This year hasn't been helpful in the fact of this genre. Imaginary light at the end of a tunnel could be game release based on H. P. Lovecraft's story for an enormous amount of players. If you haven't heard the name before, the author lived in the 20th century, and he was not fully understood at that time, however, in the present day many authors find inspirations in his writings. Lovecraft created such a significant piece of work at that time. In his writings, he depicted the old god civilization which had been there for a longer time before human beings. The cults are being created to bring those old gods aka Cthulhu from different from our world. Entire progress is accompanied by chaos, distortion of the reality and insanity that flirt with human's mind.

Call of Cthulhu has the unusual circumstances of origin that had a big impact on this game. The publisher is Focus Home Interactive. Earlier on, originally, Call of Cthulhu should have come out from Frogwares studio that also worked on Sherlock Holmes. Put the small fragments together is typical for Frogware studio as well as to reveal pieces of evidence together. Studio Frogwares subsequently handed over the title as a hot potato to colleagues from Cyanide studio who did their best what was in their strength to free themselves from the mediocrity of their games. If they made it, continue in reading.

Reviewed version: Windows PC

Main protagonist - Ethan Pierce

It's 1924, and our main protagonist is a war veteran. Ethan, as one of many, suffers from post-war traumas and nightmares, which he tries to extinguish with alcohol. In that times, he works as a private detective and to not to lose his licence he has to accept the case which would him to return his reputation. As the light from the blue, a mystery man appears in the detective's office handing him over the painting with the most important case altogether. Within a second, it's certain the mystery man is mourning father for his family, and now, detective Ethan Pierce begins his journey to investigate mystery case to solve mysterious disappearance during the fire in their residence. The investigation takes you to a forsaken island Darkwater, which is isolated from the rest of the world.

Ethan has the use of improvement himself in each aspect - in psychology, investigation, strength, articulacy, occultism and medicine. The first four disciplines mentioned above you can improve whenever you want to. Remaining can be improved only when you find an object which is linked to a particular discipline. The developers meant to force the players to explore places in detail. Higher level at different discipline you have, more options open during the conversations with characters that concern course of conversation and better look into the proofs. In my honest opinion, I don't think levelling has a big value because even extended questions took me back to the basic one.

You can also get pieces of information about individual events in addition to dialogues from the crime scene reconstruction. It wouldn't bother me so much, because when you put bit by bit together, Ethan talks to you about his thoughts and presumptions. Hard to understand is the fact, that you can embody to other characters, but at this point, it's fine for me. But, these characters have the same ability as Ethan, so, instantly everybody around you is are detectives with an awesome insight and deduction ability.

Game atmosphere - storytelling and locations

One element of this game, mystery, I must highlight from other elements. The entire game is veiled in a foggy mantle and cold and damp weather which absolutely depict atmosphere precisely of Lovecraft's pieces of work. I also appreciate the quick transition between realistic storytelling to confused to absolutely chaotic moments when you don't know by yourself what is real and what is being played in protagonist's head. Full concentration on the story and the effort to perceive even the smallest detail, I wasn't sure at the final end which way to choose. Someone can be lost in the complicated processes, but I think the genre is typical of this.

You can also see a pop-up notification informing you about your acts which will have consequences in the future. We also know these types of notifications from other games, nothing ground-breaking. But, as I indicated earlier, I haven't ever had a feeling that my behaviour would have any impact on the game, because I've never noticed an important comment. OK, I don't count the fact that they insinuated me I was very often drinking alcohol in large quantities. 

The locations are small and closed, so I'm a little bit disappointed because I like searching large areas and trying to find my own way. In Call of Cthulhu, every step is being led by the developers and show you the way. This passage through the game made me feel very bad in total enjoyment from the game.

Graphics - Intelligence of AI

In this section, I cannot say a good word about it. The game runs on Unreal Engine 4, but graphically developed characters are on the level like 10 years ago. Plastic unnatural faces, ungainly movements and gestures, nothing that would amaze me. Fortunately, these imperfections are neutralized by the atmosphere and environment stylization.

Concerning AI, in some moments of the game, you have to choose stealth action. Yes, I thought of Outlast hiding in cabinets, nothing bad. Even worse is the fact, when the guardians don't hear me and see me, a small icon above their head indicates, that someone could be hiding around them and they won't leave the spot until the player comes out of the hideout. Is it a bug? I don't know. But in these few sequences, it was quite annoying to me.

7. 11. 2018 12:27