Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet

SoC is a third person adventure game, the story, while going in its own direction, seems to be at least partially inspired or based on a combination of two of Lovecraft's short stories, namely The Shadow Over Innsmouth and "The Dunwich Horror." The controls are slightly unusual and odd but not difficult to master. In the CD version it does have full mouse support although a certain amount of using the keyboard is still required (its faster if you need to interact with something due to the short cut keys, and sometimes you do need to move/act quickly, other times mouse it better for accuracy or careful movement around danger) While the disk version was keyboard only I believe. But I soon got used to switching between the mouse and keyboard and using both. Compared so some of the modern day horror games you wouldn't think an old 1994 VGA graphics game could be that atmospheric or scary.. but atmosphere and graphics (for its time) especially the character portraits and backgrounds ..not so much the other animations, and I found it genuinely creepy the first time I played it (although it starts out gently enough)and even when I replayed it with my sister watching in my late teens/early twenties it still managed to make us jump a couple of times. The game is pretty linear but has a good storyline, and I also like the voice acting in the CD version. Soundtrack fits well too. It's very atmospheric for a game of it's age, and does a good job of pulling the player into the story. It's a reasonably challenging game although a little unintuitive in places as some sections will probably have you reaching for a walkthrough. This game has remained one of my favourites and is one I've replayed on occasion, not perfect but still good and despite its flaws well worth checking out if you enjoy both old school adventure games and the cthulhu mythos (or even just horror in general) . Happy this game has finally made it on to GOG :)

Great adventure, good story, super retro game.

Objective Review 6 of 5 must play. 5 of 5 great story great gameplay. 4 of 5 great story average gameplay. 3 of 5 average story great gameplay. 2 of 5 play only if it's your favorite genre. 1 of 5 play if you have nothing better to do. 0 of 5 play if you're a masochist -1 of 5 avoid Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet score is 0 of 5. Subjective Review Yes I did finish this game, and yes there are parts that really shine, in spite of its age. But man oh man, it was extremely cumbersome at times. Make sure you save a game before dialogue choices, and title it so you know where you were at in the story, then continue play. So many times I had to retry parts because I chose the wrong answers to the NPC conversations, which resulted in a dead-end, but I didn't know. It was only when I finally got bored walking around I suspected something. So if like I did, you find yourself wandering and wondering why the story is not proceeding, go back to that "save" and answer differently. Then take a walk with your character to every part of the town, and see if something has changed to progress the story. If not, go back and try a different answer. Also, if you open a drawer, or chest, whatever, move your character until you see the dotted "view line". I opened a chest, but the view line didn't appear, so I thought the chest was empty. Went awalkin' and couldn't figure out where some items were. Yep, they were back in that chest, but because the "view line" didn't appear, they remained there, unbeknownst to me. It was simply by accident that I returned to my room and found them. Oh, and there are parts where you better "save" as soon as you enter each room, or each branching cave, which sometimes will be every few minutes. I'd advise usage of the keyboard commands instead of the mouse for the whole game. So if you want a very serious challenge that at times is different than most, I whole-heartedly encourage you to give this one a go.

This is an amazing game Great story really put in right there. this is one no game fan should miss.

This is for sure the worst adventure game I have played so far. The graphics are admittedly very good, the music is catchy, but repetitive, the voice acting ranges from decent to completely rediculous, and the story is cheap Lovecraft fan fiction. Those things usually don't bother me too much, but the first big issue is the incoherent and awkward user interface. I understand that they wanted to create their own thing, but in a time in which Lucas Film Games and Sierra already figured out how to do it right, there is no excuse for such a fail. But by far the worst fail is the game design. The puzzles make sense for the most part, until the second quarter of the game. From then on the puzzles not only become pure guesswork, but also nonsensicle. I already got used to look the solutions up, but at some point I encountered a maze which was so convoluted, that no walkthrough could actually walk me through it. I quit and watched the last third of the game on YouTube, which was rediculous to watch. Oh, and there are many ways to die, and they occasionally make the game unsolvable if you choose a wrong dialog option - but don't tell you that. Again: Worst adventure game I have ever played.