Finally, the long awaited official Call of Cthulhu game has arrived. But is it everything we hoped it was? Guess you'll have to read on to find out.
Beware: some spoilers (and sometimes a "bad" word) ahead! If you have a prolem with that, instead of writing a mean comment, just don't read on, like an adult.
The story
The game starts with an intro to the main protagonist, a private detective named Pierce. He's a Great War veteran/survivor, and is drinking a lot to try and forget the horrors he saw there. Enter a rich man, desperate to find out what happened on a remote island called Darkwater, where his daughter supposedly killed her entire family, and herself.
You take the case, and go to the island, where it is immediately clear there are a lot of tensions here. Bootleggers and fishermen are in a state of not-so-cold war, and despite it being 1924, prohibition is just a joke here. But things will quickly take a turn for the worst, and untold horrors will come out of the dilapidated woodwork...
Gameplay
Apart from the many cutscenes, you play the game in first person. The main goal of the game is to investigate. You are a P.I. for heaven's sake, don't expect Bloodborne, or a Call of Duty ;-)
You will walk around the island, collecting clues, talking to people and finding things other people want to keep hidden. There are 5 stats you can upgrade by advancing through the story, and finding the correct clues: strenght, investigate, spot hidden, psychology and eloquence. Call of Cthulhu roleplay fans will recognise these easily. There's also medicine and occultism which will slowly upgrade, but you need to find the right books or items to get such knowledge.
All of these stats are important. Will you fight your way out of a situation (strenght)? Or will you try and talk yourself out of it, with this game's use of Fast Talk and/or Persuade (eloquence)? I myself used the latter more, as it seemed to me strenght wasn't used much, since this is NOT a fighting game. I will, however, play the game again and try the strenght build.
What you do, and how you do it, matters a lot in this game. Reactions will change, people will behave differently, and your actions will steer you towards one of four different endings. Lastly, another "stat" which will be very important: sanity!
Sanity should be present in a Call of Cthulhu game, and this game does that well. Will you read the De Vermiis Mysteriis, thereby gaining knowledge you might need? Or will you leave that accursed book alone, keeping your sanity for just a tad longer? Things will change as your sanity deteriorates.
There's also different aspects to the game. Apart from investigating, you need to solve puzzles, do a true Alien: Isolation- like scene (albeit short), find your way around the bad guys through sneaking, and so on.
General mood of the game
As far as the general mood of the game is concerned, it is spot on. You have your backwater village, local hicks, criminals, even a hospital/sanitarium with all the creepy bells and whistles! Soon, it becomes apparent that something very wrong happened on this island. Cultists, cursed paintings, visions, and a true Lovecraftian monster wreaking havoc.
The more the game progresses, the more really creepy things start to happen, and some are complete mindfucks, with barely an explanation attached. When it really hits the fan, you know the poor Mr. Pierce will never be the same again, and you just hope to survive this, maybe even with your wits intact. Hah! Good luck.
Graphics, looks and general quality
The game looks gritty, dark, creepy, and captures the twenties well. Using the lighter (or hurricane lamp) will help you find items hidden in dark corners better, and using the dialogue options will open up other pathways to things you want to achieve.
The atmosphere is there in spades, with every location having a unique feel to it. The voice acting is also excellent, although the lip sync could be better. I sometimes had the feel the first letters of a word were spoken before the lips moved, and sometimes mouths do a weird snarl thing instead of pronouncing the "m." Also I noticed some weird mistakes/typo's in the subtitles. Those were minor annoyances though, but still noteworthy here.
Apart from the main characters, I also had a bit of trouble telling the people apart. There's not that many NPC's in this game, and I thought many looked the same.
Other than that, I would say the game looks really great. The different locations feel unique and are very well done, with details and things to investigate all over the place. Also the cutscenes are beautiful, although I noticed a very big difference between the volume of speech in cutscenes or just in the game, which is kinda weird when these alternate.
The good
Really great atmosphere, great voice acting, a good story, beautiful locations, and as I said: a couple of real mindfucks. There's some real psychological scares here, and just a couple jump scares. It is a game that does Lovecraft proud, in my opinion.
No, you won't fly all over the world, and you won't meet any Great Old Ones or even stop a global cult of Nyarlathotep. But this is a Mythos mystery fans of the genre will appreciate. If this would have been a tabletop roleplay game scenario, the players would be very happy.
Also reconstructing a scene to find out what happened there is fun, and a bit like what Batman does in the Arkham games.
The bad
The lip sync could be better, just like the subtitles in some places, and the volume difference when talking in cutscenes or in the game itself is slightly annoying. The game is also quite linear. You can explore locations, yes, but the game takes you to the next part when you're done. Lastly: the game could just be a bit longer. I am not the fastest player, as I want to examine every nook and cranny, and I finished the game in 11 hours. If you speedrun this, but watch all cutscenes, you can do it in 5 or 6, I think.
Randall's Verdict
This is exactly what I wanted in a Call of Cthulhu game. Investigating something "normal" like a family drama, and get thrown in the deep end with crazy doctors, Mythos monsters, a cult, and so on. Investigating what really goes on here in Darkwater was fun, and I read everything I could find and pumped everyone for information, no matter how much of a pest they thought I was.
Sure, the game could be a bit longer, but since this is not an action game, you might get bored with it if it was. I would have liked a bit more explanation for things that happened right at the end, but you can fill in the blanks with what you discovered during the game, and try to make sense of it. Not everything is completely explained to you, and maybe this is for the best.
All in all, I had fun playing this. It's a slow- paced game, except near the end, and I really felt like a Call of Cthulhu investigator, which is what it's all about. There are some minor grievances, yes, but nothing that made my sanity go down, in stark contrast to some of the things that happened in the game. Fans of the genre will like this game a lot, I think, as long as you keep in mind that this is not an action game. And since there's more than enough of those, that is actually a good thing.