section, because I have it memorized so well, from frustration, that I am able to.
The first quarter of the game finds you drudging through this town with no weapons, going around talking to the town folk, finding items, progressing through this town trying to track down this person. Then it opens up into sections where everyone hates you and is trying to kill you - And you have no way to fight back, so it expects you to use this very mediocre and lazy 'stealth' system to progress. The stealth is so tedious and unfun (and limited mechanically) that I found it easier to just bunnyhop around the shit AI until I could progress.
Then you get to the infamous hotel escape scene, where you have to escape this hotel jumping across rooftops as they beat down the door shooting and chasing after you
So you must engage in trial and error exercises in patience to figure out the route you have to take. The first 10 attempts you are guaranteed to fail. So you just memorize exactly where to jump, what doors to close, etc etc. This is where the game drastically goes downhill. The rest of the game is like this, or worse. This is also where you will discover how clumsy the mechanics are, like closing doors will frequently force the player along with it, which is especially frustrating when youre being chased and you knock yourself into the room with the enemy. You can also lock the bolt on doors, which becomes essential, but this is awkward because theres no icon that lets you know when youre able to interact with something, so frequently you will close/open the door when you just want to lock the damn bolt.
From there, the game completely changes tone and gears, and you start finding all sorts of weapons, and it turns into some kind of first person shooter horror adventure game. However, mechanically its so obtuse and ambiguous that nothing is ever logical, or fun, at all. Almost every single new area or 'objective' you come across I found myself walking in circles for an hour at a time, not knowing what to do, dying over and over for no reason to random 'instant' kill bullshit, and reloading and having to watch the same cutscenes and dialogue pieces over and over.
Well for example, one of the first instances you come across after finding weapons, is this town where theres a guy in a prison you have to free, and a bunch of enemies guarding it. Well since it gives you guns, you figure just shoot the guys and explore the area right? After exploring the area and not finding out what to do, you come across a bunch of enemies that seemingly never go away. Keep killing, and killing ,and it seems they respawn forever. After shooting about 50 of them I googled it and found out that frequently, enemies in this game will just respawn forever. What the fuck? So I wasted my time shooting enemies for no reason, in an area where I must explore to find progress. Its just inane and tedious time wasting.
It turns out I missed a key item, a Crowbar, which is arbitrarily placed on some staircase, that is extremely easy to miss, so I walked around the whole area , killing respawning enemies, for an hour because of it.
Then you free the guy from prison, but he wants you to open the garage, after you do that, it puts you into the back of a pickup truck where the whole town just shoots at you while you have no defense. Eventually the truck comes to a stop and the driver is like "Ok do something about the truck infront of us" and I failed atleast the first 4 times.
And failing means going back, far, to the last save point, and re-watching cutscenes/diagloue etc. This is a common annoyance. To save, you find these white paint marks on the walls, sometimes they can be 10-15 mins of progress apart, and often times, they have unskippable cutscenes/dialogue between them. Yes you can press backspace to skip some, but not all.
After tediously getting past the truck part, you get to another part in some warehouse, where theres a ton of guys just shooting at you, and you find a Tommy gun. Eventually you get to a part where a cutscene happens, and a ton of guys spawn all around you. Well the first few times, I figured the game gave me this new Tommy gun, So I have to just kill them all right? Well, 20 mins of shooting and struggling later, I actually found out ITS ANOTHER INFINITELY SPAWNING enemy section and youre suppose to just run for it? What the FUCK.
After that, you get to a section where this girl is on a rooftop and she is about to fall? So I search around in a panic a ton, not able to figure out what the FUCK I have to do the save her, I backtrack a bit and save, and guess what? After I load my save, she dies within 20 seconds, every single time. So I ruined that entire section of the game, and had to just let her die. It turns out it was yet another part of the game where you have to somehow know that you need to backtrack 5 mins and wrap around the whole warehouse to save her or some shit. Another 40 mins wasted due to ambiguous awful level/game design. You dont think to backtrack, because the level is laid out in such a way that theres all sorts of boxes/crates stacked all over the place, so it really looks like you need to just climb them, which I was trying to do. Nope, its more illogical than that apparently.
So she died, and the game let me progress. Whatever. Oh yeah, in between all of there are frequent annoying fucking puzzles like this Safe on the wall where you have to look for some ambiguous code in your journal, and figure out how to put it into the safe the right way. It operates like a real safe, or does it? I dont know, you turn the knobs clockwise or counter clockwise, and it never works. I knew what the fucking code was, I just couldnt figure out which way to turn the stupid knobs, I eventually opened it, but it seemed totally random or broken, who the fuck knows, everything about this game is totally glitched or contradictory. Like in his diary for the safe it says to go Clockwise, but you actually have to go Counter-clockwise.
Theres a part with some church bells and this underground section. Wasted probably an hour just interacting with every possible thing in the underground tomb. Theres some book on a table that when you press it, you just look at it, and nothing happens. I figured I had to find something. Turns out you just have to use something in your inventory on it to progress. More boring circle walking time waste unintuitive, confusing shit.
Mixed into all this are admittedly these really awesome and cool instances where you wakeup in a mental hospital and I really like all these sort of segments theyre so gritty and dark that it sets such a cool atmosphere, but it cant come close to making up for the tedium and annoyance of playing the actual game.
So after that whole truck segment, you get to this part outside of a factory where theres an enemy on a turret shooting at you and some detectives. Well guess what? Obviously you have to sneak around the turret, and my first 30 attempts or so were unsuccessful. The levels are laid out in such an illogical and deceiving way that the game will SHOW you this corner that it seems like youre suppose to hide in, theres a guy hiding in it, yet everytime you try to sprint to it - you INSTANTLY die. After trying time, after time, to 'make it' I said fuck it ,and looked it up on youtube. Turns out its not the 'right' piece of cover, and theres another place where you have to crawl under to progress. Ugh. I just hate this shit. The game design is just nonsense. Its nonsense.
Every single new 'objective' to progress is just trial and error, tedious, frustrating "What the fuck" "Where do I go" "Why am I instantly dying" "Is it broken?" " Is this a bug" "Why isn't it working - or looking it up and going "What the fuck, that was so stupid, I would have never figured out that stupid shit. That makes no sense" ETC. Thats the whole game. Thats it. Theres rarely an enjoyable part that feels like you actually did something cool. Its just stupid.
So now you're in this huge factory building and this might be the worst part of the game, its hard to quantify, almost every level in the game is total shit. But this factory just looks so generic and all the rooms indistinguishable, climbing across ladders and shit, its so bad.
Well in this factory you have to 'power the elevator' And the detective guy tells you "Go use the stairs!"
Well theres like, 3 or 4 different staircases you can use, so you know what I did? I went up one of them, and found a SAVE POINT, and a button for the elevator, so I figured ok this is what he meant. So I walked around in circles for about 30 minutes trying to figure out what the fuck the button does, how to fix it, etc, turns out I used the wrong stairs, and I was suppose to go use another staircase to progress. Lol. More time wasted for no reason. Boring tediousness. So you go through this whole boring factory climbing ladder after ladder, shooting people, then you hit a button. Ok what did the button do? So you walk around the whole factory, like 5 times in circles, cant figure out whats new. Oh, theres like a trolley car 'bucket' thing thats now right next to a save point.
Ok yeah, you just jump onto the trolley car obviously right? Its parked right by the save point, doors open. Try to jump into the cart, invisible wall, fall to death. Try again, invisible wall. Cant seem to FIT INTO THE 'BUCKET'. Try 20 times, CANT MAKE IT. Google it, oh, its another infamous game breaking bug. the 'Bucket Bug' Yep. Game is just bugged out and wont let you jump into the bucket for whatever stupid reason. Had to go into my inventory and use some health item, which somehow fixes the glitch, then I could get onto the cart without problem. Another 30 mins wasted because of a game breaking bug
Seeing a pattern yet? This game is so fucking dog shit its shocking. Im so saddened by it, this could of EASILY been a total masterpiece, but the bugs, and level/game design, is horrible, so, so bad.
Surely whatever is next has to be better than all this crap, right? Surely the game can only get better? Well my friends, it actually gets much, much worse.
After drudging through this boring generic factory some more you come across a conveyor belt and meat grinder. You go through, and at the end you get a cutscene where an enemy turns on the conveyor belt sending you straight into the meat grinder. Guess how many times I failed this? Atleast 10. Trial and error. First attempt, I tried to run the opposite way it was sending me, didnt work. Second attempt, I tried to jump around the meat grinders, didnt work. 5 more attempts of doing that, didnt work. Couldn't for the life of me figure out WTF the game wanted me to do. Sending me back to a save point 5 mins earlier watching the cutscene over and over.
Looked it up - turns out you need to jump and do some platforming shit onto a ledge just above you. Yeah, failed that a few more times as well. Trial and error bullshit. Tediously frustrating crap again.
Then you turn on the elevator and go through more of this samey looking boring factory. Its so long. Its the longest level in the game. It just goes on, and on, and on. This one level is like 4 or 5 hours long lol.
Pretty much immediately after this annoying trial and error meat grinder you come across you first 'boss' fight. Its this giant weird stationary plant thing that swipes at you. It looks cool and impressive yeah, but mechanically its nothing special. You awkwardly go around it and push a few buttons and it sucks it into a hole. This of course, took at least 5 trial and error attempts to figure out the intended path it wanted me to take.
Then you take the elevator, and it sends you back to the main room. Then I find out now is the time where I am suppose to go up those stairs from earlier, and push that button that I previously wasted so much time on. See how the level design just wastes your time and makes you walk in circles? It allows you to access buttons and areas you have no use for yet, just to waste your time.
Now, the factory is rigged to blow up, and you have to go down and investigate some secret room while on a timer before the place explodes. This is one of the worst parts of the game. I failed this part for at least 2 hours.You have like 5 minutes before the place explodes and you die. In that time you have to explore this stupid gold vault, memorize the exact path to go, face another 'boss' plant monster where you have to turn valves which spray air at it making it change course. The level design here is so confusing and awkward with paths that look exactly the same, running in circles over and over, you have to find some room and jump through the boss's arms like an obstacle course and the controls/physics are so mediocre that its just a frustrating clunky awkward mess. You have to fail at least 10 times in a row to memorize exactly what order and path youre suppose to go and which valves to turn or you run out of time and die.
Even after figuring it all out, I was stuck with a "What do I do now" while the timer was ticking down. You get a wrench, turn the valves to release the gas. Then I just ran in circles trying to figure out wtf I was suppose to do next after I turned the gas on. Well, I got this far multiple times, and failed, not knowing what to do. Looked it up on Youtube - looks like after I do all of that, Im suppose to somehow know that I need to leave, and backtrack, and go find some broken elevator, and press the button, which causes a spark, which explodes the gas, which opens the elevator door? What in the absolute fuck...
The level design is so insanely stupid and unituitive that I found myself just whining and bitching like a baby every single time I dared to play this piece of shit for more than 40 minutes at a time. Its insufferable to play though. Its like physically painful to fucking play this game.
So I turn on the gas, backtrack to the stupid broken elevator, blow it open with the spark from the door, OK finally some progress!!! The timer is still ticking down, then I come across this weird Cthulhu room puzzle with a gem in the middle. Oh fuck, what the hell? Im on a timer man, I need to get past this or I'll fail and have to do the whole gas valve shit again!
Aaand guess what? First attempt at the Cthulhu room puzzle failed. Ran out of time. Couldn't figure it out. Game over. Ok, thats 30 mins of progress lost. Back to the stupid gas valve plant monster obstacle course AGAIN.
Well I got to the Cthulhu puzzle room atleast 5 times and failed. Do you know how frustrating that is? Playing through an entire 20 minute segment, getting to the end, having like 70 seconds to figure out some random obtuse puzzle or you instantly die and have to do it all again? SHIT game.
Out of fear of wasting my entire fucking life on this one segment, I looked it up on YouTube. And not to my surprise, I didnt even see one of the pillars I was suppose to press, due to panic and limited time. Glad I looked it up or I would have wasted hours doing this part over and over.
Seeing another pattern yet? Timer based segments that are extremely unintive, easy to fail, tedious and frustrating, Ambiguously respawning enemies despite the game feeling like it wants you to shoot people by giving you new guns, nonsensical objectives, horribly annoying level design, random Instant deaths trial and error bullshit..
At the end of the factory level theres some chase sequence where you have to go a specific route crawling through pipes and tunnels, backtracking, and I failed a bunch of times. Eventually you get in an elevator, and at the top of the elevator you have to make some kind of jump, and I failed that a few times too. Fuck.
Ok - we're done with the horrible Factory level. Ok, the game is getting good now. Right? Right? ....
It transports you to this weird snow level with a bunch of war soldiers going across the ice. Yeah, guess what, first 10 times I fell into the ice. Fun. Off to a good start already. More instant deaths and trial and error segments!
After getting across the ice, you get to this cave with a flamethrower outside, and some weird monster inside. Oh, well this is kinda cool yeah? I go in the cave, the monster blocks the path - Ok, I HAVE to kill the monster. Shooting at the monster does nothing, he just kind of slowly and timidly walks towards you. Ok, since theres a flamethrower outside that means you have to burn him right? So I get the monsters attention and try to drag him outside - What the fuck, the monster wont go outside. He goes towards the cave exit and then just turns around and walks away. How do I get him to go outside? Why wont he go outside? Why is the AI so awkward and janky? I keep trying to lure him to the doorway atleast 20-30 times and use the flamethrower, but it never burns him!!!! "What do I DO!" I just keep trying, and trying, and trying to burn him in the doorway, but he never goes far enough.
20 more minutes of this totally fucking stupid part and I say ok, time to look it up on Youtube, this is just stupid. Welp, someone on youtube has the exact same problem. The god damn monster wont leave the cave. Turns out you need to literally be one inch away from the monsters face and slowly creep towards the doorway and drag him right to the edge of the cave, THEN use the flamethrower, THEN and only then does he die and you can progress
I mean...at this point I just lost faith in the game. This is stupid. This is nonsense. This is completely banal and garbage. This game is awful. And I couldn't be more sad about it. I WANT this game to be great, it has every ingredient. But nope. The developers blew the execution. I mean what the fuck is this shit? The monster wont get close enough to the doorway unless I hug his fucking face and hold his hand to the doorway? What is that? Why do I have to struggle with its inane awkward AI for 40 minutes to figure that out? He should just chase me out of the cave. He should just see me, and then run to the exist of the cave, maybe even stick his head out, but nope - he just gets to some invisible barrier, and turns around and forgets about me. Stupid.
See a pattern yet? Every single new objective or obstacle is completely stupid. It doesnt make logical sense. This game is really, really stupid.
Alright, now we're in some cave and a detective is in a jail cell and wants us to find the key. You go through the cave until you come across some huge mansion, which is really cool and Resident Evil style. For a minute, the game was actually fun. I was using my hunting rifle, shooting enemies, sniping them from windows, going through this badass mansion engaging in combat. but it didnt last long. The game design got in the way, once again.
Go through this huge mansion , kill everyone, and now once again, I'm walking in circles. "What do I do?" Go through every room multiple times, interact with every object. I go and check the blocked off staircase. He says "The stairs are blocked off" Oh ok, the stairs are blocked. I guess I should explore some more. I walk around in circles for an hour, cant figure out what to do. Just cant. Im frustrated again. I cant progress. Look it up on Youtube.... You literally just have to jump over the blockade on the stairs. What? Really? The entire game has been teaching me that once something is blocked off, you must find another path, or find some object, or press some button, or theres invisible walls, but No, now, all of a sudden, when something is blocked off, Im suppose to know to just jump over it? Holy shit... More boring, tedious, time wasted, doing NOTHING.
You eventually find the keys, free the detective from the jail, and he helps you go underground the mansion. Now you're at another 'boss' fight Its a couple mages at some altar shooting magic at you and a gust of wind which prevents you from moving. Guess how many times I failed this one? A lot. You have to like, either awkwardly move your character past the gust of wind and dodge some magic balls, or really accurately snipe the guys with your rifle, either way it took a few attempts and didnt feel all that cool or rewarding, just stupid.
After the boss, theres some insane puzzle with 3 statues and a bunch of weird symbols, and some buttons on the back of the statues. I tried my best for an hour to figure this one out, I really did. It never made any sense. I never figured out how to do it. I ended up just looking up the pattern, and even then I still couldnt make sense of it. Dont know, dont care anymore, the puzzles are not fun or rewarding. More time wasted for no point. Tedious pacing.
Alright, the mansion is over with. Now is probably the most memorable and coolest part of the game, but maybe one of the most enraging.
The boat level.
Well this part is really cool, and Cthulhian. A boat in the middle of the ocean, some weird mystical creatures lurking in the depths below. Ominous and spooky. Great atmosphere, good setting. You go through this boat and soon enough you have these weird lizard monsters on deck and you need to shoot them and protect the deck guys. Decent enough, and dare I say almost enjoyable. A few times you get sent to find a med kit and some ammo for the captain, nothing awful or frustrating, easy enough segment.
Then, you get to a segment where the boat has massive waves sent at it, and you have to use a cannon/scope for some reason. I use the cannon scope, and I dont get it. What am I suppose to see here? I get on the cannon scope, and I cant see anything? Its just kind of blank? Then another massive wave hits, and you take damage. This just loops, forever. You get on the scope, cant see anything, then a massive wave hits. Eventually I found out you can hold onto a rail when the waves hit to not take damage, but still, the cannon scope is just blank! WTF do I do!!?? After 30 mins, I look it up on Youtube...
Guess what? Another completely glitched/broken segment. When you use the cannon scope, its not suppose to be invisible. Youre suppose to see some lights on the shore, some mages you need to shoot. In the Steam version, the shaders are just broken, you cant see them. I had to go on the internet and download some shader fix just to get past this segment. I mean, its just shit. Its just horribly broken waste of time bullshit.
Finally I get past this segment, then you have to progress through the underside of the boat. You follow the crew members around, then you watch the captain kill himself, kind of cool.
Then you get to some part where theres steam which blocks the path which kills you. I find out I have to turn a valve to turn off the steam, but then ANOTHER timer based insta-kill segment. The ship explodes once you turn on the valve, and you die within 20 seconds. So I spend 30 minutes walking all over the place trying to figure out what the fuck I have to do to avoid dying after turning the valve. Nothing I do works. Die, die, die again. Instant killed to a timer. What do I do? I cant figure it out. Youtube time. Turns out, right next to the valve is this furnace door that you need to close -
I would have never discovered this, because the mechanic in the game to interact with the environment is horrible. It doesn't show you a hand icon, or anything that tells you something is able to be interacted with. And when you look at the furnace door, it turns the valve. I even tried previously to close the furnace door, but when I look at it, it would just turn the valve. Well you need to know to position yourself in such a way where you 'use' the furnace door, not the valve, but theres no actual indication that the furnace door is even able to be interacted with, and its positioned so close the valve that if you tried but didnt know, that it most likely would just turn the valve.
So another case of shit mechanics which work against you, nonsense game design, time wasting, garbage.
I mean literally, every single obstacle of progress is a complete slog and pain to figure out and get through. Its unbelievable. I was in awe playing the entire game, like "I cant believe every single new segment is THIS annoying and convoluted and frustrating. It just KEEPS happening. EVERY TIME"
Like
"Can there not be ONE segment that is actually fun and intuitive to get through? Does it always have to be so fucking stupid? I dont feel challenged or like im struggling against any sort of difficulty, Im just struggling to horrible game design or glitches or bugs"
And I mean, after I figure out to close the furnace its still not over. You go and get some welding pack, but then I walk around in circles trying to figure out what to do with it. Eventually figured it out, but fuck man, why is the pacing so god damn consistently annoying? Some of the worst pacing in any game, ever.
Alright, now is an awesome part, atleast visually. The boat boss Dagon.
You go out onto the deck, and this giant ocean creature shows up. You jump on the cannon and shoot him in the face, but you can only shoot him when hes on the front of the deck. Which took me about 5 deaths to figure out. Then it became a game of "Ok, how do I lure him to the front of the deck"
So an initially awesome part turned into yet again a janky awkward chore of trying to figure out how to exploit the fucking AI to go to the front of the boat so I can actually shoot him. I tried sitting in the back and letting him go through his animations, nope, I tried running around the deck, nope he would kick my ass. Turns out I have to basically just stand in the front of the boat and then he always shows up at the front, then I can jump on the cannon and shoot him, rinse repeat, boss over. Still took a bunch of attempts, also had to look it up. Could have been awesome, but once again was just annoying.
You kill the boss, then youre shipwrecked somewhere. Is the game almost over yet? Ive been playing for like 13 hours at this point. I cant take this shit anymore, I'm so ready for this to end.
You're at this like weird little rocky island level where you have some timer based puzzle with a button that highlights a path and you have to place some gems, this objective I actually solved without much frustration or outside help, not so bad. Then you get into some cave base with a gigantic hole and air coming from it. Ok what do I do here? Do I jump into the hole? Looks like sure death, but theres nowhere else to go. Do I trust the game to be consistent enough that Im suppose to jump in the hole? I'll probably die, this game is so stupid and inconsistent I wouldnt be surprised - But yeah, I jumped in the hole and thats what you had to do. Surprisingly.
Now I'm at the end segment of the game, this underwater mystical base. 'Air filled tunnels'
This is some underground cavern with admittedly a really cool sight, you look out a window and see a submarine going around (who is that?) and fish, and some crazy architecture, kinda reminds me of Bioshock or something.
Then you see some enemies, and your player character says something like "better stay quiet, I have better chance that way" But fuck stealth, its so minimal in this game no thanks, you shoot a few guys, then progress a bit and get taken prisoner. Pretty sure you get taken prisoner no matter what.
You wakeup in a cell with a grate on the floor, a chisel nearby, obvious what you have to do.
It leads to another cell, with that sea creature monster from the boat mission in shackled up in it. Well the first few times I just ran into the cell,. and got caught every time and got killed instantly. I thought wtf, this is extremely stupid. After 5 attempts or so apparently you need to WAIT a minute for a scripted event to happen where a guard goes into the cell, then leaves, THEN you can go up into the cell...really stupid. Theres no indication or anything you should wait, its just awkward, again.
From there you have a stealth section where you gotta sneak by some guards and theres all sorts of paths and doors you can go, i eventually just managed to kind of run past all of it and hit a savepoint so whatever, but theres just so many possible paths you can go that its another trial segment. I ended up going down to some waterfall place that was blocked off and I needed some item, so had to backtrack.
Then you come across some hole in the ground and fall through - Another boss fight
Since I still had no weapons, theres this mage boss that casts gusts of wind to suck you in, and hurts you, and you have no weapons or anything so I just ran around looking for wtf im suppose to do. I was thinking "Did I miss the part where I get my weapons back? What do I do? Is my game broken" - Its hard to tell if the game is fucked up or if this is suppose to happen, kind of a major problem!
Well theres a knife on the table and it turns out you have to grab the knife and stab him to death, this is about as fucking awkward and shit as it sounds. After failing a few times I basically exploited the AI by hiding behind a table and waiting for him to finish his animation a few times and stab him in between.
After this, you get your guns back, and you backtrack through the entire underground complex but this time just shooting everyone.
Now it turns into yet another big 'Wheres waldo' hunt where you go around the entire complex multiple times, running in circles, trying to figure out what items you missed or what doors you didnt go through. Just awful pacing/level design in general really, because of the fact I missed a green gem stuck in a rock, near the waterfall. Yeah, I was suppose to see some hidden green gem stuck inside of a rock in a dark corner of the map, when theres a million other little similar objects in the game world that you cant interact with - But nope, I was suppose to know that one gem in a rock I need to interact with to progress, using a Hammer found in some prison cell after feeding a monster some poisonous food. Fucking stupid, again. Found it out only after running in circles and youtubing it , by the way.
After this you enter some laboratory and see some cool human experiment where he begs you to kill him, eventually climb up some vines, fall into some cavern and find this huge item on the ground, I had no idea what it was at first, I picked it up, and it didnt show up in my inventory. Only about 15 minutes later I discovered i picked up some crazy laser gun with infinite ammo, because theres no sort of pickup notification or anything.. Ok then.
This next part is really stupid. So at this point, again I had no idea what to do. You do all that shit, and you seemingly dont make any progress. You have this laser gun, but the area you got it in just wraps around back to the same complex. At this point I just walk in circles for another hour trying to use the laser gun on every possible thing but nothing works. I remember that blocked off cave by the waterfall from earlier with all the facehugging things, so I go back there and try shooting it. Nothing happens. Im shooting the blocked off passage over and over and nothing happens. So after many minutes of trying, I look it up again in frustration. Yeah, You're suppose to shoot exactly what Im shooting, its just not working. Im not shooting it 'specific' enough. I still dont know how to do it. I just ended up shooting the passage more and more until eventually it worked. Really bad.
Then you get to a part where youre climbing and platforming across rocks and oh yeah have I mentioned yet how the fall damage in this game is extremely annoying and even jumping 2 feet you break your fucking leg and move to a crawl and have to bandage yourself? Yeah, thats a thing. So youre climbing across these rocks and you screen spazzes the fuck out while you go 'insane' with all sorts of vision effects which are just awful and nauseating, then youre at another 'boss' fight which is two giant eel things that blow wind at you and try to knock you off the cliff
Well the first few attempts I naturally just went right to the top of the cliff, and couldnt climb higher until I killed them. So I sat in this open area trying to shoot my stupid laser cannon at these things and they would always kill me because I had no cover. Thats the place where you naturally end up at everytime, the game forces you into a panic with the level falling apart, so naturally you rush to the top as soon as possible. Well NOPE, you need to know to NOT go to the top, and instead WAIT AS THE LEVEL IS FALLING APART(?) at the bottom, so when the bosses arrive, you actually have some cover...STUPID. Its just totally contradictory and retarded. When the level is falling apart you dont think "oh I better stop and wait at the bottom" FUCKing shit design.
This took a bunch of attempts to figure out, trial and error BS as usual.
So you take cover and shoot your stupid cannon at these bosses (which admittedly look really cool and scary) a bunch of times until they die and you climb up to the last section of the game, finally.
Now you're at the 'last boss' this giant monster with tits hiding behind some bubble shield. It spawns some monsters from the boat which are easy enough to kill, you go up and hit a switch which make some water flow...then I got stuck. Theres a gong downstairs, and when you hit it, it makes monsters spawn. If you interact with the gong, the player is like "if I hit it hard enough it should be deafening" So I shoot it as hard as possible with my laser gun and nothing happens. So I keep struggling to figure out WTF to do for like 30 minutes, eventually look it up
Yeah you need to just stand FACE FIRST into the fucking gong or it doesnt work. STUPID again. I was standing slightly too far away from the gong so nothing happened lul.
You shoot the gong, your ears start ringing, then you stand in the middle of some platform and transform into a monster and can jump high to hit some switches, then you shoot the water and the boss dies? I dont know, its pretty fucking stupid. You dont even fight a boss, its just some monster that sits there looking cool.
Now the game is just about over!
All you have to do now is sprint to the end of the game, but the level is now on another timer where the whole level is collapsing and falling apart. You just have to run to the end, should only take about 45 seconds right?
No.
After about 40 attempts, it is Impossible to make it to the end of the game without the notorious Instant death timer bullshit. Attempt after attempt, I would always die in the exact same spot. The first attempt I had no idea what to do, I thought you had to jump in that weird portal thing in the sky, nah just death
The next few attempts, I found the door you have to go through, but i would always die instantly
After 30 mins of failure i looked it up. What do you know, ANOTHER game breaking bug...RIGHT AT THE END OF THE FUCKING GAME!!
Its literally impossible to finish the game on the Steam version, the physics/timer code on the PC version is broken and you character simply does not move fast enough to actually make it to the end of the level before dying. I tried all sorts of stupid shit like making my resolution 800x600, capping framerate at 30fps, nothing worked. I had to go online and download some patch and apply a 'double character movement fix' and I finally made it to the end of the fucking game and saw the end credits. If thats not the shit nugget on top of the vomit cake I dont know what is. I mean, just amazing. Shocking. jaw droppingly bad.
And even the ending is pretty disappointing, you get teleported and start talking all friendly to some alien creature, you wakeup in a mental hospital and hang yourself with a suicide note (that was cool I guess) then end credits. I dont really get it, but whatever. Also I dont even think Cthulhu is in the game, ever, at any point. Is he? I never saw him. Kinda weak.
TLDR Conclusion:
This game had so much potential, SO much. A would-be masterpiece. Basically all of the levels are interesting in their own right, except the factory could be shorter, it has a lot of variety in levels, the actual combat is decent enough, the immersion and atmosphere is amazing, before the segments get annoying, but yeah as you can see the objectives and tedium and overall nonsense is just too much to bare.
This is one game that could desperately use a remaster, This could be 8/10 if it was remastered and addressed some of these crucial flaws, and maybe had a bit more hints in the environment to help the player out, but right now, as it stands, the Steam version...its one of the worst games ever, maybe the worst, I dont know. I cant really think of a game that has put me through so much stress , annoyance, and frustration than this over the duration of the 16 hours I spent with it.
Some of the mechanics are cool at first, like the insanity thing, but then it dawns on you the contradiction of wanting to be a first person shooter, while simultaneously anytime you actually look at your enemy your screen goes through all sorts of fucking effects and nauseating shit that its just too much. I mean who thinks "Lets have a first person shooter but half the time your screen has a Windows Movie Maker dizzy filter on top of it" Its just not fun, at all. It was pretty hilarious and notable that if you do become too insane by looking at an enemy for too long, eventually if youre holding a gun, the player will forcefully put it to his head and kill yourself with a game over. It only happened once, but it was one of the few entertaining moments where I genuinely smirked.
Apparently the PC version was ported by a single person, and it was developed first and foremost for Xbox, well the PC version is definitely a broken piece of shit thats for sure, but even if all the bugs were fixed I don't think it would be a great or even good game, the core issue is the actual game design and inane objectives, timer based instant death bullshit, trial and error crap constantly, annoying shit puzzles, etc..
3/10
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