Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet

I'm not usually play a point'n click adventures, but now I decided as it's based on Lovecraft. This game is very climatic and gives you 1001 possibilities to die (by cultists, The Old Ones or simple traps). If you are not familiar with this kind of game I recommend a reading partially walkthrough when you stuck (and believe me - it's VERY easy). Despite the game has a great scenario and atmosphere it has a very diffucult controls and sometimes the usage of character skills is not triggering correctly (sometimes I couldn't look on the certain item/object because character stayed the one pixel from the border). I think that this game need to be remastered when the horrible controls will be fixed and music and graphic would be improved - then I could easily give a 5/5.

The game is rough in it's controls. Some aspects are fine, like how you automatically use equipped items on the right parts. However most interactable spots are not highlighted well. The game gets confusing towards the end. Vital inforamtion on the puzzles don't get written down in your journal. That's bad. You are confronted with the solutions only once and at first they only confuse you. There is no way to remember them at the right time. The atmosphere of the game is pretty nice. I liked most parts of the game. It is sometimes a hazzle to die suddenly. You can't forsee most of your deaths, so save often! Sometimes they come out of the blue. The end of the game is cringeworthy as an H.P. Lovecraft fan. Was that Goodbye-scene really necessary? That was for sure no Lovecraftian ending to a story. I would be happy about an 8bit remake with less clunky controls. That would be great!

I've had to look up walkthroughs / strategy guides to comfortably get through parts of this game, but overall I think this is a very intriguing and rare type of game you run into. This is the only Lovecraft game I know of that deserves praise. The developers nailed the atmosphere, characters, setting. You really get a lot of playtime for 6$. This will be remembered by me as one of my favorite games. The music isn't the most impressive, but it fits for this game and there were limitations with the technology. As the plot unfolds the more suspenseful it gets and you become a bit more used to the controls and puzzles. Others mainly complain about the controls because it's an old DOS game... most of those games back then had control schemes that were non-standard or a lot different from today, I found it intuitive enough to understand once I learned it. The game might come with a manual. Wasn't the biggest fan of the dungeon crawling, but it wasn't too bad.

Graphics is nice and there is a proper "atmosphere", interface is not that bad you will get used to it fairly quickly. There is fast movement, a journal and you can change animation speed. Problems are the puzzle design, some weird "escape from monsters" encounters, some deads end and bugs. My verdict if you really like Lovecraft buy it at discount and don't feel guilty to use a walkthrough when you need to. Really one of the puzzle you need the help of an external source for solving it (chatGpt in 2024, in 1993 no idea? A Library?)

This game nails the foreboding atmosphere of the works of Lovecraft. The main character arrives to the sleepy New England town of Illsmouth to photograph the passing of Halley's Comet, and also to discover why the photographer who tried to document the previous passing went mad. It doesn't take him long to scratch the surface and discover not everything is what it seems. This is a plot device used by many cult works, from Shadow over Innsmouth to Twin Peaks, and this game is among the best-executed examples. From the very beginning you can explore the entire town and the surrounding forest, which gives you a clever illusion of freedom, even though the plot itself is fairly linear, refusing to advance until you've done and witnessed everything you must. The sunny and relaxed atmosphere gradually gives way to suspense and dread as you discover the dark secrets of the town. Not too difficult, but there are points at which you might get stuck. At least the game features the sight mechanic that effectively removes the need for pixel hunting. I'm deducting one star for the clumsy controls – they really require getting used to. All the dialogues are voiced, with varying degrees of success. And there are some frustrating sequences in which a wrong move leads to the game over screen – like navigating a cave in pitch black darkness while avoiding a monster that roams there. Or the catacomb maze where all rooms look almost the same. Still, along with Dark Corners of the Earth (at least the first third), this game deserves to be on the pedestal of the best Chtulhu mythos games. Finally, a friendly advice: skip the Prisoner of Ice, a sequel to this game.