Product Description

Mature, third-person horror adventure featuring 12 playable characters in a story that crosses the bounds of history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2803 in Video Games
• Brand: Silicon Knights
• Released on: 2002-06-24
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platform: GameCube
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.co.uk
It's often argued that Nintendo makes the best video games in the world, but one thing the company isn't known for is scary games. If you thought Luigi's Mansion was frightening, then quite frankly you've led a sheltered life. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, however, is the real deal: it's scary, it's gory, and it's really nothing like Resident Evil at all.

The game starts when you find out your grandfather has had his clogs popped by some unspeakable monster. While rummaging through his stuff (alone, at night, in his huge mansion) you come across a jolly little hardback called The Tome of Eternal Darkness, and upon reading it you suddenly find yourself controlling a Roman centurion in 26 B.C. Persia. And this is how the game continues--you find and read a passage of the book in the mansion and then control a series of 11 completely different characters over the course of two millennia.

Apart from the innovative structure of the game, the other big selling points of Eternal Darkness are its sanity effects--every time you see a monster and fail to kill it your sanity level will drop. If it drops too far, you start seeing things: flies walking along the inside of your screen, messages telling you your controller is unplugged when it clearly isn't, and all sorts of other clever freakery.

The game's not perfect, though; the combat is a little too fiddly, and it's still not quite as scary as Silent Hill, but Eternal Darkness is an unusual and rewarding title that should finally shut up those annoying twerps that insist Nintendo only makes games for kids. --David Jenkins

Amazon.com E3 Game Preview
Eternal Darkness infuses the survival-horror genre with loads of fresh ideas and visuals. For example, it appears from the demo that in lieu of playing through location-based game levels, players will mark the game's progression by playing 13 different characters whose lives span 2,000 years of history, starting with a Roman centurion and culminating with a modern heroine. Nintendo didn't reveal too much of the story connecting these characters, other than saying that each represents a different point in the lineage of one seemingly cursed family.

Players will not only gauge their characters' status through health and magic meters, but they'll also watch a "sanity" meter. When the sanity level drops, the character is affected in subtle ways--sometimes becoming clumsy or suffering poor aim. Substantial losses in sanity can provoke playable hallucinations in the character. In one demonstration, the character walked into a room and started losing pieces of her body: her head fell off first, then an arm and a leg. A dissolve showed that she never really went into the room at all, but was stuck in a daydream. The preview we saw was polished with detailed lighting effects, a dynamic camera scheme, and dissolving status bars, all of which helped us forget it was only a game. --Porter B. Hall

See more of Amazon.com's E3 game previews.

Customer Reviews

One of the most engrossing games for serious gamers.
The opinions I've read below on this game seem to be about 80% who absolutely love it and 20% who hate it, and as far as I can tell the people who hate it are either young children who can't appreciate anything other than a hack-n-slash gorefest, folks who prefer shallow, poorly constructed games such as Resident Evil, or worst of all, people who only played it for five minutes or not at all. I fall in with those who love it.

Eternal Darkness didn't get the promotion or the acclaim it deserved when it came out, but don't let that fool you. It's still one of the best games on any of the current generation of consoles, hands down.

This game is all about mood. Play it at night with all the lights out. Everything from the lighting to the ambient sounds is designed to establish a creepy feeling, and it really hits home in several key parts, especially when your sanity meter is running low.

Ah, the sanity meter. Yes, it's every bit as crazy as you've read. One reviewer wrote that there are only 10 different insanity effects. He most likely avoided going insane most of the way through the game, because the truth is there are around 100 different effects, ranging from minor things you'll barely notice to "What the...?" I won't spoil them for you, as they're one of the best parts of the game.

It's got a compelling storyline and a mythos based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. You control 13 different playable characters who all exist at different points in history. Although there are really only 4 different stages, each of which is repeated a few times by different characters, the stages do change from one visit to the next, sometimes making them very different places from last time you saw them.

The gameplay itself involves navigating through the stages with one of the characters, encountering several types of creatures, and solving puzzles. The combat system gives each character several different weapons, including close-range, long-range and projectile combat. You can target different areas on a creature's body, some more effective than others. There is also a highly satisfying magic-casting system where you combine sets of runes to make new spells.

You may notice in other reviews that some claim the game is way too easy, while others say it's too hard. Some also said the game is too short. What happens is, at the beginning of the game there are three different branches you can take in the story, and these dictate the difficulty of your quest as well as the creatures you encounter, including a completely different mid-game boss creature in each branch. However, once you complete the game once, you can go back and start again with one of the other possible stories, and when you complete all three you are treated to a special ending.

If you're looking for a quick fix shoot-em-up scare-me bloodfest, don't bother. If you're looking for a disturbing and riveting game that will stay with you long after you turn off your GameCube, don't let this one pass you by!

Waiting for a Call of Cthulhu video game? Look no further..
There have been quite a few attempts at video games based upon Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, but they never seem to make it to the market. Although Eternal Darkness is set within its own little universe, it borrows heavily from the mythos, and Lovecraft's influence is readily apparent.

The game begins when your character, Alexandra Roivas, decides to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding her grandfather's death at their ancestral mansion. Through an absolutely brilliant plot device, the player is able to take control of many of Alex's ancestors from ages past and several other characters from all over the world. Each of these chapters help the player piece together the mystery and reveal the hidden agenda of a group of extremely powerful and malevolent entities.

Gameplay is very smooth. Holding down one controller button allows you to lock on an enemy target, and with a flick of the control stick you can aim at specific body parts. Some baddies fall when they are decapitated, some you have to take apart limb by limb before they will fall. As with most third person games, camera angles are fixed and sometimes problematic, as you may find yourself being disembowled by some horror just off screen.

Combat is relatively well balanced, and the puzzles in the game find a way to be interesting without being terribly difficult. the graphics are quite good, many monsters can be on the screen without any noticeable slowdown. The monsters themselves are quite detailed and look great, but they don't vary a whole lot towards the earlier part of the game.

The magic system is very cool. You must find runes of power hidden throughout the game (often inside of monsters). Each rune corresponds to an alignment, an effect, and a target. By mixing and matching the runes, you can create many different spells. There's also a large variety of mundane weaponry to collect and to toss a beating with.

Each of the characters you control seem to have their own strengths and weaknesses. Some are excellent melee fighters, some excel at throwing spells. Some have a ton of health, while others are quite fragile.

By far the coolest aspect of the game (and the part that perhaps owes more than a little to Chaosim's Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game) is the sanity system. Everytime you undergo something hideously supernatural, you lose a little bit of your mind as you struggle to grasp the situation. This manifests as hallucinations, both visual and audial. You may get an unexpected phone call, or have a horrible vision of your own demise. This effect is truly very creepy. I've already had statues come to life and watch me cross an empty hallway. I've seen walls bleed, and bugs crawl across my television screen. There are several ways to regain your sanity, but sometimes it's just fun letting it fall a little bit to see how creepy things can really get.

Resident Evil may have been an inspiration for Eternal Darkness, but it is a poor comparison. This game is truly a wonder to experience, and definitely a killer title for the GC. It's worth every penny.

(in)sanity
i chose to get a gamecube rather than one of the other systems because of this game (and mario sunshine). having now played eternal darkness makes me realize i made the right decision. the graphics are excellent, the sound amazing and the story totally involving. it's the little details that make the difference; when you're walking on hardwood then walk on carpet the sound of your steps changes accordingly.

the best part is the gameplay. the menus are intuitive and moving around is not a chore like it is with resident evil. i was able to put it in and start playing without wading through a manual to learn the basics.

it starts out slowly; i was concerned that it would be too easy and uninteresting. by the time you have completed the first couple of tasks with the first few characters the gameplay becomes a lot more involving and difficult.

the sanity meter makes the game. when you face certain zombies they lower your sanity level; you can regain some of it back by killing them- but not all. once you're near the end of your sanity blood will start dripping on the floor, the camera angle will be tilted and the background effects become more spooky. the rest of the insanity effects i'll leave for you to experience first hand. you start to doubt your gameplay and, oddly, just after finishing up for the night i expected the same in real life- it's that surreal.

there are minor things one could take issue with, but then show me a game that is perfect. i can't recommend this game highly enough. there is a perfect balance between logic, exploring and fighting. this is all coming from someone who is not usually a fan of these types of games; i generally enjoy games like ssx tricky, super monkey ball and tony hawk 3.