Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
http://ui02.gamespot.com/1601/250pxeternaldarknessbox_2.jpg
It's often said there are two types of fear in life. There's the schlocky kind of fear that makes you jump out of your skin that's used in crappy movies, and there's the subtler kind that creeps up on you like sciatica on an old ladies' legs. It never makes you scream, but you always know it's there. Eternal Darkness falls into the latter category. I'm aware this game is quite old now, but for those boiling hot summer nights where you can't sleep (or, for those in the Southern hemisphere, those long, quiet winters' nights), is there anything better than curling up with a good, old-fashioned survival horror game? Well, probably. But for the purposes of this review, let's say there isn't, shall we? If you own a Gamecube or Wii and yearn for a true horror game, if you crave a properly, genuinely mature game, you could do worse than stepping away from the HD cartoon violence of Gears of War, away from the greyest greys in Killzone 2 and away from the gritty realism of GTA IV, and allow yourself to be drawn into what must be the most epic story ever told in a game.
http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/5462/2h/images.gamezone.com/screens/17/2/33/s17233_GC_7.jpg
The reason I say that is the story actually spans two millennia, from a Roman Centurion named Pious (or Pius, the game can't seem to decide on the spelling) Augustus in 56 BC to a girl called Alex Roivas ('savior' backwards, how subtle) in 2000. Alex is called to her grandfathers' Rhode Island mansion to identify the body of the old guy, who has met with a mysterious and very violent end. There are no clues to how her grandfather was murdered so brutally, so Alex pledges to stay in the mansion and look for clues. Sidestepping the Rhode Island PD's frankly worrying attitude towards the public access of murder scenes, it's here the story quickly gets into full swing and really gets its hooks into you. She soon discovers the Tome of Eternal Darkness, a book bound with human skin and bone that charts the (mis)adventures of a few chosen individuals who have possessed the book before. It's here the true genius behind the storytelling rears its head, as you play what Alex is reading, meaning the story is woven in perfectly with the gameplay and you drift seamlessly from the aforementioned Roman Centurion to Charlemagne's messenger, and from a Franciscan monk (my personal favourite) to a 1980s explorer. Although this means that some locations are re-used, they're always vividly different each time. For example, a cathedral you see in the 1400s appears later in 1916, but this time as a wartime field hospital, and besides, it's oddly satisfying (yet somehow chilling) when you pick up a weapon, see a dilapidated structure or encounter the remains of a character you met hundeds of years earlier.
Soon Alex is launched headlong into a tale that anyone who has read a H.P. Lovecraft novel will simply adore, involving ancient creatures from beyond space and time, magickal runes (more on them later) and a healthy dollop of zombie fun. This is all helped with the use of cutscenes, which are superbly written and quite fantastically voiced, melting you into putty so the game can draw you in and mould your mind as it wishes. It's quite hard to go into just how good the story is without also going into spoilers, but I can say it is excellently told, without a hint of flab or any redundant scenes and it never ceases to grip you tighter than a vice from start to finish.
http://thegamereviews.com/userfiles/image/Bargain%20Bin/02-4-09/Eternal%20Darkness.jpg
However, all of the above is, as most gamers will tell you, for naught if the gameplay cannot match it. Thankfully, this is not the case. It takes place in a fully 3D environment with full analogue control, so there's none of that Resident Evil quick-turn malarkey to be had here. It makes movement simple and natural when compared to the likes of Resident Evil, although a minor gripe with the controls is that some characters move a little too slowly when they aren't running, but it barely matters. Much of the gameplay is focused on either combat or puzzle-solving, and again, in both these regards it is simple and easy to get to grips with. Combat is particularly satisfying, as you can target each part of an opponent's upper body and lop it off with one of a number of historically accurate weapons. This adds an extra nuance to combat, as you can hack off a zombies' head and leave it flailing aimlessly, or remove the arms so it can't attack you at all. Some enemies have different weak points, and so it requires a bit more thought rather than just hack 'n' slash. Another tactical element to consider is your choice of weaponry in relation to the character you play as. Some two-handed swords, for example, while powerful, may be a little too heavy for some of the smaller characters to wield and in claustrophobic environments larger weapons can get caught on walls, so bigger is not always better. This philosophy carries through to the characters themselves as bigger characters often have more health but are slower to run and cannot keep up speed for very long. All in all, it makes for a relatively deep combat system but unfortunately, it can still get repetitive thanks to the relatively small amount of enemies. The repetition, while never cripplingly dull thanks to the nuances inherent in the combat system itself, still isn't quite as enjoyable as other aspects of the game - if there is a real weak point in Eternal Darkness, this is it.
http://www.nintendospin.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/eternal-darkness-sanitys-requiem-image3.jpg
The puzzles, however, are usually much more entertaining. They are generally made up of - you guessed it - fill the hole with the block puzzles, which I presume horror games have a legal obligation to include, and the puzzles which revolve around your use of magick. The game uses a unique spell system which has you collecting runes, symbols which represent nouns and verbs. You fit them into differently sized 'Circles of Power', which determines the power of your spell. You also need to align your spell, and this is the crux of the magick system - the rock-paper-scissors philosophy governing all the spells. There are red spells, green spells and blue spells, with each one dominating another, as well as a purple rune that dominates everything. It's worth mentioning at this point there are three paths you can take through the adventure, as you align yourself to a particular colour of magick, and as such the game requires three playthroughs to fully complete. The Ancient who governs this magick is the Ancient whose power you have to contend with throughout the adventure and it determines the alignment of the enemies you face, all of whom are weak against one colour of magick and strong against another. It all sounds very complicated, but in practice it works perfectly and allows great scope for experimentation with different runes. As you discover more runes, the spells become more and more integral to solving the puzzles, as well as dovetailing perfectly with the combat.
Anyone who has played the game will start to question at this point why I haven't mentioned it's most vaunted feature. I refer of course to the sanity meter, something which sounds quite gimmicky, but actually is the thing that made it so memorable. Every zombie you meet saps your sanity (which you can recover by performing a 'finishing move' on an enemy), some more than others, and it isn't until it starts to get low that you realise just how immersive Eternal Darkness can be when it gets its rotting claws into you. You see, when you start to go insane, strange things begin happening. Your character might start talking to themselves, for example. Statues might start to follow you around, and the walls might start to bleed. You might walk into a room and hear women and children screaming. And then, just like that, the illusion is gone, leaving you disturbed and confused. It's testament to the game's quality that when the sanity effects break the fourth wall, such as when the volume on your TV starts to mess up or the game flashes up a cheery "Thanks for playing this demo!" message, you genuinely believe it, because you're in such an immersed state. Some of the better ones are so innovative I won't spoil them here, but I will say that they are good enough to forgive the game for its moments of cruelty when it informs you that, unfortunately, all your save data has been deleted and it mock-resets your console. They're genuinely disturbing, frustrating and quite cruel. And absolutely bloody brilliant.
http://www.thunderboltgames.com/s/reviews/gc/eternaldarkness_5.jpg
That last sentence, then, is one that aptly describes Eternal Darkness. Yes, it's seven years old, but it still stands tall as one of the most innovative, cerebral and downright chilling stories ever woven in gaming. If you see it going cheap in any shop at all, and you own a Wii or Gamecube, you owe it to yourself, and to those long, dark, lonely nights where you just want to draw the curtains and lose yourself, to pick this one up. In terms of storytelling, atmosphere and downright, jaw-dropping fun, it still manages to outclass the games of today, and if only more developers took the time and effort to make an experience as complete and mesmerising as this one, the industry would benefit endlessly from it.
Just don't believe everything you see...
http://ui02.gamespot.com/1601/250pxeternaldarknessbox_2.jpg
It's often said there are two types of fear in life. There's the schlocky kind of fear that makes you jump out of your skin that's used in crappy movies, and there's the subtler kind that creeps up on you like sciatica on an old ladies' legs. It never makes you scream, but you always know it's there. Eternal Darkness falls into the latter category. I'm aware this game is quite old now, but for those boiling hot summer nights where you can't sleep (or, for those in the Southern hemisphere, those long, quiet winters' nights), is there anything better than curling up with a good, old-fashioned survival horror game? Well, probably. But for the purposes of this review, let's say there isn't, shall we? If you own a Gamecube or Wii and yearn for a true horror game, if you crave a properly, genuinely mature game, you could do worse than stepping away from the HD cartoon violence of Gears of War, away from the greyest greys in Killzone 2 and away from the gritty realism of GTA IV, and allow yourself to be drawn into what must be the most epic story ever told in a game.
http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/5462/2h/images.gamezone.com/screens/17/2/33/s17233_GC_7.jpg
The reason I say that is the story actually spans two millennia, from a Roman Centurion named Pious (or Pius, the game can't seem to decide on the spelling) Augustus in 56 BC to a girl called Alex Roivas ('savior' backwards, how subtle) in 2000. Alex is called to her grandfathers' Rhode Island mansion to identify the body of the old guy, who has met with a mysterious and very violent end. There are no clues to how her grandfather was murdered so brutally, so Alex pledges to stay in the mansion and look for clues. Sidestepping the Rhode Island PD's frankly worrying attitude towards the public access of murder scenes, it's here the story quickly gets into full swing and really gets its hooks into you. She soon discovers the Tome of Eternal Darkness, a book bound with human skin and bone that charts the (mis)adventures of a few chosen individuals who have possessed the book before. It's here the true genius behind the storytelling rears its head, as you play what Alex is reading, meaning the story is woven in perfectly with the gameplay and you drift seamlessly from the aforementioned Roman Centurion to Charlemagne's messenger, and from a Franciscan monk (my personal favourite) to a 1980s explorer. Although this means that some locations are re-used, they're always vividly different each time. For example, a cathedral you see in the 1400s appears later in 1916, but this time as a wartime field hospital, and besides, it's oddly satisfying (yet somehow chilling) when you pick up a weapon, see a dilapidated structure or encounter the remains of a character you met hundeds of years earlier.
Soon Alex is launched headlong into a tale that anyone who has read a H.P. Lovecraft novel will simply adore, involving ancient creatures from beyond space and time, magickal runes (more on them later) and a healthy dollop of zombie fun. This is all helped with the use of cutscenes, which are superbly written and quite fantastically voiced, melting you into putty so the game can draw you in and mould your mind as it wishes. It's quite hard to go into just how good the story is without also going into spoilers, but I can say it is excellently told, without a hint of flab or any redundant scenes and it never ceases to grip you tighter than a vice from start to finish.
http://thegamereviews.com/userfiles/image/Bargain%20Bin/02-4-09/Eternal%20Darkness.jpg
However, all of the above is, as most gamers will tell you, for naught if the gameplay cannot match it. Thankfully, this is not the case. It takes place in a fully 3D environment with full analogue control, so there's none of that Resident Evil quick-turn malarkey to be had here. It makes movement simple and natural when compared to the likes of Resident Evil, although a minor gripe with the controls is that some characters move a little too slowly when they aren't running, but it barely matters. Much of the gameplay is focused on either combat or puzzle-solving, and again, in both these regards it is simple and easy to get to grips with. Combat is particularly satisfying, as you can target each part of an opponent's upper body and lop it off with one of a number of historically accurate weapons. This adds an extra nuance to combat, as you can hack off a zombies' head and leave it flailing aimlessly, or remove the arms so it can't attack you at all. Some enemies have different weak points, and so it requires a bit more thought rather than just hack 'n' slash. Another tactical element to consider is your choice of weaponry in relation to the character you play as. Some two-handed swords, for example, while powerful, may be a little too heavy for some of the smaller characters to wield and in claustrophobic environments larger weapons can get caught on walls, so bigger is not always better. This philosophy carries through to the characters themselves as bigger characters often have more health but are slower to run and cannot keep up speed for very long. All in all, it makes for a relatively deep combat system but unfortunately, it can still get repetitive thanks to the relatively small amount of enemies. The repetition, while never cripplingly dull thanks to the nuances inherent in the combat system itself, still isn't quite as enjoyable as other aspects of the game - if there is a real weak point in Eternal Darkness, this is it.
http://www.nintendospin.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/eternal-darkness-sanitys-requiem-image3.jpg
The puzzles, however, are usually much more entertaining. They are generally made up of - you guessed it - fill the hole with the block puzzles, which I presume horror games have a legal obligation to include, and the puzzles which revolve around your use of magick. The game uses a unique spell system which has you collecting runes, symbols which represent nouns and verbs. You fit them into differently sized 'Circles of Power', which determines the power of your spell. You also need to align your spell, and this is the crux of the magick system - the rock-paper-scissors philosophy governing all the spells. There are red spells, green spells and blue spells, with each one dominating another, as well as a purple rune that dominates everything. It's worth mentioning at this point there are three paths you can take through the adventure, as you align yourself to a particular colour of magick, and as such the game requires three playthroughs to fully complete. The Ancient who governs this magick is the Ancient whose power you have to contend with throughout the adventure and it determines the alignment of the enemies you face, all of whom are weak against one colour of magick and strong against another. It all sounds very complicated, but in practice it works perfectly and allows great scope for experimentation with different runes. As you discover more runes, the spells become more and more integral to solving the puzzles, as well as dovetailing perfectly with the combat.
Anyone who has played the game will start to question at this point why I haven't mentioned it's most vaunted feature. I refer of course to the sanity meter, something which sounds quite gimmicky, but actually is the thing that made it so memorable. Every zombie you meet saps your sanity (which you can recover by performing a 'finishing move' on an enemy), some more than others, and it isn't until it starts to get low that you realise just how immersive Eternal Darkness can be when it gets its rotting claws into you. You see, when you start to go insane, strange things begin happening. Your character might start talking to themselves, for example. Statues might start to follow you around, and the walls might start to bleed. You might walk into a room and hear women and children screaming. And then, just like that, the illusion is gone, leaving you disturbed and confused. It's testament to the game's quality that when the sanity effects break the fourth wall, such as when the volume on your TV starts to mess up or the game flashes up a cheery "Thanks for playing this demo!" message, you genuinely believe it, because you're in such an immersed state. Some of the better ones are so innovative I won't spoil them here, but I will say that they are good enough to forgive the game for its moments of cruelty when it informs you that, unfortunately, all your save data has been deleted and it mock-resets your console. They're genuinely disturbing, frustrating and quite cruel. And absolutely bloody brilliant.
http://www.thunderboltgames.com/s/reviews/gc/eternaldarkness_5.jpg
That last sentence, then, is one that aptly describes Eternal Darkness. Yes, it's seven years old, but it still stands tall as one of the most innovative, cerebral and downright chilling stories ever woven in gaming. If you see it going cheap in any shop at all, and you own a Wii or Gamecube, you owe it to yourself, and to those long, dark, lonely nights where you just want to draw the curtains and lose yourself, to pick this one up. In terms of storytelling, atmosphere and downright, jaw-dropping fun, it still manages to outclass the games of today, and if only more developers took the time and effort to make an experience as complete and mesmerising as this one, the industry would benefit endlessly from it.
Just don't believe everything you see...
