Thirteen years ago, it was the year 2006. Thirteen years ago, a little game named Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth fell into my Steam library - and has sat there ever since, pretty much unplayed. It is still there to this day, and that's a shame, because thirteen years does an incredible amount of damage to a game.
First, look at this screenshot:
This is from the very start of the game - and you can see just how far technology has come in gaming in that time - and this is certainly not a game that has aged well. Firstly, when you go to run the game, you're asked to installed Windows Media Play 9 codecs, which Windows 10 itself warns you against doing due to security vulnerabilities in the ancient codecs.
Then, when you load up the game itself and enter the main menu, you see this:
This is what age does do a game. I'm fairly certain that wouldn't have been the original menu back in 2006. One thing is for certain, and I'm repeating myself here - this game did not age elegantly.
It is a further shame then, when you crank the resolution to 4K, obtaining a steady 375 frames per second on a 1080ti, that the game has a horrendous time of remaining stable - crashing into every obstacle possible, like a formula one car in a blizzard on a frozen road.
The game had repeated crashes to desktop which I was not able to resolve, which means that this review is short, sweet, and brief. A missed gem in the crowning jewels of my Steam collection? Or a title that will collect its own form of dust in the Dark Corners of my Steam Library?
The later. I can't say anything fair about this game because for all my attempts, I could not get it to run successfully, or in a stable manner for any length of time that gave me a chance to delve into the title. It is a shame, because good horror games are few and far between.