Picture Cthulhu and his tentacled cohorts, dark and dreaming beneath the waves. H.P. Lovecraft’s crooked astral vistas - wrought out of cosmic despair, fear of the unknown, and his racism - have saturated games for better and worse. As hypnotic as his nightmare visions are, the same tropes regurgitated at face value have become dry and tired. It’s been done, and it’s steeped in its author's bigotry.
Which makes recently re-released text adventure Anchorhead a rare game: one that takes the mantle of Lovecraft and forms it into something more than the sum of its sticky, sprawling parts.
]]>There are weeks when the Steam Charts surprise us! There are weeks when interesting new and old games reappear, pushing out the dreary regulars! And then mostly there are weeks like this one, where it's so depressingly bland that it starts raining outside the moment you glance at it. Not good rain, just bland drizzle.
]]>I played the first three hours of Call of Cthulhu, and in my unconventional preview after the fact I said that I liked exploring the docks and talking to grizzled locals and detectoring my way through problems. At the end of the preview you reach the bit where you find the cult, and you totally know what’s up, but your character Edward Pierce has no idea. He just gets chased out of a cave. And I said:
“The worry would be that, having discovered the Cult Of Cthulhu is a thing, the game becomes more scripted chases than it is grumbling around with the locals.”
Well, fate makes fools of us all. As Edward Pierce would tell you.
]]>Whew, Thursday already? How did we get here? For those of you who enjoy our video matinees, or for those who didn’t even know we had a YouTube channel (you can subscribe here, by the way), here’s this week's. Yeah it’s a bit late, but we’ve been pretty busy -- you’ll see why on Friday -- and Matthew’s off trying not to get killed in the Scottish highlands. If we're ever super late with an update or matinee, you can always check out our video corner on the site, which is updated every time we post a new video to YouTube, especially useful if YouTube isn’t your thing, but Rock Paper Shotgun is.
]]>"95% of the game is characters talking to each other and solving problems", says Call Of Cthulhu pressman Ben Barrett in this stream of its first hour. I didn't expect to kick off Monday by wishing the real world was more like a Lovecraftian horror detective RPG, but here we are.
]]>Lovecraft seems to be the theme du jour at the moment. 2018 trends: pair tailored suits and details inspired by fetish wear with cosmic horror and old school '20s racism. I saw probably the two most prominent games inspired by Lovecraft at Gamescom, Frogwares' The Sinking City and Cyanide's Call of Cthulhu (though there were others, including a turn based, tactical affair called Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones). I was going to do separate posts about them, but then I realised I would just be reusing the same jokes about Lovecraft. So instead I'm going to smash them together, and make them fight in a playground in my own head.
]]>Round Christmastime, it's a tradition in my family to play Don't Wake The Dreamer by tiptoeing around an uncle sleeping off the sherry in an armchair. You don't want to know what happens when the Dreamer awakens. Perhaps inspired by this, as well as the stories of a hippy named Happy Lovecraft who was obsessed with higher powers in the stars, Cyanide Studio will deliver a similar game in time for the year's actual best celebration, Halloween. Their investigate-o-RPG Call Of Cthulhu will launch on October 30th, they announced yesterday. Be careful when navigating the rustling maze of Cadbury Heroes wrappers around Cthulhu's feet.
]]>Maybe it's because we've done this dance a hundred times already, or maybe because it's based directly on the pen-and-paper RPG that brought Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos into the gaming sphere, but the E3 trailer for Cyanide's Call of Cthulhu feels very familiar. Dire prophecies, flickering torchlight, lots of sickly blue-greens in its palette are all present and correct, and while on some level I feel I've seen it all before now, it's almost a little comforting. Take a peek at it for yourself within.
]]>Right near the beginning of the Call of Cthulhu [official site] hands-off demo I saw last week, an angry caretaker confronts the player character. Suddenly Lovecraft Country felt a bit Scooby Doo. The game's central mystery, or at least its initial hook, centres around a family who died when an accidental fire raged through their massive island home. Old man caretaker doesn't think you should be poking around inside.
Once you do get inside, there are clues to investigate, unnerving paintings to shatter your sanity, and monsters to hide from. It's the caretaker that sticks with me though, and that gives the clearest impression as to how the whole thing might play out.
]]>I am glad to see that no one punches a shoggoth in the eyes in the new trailer for Cyanide's Call of Cthulhu [official site], neither does our hero quip "I know your da sells Avon so what's your excuse?" nor rack a shotgun and declare "It's time to kick ass and take names, but I'm not sure if you prefer 'Shub-Niggurath' or 'The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young' or...?" No, generally the private eye investigating a mysterious murder on a misty island mostly seems to be losing his mind, as well he should when encountering forces from beyond the stars. Have a look:
]]>As Old Father Time grabs his sickle and prepares to take ailing 2016 around the back of the barn for a big sleep, we're looking to the future. The mewling pup that goes by the name 2017 will come into the world soon and we must prepare ourselves for its arrival. Here at RPS, our preparations come in the form of this enormous preview feature, which contains details on more than a hundred of the exciting games that are coming our way over the next twelve months. 2016 was a good one - in the world of games at least - but, ever the optimists, we're hoping next year will be even better.
]]>So... 2016. (FX: 'Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh....') It's not been the greatest of years, from just about every celebrity you might have loved deciding to peg it, to America electing the Curious Orange. As far as RPGs go, it's also been fairly quiet, thanks to lots of stuff deciding to stay in the oven for a few more months. That's not to say we've had nothing, not least Early Access versions of many of these games. Awards are coming later this month! But in terms of big, BIG, BIG releases, it's been kinda quiet. Next year though? Whoooo-boy, do we have a lot of awesome stuff on the way. Here are some of my picks for the games I'm most excited to get my hands on in 2017.
]]>Here's a pleasing combination of words: Lovecraftian open-world investigation. Roaming around a town where something unspeakable is afoot, trying to solve the mystery without ending up a gibbering wreck? That'll do for me. That's The Sinking City [official site], newly announced by Frogwares. The Ukranian studio, best known for their Sherlock Holmes investigate 'em ups, had been working on a Call of Cthulu game for publisher Focus Home but... well, another studio is doing that. But! Now Frogwares have their own Lovecraftian game, and this does actually look more interesting.
]]>Iä! Iä! I, ah, I told him "That's no Deep One, that's my wife!" Oh, you should've seen his face! For strange aeons afterwards, he couldn't look me in the myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over my front! Anyway, where were we - the Call of Cthulhu [official site] game?
We'd not heard much from the game since its announcement in 2014, and even then we knew little about it. Surprise! Here come new screenshots, details, and word that Call of Cthulhu is due out in 2017. Expect stealthy investigation.
]]>I just can't work out what this product announcement from Focus Interactive is about. It's called 'Call of Cthulhu: The Videogame', which is far too cryptic and oblique to be of any use. What even is it - a book, a game, a film, a museum? And whatever is it about? Jane Eyre? Vampires? Bears? Vampire Jane Bear? WE NEED MORE INFORMATION.
Or perhaps - and I'm taking a wild shot in the dark here - it's a videogame based on Call of Cthulhu? No, you're right, it's too much of a reach.
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