"Great concept, poorly presented"

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, took Silicon Knights four years to make. As to the fruits of their labor? An overall score of sub-par. Here is why.

Structure:
The structure of the game is both marred and repetitive. Here’s the score! You find a chapter page, a character is introduced (as is his or her locale), they acquire the tome of eternal darkness, they fight a bunch of zombies, all of which look exactly alike throughout each level, then there is an ending cut scene for the character and you repeat. It gets stale fast.

Graphics:
The graphics of the game are, in general, very well done. It’s not like the game has to try that hard. There is usually not much happening on the screen at one time, and at most you will find yourself fighting against five enemies, all walking towards you very slowly.

I mean in general, because from afar everything looks really good. However! When you get a close up on some of these character models, a lack of polish (the kind of polish I would expect from such a long development) is missing, and the characters all look bland.

Environment:
Throughout your journey into the eternal darkness, you will find yourself in various environments throughout the globe. One character may be trekking within Cambodia, another within Rhode Island, and yet another within Italy. With locales so diverse, how could it go wrong?

By making them so empty! There is nobody there! Or at the very least, nobody who wants to talk to you. Every single locale is either a barren, desolate ruin, or a barren, ancient structure (not in ruin, just old). There is very little variety separating these various locations.

While the textures may look different, its essentially the same level in a different pair of pants. You walk back and forth across large levels, empty of npc’s and with a minute supply of zombies, who all look the same, to compromise interaction.

The Rating:
As you may or may not know, Eternal Darkness is rated mature. It is rated mature because of violence and the graphic nature of its contents. However, it does not push the envelope in terms of violence, and is no more violent than any previous survival horror game. While the game is not for kids, I doubt too many people will find the violence and the graphic nature that scary.

Enemy Design:
When it comes to enemy design, this title is lacking. Five hours into the game, I had encountered seven types of enemies, in total.

On is a skeleton like zombie. It walks slow and swings with its fist.

Another is a flesh zombie. It walks slow and swings with its fist.

Another is a variation of the flesh zombie. It walks slow and swings with its fist.

Get the point?
Essentially, the enemy design in the game is quite boring and repetitive.

Level Design:
The level design, like most of the rest of the game, is stale and repetitive. There is very little in level design that makes it stand out in front of any other game. Perhaps if the game wasn’t filled with so many large, empty rooms, the level design might seem more spirited?

Puzzle Design:
Here is where the game gets really innovative…not really. Here is the score! You take an item! You take it to a location! You unlock the path forward! Repeat! Or to add variety: You take an item! You switch it out for another item! You unlock the path forward! This is not a thinking man’s game at all.

Sound and Music:
The sound effects are rather well done. Everything from the clash of metal against metal, metal against bone, the resounding bang of a shotgun or the banging against a distant door sounds good.

The music is either very moody or lacking, and is there only to enhance the mood of what goes on screen, although some of the effects like the creepy whispers in the background, which were creepy at first, eventually became stale whispers in the background, which is not creepy.

Voice Acting:
All of the voice acting in the game is very well done. All of the characters are given a distinct voice that separates them from the others. And that should not be too surprising, as the voice actors who worked for this game, a few of them anyway, also worked on the Metal Gear Solid games.

Story:
There is a story. That is a plus. It is told in a very disjointed method, which is not necessarily a minus, but in the case of this game it is.

Because none of the characters you use have any previous affiliation with the eternal darkness, they all have to be introduced to it. Thus, by the time the chapter is over, you can only fit in extremely small plot advancements.

Due to the fact that the events of the story take place throughout history, and though I may be nitpicking, there is no way that someone in 1945 can read about the activities of someone in 1965. Even if you played as them in the previous chapter. Since the game jumps from time zone to time zone, it becomes clear that the developers weren’t really after creating any continuity between these times. It’s a neat idea, but a neat idea is nothing if you can not back it up with little details.

At the very beginning of the game, it starts out with the characters speaking Latin, the primary language of the time period, with subtitles underneath. Then it switches to English very quickly. It would have been much more authentic if the characters all spoke the language of their location and time period. Oh, well.

Basic Gameplay:
This section does not deal with the sanity meter. That would be the following section.

When basic gameplay is concerned, this game is little more than a Resident Evil clone. Here is the score! In order to advance there are locked doors, or barriers that might as well be locked doors. You find some sort of key like object, you take it to the door, and it opens! All the while you fight various manner of undead, or undead affiliated creatures.

Here is one way the gameplay separates itself from its Resident Evil brother in arms. You can target specific spots of the body. Using a simple technique, you can sever the limbs of your undead foes. And then, when they collapse to the ground, writhing in agony, you can finish them off. Wow! How original!

Advanced gameplay:
This is where the sanity meter comes in.

The sanity meter is the one thing that truly separates this game from everything else. Throughout your characters adventures, they can slowly go crazy, hallucinate, that sort of thing. Every enemy that spots you decreases your insanity, every enemy you finish off fills it back (there is also a spell that refills sanity). Such as, with your sanity low, you may see blood seep down the walls! Doors knocking! Phone’s ringing! You’re walking on the ceiling! Your torso explodes! That kind of thing.

So where does it go wrong?

Quite a lot of it is both random and repetitive. You can refill your sanity. What is the point of having a sanity meter, if you can fill it back up with magic (also note that your magic refills as you walk)? What they should have done is eliminate the meter altogether and give the gamer scripted events. That way they could have been more original with the thrills, and they could be bigger and better! Oh, well.

Control:
The controls are rather simple, and well done. The character’s move with a very fluid pace, and the combat is rather intuitive. The controls do not do anything to hamper the gameplay, which is good.

Much of the game’s combat is done with melee weapons. Here you are given two options. You can go in swinging, but do little damage. Or you can manually target.

Here’s the score! You can manually target the body parts of the three or four enemy types you see. The section you target is clearly highlighted, and from there you can sever their limbs, their head, and with powerful enough weaponry you can separate their upper torso from their lower. It is very easy to use, and makes defeating the enemies rather easy. Although nothing is scary about enemies who die easily.

Camera:
Here is where we get problems. The camera for Resident Evil works because there is only one melee weapon in the game, which nobody uses. Applying a similar camera setup to this game only creates problems. Fighting with a melee weapon against a giant monstrosity in the dark where you can’t see yourself, let alone the attacker, is not fun.

Replay Value:
You play the same game in a different order. Woo hoo. If you liked the game, I’m sure you would not mind playing it on its two other paths. If you did not, I guess the rest is self explanatory.

Final:
In the end, the game is not that great. A visceral experience from start to finish, that succeeds at some levels, but fails at most. The concept is very original, the execution is rather flawed. Why not wait for Resident Evil 4?

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/29/04