Call of Cthulhu - XBox

[FelixofMars]

It seems to be OK in the main, certainly for ?17.99 its a bargain, there are a few annoying bugs, mainly waiting for events to trip, supposedly one event going wrong had made some sections unplayable without restarting the game for a few people (didn't happen to me.), and there are some minor bugs, but I noticed they only have one QA guy on the devs side in the credits so not really suprised!

In the main I am impressed with the look of the game, shame the events system seems a bit screwey as well as some of the AI and weapons (why there is no crosshair to give at least and indication of what you are shooting at.) But the Adventuring part is well good (Healing, documents, cutscenes.), very un-nerving, great filters (grain/blur/zoom and even some others.) The story was a reasonable effort to if the voice acting a little weak.

[rmoxon]

Thought I'd bump this topic becuase this game is freaking me out and i'm not sure its for the reasons that its suppose too. I'm in the town about an hour into the game and I keep sneaking in to this building and finding a hanging dead body and the guy you play as just seems to freeze, all I can do is go into sneak mode and lean left and right, I can't move or anything... whats all that about? have I gone the wrong way and have to reload and do somthing else? Or is my game broken?....

[MonkeyWrench]

Didn't encounter anything like that. Are you snagged on any scenery or anything?

[Tobal]

i stopped playing when i got to the boat fight, it keep freezing randomly, and then when i do finally get through on the odd occasion, i get hit by that event at the end i and haven't f'in clue what to do as there no helpful hints at all, so it's been just thrown in a pile forever, never to played again as its peeved me on to many times.

[rmoxon]

Ok, I tried it yet again and this time didn't go into the room and now I can play on fine... I guess theres a bug that dosent let you carry on if you go in that room?

I wasn't snagged or anything. Just stood still and could only lean left and right in sneak mode. Happened 3 times in a row.

I'm now at the attack of the fishmen bit and getting fed up of having to restart the game every 2 seconds becuase its so dark that I can't see which way to go, I keep running in to a wall and getting caught..... I think.

[MonkeyWrench]

That bit is one of my favorite moments, there's a bit of trial and error involved, but the rush you get when you manage to escape is fantastic.

[Baseley09]

I'm now at the attack of the fishmen bit and getting fed up of having to restart the game every 2 seconds becuase its so dark that I can't see which way to go, I keep running in to a wall and getting caught..... I think.

That's where i'm upto, as of about 2 weeks ago. Got a bit fed up that it's quite trial and error, doable but you have to see the same bit again and again....and again.

[Zanza]

Picked this up for PC last week, the game starts off quite slow due to the fact that you don't have any weapons for the first hour or so, but it soon picks up. The atmosphere in the game is supurb, the environments are really well made, the story is gripping, and the game has some truely horrific moments. That mixed with the adventure/fps element makes for one of my favourite games this year.

Unfortunately the game has some very very sever problems that really screw up the games playability. Firstly, at several points thoughout the game I found myself absolutely clueless as to what to do next. Sure I don't need it spelling out to me but some simple pointers would of been nice, a comment passed by the main character for example. One example of this was in the refinarys secret basement while trying to take out the monster blocking the path. The puzzle requires you to open 4 gas valves, which when done does absolutely nothing, all you are told is that it is highly explosive. I must of spent a good hour redooing this section over and over running though the level collecting all the items to open the valves only to have no idea of what to do next and eventually dying from the fumes. In the end I had to turn to a walkthough just so I could continue playing the game, turned out what I had to do was run back to the beginning of the level to trigger the explosion, something that was never hinted at, and something I wouldn't of even considered.

This leads on to the save points, which are too infrequent and often badly placed in very unimportant stages of the game. This unfrotunately adds to the problem above of having to sometimes redo large sections of play over and over agian, rewatching all the cutscenes.

When I started playing the game I found myself very drawn into its atmosphere, it can be very fun to play at times, and I often felt like I could quite happily play it though in one sitting. Then one of these little niggles comes along and I just want to smash my computer to bits.

Still a great game though