Clod of Cthulhu: Introduction

The second thing that strikes one about Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, a horror videogame released some time ago, is that it’s really quite faithful to the mythos. It didn’t have to be; there was an excellent chance it’d be The Vaguely Horrorish Adventures of Splint Squarejaw, Detective and Cthulhu Wrangler. You’d gun down hordes of shoggoths with one hand and pimp-slap cultists with the other, chugging down health drinks like tonic water. At the end, you’d destroy Cthulhu and save the world forever. I’m impressed that this isn’t the case; it’s been true to the flavor of the Call of Cthulhu setting, and I think the game’s far more evocative for it.

Mind, the first thing that strikes one about the game is that the game’s protagonist is a slack-jawed, adle-pated stooge with a brain made out of green-bean casserole.

It’s not that I have a problem with DCotE’s storyline, per se. The story itself doesn’t drive me to the excesses of rage Mirror’s Edge inspired in me—it’s more or less competent, and has some nice touches to it. The story’s only failing is that it consists almost wholly of you trying to clean up after your character’s asshat mistakes.

I’m not just talking the occasional screwup or plot-mandated gaffe. I’m talking consistent, absurd, frankly pratfalling stupidity. This is a man who had to get work as a detective because he was too much of a cartoonish bumbler to join a vaudeville troupe. If you ask him to babysit, you will return to find out he’s has stolen your property, let in a pack of wild dogs, and accidentally dropped the baby into traffic when you live miles away from the nearest road. It’s not that he’s unlucky, it’s not that he’s put into bad situations, it’s that he’s dumber than a sack of stunned ducklings. He is oblivious, loud, clueless, and ignorant. In the context of the ultraperilous Call of Cthulhu setting, it almost makes for a very dark comedy, like if you inserted Inspector Clouseau into Se7en.

Why am I writing this series? A few reasons. Firstly, because the world needs to know how stupid the hero is. Secondly, because I wanted to talk about the Cthulhu setting and why it works, and that will come up fairly naturally in discussing this game. These two are my main priorities, and I will probably spend the most time on them.

Thirdly, I want to talk about the parts I like, since there are areas in this game that are quite well-handled. Fourthly, I want to talk about the parts I hate, because I like complaining like I like love itself.

Fifthly, I hate myself and I thought starting a brand new series was an excellent idea.

Before we can begin, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. A brief summary of the Cthulhu Mythos:

Chances are, if you’re on the internet, you’ve at least heard of the squidheaded bastard Cthulhu and his twisted murdering cultist posse. He’s in webcomics, other webcomics, fansites, parody sites, motivational posters, and miniature games. It’s one of those things where it’s really ubiquitous among nerd circles and almost unheard of outside them. I’d call it a cult classic, but I’ve already hit my death threat quota this week.

For those of you outside of the Church of Cthulhu, let me share with you the Bad News. Basically, Cthulhu (pronounced a dozen different ways, so just pick one) is this inconceivably ancient elder god, dreaming away these millennia in his long-forgotten home in the ocean’s depths. To look upon him is to have your sanity wilt away in an instant, to have your hope and reason replaced with the knowledge of your utter insignificance. When he awakens—not if, when—he will devour the souls of all mankind.

He’s not the only elder god, either. There are others. Some of them are worse.

Bottom line: we are nothing. We are doomed. There is nothing we can do to stop our annihilation. We are powerless beyond forces we cannot comprehend—merely attempting to comprehend them would drive us mad.

It’s pretty cheerful stuff.

Anyway, the setting is innovative, operates on an intellectual level, and traditionally implies more than its shows. In other words, it’s Hollywood poison. Any executive trying to bring it into the mainstream would be shot, and his corpse would be searched for loose change before placed in the background of Splint Squarejaw IV.

I’m hating on the film industry, but it’s not like first-person video games are bastions of intellectual themes and creative expression. All in all, it’s quite impressive that DCotE has preserved the setting as well as it has.

As for the game itself, it’s a mix of genres. It’s a little hard to classify, at first—it starts out as a straight adventure game, where you find clues and solve puzzles. You don’t have a weapon, there aren’t really any enemies—basically, it’s a game anybody’s grandma could play. It’s scary and atmospheric, and you get the sense you’re on the edge of something truly horrifying. The first scenes are tense and evocative.

Then it gets dangerous. You still don’t have a weapon, but you’ve got to evade enemies, sometimes by stealth and sometimes by getting the hell out of dodge in pulse-pounding chase sequences. It gets quite a bit scarier, and some of the most intense moments so far have occurred in this stage.

Then you get a weapon. Suddenly, stealth seems to take a backseat. Enemies are no longer easy to evade, and you end up fighting just about everyone whether you want to be sneaky or not. Since the game pretty much assumes you’re going to kill everyone, you lose your fear of your opponents—rightfully so, once you get a friggin’ Thompson. Suddenly, the game ain’t so scary anymore.

What’s consistent is that whatever your character is called upon to do, he will do it with the purposeful intellect of a confused squirrel. Join me as I study the many shoes Jack Walter is called upon to fill, and conclude, inevitably, that he is best suited to a pair of big red floppy ones.

He’s stupid, is what I’m saying.

Real stupid.