Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

The Good
The story from start to finish is executed very well. There's a lot of stories to uncover and although it doesn't match Lovecraft's writing, for a computer game it's one of the better, if not the best.

The interface without any indicators also helps the game to be more realistic (injury is indicated by blurring of the screen, broken leg by limping, and so on).

Atmosphere is very dense and scary, escalated by creepy sounds and occasional but very fitting music.

For Czech language version - only texts and subtitles, but very expertly translated with perfect grammar and without lost of meaning.

The Bad
First of all, there's a big bug in some versions of the game (looking at forums it seems like a very common problem) - it is the place where you need to shoot with cannon at mages on the Devil's Reef. The problem is that you can't see them so you don't know where to shoot. There's three solutions to this: 1) Patch - The official patch is non-existent and fan-made unfortunately doesn't work for all versions (mine, for example), 2) Search through forums for saved game after this scene but you lose your Statistics, 3) set the sight on the exact coordinates - also can be found on internet (YouTube).

The movement and control is a little clumsy. There is no run, only walk, so don't count on escaping from any shootouts. The reloading of weapons is not very precise so sometimes you have to push the reload button at least twice. Auto-reload would be better solution I think.

There are different ending according to the Grade you receive (taking in account several Statistics), if you don't have a Grade good enough you will only see a shortened version of the outro. Not a good idea.

The Bottom Line
Call of Cthulhu can be described as an action adventure, or better - action game with adventure bits. You take the role of Jack Walters, a private detective who is hired by a store owner to investigate a case of missing employee of grocery store in Innsmouth (a village regarded as haunted by many). The story comes from a board game (which I'm not familiar) with. It's a mixture of several better known works of H.P. Lovecraft, most notably The Shadow over Innsmouth but also including events, creatures and references from short stories and novellas Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Out of Time and At the Mountains of Madness. All of them recommeded read after finishing the game.

Not including the scary prelude of the game (I don't want to give out any spoilers), you start in Innsmouth, a dark town with unfriendly faces all around. You don't need to be a genius to know that they don't like strangers around there. Your first steps are to look for whereabouts of the missing person, but during your search, you'll made a great deal of horrifying revelations. The game changes from adventure, to stealth, to action very rapidly and there won't be many friends to help you. Eventually you pick up a variety of weapons to defend yourself and you have to decide which is better - to sneak by enemies, to fight them or to run away. New clues and events will be added into your diary but not until the very end you will be able to understand what's going on (and maybe not even after that, see column The Bad).

On inventory screen you will see everything you need - the items, ammunition, diary, medicaments and health. There's more than one type of injury - some lighter ones will heal itself eventually, some you must heal, broken bone must be fixed with split, poisoning must be treated with antidote. Injuries can be healed manually by picking the places to heal or automatically by clicking the button. Healing process itself takes a few seconds when you can't move so better hide yourself before you use it. You must also look after your psychical health, it means if you encounter too many scary events in quick succession, you start to feel dizzy, mumble to yourself and in the end commit suicide.

Looking at items and operating them is done by Use button. Using items in inventory on something is very easy, just by clicking at them, there is no combining of the items in inventory.

For the shooting there are two modes - quick shot and aimed shot, the latter being recommended as there is no crosshair to aim at. But don't aim too long or your hands begins to shake.

At last I recommend to play only at night because the game is VERY dark and the atmosphere and horror is greatly increased.

Overall Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is an enjoyable game that is moderately long and can absorb you for a few weeks with a lot to think about during that time.