Howard Lovecraft’s short story "The Call of Cthulhu" was first published in 1926. And although the author himself spoke rather neutrally about him, his work was later highly appreciated by critics, he had his own fans and even a real near-religious cult developed. Of course, there were also computer games based on. In 2005, Headfirst Productions showed the world Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, then there was a lull and only in this year 2018, 13 years later, a new game is released, dedicated to the Ancient One sleeping in the depths of the Pacific Ocean..
The new Call of Cthulhu could not avoid comparison with Dark Corners of the Earth, because this is also Call of Cthulhu, and many players expected something in the spirit of that very game of 2005. However, I hasten to assure you: these are two completely different products, although they have a number of similar features, but even those are rather only external. Unlike the harsh and merciless survival-horror shooter that we saw 13 years ago, Call of Cthulhu 2018 is already a mixture of horror, role-playing game and quest, which is determined by the desire of the developers to partially or completely transfer the 1981 board game of the same name to monitor screens. But I won’t go into details.
Strictly speaking, Dark Corners of the Earth was in no way connected with Cthulhu. The plot of the game was based on the stories “The Shadow over Innsmouth”, “Out of Time”, as well as other works of the writer to a greater or lesser extent, and, to give the game its due, it strictly followed the original source, in some places almost completely copying the events set out in the stories. But still, how the name of the elder Ancient ended up in the title of the game is not clear.
While the new Call of Cthulhu fully justifies its name and corresponds to Lovecraft’s work both in spirit and, dare I say it, almost perfectly recreated atmosphere, and correlates with the original source with many plot parallels that I would like to tell you about, but… spoilers..
Call of Cthulhu is not a game interpretation of “that same” story (and certainly not a continuation, remake, reboot, etc.d. games from 2005, so it’s just stupid to write “the original was better”. ). However, many parallels can be traced between the game’s plot and Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu
It still remains a mystery to me why in almost every Lovecraft game we play as a detective? I’m in no way going to criticize the new Call of Cthulhu for this, but just remember: Call of Cthulhu 2005 – Detective Jack Walters, Darkness Within – Investigator Howard Loreid. Also in the new game the main character is detective Edward Pierce.
After the end of the First World War, in which Pierce was directly involved, he returned to civilian life and became a private detective. It’s the twenties. The hero’s psyche, shaken during the war, gave him depression, insomnia and terrible nightmares that torment Edward at night. Only two things helped him drown out all this – sleeping pills and a glass of strong scotch.
Having awakened from yet another nightmare, in which something completely unimaginable was happening, the hero lets the player into his “office”. While we are studying the detective’s workplace, and then chatting on the phone with the secretary, a new client appears outside the office door. Pierce opens the door for him, but he is in no hurry to take on another banal and boring task. But, as it turned out, the case was unusual. The client was the father of a famous young artist named Sarah Hawkins who died some time ago. Together with her husband and son, she died during a fire at their estate in the town of Darkwater, which is located on a secluded island off the coast of the United States. There were rumors that Sarah was possessed, and the eerie paintings that brought her such popularity were the fruits of her mental disorder. The police closed the case, saying it was an accident. But Sarah’s father didn’t think so, just as he didn’t think his daughter was crazy, and the only one he could now count on, the only one who could find out the truth, was Detective Edward Pierce.
The plot of the game turned out to be so exciting that you are drawn in literally from the very beginning, as soon as you start interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence, and generally conducting a natural investigation. Call of Cthulhu wraps its sticky tentacles around you and holds you until the end. The story turned out to be very twisted and full of unexpected twists. Throughout the game you try to put together seemingly incompatible pieces of the puzzle and at the end, when everything fits into one smooth line, you experience indescribable pleasure and delight and… you want more.
The main setting of https://www.bookkeepingintelligence.co.uk/ Call of Cthulhu is the same town of Darkwater, where our hero immediately goes to investigate a mysterious case. This city once flourished thanks to fishing and whaling. But over time, there was no one left to fish in the surrounding waters. All the whales died out, and things weren’t great with the fish either. Darkwater fell into disrepair and gradually began to turn into a ghost town. Despite the fact that Prohibition is “raging” in the USA at this time, the locals do nothing but drink, displaying empty bottles right under the proclamation banning alcohol… And besides, now a gang of bootleggers is in charge of everything in the city.
Studying the history of Darkwater is no less interesting than investigating the Hawkins case, and I advise you not to neglect this moment, because it makes a significant contribution to the atmosphere. In general, as soon as you find yourself on the island, it gradually begins to squeeze you from all sides. Everything around looks as if an apocalypse recently happened, swept away human civilization from the face of the earth, and now we find ourselves among its ruins and the inhabitants of the island aimlessly trying to survive. The visual perfectly conveys the necessary mood to the player, so that you are imbued with melancholy, depression and hopelessness, and your hand involuntarily begins to reach for the bottle hidden for a rainy day. And getting out of this little world is another task.
Our main activity here is, as I already said, searching for evidence and interviewing local residents. I would divide the entire gameplay into two modes. In the first one, as usual, we simply wander around locations, collect interesting items and notes and communicate with NPCs. The second one is more interesting. When entering special zones, usually a specific room or other premises, the game requires activation of the investigation mode. The hero breaks away from reality and begins to reconstruct the events of the past. What’s interesting is that there is no excess. Having discovered one or two clues, Pierce is in no hurry to sort out the whole situation as it was. He reports only what he sees and the logical conclusions that come from it.
In dialogues with characters, we always have several answer options. If you discover some interesting fact or learn some secret, the dialogue ring will be replenished with new options. There are also special phrases here that you can choose if your skills are sufficiently developed. There are 7 of them: Psychology, Search, Investigation, Speech, Strength, Medicine and Occult. And they can all be improved. Moreover, if the first 5 are improved for special points that Pierce receives during the investigation, then Medicine and Occultism can only be improved by reading the corresponding books, which we can discover while exploring locations. Some skills are more useful than others, since the chains of dialogues and actions associated with them are more common than others, but there are no such skills in the game that are completely useless. The choice of abilities to improve should be carefully considered, although there is no way to predict which ones will be more useful to you here. You won’t be able to max out all your skills – the hero simply doesn’t have time to score that many points in the entire game.
The skill system in Call of Cthulhu is quite interesting: some skills are upgraded with points received for investigation, others – with the help of books, but, in addition, by improving a skill, you only increase your chance of success where the skill is needed, be it a dialogue, a locked door or the corpse of a whale washed up on the shore
You don’t need to think that by taking, for example, Speech to a new level, you will be successful every time the corresponding option appears in dialogues. The chance of success is indicated as a percentage, and no matter how high it may seem, there is always a chance of failure.
Edward Pierce – despite his initial confidence and fortitude of a man who has seen the horrors of war, he is still subject to mental tests. And surprises that can shake the hero’s sanity can be hidden behind anything. So you’re digging around in a local antiquarian’s shop and you find this inconspicuous old box with a book in it, and you’re invited to leave this book alone or still take a look. By choosing the second, you risk causing psychological trauma to Edward, since this ancient tome may turn out to be the Necronomicon, written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred… I think you understand what this means… Also, observing something truly scary, unreal and inexplicable, Pierce also receives a point of negative effect. There is a special scale in the menu that is responsible for the level of the character’s sanity, and it depends on you whether the hero will reach the end with a mind still capable of thinking sensibly or end up like Howard Loreid.
More than once, when making one or another decision, the inscription “this will affect your destiny” will be displayed in the corner of the screen. Sometimes this or that choice will allow you to learn an extra bit of information, but all decisions will definitely have an impact on the ending. There are 4 outcomes in total, and which ones will be available to you depends on the player’s choice in special situations.
The gameplay is not limited to just the above elements. Sometimes it is diluted with stealth levels, when the hero is unable to resist opponents and is forced to hide from them and commit sabotage in order to divert their attention and run into the desired corridor at the same time. “Stealth hide and seek” is a topic that is already too hackneyed, and may cause attacks of boredom or even irritation for some players. But as for me, everything is not so critical. These episodes do not occur very often and are quite short in themselves. Besides, they can’t be called particularly complex. The only annoying thing was the level with the demogorgon from Stranger Things, who suddenly crawls out of the picture and forces poor Pierce, and with him yours truly, to play solitaire out of bricks. But as it turns out later, even this bastard is quite easy to deal with.
That same ominous painting by Sarah Hawkins called "The Tramp". A local rich collector peered at this “masterpiece” for a long time and ended up gouging out his own eyes
In such episodes, according to the already established tradition, we can hide in closets or in ventilation shafts, but at the same time, the psychological characteristics of the hero will not allow us to sit quietly in them. From the rolling waves of fear, Edward begins to go crazy and hallucinates.
Call of Cthulhu will also feature chases several times during the game, which is exactly what we were shown in the trailer. In some situations we are the pursuers, in others Edward himself runs away. In my opinion, these episodes were executed quite dynamically and beautifully, but in some places awkwardly, and therefore leave a double impression.
And all these game situations – exploration, investigation, stealth, chases, solving puzzles – are competently interspersed with each other and do not allow you to get bored or put off the game for later. Each level, each location contains something unique, so you don’t get the impression that you’re repeating the same thing over and over again throughout the game.
You can literally feel Lovecraft in every corner – a viscous atmosphere permeated with mysticism, surrealistic arrivals, crazy dreams and visions… I would especially like to praise the creators of the game for the fact that they perfectly showed the mixing of reality and delirium, so that not only Pierce, but also I, sitting at the monitor, could not really understand what was real in the game and what was an illusion. But the main thing is that the Cyanids managed to transfer that same Lovecraftian suspense and fear of the unknown into the game.
All this is complemented by perfectly chosen stylization and sound, which I was also delighted with. Of course, you have long realized that the graphics in the game are far from modern, but this never interferes with the game, just as it never stopped me from truly enjoying Call of Cthulhu.
Yes, Call of Cthulhu did not demonstrate any new ideas, you can criticize it as much as you like for its graphics and all other minor shortcomings, but it coped with its main task: Call of Cthulhu gave us another incredibly exciting, atmospheric story, forcing us to almost instantly immerse ourselves in it and go through it in one breath.
The game depicts Pierce’s gradual descent into madness in a very realistic way… just look at his eyes.
I’ve been waiting for the release of Call of Cthulhu for a very long time, but at the same time I had some concerns, and yet the game did not disappoint me at all. I admit, I didn’t have the money to buy it, so I turned to torrents and… I’m incredibly ashamed, because the game is truly worthwhile and I will definitely, absolutely buy it, which I advise you to do, in order to go through the game again, to open the last fourth ending, which was not revealed to me from the first playthrough, and at least just so that it would be in my collection on Steam. Call of Cthulhu deserves it!
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