Clod of Cthulhu: The Love(craft) Boat
(Steam’s been a mother-hubbard lately, so I haven’t managed to get CoC reinstalled quite yet. This means today’s post is going to be a bit on the slim side. As soon as I’ve got the gameplay wrapped up, I’m just going to motor through the remainder in as few posts as possible. I mean, this series has provided ample snarking grounds, but I’m frankly getting a bit sick of thinking about the damn thing. Nearing time to put this series to bed.)
Last time, on Clod of Cthulhu, Jack managed to somehow end up in the freezing cold ocean waters. I guess the very short tunnel under the house led out all the way to the sea? Far enough out that a navy battleship managed to spot him and pick him up? Whatever. Point is, Jack’s been miraculously saved once again. Once again, this means that everyone who’s currently trying to help him will very shortly wind up dead.
Oh, alright, it’s not really Jack’s fault this time. The ship is heading out to…jeez, this isn’t really explained that well. I guess it’s sailing to assault Innsmouth? Except you sort of just came from Innsmouth, and the ship takes a long time to get there, whereas you clearly didn’t take that long to…actually, was that manor in Innsmouth? Or was it just on the outskirts? But still, that’d have to be shore of some kind, and we appear to be pretty far out to sea at the moment. You know, for such a basic plot point, it’s kind of impressive how little sense this makes.
Unsurprisingly, we’ve been on board for all of five minutes before a bunch of fish-monsters start flopping onto the deck and eviscerating crewmen. You’re allowed to participate in the battle for a short while, and then one of the crewmen with a Thompson runs low on ammo and asks you to run downstairs and get some more of it. If he had the foresight to have the Thompson on him, it probably would have been prudent to have some extra ammo in a slightly more accessible location, but I guess you’re probably not allowed to scatter ammo willy-nilly in the navy. I’ll let this slide.
Once you’ve fetched the guy’s ammo, he informs you that he sustained a bad leg wound while you were below decks, and now wants you to go fetch him an emergency medical kit from the infirmary. The *locked* infirmary, that neither of you have a key to—his instructions are to “find a way in.” This is how the conversation might have gone, had Jack an ounce of sense or purpose:
Henson: Okay, Jack, my leg is hurt real bad! I need you to go get me a medical kit from the infirmary.
Jack: Right, be right—wait a minute. You want me to leave this losing battle…
Henson: Right.
Jack: And go screw around below decks, attempting to circumvent securely-locked military-grade steel battleship doors…
Henson: Right.
Jack: To get you a medical kit?
Henson: My leg’s bleeding bad!
Jack: Setting aside the practicality of doing amateur surgery on the water-slicked deck of a battleship, on choppy seas, during a pitched melee…you need, what? Gauze? Sutures?
Henson: Yeah, so…
Jack: I am currently carrying sixteen of each. I have been systematically looting every first aid kit within state lines without any regard to proper owner, or even for the logistics of carrying it all. I could knit you a life-sized cloth doll of Dagon’s blessed mother using only the medical supplies I’ve stuffed in my breast pocket. Come to think of it, I’ve got a ton of Tommy gun ammo, too—don’t ask me where I’m carrying it, or how it survived the ocean water, but it’ll work just fine should I ever get my hands on a Tommy gun.
Henson: Look, I need my medkit, okay? Now go get it, or else I’ll bleed to death.
Jack: Then I’d like to take this opportunity to call dibs on your Tommy gun.
But no, you go below decks to get the supplies, and if it weren’t for the fishman who kindly knocks the door open from the inside you’d be stuck down there forever, staring at the locked door and humming to yourself while the fishmen tear the crew apart limb from limb.
Once you get the crewman his medkit, the fishmen attacks die down a bit, but the seas get much, much rougher. You actually have to seize onto railings occasionally, or else you take damage from the pitching of the ship. The game does helpfully inform you (via the time-honored forum of the loading screen) that steadying yourself against things will become necessary, but it doesn’t really specify what you can and can’t use, which lead to a lot of confusion early on. The first few times I’d throw myself against ladders and countertops, only to find out that by “things” it means “two sticky railings outside.” You know, those things were outside, so they’re probably drenched by now—I don’t know about you, but when I think of “good place to hold on while a ship pitches and tosses near vertically,” I don’t think, “wet, smooth, round metal bar.”
Anyway, the seas turn out to be choppy because there’s baddies way up ahead casting spells at you from the beach. One of the high-ranking crew members yells for you to go take the mounted gun and fire at the cultists, denoted by blue lights on the coastline. I’m really not sure why they want you to take control of the cannon—you’re literally the least-qualified person on the ship to be using naval armaments—but whatever, it’s an FPS, the protagonist has to do everything or it’s no fun.
This intro part doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s fast-paced, so you don’t really notice first time around. Really, the best you can hope for in this game is for a sequence to not initially irritate you.
As I recall (from another LP, not personal experience – I’m not that much of a masochist) the ship you’re on is actually heading to the reefs off the coast, where the people of Innsmouth make their annual sacrifices and whatnot.
Why the ‘reefs’ are an archipelago big enough to give Japan a run for its money I don’t know.
@Elbee: because they worship some kind of horrible goddish thing that has dominion over the lightless depths, and can occasionally prop up an island for a few of the faithful?
…somebody help, it’s almost making sense.
I thought the ship was headed for, minor spoiler, that sunken city Jack ends up in later on. I thought the Innsmouthians (Innsmouthers?) conducted their sacrifices on that reef Jack fell off of at the end of the last update.
Also, hang fast, Rutskarn. The end is almost nigh.
Okay, so I’ve been playing this just ahead of your updates. This is the first level I’ve actually started to enjoy, logic problems notwithstanding (I literally yelled at the screen, “I have five first aid kits strapped to my person, take one!!” when the officer asked me to go hunting around below decks).
But anyway, unique atmosphere, interesting effects, this is fun! Oh, I get to use the main gun to blast cultists on the shore? Sure! … Uhm, what cultists? What shore? Is this thing working right?
I quick trip to google and I find that I have the not-very-rare-at-all bug that, on certain system configurations, neither cultists nor blue lights show up. At all. I got misty fog and far off mountains. There is no known fix.
Gaaaaahhhhhhh!
I find a save game online from just after the cultist blasting and continue. At this point, I am pretty sure I am actually insane. Not the character of Jack, but me.
Not to play the nit-picky jerkass, but TheElbee and Jarenth are correct, the Coastguard cutter is coordinating an attack on the city, which is below and in the reef, with a navy submarine you see later.
As for the Marsh manor. It is on the outskirts of Innsmoth on a hill near the edge of the cliff the river you have to walk along to reach the secrect cave entrance empties into the Atlantic from. But this makes zero sense if you consider that the hole you fall into the ocean from is about fifty to a hundred feet under the manor. Meaning the current you fall into, presumably a subterranean outlet of the aforementioned river, is actually a hundred or so feet higher than its source… Maybe worshiping Cthulhu makes water flow uphill?
Did you accidentally put in the disk for an action game at some point? The survival horror seems to have disappeared in entirety.
I was wondering when you’d get around to using today’s title.
I love how they didn’t even bother to have the guy perhaps ask you for stuff you didn’t have. They decided a fetch quest needed to be had, picked options out of a hat, and didn’t even think about the fact that they picked both of the only 2 kinds of things Jack ever has in good supply.
Phase: If we are very kind, the “Survival Horror stuff” happens during the fetch quests. But basically it´s just Call of Duty starring fishmen.
To be fair, since by game logic Jack is not allowed to pick up other people’s guns, perhaps navy cremen are not able to use other people’s first aid kits.