The Game Plan 11.02.07: Halloween Horror Spotlight, Part 5

Posted by James McGee on 11.02.2007

Okay, so it isn't Halloween anymore, but I can still sneak in one last scary-game column. This week, the spotlight is on a critical darling that, hopefully, still has some legs.

Innovation is not all that common in any form of entertainment. That's fine, really. As I've said in the past, it's most important that a story or game be good, even if it isn't the most original thing out there. But sometimes, a new idea comes along that is really, truly different, and manages to also be entertaining. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is one of those rare creatures. While it certainly fits the bill as a survival-horror game (unassuming protagonist, unspeakable horror, exploration, puzzles…you should know the drill by now), it is unlike anything else in the genre, both in terms of gameplay and in the way it delivers its scares. It will send a chill up your spine, totally mess with your mind, and give you entertaining, satisfying gameplay experience all at the same time. Today, I want to give it a little love. I'm James McGee, and here's The Game Plan.

When I first played Eternal Darkness, I'll admit that it didn't grab me right off the bat. It obviously grew on me, and I honestly think part of my initial skepticisms came from just how different the game really is. I went in expecting more of a Resident Evil clone, but as anyone who has played the game can tell you, it is anything but. The core elements you'd expect are all here: spooky setting, unassuming protagonist, monster-fighting, etc. But the game approaches these conventions from a slightly different perspective. The spooky Roivas mansion is really more of a "hub" to other environments that make up the bulk of gameplay. Alex Roivas is the main character, but you spend surprisingly little time controlling her. Projectile weapons are joined by melee and magic attacks to create a gameplay experience unlike anything else in the survival-horror genre. Developer Silicon Knights has taken a seeming hodge-podge of elements and managed to mix it all together in a way that, miraculously, works. Eternal Darkness will seem familiar to horror fans, but at the same time feel refreshingly new.

As you've probably ascertained by now, story is very important to me when I'm playing a game, and Eternal Darkness more than manages to craft a story on par with its great atmosphere and innovative gameplay. The game is heavily inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft (though it is not directly based on any of his writing). It revolves around the Ancients—a group of nasty looking beasties from other dimensions that are trying to take over our little corner of reality. They all have crazy handles like "Chattur'gha", "Ulyaoth," and "Xel'lotath" and are generally pretty unpleasant characters to mess with. Though the basic story is always the same, players choose one of these three nigh-un-pronounceable alignments at the beginning of the game, which leads to some slightly different cut-scenes, dialogue, and enemies throughout. Regardless of the particulars, writing and voice acting are all great. Players progress by collecting pages from "The Tome of Eternal Darkness" and each page opens up a new chapter for play. Each chapter has a self-contained story that adds to the overall mythos, but manages to have a very satisfying "completeness" all its own. From Karim's love-sick errand, to Paul's faith-testing murder investigation, to Maximillian's decent into true madness, every chapter proves more engaging than many entire games. Still, all the pieces fit together, so that Eternal Darkness never seems like a disjointed collection of tiny games, but rather a mosaic of terrifying beauty.

The big gimmick, and what really sets Eternal Darkness apart from other horror games (from other games period) is the way sanity plays a part in the proceedings. Whenever a monster makes eye-contact with a character, the player's "Sanity Meter" goes down. You can recover sanity in a number or ways: striking a finishing blow on enemies, casting a restorative spell, even taking a shot of whisky or praying. The hard part is deciding whether or not you want to regain your sanity. Low sanity can adversely affect gameplay, and even drains your character's health after a while, but the "Sanity Effects" are the game's big draw. The screen will start to slant, the soundtrack will be laced with crying children, walls will start to bleed, statues will follow you with their eyes…there are too many of these effects to list here, and seeing them for the first time is part of the fun, because they all create a chilling atmosphere. Some of the images you encounter in this game are likely to haunt you long after you turn it off.

But Silicon Knights isn't content to torment characters on the screen. They also mess with the player's mind. Think of every gamer-nightmare you've ever experienced, and Eternal Darkness will likely throw it at you. You complete a particularly harrowing portion of the game, only to get a disc read-error before you can save. Or, you actually start to save your game, then get a message that all of your files are being deleted. The infamous "Blue-Screen of Death?" That's in there too. Reading through this list, these mind-games may sound funny, but you'd be surprised how effective they are (and how easily it is to be fooled by them) during a heated playing session. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried out "Noooooo!" in full-on slow-motion dramatic faction once or twice when I thought all of my progress was about to disappear. Breaking the fourth wall is just as tricky in games as it is in movies, but Eternal Darkness pulls it off flawlessly. Even if the gameplay was mediocre (which it isn't) the skill with which Silicon Knights manages to interact with players is really staggering, when you think about it. Talk about emersion!

The structure of Eternal Darkness seems to make it ideal for a continuing franchise. The Tome of Eternal Darkness contains hundreds of pages, so there are hundreds of stories that can be told. While the game was something of a disappointment financially, it is one of the most universally acclaimed games among critics and fans alike. Cult followings have breathed new life into everything from Star Trek to Family Guy, so there's no reason it couldn't work for a game too. Although developer Denis Dyack has stated there will be sequels to Eternal Darkness, the franchise's fate has to be termed, at best, "up in the air." Nintendo owns all rights to the intellectual property, because Silicon Knights developed it for them as a second-party title. Since SK has ended its exclusivity agreement with the Big N, where does that leave Eternal Darkness? Plus, Dyack and company are hard at work on the highly-anticipated Too Human project for the Xbox 360, which will apparently end up being a trilogy of games. Provided Silicon Knights is capable of creating another Eternal Darkness game, will even the fervent cult following of the first game have died down by the time they get around to it? Only time will tell, but I for one sincerely hope we haven't seen the last of ED's creepy, crazy and innovative style of gameplay.