A lot of areas of the game, particularly the visually darker ones, are freaking difficult to get around because I just can't see anything. In outdoor daylit areas, or in brightly-lit indoor areas, I'm fine, but outdoors at night can be a tad difficult, and dark indoor areas are barely playable. (Given that large chunks of the actual missions, like the important parts where you have to sneak around, fight, find stuff, etc., consist of dark indoor areas, this is really a problem.)
My monitor's brightness and contrast are both turned all the way up, so it's not that.

I don't see any brightness/gamma controls for the game, either in the video config options, nor in the in-game options. Is there any way to go about remedying this?

I am afraid you are out of luck.

I checked the registry keys the game look for while running and I found nothing related to brightness; it seems another mistake left from a hasty porting from the consoles.

However I found another (a part of NoBands) hidden setting: `TvMode' that make the whole game blurry and dreamy.


What video card do you have? Can you bypass the problem setting the gamma elsewhere? It might be that you have a poor gamma setting in the whole desktop.

If you are on Windows you can try this program:
http://entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

And follow this tutorial about gamma setting:
http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Gamma.htm

Integrated Intel GMA 915 (terrible, I know, and technically not a card since it's integrated).

I never saw any way of adjusting the gamma through the software though. Would that PowerStrip program work with my video processor?

Well, you are the one near the keyboard and the monitor.
I am afraid you have to try; I see no reason why I should not work however.

All right, I wound up not using PowerStrip because of a few things I read about it (changes stuff in the registry to add hotkeys for adjusting settings, which I don't want or need, plus it's shareware and comes up with a notification that would only go away with registration).

What I did wind up finding and using is a small program called Gamma Panel. It's a bit old, but it's just a few kilobytes, doesn't need to be installed, and works perfectly for what I need.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction -- I didn't know there was software like this that could let me adjust these settings. The game looks a lot better now.

Nice to hear. And thanks for mentioning "Gamma Panel"; it might be useful for other Windows users.

Did you use the Gamagic test panels? I found them fairly useful.

Personally I prefer this little free program:
QuickGamma
It's easy to use and very powerfull.

If you scroll down on this page you you should get a good overview on how to use the tool.
Monitor calibration and Gamma