» Fri May 27, 2011 10:28 am
I've had my friend, whom we shall refer to as 'J', take a look at the game for me and we both explored the refinery in an attempt to see if I'd got it all wrong about Dark Corners ? maybe I'd been a bit hard on the kid and it deserved a second chance.The replay has clarified a few things for me and thrown my earlier resolution that DC is fatally flawed as a game back into sharp focus. Much of the credit for this must go to 'J' ? the very model of an intelligent and observant gamer.THUS:Despite my problems with the sanity pacing I am now sure that I would have loved to play Dark Corners if it wasn't for the aggravating inconsistencies and painfully flawed mechanics endemic to this particular game design.And if I didn't love Dark Corners and Headfirst's design goals as much as I do, I wouldn't bother writing this stuff. =)Roysh. This'll be the last leg of We (dagger through heart) Dark Corners. Frankly, I've had my catharsis, I've got my second opinion, we all know this criticism can never be constructive and you're all tired of hearing me argue on and on, and on, and on...So this'll be quick, dirty and involve bullet points, just like the best kind of six. I'll respond to a few replies after this but... well Dark Corners is buried. It's time to praise it.Grab your anologue sticks and roll... right...For a game that contains so many features intended to aid player immersion (sanity effects, complex hit-location and no on-screen hud), Dark Corners contains a truly awe-inspiring list of mood breakers. The first coupla points are dealing with atmosphere?* When it's raining you can see the drops of water that land on your camera lens. On - your - CAMERA LENS. Very pretty, though, nicely done.* During cut-scenes not only are black bars added to the top and bottom of the screen but the film grain becomes more pronounced, with additional scratches! I know I seem like I'm being mean here, but this is a lot of nice effects work that just distances me from the moment ? thin black bars on the top and bottom fading into the screen would have given me ample warning that this was a cut-scene.* It's dank, depressing and pretty hostile. Thankfully you've found an elder sign ? now you can grab a moment of respite amidst BAM! (SCREEN RUSHES TO WHITE!) Ahh! Blinded! Same goes for the screen-tips? nothing ruins the mood like the functional equivalent of a flash-bang in the middle of your game. Granted, SH2 does something similar, but it uses the colour red and so isn't attacking on so many wavelengths at one time. A fade to black or screen-blur would have been far more welcome.* Dramatic zooms. I was a fan of this feature right up to? about my third body. I was having questions on the second corpse (lady hanging in the newspaper offices). First off, the point of the hudless interface was to root me in my own body, right? I can appreciate Headfirst wanting to highlight the discovery and emulate the player focusing on their find but, honestly, that's a level of ZOOM well beyond what I get in real life - there's a really 'out of body' sense to it. Secondly, it's overused. Like t'buggery. After your second body, it's hard to read the whiz-zoom as anything other than the visual equivalent of a really cheesy musical sting. A body! Den-den-DENN! And another body! Den-den-DENN!* Right, gonna get some stick on this one. I love Headfirst's amazing first-person camera work ? their positioning and animation of the player's view is one of the most REMARKABLE things about the game ? it's deeply compelling. Unfortunately, being locked into a sequence like that, being passively force fed one track? after the freedom and interactivity of so much of Innsmouth, it's an uncomfortable reminder that YOU'RE PLAYING A GAME. Doom 3 is the worst offender for this kinda thing in recent memory. Enter a new level and?BOOM! You're out of your body and floating around and looking at yourself and woo! here's some plot. Dark Corners thankfully keeps the first person perspective, but then straps you into a little carriage and takes you through the haunted house. HL2 does this the best ? the player is free to move and participate in the scenes. Naturally questions arise?well, if we implemented the HL2 system, wouldn't Dark Corners lose its wonderfully scripted tension and pacing? And, hey, RoB, what's that you were sayin' earlier regarding th' camera angles? How you gonna get that working, genius? Well, yeah, there are definitely problems in the pacing element of an interactive scene. However if the mapmaker shapes the map to limit the contingencies and then scripts to handle them, making it work would be possible. I WOULD limit the player's jumping mechanics, but then I'm not a fan of jumping in games that depend on atmosphere (Legacy of Kain aside). Let's take Ramona's death as an example. The player opens the lock to Ramona's mother's loft. He climbs the stairs? investigates the lock. It's fast. He opens the window, looks inside. A timer starts, triggering the events of the 'Mother Escape' cutscene whether the player is there or not. If the player walks to the stairs, the Mother immediately bursts through the door, catching Jack half-way down. Fade out. Fade up? Jack gets up. Walks to stairs? (we'll cover the camera sways etc.. in a minute). As soon as he hits the stairs, the cut-scene kicks off. Waites makes a point of highlighting the diary but DROPS the key near the stairs. If Walters attempts to intervene during the arrest, the police push him aside. The diary is left upstairs and the key is on the ground for the player to collect of their own accord, whether they want to walk out of the house right now or not. The banister holding can be achieved by making the stairs a narrow track and having Jack's hands grip the banisters at specific points during the walk (visually similar to the effect seen in surviving the waves washing over the cutter). Dynamic camera sway can be achieved by emulating SH1 ? varying points along the path add or reduce the camera roll variable. When the tension of the scene is reduced, the camera sway points on the stairs are removed, or marginalized.* Somebody once posted that he was disappointed Dark Corners wasn't an RPG. Don't quite get why that's a problem myself, but I did agree with his second point ? the use of bland fonts to stand in for Jack's journal and the evidence & tomes he gathers during his journey breaks the mood. I'm pretty sure this was done in order to reduce the memory load on the X-Box. The first document you pick up (the sermon in the house) is beautiful and being able to read it in-engine is just wonderful, but having to load an image of that size along with about 30 others would probably put a strain on the available textures for the levels. I guess it didn't seem worthwhile using additional fonts after that loss? I will say this, however. Using the journals as a way to excuse Jack's continuing sanity is a cheap trick. "I don't know how I'm keeping sane during all of this ? by rights I should be stark-raving MAD! ?Oh well. Having mentioned this in my diary I am now absolved of any need for this to affect my normal life. Phew, eh? I'd better make another entry later on commenting on my continuing level-headedness, just in case." That's an admission of failure, right there.* I have a problem with Jack talking to himself for any other reason than his insanity or, perhaps, the odd low-key comment on books & items. Basically, there's too much spoken description and not enough emphasis on sound effects. Let's play Which Is More Immersive: Opening a Door.1) "This door is locked."or2) Rattle, rattle, click-click. If Headfirst had used well-defined aural cues to demonstrate the state of doors you encounter during the game, I'd have been much happier. Rattles for bolted doors, more solid wooden thuds for locked doors and NOTHING AT ALL for doors you can't open. Weirdly, there's a hilariously awkward and prominent aural cue in there already ? trying to pick up a health pack you don't need is signified by a horribly out-of-place buzzing noise. Due to Headfirst's wonderful usage of textures, most of the books and items within the game don't require comments from Jack. It's a trope I enjoy in most adventure games but it doesn't suit this one. At most, he should have looked at a copy of the Necronomicon and muttered under his breath something like? "Necro? nomicon? Abdul-Azif?" Basically, when we talk to ourselves, it's usually in the form of fragmented comments, not full-on monologues. "THE KING IN YELLOW! I've found it ? now I can get into that room with the iron door." ?or? "The King in? that's the one." (Sound of book being grabbed)* Far too many enemies in refinery, far too many corpses than is realistic. Have covered this in other threads, so if you're reading this I guess you already know about it. If not, tell me and I'll elaborate.* Niggling interface problem here ? it doesn't seem that big a deal but it is irritating. So you heal yourself, putting away your gun to apply bandages. Then you put away the health kit and? totally forget to pick up your gun. Okay, so I'm outvoted as regards the reloading. Don't you think it's annoying that Jack makes you manually select the a gun EVERY TIME he heals? It certainly feels as though the game is arbitrarily messing with your play style. Just heal me up and give me back my gun, [censored] it.* Hybrids have a hilarious resistance to buckshot. I've lost count of the amount of times I've fired bullets and buckshot into their bodies and face, only to see them shrug it off and continue. In THEIR FACE, mind. Naturally, you might counter this argument with: AH! But does Jack not ALSO suffer damage to his head, torso and limbs and manage, somehow, to survive? Well, aside from how this ties into my gripe about the overwhelming amount of ACTION! and SHOOTING! in this game, Jack's damage is made believable by the pain skins on the Jack doll. As much as it breaks atmosphere, it's wonderful and SHOCKING to see the hurtage that has been inflicted on dear old Mr. Walters. The hybrids? Not a scratch. I'd have loved to have seen pain skins used with the enemies in this game. If I'd fired both barrels into the peering features of a sticky slimy fishman only to be rewarded with a scream, a bloody mess on a neck with one staring eye remaining and a bad attitude, I'd have believed the combat far more. As it is, sometimes it's hard to tell if your weaponry is having any affect at all.* My friend (Let's call him 'J'! Why not?!) and I talk about games ? a lot, as you might have guessed. One of his little riffs is how important moving eyes are to empathy and identification when it comes to computer game allies. Having recently played Dark Corners of the Earth and Anachronox, I'm going to have to disagree with him ? muscle-based expression is king. With the exception of very specific cut sequences, the expressions of most Dark Corners characters seems static. Oh, they open their mouths, they back away but? have you actually seen a Dark Corners character move from a smile to an expression of fear? Have you seen them look slyly at the player ? then switch to anger? There's some good body acting in there, but the true character is being hidden behind an immobile mask. Natch, it figures that this'd be down to development time & budgetary restrictions. It's a pity, because ? well, let's forget HL2 or Doom 3 or No One Lives Forever or Metal Gear Solid or Silent Hill here ? let's look at a game made with 1996 technology. Anachronox. Anachronox has one of the most bizarre and engaging stories I've ever encountered in a computer game and it's told in a phenomenal manner ? and with vertex animation. Characters with more than four vertices for a mouth are shocking and rare occurrence, for example. But the characters LIVE! They breath, shout, cry and console one another, curse each other and swear revenge. And it sells. It's just such a damn pity Dark Corners doesn't have the resources to summon up that level of person-to-person emotion. It's obviously not outside of the capabilities of the DC artists, but it's clearly a technical limitation. Character animation is among Dark Corners's many graphical strengths. A favourite moment of mine is watching Ruth Billingham descend the crates outside the cannery? another is watching the Federal Agents pull closed the gates of the Refinery. And, natch, the agent who escapes the shoggoth. Fine stuff. I only wish you could have done more.* There's a common flaw in computer games which is often referred to as the Konami problem. A player will initiate an action (jumping, say, or drawing a gun) and immediately after the initiation the conditions in the game will change, making the jump, or draw or strike suddenly the worst idea in the world if the player wants to survive. In most games, the player can abandon the action at almost any point ? back away, change weapons, change direction? but not in Konami games (usually). In games with this flaw, once the player initiates the action, she must wait until the action for the animation is completed before beginning another one ? which can lead to some awkward situations. For the most part, this isn't a serious problem in Dark Corners ? in fact, one implementation of this effect provides one of DC's best recurring moments: healing in game. Unfortunately when this problem raises its head in the game, it's a doozy. I'm referring to Dark Corners, erm, 'courageous' approach to players opening doors in game. I have to tell you, this was a feature I was really looking forward to when I read about it, first: the player would approach the door, a hand would creep towards the handle and the door would open? ratcheting up both the realism and the tension. As we all know, though, the 'virtual body' system didn't make it into the final release ? but, strangely enough, the door opening animations did. So now, a) when you try to interact with a door you're locked into the opening and closing animations and B) due to the game's crazy selection system you could be running out through a doorway, looking down to pick up a healthpack and find yourself being pushed BACK through the door and then closing it. You have questions about the selection system? Okay. Go to the First National Grocery Store. Go to the front door, the one with the broken glass. Face the poster for the Methodist church next to it. Hit action. Naturally, I'm aware that there are probably no actions associated with the poster ? but don't you think that's one overenthusiastic selection system? =) Indeed, if you check on some of the developers comments as regards the removal of the virtual hand, you'll see that they mention the selection system as the main reason it was thrown out. Methinks this was a costmetic choice made to disguise a fundamental sickness. In combination with the door mechanics the selection system will send you back into rooms you left, open doors when you try to use bolts and give you some very strange descriptions when you try to look at posters. I'm very tempted to try to make something like this in my Asylum map, just to see if HL2 has a better selection system (pretty damn sure it does!). We'll revisit the Konami problem in a paragraph or two? Taking a break, let's talk 'stealth'.* Okay: I'm pretty sure that I could emulate the level of 'stealth' in Half-Life 1 ? and I'm only talking about doing some level design here ? I wouldn't know how to change the code (but you wouldn't miss lean, trust me). Essentially the designers have hard coded enemy paths and places the player can hide from the killers. This is stuff I could have done in? actually, Quake 2 has the required entities. Now, this is not to take away from the designers approach to stealth puzzles ? freeing Brian Burnham with the minimum of fuss from the cops is great, especially the madman and water puzzles. However, level-based stealth of this sort is unpleasantly arbitrary. I'll give you an example. There are two pools of darkness in a room. Hell, let's make one darker than the other, but not so you'd notice. The level designer HAS, though ? he set the light levels. And so, it makes sense for him to make the darker corner a valid hiding place from the enemies. To the player, each corner looks equally useful. And so he or she has a 50/50 chance of being discovered. The best stealth game series ? Thief ? and even some of the lesser ones ? Manhunt ? go out of their way to ensure that the player is given clear information as to the usefulness of the hiding places. Garret has his light gem, the protagonist of Manhunt has a number of little indicators. In this way, the designer is forced to play fair with the player ? each hiding place is clearly defined. The closest that the Dark Corners design gets to this is the use of the Elder Sign ? a great idea that is sadly devalued when you've been seen entering a building by a side door beside an 'Elder Sign' by Hybrids? who then totally forget to try the front door ('Jailbreak' ? the garage). Additionally, providing pathways that only the player can access does not enhance the stealth ? it just highlights the limitations of your enemy navigation capabilities. "Flank him! Kill him!" "We can't! He's hiding underneath a box!" "A box? Oh no! We'll just have to cue up for death ? either that or suffer complete short-term memory erasure." "What?" "I? you know?the? I can't recall. Erm. I? Dagon." "Oh? I? Dagon. Yeah. Is today Tuesday?" You gotta love the grunts in HL1 ? those guys knew how to use grenades! =) Unless your dedication to the concept of stealth extends to more than some level design trickery, I don't feel the game has earned the right to trumpet 'stealth' as an important feature.* That Konami problem again ? alright, this is really more of my problem with the whole non-interactive cut-scene thing. One specific moment ? grabbing the keys in the cannery in order to save Ruth Billingham leaves the player standing still, like an idiot, watching hoards of Innsmouthians pour into the area? ?and the player is thinking, Move! MOVE! ?and still more hybrids rush in, Jack apparently daydreaming? ?Player: MOVE! You idiot - MOVE! ?one more enemy, one more? and the last fishman notices the slack-jawed private investigator and FINALLY, he can move. At this point, I am not Jack Walters - man of reason in a nightmare town. I'm just some guy playing a really frustrating computer game. But that's okay because Ruth & Bill ? vaguely interesting characters (well, they have some potential, anyway) are going to DIE IN A HORRIBLY RANDOM (and here we're applying story mechanics, not real-world physics) car crash. Still, stops us from having to come up with any further bits with them in it, doesn't it? And it solves all the awkward questions Ruth would have raised with the Feds.* That lighting, eh? Amazingly atmospheric except when it's not. At many points in the sewer, for example, there's a degree of light for the player to see their way ? but there's no source for it. Back at the cannery, at the top of the building there's a locked door that Jack has to open in order to save Ruth ? and here we find one of the few 'special' lamps, lamps that are so strong that they can apparently shine THROUGH their shade and illuminate the entire area. It just looks WRONG.* The combat is awkward and not entertaining. Sure, I can beat the enemies fairly quickly, but if you miss you end up doing a crazy dance with your reloading opponent which is at first surreal and, eventually, hilarious. Enemies skate and rarely demonstrate menace ? the Deep Ones being a notable exception! Love that ship map. AI is painfully random and simple ? which really isn't a problem, as Doom 3 demonstrates. Build your levels to show off your strengths and hide your weaknesses. Individual set-pieces can really liven things up ? that refinery could have definitely done with one or two of those. I loved encountering the squad of marine zombies in Doom 3 that still remembered how to use a SWAT shield? =) In comparison, there's almost no variation required in Dark Corners combat. Add to this the fundamental lack of variation within the weapons (and we're looking at power and effect, here) and you've got an incredibly lacklustre combat base game. Jesus, that Tommygun? what a waste of time. You swiftly learn to appreciate it solely for the additional bullets you can now access.* Right. This one is pretty important. Jack gets no weapons going into the house at the start, right? Fair enough, he's trying to negotiate some kind of peaceful solution before it all goes to hell.Jack gets no weapons going into Innsmouth, right? Fair enough ? he's had a stay at the asylum and he's unlikely to be showered with pistols and ammunition (you'd think ? more on this later). Jack gets no weapons during Attack of the Fishmen, right? Hmm. Bit of a small problem here ? I know that Headfirst was trying to leave the player vulnerable, but? surely? Surely he would be able to use his hands, if only to cover his face when the machetes start swinging? He could weakly push away the far stronger Hybrids ? he could even try to take a swing at them or take their weapon, only to be knocked to the ground and shot. Anything like this would have improved the player's sense of 'being there' ? in fact, raised hands would have emphasised Jack's lack of weaponry and vulnerablility to sharp objects.Jack KILLS a guy with a crowbar and his weapon vanishes along with his corpse, right? ?Apparently so, though god knows why. Keeping the weapons out of players hands in order to improve immersion becomes invalid as an argument once this starts happening. I mean, MGS does this, but it's able to keep consistency because you're constantly viewing Snake from GOD'S perspective, so it's obviously a game (a fact that Hideo Kojima gleefully extracts much humour from). Surely a better solution to this problem would be for Jack's enemies during the early stages to be armed with machetes ? a truly scary weapon, as anybody who's watched Hotel Rwanda will tell you ("It is time to 'cut down the tall trees'" *shiver*). Frankly, I'd have found that much more intimidating than a bunch of yokels toting shotguns. Put the only guns in this part of town into the hands of the local Sheriff and his henchm- erm, lieutenants. Everyone else gets the local meat cleaver variant. That way you feel CLEVER when you get the guns?Jack is MILLING HIS WAY THROUGH LEGIONS OF HYBRIDS USING A VARIETY OF WEAPONS but their guns still disappear, right? Right? I can't seem to stop my eyes from rolling ? we've left the realms of sensible game design here. Limit the ammunition! KILL THE RESPAWNING ENEMIES! Get some [censored] ITEM BALANCE going, guys! Dear lord, by the end of the game I could have opened my own ammunition resale chain and STILL their weapons disappeared.* And I don't get the no-flashlight argument. Can somebody explain that to me? And give me examples where the lack of a flashlight was ESSENTIAL? Anybody?* In the middle of all this horror, let us not forget Hoover's sanity-draining speech in the car, terminating in:"You've got the reputation of being a pretty hot shot, despite your stay in the nut house. I've loaded you up with armaments. I demand?"--Hold it, hold it, hold it. Let's see that again, this time in Hyperclarity:"You're loony-toons, Jack. Have a loaded gun."I think it's pretty clear that Jack's not the only crazy person present during the scene ? either that or Hoover's been hitting the Moondog Dunkel pretty hard.But Jack's not to be outdone. He's been tortured by the government, handed a gun and brought along on to a raid of the Marsh Refinery which is protected by armed, fanatical guards. And probably far, far worse.Naturally when given the chance to escape from a situation like this the sane individual will either refuse to get further involved or make a break for it. Try to make a break for it with Jack by taking the remaining working car and Jack'll refuse on the grounds that he can't leave those poor Bureau agents behind like that (or similar).Not that he doesn't have the keys to the car but that the Federal Agents need his help. The hell with them! That's their job! But no, Jack meekly asks Hoover if there's anything he can do to help.Hell yeah, says Hoover, go take out the guy firing the Browning .60 cal at us.Naturally, if the player is fully in character at this moment, he or she will attempt to shoot Hoover IN THE BRAIN with the gun he so thoughtfully provided. Can Jack's sanity withstand the sight of the bullets passing through the Federal Agents as if they were ghosts?Mais, bien s?r.The mood has not just been broken by this point, it's being sold for scrap at the local junkyard. I hasten to point out that Doom 3 created a wonderfully innovative method for getting around shooting your friends. Ah well.This is especially such a pity due to Headfirst using the "crazy people don't get guns" line on the forum as a reason for why Jack isn't armed going into Innsmouth. I totally agree with that ? I just find it hard to swallow Hoover's instant belief in Jack Walters.======================================================?Okay, I'm done.=)No more complaints ? or at least, no further systematic arguments on the gameplay. I feel much better, now. I do kinda hope that somebody finds this a little interesting. Right, from now on I'll post lots of complimentary things about the game. And if I were to review Dark Corners, I'd probably end the review on this note:If Dark Corners of the Earth was a Lovecraft story, it would be The Colour out of Space ? wordy, unwieldy and strangely constructed, but nonetheless an atmospheric piece replete with an unyielding Lovecraftian morality and strong ties to the mythos.All the best, --RoB
I'm not really sure if i was completely happy about the guns... i like my guns to be overpowerful freudirators. One shot, one kill. Although i have to admit that the weapons and the spells supported each other extremely well and IMHO the weapon/spell balance was phenomenal.I've never said "IMHO" before.Have to try comdemned some day.I'm afraid i haven't got the neccessary knowledge to make any kind of game at the moment, it's more like a dream to realize in the distant future, you know, when i grow up and the stars are right and Steven Spielberg makes a four hour long mythos movie starring Al Pacino as Cthulhu and Keanu Reeves as Randolph Carter that is a huge success among critics and fans alike and you get the idea. I am very humbled by and grateful of the offer though. Maybe some day... 
Let's see where to begin?Beating the game in that short of time for the alternate ending seems like it's going to be impossible for me. I have a tendency to get lost quite easily in mazelike situations, so the refinery is going to be hell. It took me 9 hours to beat btw (well to be technical it took me 8 hours and and 59 minutes).I guess jumping into list form will make things easier to get out of the way:FavoritesFavorite gun: Magnum/Yithian CannonFavorite chapter (or part of a level): Esoteric Order of DagonFavorite Creature depiction: Great Race of Yith (big surprise from me huh? 
)/ShoggothFavorite puzzle: 'MUST FOLLOW RED DOTS" from Devil's ReefFavorite Boss fight: Mother Hydra Yes I did need the walkthrough to complete it but once I knew what to do it was a blast.Nummiest character: Rebecca Lawrence Now there's a dame after my own heart :3Least FavoritesLeast favorite gun: ShotgunLeast favorite chapter (or part of a level): Having to shoot down the wizards with the deck cannonLeast favorite Creature depiction: NONE 
Least favorite Puzzle: The puzzle to leave the temple in the Order house. I honestly had to use a walkthrough because while I thought to recreate the tablet I never noticed the two missing pieces on the ground. I easily recreated the "Dagon, Cthulhu, Dagon, Cthulhu" part of the sequence but couldn't figure out the beginning for the life of me.Least favorite boss fight: Robert Marsh/Dagon The Dagon fight was technically really fun (except when I accidentily let Jack kill himself from being insane :S) I just absolutely svcked at getting to the cannon in time.Odds and ends:-The Polyps scared the hell out of me-The music was absolutely wonderful-I kept having a very weird glitch that sometimes shooting off the Yithian Cannon would cause the game to freeze. That and the one I will discuss next are the only issues I had in the game. A bit of warning goes to anyone using the debug enabled executable. You'd better keep the backup exe because for some reason on the end movie my game kept tweaking out when it should've just faded to black (before you hear the doctors talking). I replaced the original exe (by original I mean it was still tweaked with what I did using Hex Workshop so it must've been debug mode messing it up) and the last movie played just fine.-Thank you so much for this experience folks of Headfirst. Your swan song was a wonderful one and it'll definitely stay close to my heart for a long time. While Shadow of the Comet is the best adventure foray into Mythos, Dark Corners is the best action one. :3There's probably more I want to say but I just can't remember it right now. I'll leave you folks with this to chew on and hopefully it'll spark more out of me. 
Oh, and Rev. Speed! YOUR HOOVER/MOONDOG COMMENT MADE ME SNORT MILK OUT THROUGH MY NOSE!I salute you, sir! *tips hat*Man, I miss you guys, forumgoers as well as Headfirsters. Don't stay dead, ok? Stranger Aeons and all that. 