![]() If you save your canonical choice for last you'll retain the storyline you want to see while still picking up the alternative achievements along the way. As the game has a branching story with several endings, you'll need multiple playthroughs to see them all and get all their corresponding achievements, although sometimes you can make a choice, quickly pause before it saves, let the achievement pop, and reload your checkpoint to make a different choice. The game's achievements come early and often, doling out 15 gamerscore quite often among other unlocks. It's worth mentioning this polish at least didn't extend to bugs, save for one unfortunate problem where the game crashed four times, including three times at the same moment right at the end. That's still partly true here, but the textures and characters' hair especially go beyond inadvertently moody. I've often said horror games get away with some foggy, less than stellar visuals because it helps create a certain mood of a dingy, spooky world. That's evident in the gameplay sections being head-scratching at times, but it's even more obvious in the blurry visuals, the stiff animations, and the sometimes absent lip syncing. The game lacks polish in pretty much every aspect. Regularly, Call of Cthulhu offers strange design choices like these, and although the levels try mixing up the gameplay, most of these variances would have been best left out, and maybe would've allowed the developers to hone the other parts of the game with missed potential, like investigations. There's also no gunplay in the game save for one late moment where it's more like a point and click done laughably wrong. For a game that often tries to give you multiple ways to advance, these stealth sections are curiously linear. It holds your hand too much, which means you never really feel like the detective you're supposed to be.Īside from the investigations, there are a few stealth sections that aren't horrible, but neither are they very fun. A few times, the game will rely on players piecing together information on their own to solve problems, but the vast majority of the time an investigation means walking into an area and clicking on all the items with icons on them. ![]() Where it all falls apart is the bare bones investigative work that needs to be done. These moves come down to percentage chances that you build up in your custom skill tree, so you can carve out your own version of the PI. The game utilizes a cool skill check mechanic that's done in the background of the gameplay, which keeps the tabletop RPG inspirations everpresent, like when you try to pick locks or use strength. If you're not a fan of Lovecraft, there's unfortunately little else to keep you entertained. The final third goes so far off the deep end, you may as well be resting at the same depths as the titular creature. ![]() This isn't Lovecraftian - it simply is Lovecraft. ![]() For fans of the Great Old Ones and other Lovecraft throughlines, this makes for a great adaptation, especially since so many other games just borrow from the author. The mind running wild, succumbing to powers greater than itself and unfathomable to our kind is a staple of the famed author's work, and Call of Cthulhu captures all of those crucial aspects very well. Lovecraft's world to life, from the green amorphous blobs that hang in catacombs of mansions to Pierce losing his mind and struggling to keep all his facts straight. The game's story is its best asset, doing very well to bring H.P. Even Pierce attests to not having known the place existed, so even within the game's universe, the setting is meant to tease the madness and confusion that is to come. That's precisely what he gets early in the game when he's sent to Darkwater, a fictional fishing community off the coast of Massachusetts. His practice is on the verge of closing and he needs a strong case to build himself back up. Players take on the role of World War I veteran and usually drunk private investigator Edward Pierce in 1924. Call of Cthulhu is marketed as a first-person RPG, but it more often feels like an investigative adventure game with RPG elements.
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