Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness

If you're familiar with the developers of this, you probably already know exactly what you're in for gameplay wise. Very eerie and atmospheric, but at other times comedically jank. It feels like the development was maybe rushed toward the end, which is a shame because some of the more tense set pieces are top notch. Some story beats feel incomplete. Some puzzles are borderline nonsensical. Short, sweet, cheap, and in the end honestly worth the play if you enjoy first person point-and-clicks.

I remember playing Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness as a kid on the PS1, and the atmosphere honestly scared me back then — I didn’t even make it out of William’s house. Coming back to it now, it still holds up. The pre-rendered scenery looks really good, and the puzzles can be tough at first, but once you figure them out, they’re actually pretty interesting.

Some things aren't obvious, but it's all pretty interesting.

it's clunk and awkward - but funny

There's probably a janky-but-still-enjoyable game here ... but I guess I'll never find out because the mouse looking is completely broken. You'll be trying to position your cursor over, say, a door, but then the slightest mouse movement will launch itself like 45-degrees or more in the direction you're moving ... and then when you try to readjust yourself, it'll shoot back another 45-degrees. But then, it seems like in certain areas trying to look around is rediculously sluggish (and the sudden launching of where you're trying to look doesn't happen) it's like mouse sensitivity is turned off and looking around is a sluggish chore. I went to look for a mouse sensitivity option, but lo and behold, the game doesn't have an options menu. I can handle the dated graphics, the mediocre voice acting, and the really janky animations - Hell, that's part of the charm with games like this! But when you can't even control looking around, to the point where I'm getting mild motion sickness, that's where I draw the line.