We reviewed Call of Cthulhu

Driftwood
Tuesday, October 30, 2018 | 11:30 AM
5 comments

GSY Review PC PS4 Xbox One

With Alone in the Dark, Lovecraft's work on Cthulhu has become quite famous among gamers, although very few games have been set in this universe lately, except for a few independent titles like Conarium for example. Focus and Cyanide have been working on Call of Cthulhu for quite some time now and it is time for us to share our verdict on the game.
Note: We also have a little treat for you just before Halloween, a few screenshots of Gamersyde's v3 so you can see what our articles will look like when it's ready.

Verdict

Even though Call of Cthulhu was quite a pleasant game to play, we cannot say we have found it as convincing as Vampyr, another production by Focus Home Interactive developed by French developer DONTNOD. First and foremost, despite some RPG elements, the game is very straight-forward and it never poses any difficulty. As a result, we don't think a second playthrough is particularly necessary, even less so as we managed to see all but one ending by simply using our last save. There is also a sense that the story isn't very original, even for someone who doesn't know Lovecraft much, apart from games likes Dark Corner of the Earth or Alone in the Dark. It is not necessarily a problem, as the game is very faithful to the myth, but we never really found the thrills of some of the passages of Dark Corner or the Earth nor did we found its atmosphere more effective than Conarium (though this game is absolutely devoid of any non playable characters). It's also a bit of a shame to have cast Anthony Howell as Edward Pierce, as the character is very close to his work on Jonathan Reid (Vampyr). Don't get us wrong, he's a great actor, we love his voice, but he sounds too much like Reid in this game. Call of Cthulhu isn't bad at all, but it lacks something to make it the definitive Lovecraftian experience.

On the plus side
Great atmosphere and solid characters
Good work on the sound design
Gameplay mechanics are simple but efficient
Solving the mysteries surrounding Darkwater
Situations and locations are somewhat varied

On the downside
Technically outdated
Some cutscenes are heavily compressed
Not very original and too straight-forward
Almost no replayability
AI can be really blind at times

Light theme - The Reviews

Commented on 2018-10-30 13:36:12

I'll pick it up on a Steam sale. :) I don't think it's worth £40 on Steam atm, besides I have RDR2 to occupy me.

In reply to

Sdarts

Commented on 2018-10-30 15:26:39

@Driftwood:

Thanks for the review.

Unfortunately, this game isn't worth the asking price, more like $20, which will most likely happen in a few months. The game has a lot of issues, design wise and technical wise, from all the comments in the Steam forums. Which is why it has a "Mixed (68% Positive)" on Steam.

As for Gamersyde's v3 site, it's hard to judge the design from those images, I really like the Verdict section with the more pronounced and colorful pros and cons, but you might want to extend the yellow underline below "Verdict" to cover the whole word, to give a more cohesive look.

Another suggestion would be to have the box surrounding the Verdict's text and the plus and cons be more darker in the Dark theme, and have one for the Light theme. Also add the colorful backgrounds of the pros and cons sections to the Light theme.

Aside from that, looks good. Just a few questions:

- Any chance you can share more images, or maybe even make a video of how it is to navigate through the site in both themes, if it's ready for that? If you guys are open to it, we could help with suggestions on the look and functionalities, things that we want and things we end up not liking.

- Do you plan to allow for much more customization options in both look and functionality? A few good examples would be to expand the filters section to include Genres, give the option to be able to show or hide user's avatars, choose the text color, etc.

- I'm not sure if you guys have any plans for it, but the "Community videos" section could use a lot more attention, like having the last 10 videos submitted displayed in the main page and maybe even in the subpages - with an option to disable it for the subpages, though it should be visible by default.

- Do you have any plans to expand the text box for messages and also the space in which the messages are shown? Like scaling the text formatting to occupy more of the screen - at 1080p resolution, half of the screen is just blank. Right now both the text, videos, images and comments only appear at the left side of the screen, while the right side is completely empty, which is somewhat jarring, to say the least. This would also make the pages' height be shorter, have a much more condensed and unified look, less scrolling as well. Just benefits, really.

- Will you allow users to be able to use the old version's look in case they don't like the new version's look? If you need an example, think of how Reddit has the new version and the old version - to access the old version, you just need to change "www" to "old". Many sites do this, though depending on the code underneath, it might be too much of a hassle to keep both versions available.

- Last, but not least, do you guys have a release date/window in mind?

I can't think of anything else atm, will post if I think of anything else and the new site version is at a point in which you guys can discuss and answer more questions.

@Driftwood:

Thanks for the review.

Unfortunately, this game isn't worth the asking price, more like $20, which will most likely happen in a few months. The game has a lot of issues, design wise and technical wise, from all the comments in the Steam forums. Which is why it has a "Mixed (68% Positive)" on Steam.

As for Gamersyde's v3 site, it's hard to judge the design from those images, I really like the Verdict section with the more pronounced and colorful pros and cons, but you might want to extend the yellow underline below "Verdict" to cover the whole word, to give a more cohesive look.

Another suggestion would be to have the box surrounding the Verdict's text and the plus and cons be more darker in the Dark theme, and have one for the Light theme. Also add the colorful backgrounds of the pros and cons sections to the Light theme.

Aside from that, looks good. Just a few questions:

- Any chance you can share more images, or maybe even make a video of how it is to navigate through the site in both themes, if it's ready for that? If you guys are open to it, we could help with suggestions on the look and functionalities, things that we want and things we end up not liking.

- Do you plan to allow for much more customization options in both look and functionality? A few good examples would be to expand the filters section to include Genres, give the option to be able to show or hide user's avatars, choose the text color, etc.

- I'm not sure if you guys have any plans for it, but the "Community videos" section could use a lot more attention, like having the last 10 videos submitted displayed in the main page and maybe even in the subpages - with an option to disable it for the subpages, though it should be visible by default.

- Do you have any plans to expand the text box for messages and also the space in which the messages are shown? Like scaling the text formatting to occupy more of the screen - at 1080p resolution, half of the screen is just blank. Right now both the text, videos, images and comments only appear at the left side of the screen, while the right side is completely empty, which is somewhat jarring, to say the least. This would also make the pages' height be shorter, have a much more condensed and unified look, less scrolling as well. Just benefits, really.

- Will you allow users to be able to use the old version's look in case they don't like the new version's look? If you need an example, think of how Reddit has the new version and the old version - to access the old version, you just need to change "www" to "old". Many sites do this, though depending on the code underneath, it might be too much of a hassle to keep both versions available.

- Last, but not least, do you guys have a release date/window in mind?

I can't think of anything else atm, will post if I think of anything else and the new site version is at a point in which you guys can discuss and answer more questions.

Driftwood

Commented on 2018-10-30 16:17:54 In reply to Sdarts

The community section will just go, it's useless. As for the rest you'll see when it's done, but no there won't be any going back to the old version, it's a total revamp of the website with responsive design.

KORNdog

Commented on 2018-10-30 16:40:38 In reply to Driftwood

Posted by Driftwood

i just clicked on the community section for what i think is the first time and it was only because you just mentioned it being there. probably for the best to get rid of it.