I’ve
been waiting for this game to come out since it was announced for the
Nintendo 64 back in 2000. Then the game kept getting delayed and delayed,
time passed, Nintendo came out with a new console and finally the game was
released. All I can say it was well worth the wait. This game is spooky,
and not like Resident Evil typical scary, this game is out to mess with
your head, make no mistake about it.This game has a smart complex story spanning generations and is among one of the best stories ever told in a video game. Alexandra Roivas is called down to Rhode Island by the police to her grandfathers house, she finds out that he had been brutally, (and I mean brutally) murdered. And there’s no sign of anybody breaking into the house. The police have no clue what happened. Time passes and Alex decides to take matters into her own hands, As Alex explores the mansion she comes across a book that is made of human bone and flesh called the Tome of Eternal Darkness. The story is told through pages of the book. Each page is a chapter with its own character and environment that deals with this book. Chapters range from 26 B.C to 2000 A.D. and Silicon Knights did their research; the weapons are in tune with the particular time that the character is in. as well as the environment.
The
graphics are probably Eternal Darkness’s weakest point. It’s not that
the graphics are ugly, far from it, but compared to the polish of the rest
of the game, they are somewhat lacking. They’re decent but they’re not
gonna blow you away.The sound is the absolute best part of this game, the sounds are extremely creepy, by limiting the audio to just faint background noises and some ambient music, the developers succeeded in making a tense atmosphere that actually makes you nervous. You can hear the zombies as they slowly step their way toward you, you'll hear their feet smudge against the ground and the unholy noises they make. And when you start to lose your sanity level, you’ll hear extremely disconcerting things, that are far scarier then anything Resident Evil could ever hope to accomplish.
During gameplay you have a choice whether to fight with a ranged weapon or a melee weapon, using the R button you can target individual limbs on an enemy. Take off a zombies head and he walks around aimlessly, take off his arms and watch him try to bite you. The control is impeccable, it’s easy to move around, and do just about everything you have to do. The only problem here is the spells, spells take a lot of time to cast and you’re vulnerable while you’re attempting to cast them. And when you get up to the 7 point spells this can be very frustrating.
The
sanity level is a nice innovation, when you start to see stuff that’s
unholy tentacled demon trying to kill you, your sanity level will start to
decrease, you’ll start to hear unholy voices and the game will mess with
you. Now I don’t want to ruin any of the insanity effects. But at least
once doing this game you will wonder what in the holy hell is going on.If you own a GameCube this is a must buy game. This game takes the survival horror genre and adds its own chapters. It delivers one of the most incredible experiences that the world of video games has to offer. Do not go into this game expecting another survival horror game, play this game only late at night with no lights on.
