恩,今年XBOX要出COC的游戏了[Dark Corners of the Earth ]

[某瞎子]

It's about time gamers got the chance to sit down and play through a game steeped in the macabre world of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. It's long overdue. Lovecraft's literary works revolving around his cosmic and bizarre universe of other-worldly entities mingled in with turn of the century American culture is ripe with material that's perfect for an atmospheric and chilling digital tale. After a lengthy development cycle, U.K. developer Headfirst and U.S. publisher Bethesda Software are getting reasonably close to achieving this goal.


As a huge fan of Lovecraft's work and Chaosium's pen and paper RPG Call of Cthulhu, I've been waiting with much anticipation to see how Dark Corners of the Earth would unfold. I recently got some extended playtime with an early preview build of the Xbox version -- the game is also hitting PC -- and even though the current incarnation is still pretty rough, I'm pleased to report that the potential for excellence is still within Headfirst's grasp.

The story revolves around an ex-cop named Jack Walters. Jack is a regular kind of guy who gets called out to investigate some shootings at a local nut-house occupied by an order of cultists. After a gun-fight with the local law enforcement, Jack discovers that the leader of the cult has been logging and tracking his daily life -- it seems as though Jack is of interest to the cult. What sinister plot could be afoot? Sadly, Jack never really finds any answers to these questions and as the first chapter in the game closes, we're treated to an interlude which tells us how six long years have passed since the incident at the cultists hideout, and how Jack went mad and was incarcerated in the local insane asylum suffering from delusional visions and acute amnesia.

Being at a loss to know what to make of the last six years of his life, Jack is now a shadow of his former self, but as of late, he's been starting to get some eerie feelings of dread as slowly his memories from the past begin to return. On a side note, Jack decides to take an investigational job from a client who claims a young lad he knows has mysteriously gone missing in the small port-town of Innsmouth. Innsmouth is a strange inbred little place -- Lovecraft's short story The Shadow over Innsmouth proves as much -- and is the setting for an unearthly sinister plot that will ultimately lead Jack to his twisted destiny.



Unfortunately, the preview code provides a disjointed gameplay experience, so it's still difficult to know what the finished product will offer in terms of pacing and story delivery. Suffice it to say that Headfirst is well on track to capturing the essence of the horrors that lurk in the dark with some great sepia toned texture work and interesting character models. The locals of Innsmouth all have a rather fish-like quality to their voices, appearance and motion -- something which is very much inline with Lovecraft's stories.

Dark Corners of the Earth tries to buck the trend of traditional horror adventure games and provides the gamer with a very sparse set of interface options. There's no HUD to tell you when you've taken encounter damage and no magical health packs lying around with which to tend your wounds. Instead, the gamer will need to pay close attention to the physical responses of Jack and act accordingly. You'll be able to bandage key vital areas of his body when he's hurt, but don't expect Jack to deal well with getting shot in the chest, as it's likely to have fatal results.

That said, Jack is an ex-cop and knows his way around various blunt objects and simple firearms. He's also smart enough to know how to sneak around in order to avoid detection from enemies -- something which seems to play an important role in progression throughout the early stages of the game. The whole exploration and investigative aspect of DCotE seems to be well done at this point. Chatting with the locals of Innsmouth reveals their hatred of outsider interference and soon enough you'll start to feel as though you are meddling in affairs that should be left well alone.



In terms of technical prowess, DCotE is somewhat in danger of being a victim of its own long development cycle at this point. Sure, the preview code was a little sluggish in places, and fine in others, and while the character models and environments are fitting, I get the feeling that it's all starting to feel a little bit on the old side. Last year's The Chronicles of Riddick and the upcoming Xbox version of DOOM 3 really take the visuals of Microsoft's console to new heights, but maybe DCotE could and should be looking more impressive by now.

Aurally, the game is shaping up well. The current batch of voice-over work feels good and not amateurish. There's still placeholder text for the dialogue and the odd sound bug which causes sound to be either repeated over and over again, or lost completely, but on the whole, I think that the 1920s American "feel" of the game is being pulled off quite nicely.

I know that the deeper you go into the DCotE rabbit hole, the more intriguing and exciting the experience becomes. I'm literally going insane here -- no pun intended -- to get my hands on a more stable, complete version of the game because once the continuity and pacing aspects of the game are ironed out, I'm confident that even if the game doesn't look better than those visual stunners already out on Xbox, it will be able to provide an invigorating alternative to the Resident Evils and Silent Hills of the gaming community.



My advice to anyone interested in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is to hang in there and hope for the best. In the meantime you should track down some of Lovecraft's short stories and get reading. You'll get so much more out the game if you do. Not everything in this life is fluffy bunnies and laser rifles. There's a healthy serving of slimy tentacles and mental instability too. Stay tuned for more updates on Headfirst's potential winner as the coming months will hopefully deliver a stellar trip into the mouth of madness.


最后,不小心懒得翻译了.表怪我...

[Hussar]

你可真狠啊。。。。。


Call Of Cthulhu，我记得以前GameSpot翻译为《邪神召唤》？，该死的，这听起来跟一个花2美元就能在拐角小贩手里买到的一本不知道什么人写的用手感粗糙散发着书墨臭味的大概100来页的小册子一样倒霉。

Cthulhu是不能用中文表达的。。。这词甚至可以拿来做形容词用。

本作采用的FPS的设计，有点和《吸血鬼：避世血族》的方式差不多，但自由探索的范围更大，但是据说[我说的是据说！]，本作将作为一个资料片的系列的第一集出现，这是不是听起来很棒？或者你已经在心理咒骂制作者的黑心肠了？

作为一款桌面游戏规则改编的电脑游戏，COC和DND或者灰鹰那些改编的完全不一样，因为本作里完全可能没有太多的什么分支，隐藏物品或者要花上几个小时在城里来回转和无数人对话另外外加要在墓地里殴打老鼠来获得任务物品这种分支，游戏将完全按照一个主线来进行----[撕开这层布]，这就是你的任务。



就这副图来看，别以为这就是那个传说中的Cthulhu。。。[要是这样。。。召唤战斧和F22。。。。。]，这家伙应该是和cthulhu的护卫。。。甚至有可能是利耶之城的守护者，如果你能打到这里，就应该知道，你手里的那把柯尔特左轮其实就是一把能打火的电烟机器而已。。。

怎么消灭他？

好吧。。。要么你选择毁灭世界，要么你选择成为他的奴仆，其他的。。我不知道。。。

 

[qin]

就这副图来看，别以为这就是那个传说中的Cthulhu。。。[要是这样。。。召唤战斧和F22。。。。。]，这家伙应该是和cthulhu的护卫。。。甚至有可能是利耶之城的守护者，如果你能打到这里，就应该知道，你手里的那把柯尔特左轮其实就是一把能打火的电烟机器而已。。。

怎么消灭他？

好吧。。。要么你选择毁灭世界，要么你选择成为他的奴仆，其他的。。我不知道。。。

用Shining Trapezohedron砸他

[玖羽]

这种时候就要去寻求Cthugha或Hastur的协助啊……

Ph'nglui （中略） Cthugha！
Ia Ia Hastur！

当然会有很小的副作用，最多不过就是自己疯掉罢了……

那张图上的莫非是Dagon？

（战斧和F22？我觉得直接放核弹比较好……）