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*Clonking noises*
What?
Oh, yes.
Hello. Sorry, this is going to have to be a
bit cobbled together, I’m afraid. I’ve wasted all
the time I should’ve spent writing an Eternal Darkness review
playing… oh yes Eternal Darkness.
Deep into the darkness, peering…
It had been at least three months since I’d
completely finished the game and my recollection of Silicon Knight’s
criminally overlooked psychological thriller had become a little
muddy.
Starting from an abandoned save slot on the
second chapter, I thought I’d have a brief fumble. Just
a quick 15-minute dash around to re-acquaint myself with the controls…
I ended up getting sucked straight back into the rich, velvety
world of Mantarock and chums.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to
use a naughty word here, but DANG TOOTIN’, this game is
great!
I can’t quite put my finger on what makes
Eternal Darkness so engrossing – it looks a bit dated, and
the combat is repetitive in the extreme, yet there is a constant
sense of wurble-furble that drives you on to play and play and
play.
Don’t bother promising yourself that you’ll
stop after this chapter to eat something or change your pants,
because you’ll inevitably be rather disappointed when you
find yourself, two hours later, still merrily hacking your way
through the corpse-filled halls of an ancient Cambodian temple.
The darkness comes…
My absolutely favourite section of the game
happens quite early on, when you assume the role of a rather portly
colonial-era gentleman by the name of Maximillion Roivas. Never
in a thousand lifetimes would I have suspected that so much joy
could be had from fighting ultimate evil as a fat, middle-aged
doctor. As he bumbles around his macabre family mansion, you can
almost smell the musty sweat emanating from his powdered bonce,
just as you could swear that you are catching the occasional whiff
of austere rot from the decaying house he stands in. In short,
like a blocked lavvy, ED oozes atmosphere.
The graphics may not be technically cutting-edge,
but they are authentic, detailed and, at points, breathtakingly
beautiful – particularly in the cathedral chapters. This
terrific attention to detail is evident in all other aspects of
the game.
The weapons are wonderfully sadistic, the sanity
system is eerie (if occasionally a little ham-fisted) and the
inspired magic system adds much-needed depth to all the naaasty
bone crunching you’ll be doing with your nice, shiny mace.
None more black.
Fans of Survival-Horror will adore this game,
admirers of Lovecraft even more so. As for me – well, I
want to marry Eternal Darkness and, after nine months of delightful
agony, explosively give birth to its harpoon-legged demon child.
RODENT CASH RATING -
£30
 "Ooh,
ma! I’ve had an accident. Again!"
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