Well I just noticed this forum, so here's a reader review! This is my
Eternal Darkness reader review I submitted to Gamespot...it's a featured review
Comments? Criticisms?
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Gameplay - 9
Graphics - 9
Sound - 10
Value - 8
Tilt - 10
Overall - 9.3
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It’s no secret that horror games are getting stale. Silicon Knights has long been in the process of developing Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, which they call a “psychological thriller.” Some may scoff at the “gimmicks” employed by the horror game to stand out from other action/adventures, but trust me, Eternal Darkness has no gimmicks. What it has is great gameplay that takes the survival horror niche of action/adventure gaming to a whole new level. It has an absolutely amazing storyline and presentation. The game feels truly epic, intelligent, and first-rate. It’s just an awesome game any way you look at it. Of course, it has its flaws, but it’s still better than pretty much every horror game to come before it.
The story of Eternal Darkness spans over 2,000 years and is told through twelve different characters over the course of the game. The main character in the game is a young woman named Alexandra Roivas, who is phoned by the police in the opening of the game and notified of her grandfather’s gruesome murder. Upon arrival at her grandfather’s mansion in Rhode Island, she discovers the police has absolutely no clue as to what happened and decides to take the matter into her own hands. And so begins the epic twenty hour tale of Eternal Darkness…
I’m not going to ruin the unique storytelling methods of the game, so you’ll just have to experience it for yourself. Suffice it to say the game successfully combines the cinematic excellence of the best movies and the literary and intellectual achievement of epic novels and adds its own twists. The end result is some of the best storytelling ever seen in a video game.
As for the actual game, it’s much closer to a normal action/adventure game than other survival horror games. While you still don’t have the fluid, free combat of games like Zelda, it’s far more intuitive than clunky games like Resident Evil. The combat is still probably the most disappointing aspect of the gameplay mechanics, although it does do a couple of things right. One of the important things is that you can target individual body parts and hack or shoot them off. Unfortunately, while this does prove useful, the option of strafing or moving while locked on is sacrificed. But then again, the AI in this game is so poor and easy to beat that you wouldn’t really need to strafe anyway.
You see, the enemies can get repetitive. You will see the same few enemies over and over, and hacking and blasting through them all can be a real chore sometimes. But sword and gun combat isn’t all you are going to be partaking in. The game features a clever magick system where you make our own spells once you have the proper ingredients. There is also a rock-paper-scissors system underlying the entire combat and magick systems using the colors blue, red, and green. There is also purple, which doesn’t really feature that much in the gameplay.
Aside from killing things (and inevitably getting killed by them), you will also be solving various puzzles. These are not too hard and anyone should be able to figure them out pretty quickly. The game is more about dealing with all the crazy monsters and other things that will be thrown at your unsuspecting characters.
And that brings us to the sanity system. Each character has a sanity meter along with health and magick meters (it should be noted that each character has differently sized meters and unique stamina). When your character encounters a monster, he or she will actually lose some sanity. The only way to gain sanity back is to either use a replenishing spell (which will drain your magick) or to “finish off” enemies. Once you kill an enemy, you have a short amount of time to stand beside its corpse and perform a finishing move, which is apparently the equivalent of the character conquering his fears of that particular enemy. If you allow your sanity meter to be depleted, your health will start depleting instead. But that’s not the main reason to keep your sanity meter filled up.
As your characters lose sanity, weird things will start happening. Some of these are rather brilliant so I’m not going to ruin them all for you. You may see some bugs scuttling across your TV, the volume being adjusted, or blood dripping down walls. You may walk into a room and discover the world turned upside down. The halls may tilt. You’ll hear voices driving your character, and perhaps you, crazy. There are even crazier things I’m not going to tell you, but suffice it to say you will most definitely be played at least once or twice by the game.
Eternal Darkness has a solid graphics engine. Technically, there are things that are very impressive and things that are not. For example, there is a lot of disparity among character models. Some characters just look far superior than others, both in terms of sheer polygon count and texture application. Not only that, the models as a whole are fairly low-poly and look out of place next to the great environments. The later areas of the game also seem much more impressive than earlier areas. Another weakness is the sometimes awkward animation. The animation is done “by hand” as opposed to motion-captured and the result is that it can look rather wonky and unrealistic at times. This is mostly true of some human animations and gestures. On the other hand, there are lots of great stuff on display here too. The lighting engine is great, the environments are well modeled and detailed, and some of the environmental textures are incredible.
Where the game really shines is the artistic quality of the graphics. Everything about Eternal Darkness just radiates with aesthetic beauty. The look of the game is extremely polished and very creepy. The game is just a joy to look at. The way everything comes together for a seamless, coherent, and purposeful look is unmatched by the majority of other games.
The sound effects are very well done. The ambient creepiness will disturb you and subtly amaze you. The sounds made by various weapons, spells, and beings are spot on.
The emotional presentation of the game’s audio is also a top-notch package. The score is haunting and excellently composed. Every part of the game seems to have the perfect music for the scene and setting. As you explore Persian halls and French cathedrals you will hear music that actually belongs. And it's not just hackneyed, stereotypical tracks you'd expect from certain locations - the game adds its own distinct flair. The voice work is absolutely superb. The game features tons of well-written dialogue that is delivered masterfully by the actors. When you first delve into the ancient Roman Empire, the characters are actually conversing in Latin until a narrator comes in with a translated voice over. This is just one of many brilliant touches Eternal Darkness has to offer. The game just feels very cinematic and brilliantly executed thanks to the great voice work.
Eternal Darkness is a long game. It should take you somewhere around twenty hours your first time through. There is incentive, plot-wise, to play through two more times to get the "true" ending. Also, the play experience is slightly different each time due to a choice you make at the beginning of each session. However, once you’ve beat the game once, subsequent runs are much easier and shorter. Not only that, there isn't much reason to play through more than once unless you just really want to play it again. That said, it still offers a great value for the money and is a must have game.
Eternal Darkness is a literary masterpiece that will amaze you like no game before it. It is a truly epic achievement. I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a great game to play. If you enjoy thoughtful, erudite narratives, horror stories, or action/adventure games, you simply must own Eternal Darkness.
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