Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth – Good game?

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a game that is considered by fans to be almost the best based on the works of Lovecraft. However, how does it feel in 2022?? Is it worth playing for those who are not familiar with the works of H. P. Lovecraft?? I will try to lead you to the answers to these questions by conducting such a small retrospective.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a licensed game based on Lovecraft’s stories, using not only what I call “signs”. For example, such as an underwater or sea setting, a protagonist with distinctive features, ancient people who rule the world, and the like. Call of Cthulhu also uses mythology, characters, and is also based on plots that were invented by Howard Phillips. That is, it does not take a conventional “ancient” one, such as, for example, Bloodborne, which, according to its characteristics, is also a game based on Lovecraft. No, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth takes specifically those ancient ones that Lovecraft invented and who appeared in his stories.

Even on my first playthrough, the game made a big impression on me. Especially considering that not long before I began my journey through the expanses of virtual Innsmouth, I read the story that most captured my attention, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.”. And what a surprise I was when I found out that the plot of the game is based on this very story. This is probably why the game made such a positive impression on me. However, the game should be divided into 2 parts. Before receiving weapons and after. But first things first.

Developers and development.

Headfirst Productions was responsible for the development of the game. And things weren’t going well for her, to put it mildly. The game was planned to be released back in 2001, but it was postponed many times. Ultimately, the game was released only on October 24, 2005 on Xbox, and on September 1, 2006 on PC. It’s interesting that the studio was going to release several projects in one universe at once. And already in 2002, development began on Call of Cthulhu: Destiny’s End, which never saw the light of day. The game was shown at E3 2005, but in December of the same year, publisher Hip Interactive was declared bankrupt. And the development studio Headfirst Productions was closed. Because of this, both Call of Cthulhu: Destiny’s End and other games in the world of H. P. Lovecraft were canceled.

Call of Cthulhu: Destiny’s End trailer from E3 2005

Plot of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

The game is based on the story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". At the very beginning, we, in the shoes of the main character, detective Jack Ulters, experience a siege on a mansion where some kind of cult has settled. The members of which, by the way, wanted to meet with us. But all the inhabitants of the mansion hastily realized. Some before the siege, some during the firefight. Because of this, we are never able to find out why the cultists wanted to meet Jack, and most importantly, how the members of this cult knew him. In one of the rooms it becomes obvious that our protagonist has been under surveillance for some time. In this room, all the walls were covered with his photographs. However, this is not the only discovery. And not the most important thing. In the basement of the house, Jack finds a strange laboratory, in which there are many dead cultists and two strange devices. One appears to be a life support machine, although the humaneness of such a machine is debatable. And the second – teleport. And from this teleport after Jack activates it, strange creatures of inhuman appearance and size come out. Because of this, Jack’s mind can’t stand it and sends him into a faint.

Jack doesn’t remember the next six years. He only knows that he became very interested in occult sciences, and spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. But exactly six years later, after the activation of that ill-fated portal, he returned to consciousness. And most importantly, to the work of a detective, though now a private one. And then one night there is a fateful call from another client. His name is Arthur Anderson, he is the director of the Fest National chain of stores and I’m sorry for Jack to find the recently missing cashier Brian Burnham, who worked in his store in a fishing town called Innsmouth.

The next day Walters gets on the bus and goes to Innsmouth. Upon arrival, the driver tells him that they don’t like strangers in this town, which we soon become convinced of. Not only does almost no one agree to talk to us, and those who do agree are most often rude. Also, the police are subordinate to some kind of order of “Dagon”.

From the first seconds of being in https://flashdashcasino.co.uk the city, the player notices the strange appearance of the inhabitants of Innsmouth, but does not yet pay much attention to it. Jack, by the way, for some reason ignores this fact, although he likes to comment on almost everything he sees. However, not everyone looks typical of Innsmouth, some retained a human appearance and were friendly with the main character. From them he learns more about the dominant order in the city and where it actually came from. He also learns about Burnham, who noticed something was wrong in the behavior of the residents of this city, wanted to clean out a nearby store and leave as quickly as possible.

Jack decides to visit the seller of this store, who met our friendly girl Rebecca, not without a tip. Having found the house of Thomas Waite, the seller of a nearby store, Walters finds only a little girl at home. Waite’s daughter says we can wait for her father at the house. While waiting, we decide to look around and find an iron door on the second floor, from behind which we hear terrifying sounds. Approaching the door and opening the bolt, Jack sees a fish-like creature, which a moment later breaks down the door and throws Jack aside. Having come to his senses, Jack finds Thomas with his dead daughter in his arms. Waite instructs us to find the book in the safe of his store. Then he and his daughter’s body are taken away by the police.

Having found a book in the safe and deciding that it is better to get out of the town as early as possible, Jack learns from the driver that the bus has “overheated” and will leave Innsmouth only in the morning. The bus driver also says that Walters can stay at Gilmon’s hotel, where the bus actually stops. Surprisingly, Guilmon gives us a room, although before that he said that all the rooms were occupied. Plus, Jack is developing knowledge that slipped through from time to time during the investigation. With the help of these visions, we learn that Gilman recently brutally killed someone and cannot be trusted. Therefore, once in the room, before going to bed, we lock all the doors. And then the fun begins – escaping from the hotel.

At night, Jack wakes up from visions and the fact that people are breaking into his room. And this part is an almost verbatim “playing” of an excerpt from the story. And it keeps you in suspense just like the story while you read it. Later, Jack will end up in many places, the closest being the sewer. In my opinion, it perfectly conveyed the state of fear. In general, I think there’s really no point in retelling the plot further in such detail. After all, after escaping, we get to prison and take weapons there. And then the game becomes, as for me, more boring, or easier. Although it brings variety to the gameplay. After all, before this, all we did was just explore locations and talk with characters, with small stealth elements. One has only to say that in the course of the plot we will also have to meet with Hydra, and with Dagon, and with some incomprehensible crap with a bunch of eyes, and there will be battles with all of them.

Gameplay

The gameplay of the game, in its first half, is, in my opinion, excellent. This part of the game is the most interesting. Before Jack gets his hands on the weapon, the gameplay boils down to a few things. The very first thing is location research. The hero constantly comments on various things that the player may look at. For Walters to do this, you need to approach the item and press the interact button. Moreover, these objects do not stand out from the surroundings in any way, they are not highlighted in any way, which, in my opinion, creates the illusion of the integrity of what is happening. While exploring locations, Jack also picks up various items that can be used in the future. Most often for solving puzzles. Yes they are here too.

The first puzzle comes down to selecting the combination from Thomas’s safe. He says the combination to the safe is written in his diary. Having found the diary, we find out that this is the date of birth of his daughter. And that yesterday she turned ten years old. And I really like the fact that Jack doesn’t say after reading the diary something like “This must be …” such and such numbers, which will be the combination. And you, as a player, find the date of the day at which the game takes place. And you’re already pushing away from her. For example, I did it this way: I opened the diary, saw that the entry that Jack was going to visit Innsmouth the next day was made on such and such a date, in such and such a year. Took away ten years and got the birth date of Thomas’s daughter. And solving such simple puzzles is quite interesting, because they consist of several stages. Such puzzles also include the rescue of Burnham from prison.

When we find him, he says that he doesn’t trust us and won’t go anywhere with us. And then, if you think about it, you can guess to give him a postcard from his beloved, then he will begin to trust us.

In addition to riddles and exploring locations, the game features stealth, which, however, is quite primitive. Although it occurs several times during the game, its primitiveness probably only makes it easier to pass without overloading the game with stealth moments and without making them too difficult. I think this would greatly affect the dynamics of the game. All stealth comes down to walking on your haunches and peeking around corners. And it doesn’t cause any big difficulties, because the opponents are, to put it mildly, stupid. Sometimes it gets to the point of absurdity.

I had a moment when I was a little in a hurry and they noticed me, but there was nowhere to run. In front of the non-writing, I jumped over the cart (unfortunately, there are no footage), and sat there for quite a while. After which the computer dummy decided that I managed to escape, although there was a wall behind the cart. But this is even good, because in corridor locations there are no special escape routes from opponents who notice you. This can be attributed to the disadvantages of working out locations, because the character does not have a weapon yet. So discovery means “welcome to the beginning of the location,” or to the nearest save location, which, by the way, is played out nicely here. Enemies do not approach save zones because the eye symbol inside the star, which is used to save, protects from evil. Something like a talisman.

I would also like to note the treatment, which was done very well here. As we progress through the story, we find first aid kits, but in the inventory they are displayed as different components of boxes with crosses. For example, bandages, splints, needles and threads and, I assume, disinfectants. Each of them is spent on different types of injuries. Jack can break his leg if he falls from a height and will limp until he uses a splint. But, in my opinion, this is the only damage that directly affects the gameplay. He can also get scratched, break his arm, etc. And these damages can be seen both on the character himself and on the squares that seem to be responsible for parts of his body. Plus, if Jack gets a lot of open wounds that he doesn’t heal right away, he’ll bleed to death. And if there are no open wounds, but he received damage and the screen darkened a little, then he will heal on his own.

In addition to physical health, Jack also has mental health. If you are in stressful situations for a long time, then the main character will begin to feel a little dizzy, the picture will be distorted and, in general, the image will float. So he can be frightened by: the sight of mutilated bodies, fish people, or, to my surprise, a banal height.

There are several segments in the game when we have to overcome the space above the abyss. So, for example, in a bank, during a chase from fish-men, we climb under the ceiling of a burning building. And here it’s better to try not to look down, otherwise Jack will start to stagger and most likely fall. And if you neglect Jack’s mental health, as happened to me during the battle with Dagon on the ship, he will simply take a bullet in his forehead so that this nightmare will end. By the way, this fear effect directly affects the ability to shoot. It can be extremely difficult to aim with a floating camera, and there are no crosshairs, like in old shooters, and you have to aim through the front sight, which in my opinion is a plus. This makes the shooting part not as boring as it could have been. After all, only the main character, but not the player, has fear from fish-men after receiving weapons. This is why I criticize this game design decision. In addition, ammo at locations is almost always filled with excess.

Locations and Design

The very first location in the game – the mansion – is already very well designed and has a lot of details. As befits a place where a cult has settled, there is trash everywhere. Although the limitations of technology did not allow adding many objects to the screen, the developers made the right decision to put effort into good texture development. Which just added authentic shabbyness to the surrounding world. This can, in principle, apply to all other locations. But non-human buildings, such as a portal in the basement, already look quite clean, which again, on a subconscious level, makes them cut off from the rest of the world.

In general, we can praise the work of the artists. They didn’t stop at well-designed locations and the work with the characters was no worse. As I said, the fish people in Innsmouth look as authentic as possible. Their skin always seems to be a little bluish and swollen from water. And from under the collars you can see the gills visible. The only thing that disappoints is the small number of these well-drawn models. The inhabitants of Innsmouth have not yet lost their human appearance, which means they should have some diversity, which they do not have.

But the most pleasant impression on me was made by Insmust himself. His research. The fact that there aren’t all these newfangled markers showing where to go. You learn where you should go exclusively from dialogues with characters. True, let’s be honest, at least some opportunity to get confused about where to go is present only in the first hours of the game, when you are exploring Innsmouth. Then the game turns into a corridor. But Innsmouth is well done. This desertion, closed shops, scurrying about rare fish people who look at you with suspicion and are very unfriendly. All this creates the right impression of the world, approximately the same as what you experience while reading a story.

Sound design

I would like to note the good work of the sound engineers. The sounds and ambience were well chosen, the developers were able to make me feel uncomfortable in Innsmouth. And it’s creepy from the silence and ambient sounds in the sewer. And understanding which side the enemy is walking from helps in stealth sections. And I would especially like to praise the localization. Not only were there good actors from 1C in the voice acting, trying to act out, but also only 2 versions of the game have dubbing – English and Russian. While speakers of other languages ​​can be content solely with subtitles and a translated interface. However, although the Russian dubbing is good, it has one single drawback. Sometimes the character does not have time to finish the sentence, and some important information may be missed by the player. However, subtitles save this moment. But the fact remains a fact, there is a problem.

Conclusion

As a result, we can say that Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is an excellent game based on the works of Howard Philips Lovecraft. It has excellent gameplay, design and sound, although not without its drawbacks. It seems to me that the developers should have placed less emphasis on the shooter component of the project, and more on the research and detective focus. It’s not for nothing that our protagonist is a detective. And location exploration, plus puzzles, is the aspect that the developers did best. But the shooting even killed the charm a little. The player is less afraid of unearthly creatures, and besides, there is only one or two cartridges available here. I’ve only run out of them a couple of times. And in Lovecraft’s stories there is more of an exploratory spirit. There, characters reveal secrets that shouldn’t have been revealed. Well, they don’t fight fish people at all. In the same story, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” the most action-packed moment was the escape, but there were no further confrontations.

But, despite the disadvantages, the game deserves attention. Even for people who are not familiar with Lovecraft’s work. Unfortunately, we never saw the sequel, which was in development.