Call of Cthulhu®

The works of H. P. Lovecraft are notorious not only for the enormous imagination of their author and the vast array of creatures, incomprehensible to the human mind, but also for the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of transferring their plots and their very concepts into any visible form - comics, movies... and video games. The very essence of Lovecraftian horror is tied to madness and cosmic dread - something that can be vaguely described but never fully visualized. How did Call of Cthulhu fare in overcoming these obstacles, and how close did it manage to get to the terror and the myth we so admire?

Plot - 10/10

Call of Cthulhu is not a direct adaptation of the book by the same name - it follows its own storyline. The plot begins when Stephen Webster visits private investigator Edward Pierce, asking him to look into the death of his daughter, Sarah Hawkins, and her family. The police believe that she was mad, that she killed herself, her husband and son... her father considers it nonsense. And while subtle, he has reasons for his conviction, along with clues to start the investigation. Pierce takes the case - and goes to a remote island of Darkwater to try and unravel the web of mysteries surrounding that place.

Along the way our character will start sinking into madness in the best Lovecraftian traditions. Cultists, monsters, creatures with tentacles whether they need them or not, massive hulks of eldritch beings - everything is there and everything tips the scales a little bit further into an abyss. If you start thinking about the story afterwards, it may seem a bit of a mess - but it is perfectly justified in the moment. And I think this is the closest anyone can get to Lovecraftian horror because this is literally my reaction to his short story "The Call of Cthulhu". Every point in the plot of the game leads to the final moment - where your decisions throughout the playthrough will have a lot more weight than in most modern RPGs.

Gameplay - 8/10

Call of Cthulhu is a semi-open world game - you are presented with a variety of locations as you move along the story, and you can freely choose where to go in them, what to do, and how to solve a specific problem. For example, there are at least three different ways to reach the first plot-centered location: it depends on you and your actions, which of them you discover and which one you decide to implement. And, albeit slightly, that choice may ultimately affect the ending. Already. And that's how the whole game is. Hundreds of small choices and variables that make up the whole picture. The controls and some other small things may sometimes feel a little bit clunky, but that's a minor issue.

But what mechanics are there? Well, a lot hinges on two main things: your skills, which you can develop however you like when you have character points for that, and your sanity. Skills help you all the time and intimately intertwine with all other mechanics in the game. You need to pick a lock? Skill check. Choose an option in a dialog? Skill check. Another option in a dialog? No problem, you can count on it. Another skill check.

You're probably wondering: does the whole game hinge on skills? Yes. But don't worry. It wouldn't be a problem to complete even without leveling them up. Besides, a lot of options in dialogs have alternatives and may even be substituted by the knowledge you gained while exploring every nook and cranny, reading every book and note. Call of Cthulhu presents you with options - but it's your choice what to do with them. Unfortunately, some skills are obviously better than others, which undermines the whole point - but it still is a nice system.

As I mentioned previously, there's also a system of sanity which keeps track of what's going on with Edward Pierce's mind. This will affect the possibility of some choices and, ultimately, the ending of the story.

A final bit of knowledge. Call of Cthulhu presents you with a diversity of gameplay situations and mechanics so the game wouldn't get boring. You have mechanics of reconstructing the scenes of the past; you are sometimes transferred into the bodies of other characters; there are a few stealth segments also, though I didn't like them and the AI is incredibly stupid in those; etc. Probably not all of them will suit your taste - but you get to try many different things.

Graphics & Visual Design - 9/10

Even though Call of Cthulhu is more than six years old, the game looks stunning even now. Every picture and model is crisp and refined, every location and scene presented to you - carefully built and artistically set. The only reproofs I can imagine are little difference between the looks of minor characters and the lack of ray tracing. But then again, would the latter work with the concept of the game, with what this game is trying to show its players? Or would it only disrupt a hard-acquired balance? I don't know the answer. Call of Cthulhu could probably look better - but it's magnificent as is already.

Soundtrack - 9/10

The music and sounds in this game perfectly correspond to its mystical nature, supplying and enhancing every situation you find yourself in with its deep tones. When needed - the notes bring tension, when needed - inspire the feelings of grandeur and awe. Because of the overall atmosphere and in-game events it wasn't easy to pay attention to the music, and damn, that's a shame. It's really out of this world.

Atmosphere - 10/10

This is the height of the developers' achievement. Call of Cthulhu's atmosphere is based on the best canons of the genre and at the same time recreates the ever popular, but almost unimitable Lovecraftian horror. The feeling of something too old and too big for human minds to comprehend is always lurking somewhere on the backstage and is growing ever bigger and clearer as you get closer to the finish line.

Verdict - 9/10

Call of Cthulhu is not a typical horror as we learned to expect them to be like from games such as Resident Evil or Alien: Isolation. This is pure existential dread - and a real treat for the fans of H. P. Lovecraft's work. So even if you're no big fan of typical horror games, you can give it a try - for others, it's a must.