h.p. lovecraft |

Publisher: Focus Home Interactive

Developer: Cyanide Studios

Release Date: 10/29/2018

Available On

After playing Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth over 10 years ago, I have been patiently waiting for another game in the H.P. Lovecraft universe, and none have come. Call of Cthulhu has been a long game in the making, but does the long production cycle pay off and allow a good story and characters to cook?

You play Edward Pierce, a private detective investigating a murder on a remote island, but all he has are paintings for a lead. This leads to the artist, Sarah Hawkins, and her mansion, where he discovers a strange cult and a killer hospital. The game starts out great with a slow burn of atmosphere, character building, and mystery. Walking around the island for the first time shows some of the game’s weaknesses, such as the fact that this is clearly a low-budget game. The game looks like it was made for the Xbox 360 and is about 10 years old with ugly, dated textures and stiff facial animations, and the voice acting is hit or miss for some characters. Edward’s actor is great, but Sarah’s actress is deadpan and bored.

The objective of each of the 14 missions is to walk around and inspect objects to unlock various dialog options with characters. I honestly don’t feel this was completely fleshed out, as the game pretty much unfolds the same no matter what; it just literally unlocks a new dialog option or might give you a bit more insight into the story. You can level up various abilities like Occultism, Investigation, and Hidden, which allow you to unlock various dialog options, so it clearly feels forced and like the developers had this level-up system and didn’t know what to really do with it.

1508225654_1507825798_call_of_cthulhu-09

Looking around for objects doesn’t really bother me much, but as the game moves on, the story starts to make no sense, and I get completely lost as to what is going on. There’s a connection between the local hospital and Hawkin’s mansion, as well as three or four characters, but I never understood why the cult wanted to resurrect Cthulhu; we never get to see Cthulhu, and towards the end, the game relies on fish-eye lenses, rapid camera movement, and sounds to scare you instead of using the environment and atmosphere. There are a few tense moments in the game, such as when the shambler comes after you in the art gallery, but nothing really stands out. There are two stealth missions where you have to sneak around solving puzzles, but even these aren’t too complicated.

The game just feels like a sample platter of ideas that never really took off or were made into anything. With dated visuals, gameplay, a confusing story, and characters that don’t really have a soul, there’s not much to really care about in this game. I only pushed through because I’m a die-hard H.P. Lovecraft fan and loved Dark Corners of the Earth so much that I was hoping this would live up to it, and sadly, it doesn’t.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

I honestly love the Cthulhu lore, despite how complex it is. H.P. Lovecraft has a very old writing style, and his stories can induce headaches when trying to follow them. This comic series does a decent job of summing up the mythology and bringing newcomers into this grand and dark lore. The world of Cthulhu is all about deep madness—so deep that our minds can’t even comprehend it. Lovecraft went beyond zombies and the boogie man. He dove into the human psyche, tore it to shreds, and tried gluing it back together. This three-part series sees some scientists from Miskatonic University trying to solve a mystery about an evil cult and mysterious beings snatching people.

First off, the atmosphere hits right on the head. Right from the start, you get an eerie feeling. The first issue is a back story that one of the characters tells. It’s about how he came across the cult for the first time. A man named Noyes is actually a puppet behind the strange monsters who have burrowed under old New England. The comics flow pretty well, but with only three issues, not much can come of it. There’s no strange plot twist, but at least there are some creepy scenes and a bit of gore. The art style does a good enough job; it’s all done with colored pencil, so it’s a bit strange coming from the marker and other mediums used in comics. The characters are forgettable due to the short length, but the ending is pretty creepy.

The story is a bit more on the realistic side than the pure fantasy that the series stuck to in the later comics (Fall of Cthulhu). I honestly wish they went the more fantastical way, but seeing this in a more realistic sense makes it a bit more believable. The monsters are drawn just as Lovecraft intended, and they look horrendous. This little mini-adventure is fun while it lasts, but forgettable in the end.