Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This game has a lot of good ideas, and implements a number of them surprisingly well. In fact, almost everything innovative that this game tries, it succeeds at. Going insane feels like you're going insane, bolting doors and shoving bookcases in front of them to stop pursuers is adrenaline-pumping, having to treat the proper injuries that result from different ways of taking damage makes sense within the game, and the creepy atmosphere is so pervasive that you're practically suffocating on it throughout the entire game.
Where it goes wrong is the most trivial, inane, annoying details.
Checkpoint's frequently come only before extensive cutscenes (upwards of several minutes), or before long walks or tough obstacles, so if you make one mistake, not only have you lost all the progress since the last save, but you frequently have to repeat the same lengthy cutscene or retread the exact same long hallways over and over.
Frequent hard-to-see insta-kill traps often leave me wondering exactly why I died, which compounds the problems of the last point.
The game frequently mistakes an intent to bolt a door as an intent to open a door; trying to close a door behind you, oftentimes the door will catch you and push you into whatever is chasing you; for the game to register your attempt to close the door, you have to be standing just so, which can be very hard to do when you're trying to protect someone that's following you.
Then there's the glitches: if you run the game on Vista, a certain segment involving the artillery guns of a naval ship won't work right, and you'll have to download a save game just beyond that point. Also, the final segment in the game is almost literally impossible without some extremely precise bunny-hopping, and I ended up having to cheat to beat it.
In short: this is a very, very good game, much better than I expected, but you have to be able to stomach more questionable design decisions, poor scripting, and buggy interfaces than it's reasonable to expect of any player. A supermodel with headlice, right next to Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

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System Shock 2 Review

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(More customer reviews)The game had me dropping my mouse, backing away from the monitor and out the door. The focus here is on how Environmental Audio can go a long way to scare the be-jesus out of you. And it does it well.
Otherwise, an intelligent RPG woven together with a first-person shooter, but with a very clever, puzzle-solving touch.
Basically, you awaken from cryo-sleep on a derelict spacecraft that was sent on a mission to deep space. You awaken to find things have gone horribly, horribly wrong as some form of alien life has taken over. It's all up to you to solve the mystery.

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Amnesia Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Amnesia provides a much-needed break from today's omnipresent first-person shooters (Halo, Call of Duty, etc.). Not only is Daniel, the unfortunate dude that you as a player get to control, unable to go trigger-happy with an assault rifle, he is incapable of defending himself altogether. This creates an entirely new type of game, one which I find just as, if not more, entertaining.
Amnesia's most redeeming quality is its atmosphere. This is without a doubt the scariest video game I have ever played. A few years ago I bought Doom 3 in hopes of being legitimately scared while gaming. Doom was slightly nerve-racking at times, but I always found myself comforted by the fact that if anything came at me, I could fill it with lead, plasma, or the teeth of a chainsaw. Amnesia provides no such comfort, which is what makes it so fantastic. Another difference is the way in which the game affects you. Doom 3 achieves its scariness via dismembered corpses, splattered viscera and gore, flickering lights, evil laughs, and enemies that spawn right in front of your face. Amnesia has a much more psychological effect, one that fills you with a cold, palpable sense of dread that makes it difficult to reach for the next door handle.
Playing this game in a dark room with earphones and a real desire to be filled with terror and apprehension (as twisted as that may seem) will immerse you in a world unlike any you have experienced. Within the first 15 minutes of playing this, I found myself clenching my teeth in fear, inhaling deeply before entering each new room. Unlike during a horror movie, you are in control, and you must react to the sudden breathing from around the corner, the horrified shrieks of an unnamed woman, or the shadowy menace smashing through your makeshift barricade.
To cut to the chase, I love everything about this game. All of its components, the limited oil for your only lantern, for example, make it one of the most amazing PC games in a while. The product itself is flawless also. It comes in a typical DVD case with a cover, and installed on my computer within minutes without a hitch. If you are in for a highly entertaining scare, I strongly recommend that you purchase this game.

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