"Is it real or in you head?"

INTRODUCTION
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Eternal Darkness (ED) was developed by Silicon Knights and Nintendo. Originally ED was meant to be a Nintendo 64 game but was cancelled late in ED development. While many of us were disappointed we quickly found out Nintendo was going to remake ED as a Gamecube game. 3 years later and the wait was worth it.

Story
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A young college student and the last of her family blood line named Alex Roivas receives a call at 3:33 in the morning that her grandfather has gotten into an accident. Alex gets the next flight to Rhode Island where the family mansion is. Alex arrives at the mansion and a detective shows Alex her grandfather's dead body and his head is missing. The police have no clues as there is no evidence. 2 weeks pass and Alex takes matters into her own hands to solve the mystery of her grandfather's death.

GAMEPLAY
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So how is Alex going to solve the mystery of her grandfather's death? Simple you'll just have to play as other characters. Would you like to know what I mean by this? As Alex explores the mansion you will come across a book that is made of human bone and flesh called the Tome of Eternal Darkness. Once this book is found you will now be able to find missing chapters for the book. Each chapter has a story taking place somewhere in time and you will play as the character in the story. There are 12 characters in all and that's including Alex because she will play a pivotal roll once you reach the end of the game but you'll have to play ED and see what I mean.
As mentioned before you'll play as different characters spanning across time. You'll play as a messenger in 814 A.D. France, a young man during World War 1 in France, and a Canadian fire fighter during the Persian Gulf War. You'll even get a chance to play as some of the other Roivas and a Roman soldier in 26 B.C.
The Roman soldier, named Pious Augustus, is the most important character as he will determine how the game will be based on one decision you make while playing him. He is the first character you play as. In his story you enter an ancient ruin in search of a artifact. At the end of his story you find 3 artifacts. Each artifact represents a god-like monster who will bring death, destruction, and darkness onto the human race. Depending on which artifact you choose determines what kind of monsters you will mainly see throughout the game including what kind of bosses you will battle. You'll even have different cinemas. No matter what you choose Pious will become a skeleton looking monster with magical powers. He will also ally himself with the monster of the artifact he chose and will go on the next 2000 years to bring that monster to the world. Now if you put 2 and 2 together that means he's the main bad guy.
Now for how the game plays. The game is in 3-D but not in 3rd person. Instead it's kinda like fixed camera views and the camera will move around while your moving. It's almost like Devil May Cry. You rarely go through camera problems. You also move in the direction you hold on the analog stick.
Now if your going to take down zombies you'll need weapons. Depending on the era of time you play on determines what weapons you'll have. Meaning if you play as Anthony the messenger in 814 A.D. France you'll use swords from that era. If you play as Peter Jacob whose story takes place in World War 1 you'll use guns that existed during WW1. Everyone has different selections of weaponry and how they use each weapon. Everyone will use a sword differently and they will all finish off a enemy differently even if they use the same sword that another character also used. You will also be able to target different parts of a enemies body. You can chop off a zombie's head and he'll stand there and swing his arms around. You can also slice off their arms and their torso. Also if your going to use a sword in a small corridor you'll have to swing it around differently because your swords can hit the walls.
You will also have magic spells at your disposal. Spells range from healing, enchanting, shielding and even summoning your own monsters. Magic is a very important element in ED. To obtain magic spells you have to find their pieces. For example to get the Recover spell you will need to find the Magic runes for that spell and a magical Codex for each of those runes so you know what they are and a Recover Spell scroll. Early in the game you'll find the Circle of Power which you will use to put all these things together. The magic system is a very in-depth but simple system to use.
Also characters have different speeds. Majority of the people will move at a good speed and won't get tired that fast from running too long. But fat characters or old characters will move slow and get tired fast from all the running.
The greatest and most unique aspect of ED is the Sanity Meter. You'll be introduced to this when you play the 2nd chapter. The Sanity Meter is this little green bar that goes down every time you encounter a enemy but goes back up when you finish one off. In the event that your bar goes a little down you might experience some hallucinations. The severity of these hallucinations differ on how low your bar is. If your sanity is really low the game will literally mess with you also. I don't want to spoil anything you encounter while going insane because experiencing them without knowing if it's real or not makes the game more fun. Also all characters are different when they lose their sanity and some can go insane easily.
I should also mention on how the saving system works. You can save through the menu by pressing start. You can save anytime you want except when your in a room with monsters and traps. The game will tell you ''Darkness is coming'' if you try to save and it won't let you save.

CONTROLS
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The controls are very accurate and pretty much near perfect. You might encounter times when you try to slash a zombie and you'll completely miss. This problem is rare though. Normal movement is done by the analog. Holding L down makes you run and holding X will make you walk slow and quiet even though this can be achieved by slightly holding down the analog. Remember some characters have different speeds. Z is used to reload weapons. You can think of the B button as the action button. R is to aim at an enemy and moving the analog in different directions determines where you will hit. A is the attack button. The control stick is used to move around an item while checking an item out but it's useless though. As for X and the directional pad you can assign spells to those buttons so you don't have to do spells through the menu which can obviously be entered when you press start. When you press start you will have your inventory screen which also shows your health, magic, and sanity meters. You can also access your map, spells, cinemas you have already seen, autopsy reports on different monsters (one of the characters will be able to autopsy monsters) and your save and loading screen.

Graphics
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The graphics in this game are amazing. Characters don't look as real as in Resident Evil but they still look incredible especially when their clothes and hair move around with their movements and the monsters definitely look amazing. The spell effects show great lighting. Also when inside areas lighting is realistic. If there is no light in a room and your only light source might be a window or a torch and lighting will be based on that. Zombies, 20 foot monsters, and magic effects can be happening all at once and the game will not slow down not even for a second as this game runs on 60 frames per second.

SOUND
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The sound in ED is another one of it's strong points. ED supports Dolby Pro Logic 2. The sound effects are really intense and very real. Anything from sword swiping and guns shooting sound just about how they should sound like. Also hearing voices when your going insane sounds great on surround sound because it makes you feel like theres voices in the back of your head or that might just be me.
The music really sets the tone for ED. The music will range from dark and eerie monotonous music to something more upbeat. Music also differs on the era of time you play in.
But the voice acting is the really outstanding part of ED. The voice caster is non other then Kris Zimmerman. If you don't know Zimmerman has cast voices for great games like all the Legacy of Kain games and even Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2. Some of the voices include Cam Clarke ( Liquid Snake from MGS 1 and 2), Michael Bell (Raziel from Soul Reaver 1 and 2), Rino Romano (Spider-Man 1 and 2), and my favorite one who I will have to complain about is David Hayter ( Solid Snake from MGS 1 and 2). These are just some of the voice talents but all the voices are extremely amazing and the voice acting is up there with Metal Gear Solid and Soul Reaver.

COMPLAINTS
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While there isn't much to complain about there are some things. Playing as Karim is annoying if you don't have the recover spell. Depending on what artifact you chose determines which bar you can recover. I can deal with going insane and enjoying all the things that happen but I would rather raise my health and not die then to be able to raise my sanity. If you don't get the desired recover for whatever bar you want to raise you will eventually get it just not with Karim. He starts with 5 Talismans which raises your health. Too bad it takes all 5 to raise a whole life bar.
Parts where your walking straight towards the camera is a pain also. Enemies will all of a sudden appear in front of you or you will accidently step on a trap. This problem rarely occurs.
Another problem is that since you will be able to heal your sanity by the time you get to more than half way through the game you don't go insane that much. Going insane is the best thing about this game. Sometimes I'll refuse to cure myself and I'll let myself go insane.
I totally missed the Montorok spell. It's very important and I totally freaking missed it.
Lastly the voice actor David Hayter who played Solid Snake isn't really used much at all in ED. I waited throughout the whole game to hear his Solid Snake like voice and nothing. I figured he just used a different voice for one of the main characters but when I read the credits I noticed he played petty little voices. I figured he would play as the fire fighter in the Persian Gulf War but after playing as the fire fighter his voice wouldn't fit him.

AFTERTHOUGHTS
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I thought every aspect of this game was excellent and Nintendo and Silicon Knights worked great as a team. It's great to once again play a Silicon Knights game cause they always make interesting games and Nintendo strives for perfection so it's a great combination. The story is dark and very twisted which is typical of Silicon Knights. Most of the time it's hard to believe that a man like Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid, among a thousand other things) helped out along the way. ED really doesn't have a Nintendo game feel to it which for Silicon Knights is good. The music and the atmosphere of the game sets you up well when you yourself are about to go insane. The voice acting was perfect except for the whole David Hayter thing. Kris Zimmerman has once again done a amazing job on the voices and the characters that will feature those voices. The whole Sanity thing is really the showcase here. The things that happen when you go insane are really creative and unique which of course is no surprise from Silicon Knights. Overall I enjoyed this game enough that I might even beat it 2 more times. Why 2 more? When you play as Pious after you beat the game once and save it and start a new game you can only pick the 2 artifacts you didn't choose. When you play it again there will be only one. And are you wondering what is the point? If you beat all the artifacts you will get the TRUE ENDING. Also the 4th time you play ED you will have infinite health, magic, and sanity. What's the point if you can't go insane and why would you want to play the game a 4th time. So obviously there is replay value. They say this game takes 20 hours for the skilled gamer to beat but I beat it in 13 hours. So that's about a little over an hour a character. I started playing a 2nd time and I got to the 4th chapter in less then a hour. Too bad I can't heal with that stupid Karim with the recover spell this time around. Overall a great game and I highly recommend you play it and go insane.

FINAL SCORE - 9

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/02, Updated 07/05/02