Hello and welcome to Rock Paper Shotgun!
A few weeks ago I offered thoughts on the first couple of hours of Call of Cthulhu - Cyanide's
take on the classic tabletop RPG in which you play as detective Edward Pierce as he
tries to solve the death of painter Sally Hawkins in Darkwater.
The name of which pretty much tells you what to expect from the off: it's an eerie exercise
in the Lovecraftian crossed with detective-based role play.
Demo aside, I've now played through the entire game, and with my sanity intact can
say if it's a cosmic horror or as predictably scary as a jack-in-box.
Now, the one thing I can say before I get to deducing and note-referring all detective-like,
is that Call of Cthulhu is kind of a videogame B-Movie.
Not a backhanded compliment!
B-Movies are good and I like them.
I say this because it is a relatively short but very fast-moving tale of action and compelling
intrigue that may not be the most original horror creation alluding to the works of HP
Lovecraft.
Whether that ends up selling some smart ideas short, we'll find out in about 20 seconds.
While I'm on the subject of short, sharp blasts of gaming fun, you should really check
out Rock Paper Shotgun's other videos while you're here.
If you enjoy this one, subscribe and you'll get fresh delights posted throughout the week.
But let's stop the shilling and solve this killing.
What does Call of Cthulhu get right and what should slip down the gullet of a cosmically
monstrous entity.
That I assume has a gullet at all?
Call of Cthulhu is pitched as an RPG-investigation: instead of a barbarian or mage you're building
a detective, deciding the flavour of his brain instead of the henchness of his brawn although
you can 'bulk' if you choose.
And this sees the game at its best.
The skills you pick feed nicely into sleuthing work, giving you freedom in your approach
to mystery-solving.
It all starts with this lovely skill tree - that's not sarcasm, by the way, the design
is one of the few bits of UI that really work for me.
The range is small but enough to impact your work.
Pick psychology, which reveals where an NPC's mind is at, and you'll get more scintillating
dialogue options in conversation.
Pour character points into investigative skills or the ability to spot hidden secrets and
more items o points of interest will pop up when nosing about the scenery.
Presumably it also helps Pierce find his car keys.
Not that you'll be driving much in this town that's east of nowhere.
It all adds up to more plot specifics to ponder as you stroke your manly beard.
Or, if you gain more knowledge in baffling rituals in the occult instead, your weird
supernaturally tentacle-y beard.
It wouldn't be out of place in Call of Cthulhu.
Check out these cuddlies...
You have to be relatively selective - character points don't grow on trees.
Even so, this modest cluster of abilities lets you tailor your approach; my Edward Pierce
has the expert investigation skills to reveal a code to a puzzle, but he also has the strength
to pry open the door instead.
I would say find a detective who can do both, I guess.
What you read or pick up during the case can further alter skills in medicine and the occult
as well.
It feeds nicely into character development as the more you poke and pry, the better you
get at poking and prying.
A more informed detective makes for a better detective.
And a better detective puts more cosmic horrors in handcuffs.
Ah, if only it were so simple...
The downside to a system that accommodates any kind of Pierce in conversation is that
no kind of Pierce feels like a weird sort of bonus.
There's a whole skill dedicated to eloquence, of teasing out info with a silver tongue.
But once you realise that expert talents in investigation give you much broader options
to wrangle info out of people you begin to see abilities as parallel routes to exactly
the same outcome.
On the plus side, being able to shunt eloquence does let you play into the 'emotionally
defective detective trope'.
I'm also not sure about the way the game optimistically prompts you to just 'give
it a go' in conversation.
These 'test you insert skill here' branches of dialogue, appear to crop up if you've
leveled a skill such as eloquence just enough so as not to be a complete failure but not
quite enough for you to be touted as an 'expert' or even 'professional.'
Call me a glass half empty kinda gal but testing my more lacklustre skills in conversation
hasn't worked for me once, and after finishing the game I still don't really understand
its presence.
Maybe I am just incredibly unlucky.
It's a shame that the world hands over its secrets so willingly to detectives of every
kind as the conversations are fun to navigate.
Characters are suitably shifty and the dialogue is layered enough that there's room to turnaround
a botched line of questioning with the right approach.
Where so many games dunk you in a sea of paragon vs renegade choices, with a few shades of
grey bobbing in-between, Call of Cthulhu's interactions feel murkier.
Especially when you're speaking in an alien language.
Having built this intriguing, if slightly basic sleuth sim, it is slightly squandered
on a story with few original things to say.
I mean: test subjects, mutations, cults, squid men - you name it, Call of Cthulhu has it
all just shy of Nazi zombie doctors.
Hello my B-Movie analogy, good to see you again!
I feel as though we have seen these devices so often in everything - not just videogames
- that as soon as a test subject so much as thinks about raising his unfortunate head
you want to yawn.
I guess the problem with having a dialogue system that promotes some subtlety is that
the less subtle elements seem much less subtle in comparison.
Walking in on a cult meeting in network of underground caves, for example, culminated
in a daft encounter ending in gunfire and possibly death.
That I was lead there at all meant following a robed person in a mask who had been hiding
in a locked workshop for who knows how long.I like the idea that he became trapped in there
and just patiently waited for me and the nice policeman to let him out.
Well, after I'd spent a half hour overturning every stone in the mansion looking for clues.
This isn't to say some moments that burn much more slowly don't make up for these
sorts of flying bricks.
In another section, for example, you play as a different character - no spoilers as
to who - as they try to manipulate their way into an office.
It offers an intriguing perspective into the runnings of a hospital you experience earlier
as a different character.
It also builds a certain level of mystery and reveals relationship dynamics that went
straight over my head in earlier scenes.
It added a little something to the plot, the game's characters, heck, even the environment:
all good stuff.
A few levels later though and you'll watch as Pierce fights a tentacled man in a boiler
room with a piddly little fire poker…
I don't object to seeing these plot devices wheeled out, it just seems a shame that Cyanide
didn't choose to investigate more of them in the measured style established in the early
hours of the game and its meatier detective sequences.
I'm all for more intimate interrogations in creepy locations.
Trying to pull out sudden thrills doesn't feel anything other than melodramatic.
The game's later inability to take it slow is reflected in its general length - the case
can comfortably be wrapped up in nine to ten hours.
Length shouldn't and often doesn't determine the effectiveness of an experience - but before
you banish me to the netherworld for mentioning longevity, I do think that the mood, atmosphere
and pacing of Call of Cthulhu is begging for more breathing room.
Most of the story revelations and events in the latter half of the game feel like a big
barnacled rock rolling downhill at breakneck speed.
Especially after the casually creepy first half.
A story like this is all about the slow-burn to build the eerie tension - something the
game does very well as you sniff about Darkwater's various nooks and corners in the opening stretch.
By the end, the story is whipping by and all of its solid foundations - the well-structured
dialogue, the investigations and reveals - buckle under the pace.
Plot twists on occasion feel shoehorned in and new characters are swap-shopped rather
abruptly.
It feels like two different games got accidentally mixed together - maybe someone somewhere is
playing a rollercoaster action game that suddenly becomes a slow mystery story in its second
half...
True, it does mean that things don't outstay their welcome and there is seldom a dull or
drawn out moment.
But I wish this exercise in supernatural detective work could have spent a little more time placing
its ducks in a row.
Of course, ducks are too cute, not to mention, normal for a review of Call of Cthulhu.
Wait no one else knows the occult better than me.
You might need my help.
Okay, I might need you after all.
As uneven as this all might sound, I very much enjoyed the moments the game that stumble
into other genres.
In this level, for example, you have to rescue a character from a hospital; when you enter
you're given two lamps, one red and the other green.
Each casts a new light on the environment…
Okay, that metaphor was bad even for me.
Just count yourselves lucky I'm not Lovecrafting all over this script like I did the last - there
are only so many Old Gods jokes one can stand before going mad.
The hospital is dark, if you don't hug the wall or memorise the layout you can get lost
in the middle of a room, and something else is moving about there with you.
Something that isn't a doctor… unless he or she suffers from some chronic respiratory
illness, which would be ironic.
The wheezing sound design and the confusing route finding makes plotting your escape genuinely
thrilling.
Unlike the narrative moments touched on before, this tension fits the tone and world of Call
of Cthulhu.
I actually wish there was more of this - it adds threat without resorting to the theatrical
nonsense of some of the cutscenes.
And that's without mentioning the mind-bendy situations that crop up later on in game,
a very tense gallery encounter, or the race to close some spooky glyphs down in some deep,
dark bootlegger tunnels…
But back to the hospital sequence: it's genuinely unnerving.
As the creature gets closer and Pierce starts to freak the fudge out because: who wouldn't?
The room grows darker, further preventing escape.
It is not unlike how hiding away in a dark closet or room causes the view to warp proportionately
with the protagonist's fear in other levels.
His sanity changes the surrounding area here, and of course, how you handle it.
Or don't.
Sanity plays a big part in the tabletop RPG, and does here too with a meter that builds
based on what you do and witness, warping the environment and Pierce's psyche in a
few ways.
When I entered the widow's house for example, I almost missed the strange goings-on around
me.
I went to find the gallery to see an allegedly cursed painting for myself.
On the way I could have sworn one of the portraits on the wall had eyes that were bleeding but
by the time I focussed it looked, well, as normal as an abstract painting can…
In my earlier demo I was unsure of how this meter would affect Pierce and my resulting
experience.
When I noticed that some of the symbols in the sanity menu were still locked, I realised
that your actions or choices have a direct effect.
It seems as though the more you embrace the occult the closer you get to insanity.
Well, the more you know...
When I found a mysterious book, for instance, one the game weirdly asked me if I wanted
to read or not I could only hear NO YOU MUST NOT READ FROM THE BOOK in my mind and so I
decided not to.
Why tempt fate?
In a later scene I found another similar-looking book locked away in a crate and to quote The
Mummy - because it doesn't get quoted enough - No harm ever came from reading a book.
Then Boom-would-ya-look-at-that an insanity marker filled up.
In true Lovecraftian style - there are some things, that man was never meant to understand.
It makes you feel as though you are getting closer to something you had better steer clear
of.
A warning with direct consequences as in Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem.
The smarter choices you make, the tighter Pierce's grip on his sanity will be, and
the higher his sanity the more capable he is of making rational choices by the end of
the game.
No spoilers here but endings will be affected in either the number or choices available.
I like it.
It surprises me to say - and I can't be the only person who didn't peg Cthulhu for
a 'sound-smart' kind of experience - but this is in fact a game worth playing with
headphones to get the full effect.
With booming voices and other scary creatures from the supernatural world taking full advantage
of directional sound - directional as in right behind your ear or even *shudder* inside your
own mind - it manages to add a kind of tension that would otherwise not have been there at
all.
The aforementioned voice might be a little dialled in (think: 'what's your favourite
scary movie' minus a few octaves and the volume cranked up to full) but when it abruptly
rumbles through your headphones as you wade through fish guts or stumble blindly in the
dark, you better believe it gives you one heck of a jolt.
I was routinely pulled into a moment or location on the strength of its sound alone.
A song being sung in a long dark hallway, the scraping of a metal door, not to mention
the cacophony of strange noises bleeding into one another at the asylum - there is a lot
going on underneath it all.
I also want to praise the voice work for the main character, especially in the scenes where
he loses his mind.
He was somehow able to shift from a guy who somewhat has it together , despite being a
heavy drinker suffering from insomnia, to a man who has lost his proverbial sugar-honey-iced-tea
and may not ever recover: poor guy.
His ruffled hair tends to give it away too, mind you.
Though I enjoyed my time with it, Call of Cthulhu isn't quite the game I expected
from the early preview I played - and I can understand why they showed off those early
hours.
They are arguably the game at its very best.
That's not to say it doesn't work at all.
The game has a pretty strong investigative foundation to work from, even if it feels
as though you're being funnelled towards a fixed goal.
Puzzles, dialogue trees, sniffing about, levelling up are handled well, and you really feel them
in those quiet sequences with the people of Darkwater.
It's these segments in play that are well complemented by some well-executed not to
mention unexpected horror moments.
If it wasn't for the pacing issues in the latter half and the lack of subtlety in how
it approaches some of its themes, it might be easier to recommend.
Considering how short this game is overall, a weaker latter half is much more noticeable.
Oh hey, a rhyme!
Now that I've made it through this review like a person who has their stuff together,
it is time for my hair to ruffle along with my sanity, so please feel free to talk below
and let me know what you think of Call of Cthulhu and suggest other Lovecraftian games.
It'll make for a nice surprise when the sanity effects cool off a bit and I can see
straight again.
I hope you enjoyed this video and if you did, please feel free to subscribe for more like
it - we cover all things PC gaming-related: from Warframe run-downs, to team let's plays
and previews!
Thank you for watching and we will see you again soon.
Goodbye for now.
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