The final episode of our Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Game Club arrives on time. Here we discuss the final portion of the game, starting with Devil’s Reef and concluding with…well…the conclusion. On top of discussing the game overall we announce the winners of our Cthulhu giveaway, as well as the next Game Club game: Bully.
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To purchase Bully from Amazon please go here.
To see the trailer to the canceled Cthulhu game go here.
To see Fishmen the Musical go here.
Splendid.
Bully is something I’m willing to play for a third time, for sure. That’s the best GTA game Rockstar ever made. Tragic that they didn’t take it any further than a 360 port.
Speaking of which, if you’re planning on getting it, everyone, get the 360 Scholarship Edition version — on top of the obviously better visuals and availability, it runs the smoothest out of all of the iterations. The PC version is an unstable port of the Scholarship Edition, but it’s $30 on Steam if you’re desperate/without PS2/360.
I totally forgot it came out for the Wii! There’s new classes/multiplayer in the 360/Wii/PC version too, if I’m not mistaken.
For Canadians, here’s the Amazon.ca listings:
Bully SE (Xbox 360) http://tinyurl.com/Bully360
Bully (PS2) http://tinyurl.com/BullyPS2
Bully SE (Wii, USED/SELLERS) http://tinyurl.com/BullyWii
Ohhh, awesome! I’ve never actually played Bully. The game is damn cheap now so I might pick it up. Can’t wait for the show.
Just a quick note: When one of you said (about Dagon and Hydra) “They’re just like a big fishperson” you were more right than you knew. Dagon and Hydra are not minor gods – they’re actually just the most senior Deep Ones. Completely Mortal.
On the opposite side, the Mini-Cthulhus you face twice (?)are Star Spawn – they’re one of the few “supernatural” enemies, which is why they can’t just simply be shot.
PS.: The unofficial Call of Cthulhu patch/trainer has a checkbox “always enable extended ending”.
I redid the cover for episode one to match the other episodes. http://img22.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rebelfmgcep1.jpg
I’m a bit behind so im gonna play the hell outta it to finish before you start on bully. I just orderd bully from amazon for £7 (that includes P&P), brand new for PC. I must say it didnt look like a game id be into when it came out, but this podcast makes me wanna try different games out. Also my friend said he really enjoyed it on the ps2.
Question, Do you guys get Amazon monies if I buy the game from your link? Does it matter what version or used/new condition? Let me know because I’d love to support you if possible. Thanks.
oh man, just finished with the episode. Ryan’s story about the final section of the game was epic. friggin hilarious~! i wish you guys made a CO-OP episode of Ryan playing that part, LOL! good stuff.
Ok, seriously, I don’t know if anyone’s said this before, but Antony’s voice makes him sound so damn cute. I love listening to the podcasts, but hearing him talk always a little bonus. Now carry on with your lives and pretend I never said this.
Hey guys, just listened to the last episode of CoC backlog and as always, it was great.
I heard a couple of you guys talking about how you would like the game much better if it were a purely investigative/adventure fare with some actually passable QA. Well, that game exists. It’s called “Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened” and although it actually managed to get less attention upon it’s release than DCotE did, it’s arguably the better game. It may not have the dripping atmosphere of DCotE, but it seamlessly blends the feel of a Sherlock Holmes mystery with the deep mythology of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu stories.
Keep up the great work!
I think it would be awesome if 2-3 of you would do something like http://tinyurl.com/cz4ugq for the game club games. For Persona 4 they play for a long time a few days a week but publish a clip every day a week. I don’t necessarily want to get and play these games you play but I’d love to be able to follow along video-style. I hope you consider it, I think other people would enjoy this too.
There were some terrific Chthulu DCOTHE videos prior to the game coming out many years ago, showed of some experimental game play that frankly blew me away at the time… If I can find them I’ll have to post them up.
I’m so glad I didn’t have to suffer through this game like you guys did, but it was fun listening to you talking about the experience. I quit before I got out of Innsmouth, it was just too buggy and poorly executed.
It feels like Dark Corners of the Earth is the antithesis to the Valve games, knowing how much thought and work they put into them.
The Fishmen link seems to be aimed at the Destiny’s End trailer. If we’re thinking of the same video the real link should be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tTHn2tHhcI
After finishing the boat I decided that I wouldn’t play any more of the game and from what I heard on episode 4 I made the right decision. The best the game had to offer comes and goes by the time you get to Dagon. I’m looking forward to Bully though.
Thats exactly when i decided to call it a day too. If they had the time and money to finish the game properly it would have probably been playable (to me) to the end but it just got a bit annoying. I watched the ending on youtube, not great.. I agree with the guys tho, the innsmouth section was alot of fun and creepy. i guess i wanted it to be as interesting as that in other areas but it just turned into a lame run and gun.
Ugh… I just decided to give up trying to escape from Innsmouth. The fish men have beaten me… well, at least beaten my ability to stay interested. Strangely, it’s one of the few games I’ve played where it’s the gameplay that turned me off and not the story – if it wasn’t for the story I would’ve given up AGES ago.
Don’t like the stealth bits, don’t like the shooting bits.
I think I’ll finally listen to Game Club episodes 2 onwards, now that I’ve stopped playing.
I’m gonna skip Bully too, but that’s cool – gives me a chance to catch up on the other half-finished games I’ve got going.
I posted my full thoughts on the game on my website. Click my name to read it!
Summary: good horror story, horrible game.
I listened to the final episode of Game Club before completely finishing the game. I played via XBox 360 backwards compatibility. With the discussion of the broken ending, I almost didn’t even try to finish the game. However, I was able to get the ending sequence to trigger. Here are the steps that worked for me. After running through all of the falling boulders and passing through the cave that previously had the gates blocking it, continue on to the left to the final stand requiring the crystal but continue past it to the green arch door. “Look” at the door (press A) so Jack makes his statement about the door. Go back to the stand the with crystal and “look” at it, triggering the message. Finally, use the crystal in your inventory. This allowed the prayer to recite completely for me. I did die once heading to the green door after completing the prayer but the second time, it allowed me through to see the ending. (Rank D, 94% complete….with heavy FAQ use toward the end)
Listen cats,
Tip: if you get bully for the PC and have Vista and more than 2 gig of ram, you get problems. Run MSCONFIG, and enter your BOOT tab. Under advanced options, set your max RAM to 2000. After this, the game runs like a charm, no problems with loads or texture pop-ins. Enjoy!
So I finally finished Cthulhu and listened to the last episode of the Game Club. This was a great experience. I had followed the old Backlog show on 1UP for Psychonauts, Indigo Prophecy, and Shadow of the Colossus, but this was the first time I played along week to week. It was a lot of fun and great to hear what other people thought about the various elements of a specific game. It is great to find out how other people experience the same game. It effectively reveals how games provide a multitude of different experiences.
My thoughts on Cthulhu:
It was an excellent game that definitely got weaker by the end (too much focus on shooting and a lack of adventure elements). I usually don’t like horror games, but I stuck with this one and found it very entertaining and satisfying (yes, the big electric charge weapon at the end was awesome).
I got the short ending and watched the extended ending on YouTube later. I wanted a bit more info on the Yithians and maybe something about the cult Jack first encountered at the beginning of the game. Why did the cultists know Jack? Was it because of his “father”? I assume so.
Did anyone else laugh at the end when you hear Hoover’s voice when he finds you (in the masion, I assume)? What happens with Hoover and the FBI investigation into Innsmouth? Was there a big cover up? Did Hoover have to send a team underground to clean up Hydra’s remains (reprocessed into Fillet O’ Fish sandwiches)? I had so many questions.
The gameplay was fussy throughout. This engine was obviously not made for a shooter, but it was functional (except for bolting doors). I played on an original Xbox with a retail disc and found no game-ending bugs (not even the final rock slide bug that caught Ryan).
I bought the game two years ago when I found it on sale at Game Stop. I heard good things about it, but never opened the game until the Game Club chose it. Thanks for picking this one. I think the publishers of these games should sponsor your podcast since you drive an audience to games that may have been sitting untouched on Steam or Direct 2 Drive or elsewhere for months or years. I had a great time and I hope you continue with the Game Club in the future.
P.S. I probably won’t play Bully for the next Game Club, but I’ll listen.
P.P.S. I finally got a copy of Ico. That game is really hard to find, but I think it would be great for a future Game Club (hint, hint).
I wish they’d do something like Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders for a gameclub episode. That was one if the best and most overlooked games of last gen.
I don’t know why I’m posting my Call of Cthulhu thoughts so late. This was the first game I started playing along with Game Club on, and I had some severe problems with my PC, and actually held off on listening to the podcasts until I could catch up myself.
And ugh, just ugh. I have this visual in my head of a bunch of guys at Bethedsa. They are all looking at each other, realizing how much work they had put into this ambitious game that was still incomplete after so very long in development. The marketing guy turns to the Lead Designer and says “Take 6 months, polish up the first half, and then just leave the last bit as is. Critics probably won’t play far enough for the game to fall apart, and just make the game so frustrating near the end that no one bothers to realize how broken the design is.”
Everything from the boat onwards is just shit. The chase with the water creatures, terrible trial and error. They big boss fight on the boat, buggy, with weird hit detection on the rings. Devil’s Reef, broken stupid puzzels and instant death pitfalls. The final ruins area, shitty stealth with sporadic AI, illogical obtuse puzzles and terrible bosses. On those two giant fucking cancer creatures I killed them both THREE FUCKING TIMES and each time the game glitched me into a wall so I couldn’t move on. The final boss.. had the same problem as Matt did, couldn’t beat the woman, since I couldn’t hit the buttons. Oh and by the way, when she roars, at least in my buggy state, no change in animation. So I give up and download a youtube video of the illogical random ending which is entirely disconnected with the events of the game.
This game is unfinished. It’s obvious all their time and money went into the pretty excellent first half of the game. I have absolutely no idea why I didn’t just quit. The podcast, with all of the rants, almost makes up for my pain.
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