Welcome to The Ten Reasons, where I discuss ten reasons why I like or dislike a game. But before I get started, the reaction to my column last month was totally….
OK, I’m gonna come clean on this one. I actually wrote this month’s column in March. So for all I know, my column could have gotten a rating of “0” for the past six months.
But you know what that means? Since I’m writing this column months in advance, I can pull a Captain Eric and wow you all with my predictions about the future! Cool! Let’s try it now!
Prediction One: The Democrats, desperate to win the 2008 Presidential Election, will decide to nominate Britney Spears as their primary candidate. The Republicans, acting quickly, will counterattack by nominating Simon Cowell, who will utterly destroy Britney in the debates.
Prediction Two: The number one song on the charts will be Weird Al Yankovic’s “Got My Hand Stuck in the Toaster Again.”
Prediction Three: Most of the movies that come out will be well-written, insightful, and powerful cinematic masterpieces. Ha ha! Just kidding! They will all be a bunch of crappy sequels, remakes, and adaptations. Hope you didn’t see any of them!
Prediction Four: Lizo will be really, REALLY close to finishing the first third of testgame. Congratulations, Lizo!
Prediction Five: Tom Cruise will cause quite a ruckus when he is caught marrying a cow.
OK, that’s enough of that nonsense. This month, I’m going to discuss Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem for the GameCube. And I’m sorry folks, I screwed up when I came up with the list of reasons to discuss—I completely forgot to think of some reasons to dislike the game! So all I’ll do this month is talk about why I like the game. Sorry if that disappoints you.
Reasons Why I Like Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
1. Edgar Allen Poe Quotation
The game starts off with the above quotation from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Raven. Why, that’s got to be the coolest Edgar Allen Poe usage since Matt Fraser’s X-Men Legends review!
And speaking of Edgar Allen Poe, did I mention that you can watch me and my sister performing a humorous reading of The Tell-Tale Heart? </self-promotion>
2. Latin!
The first chapter of this game has some Romans speaking in Latin for a brief moment, before it gets translated into English. Did you hear that? LATIN? As a Greek and Latin major, I automatically have to give the game 50 awesomeness points for including Latin in it.
Also, the Latin is all perfectly pronounced, as far as I can tell! Hoc est bonum! Demonstrat curae creatori rectis linguas!
…writing in Latin is the sort of useless material you can do when you major in Greek and Latin. By the time this article comes out, I’ll probably be living in a box. Moving on!
3. The Tome Room
The Tome of Eternal Darkness is kept in one of the coolest creepy rooms ever. The walls of the room are lined with statues of the game’s dead characters, the tome is held in place by a giant shriveled hand, and the floor is made up of dozens of tiny, screaming heads. It provides the perfect creepy atmosphere that the Tome of Eternal Darkness requires.
4. Sanity Effects
The best part of this game is the sanity effects. Basically, when your character’s sanity level decreases, your character starts to hallucinate. The hallucinations are a great mix of incredibly creepy and humorous things. For example, here are some of the various sanity effects:
- Blood pours from the walls
- Invisible people start screaming
- Your character’s head falls off (as pictured above), and the head then starts quoting Hamlet
- The game pretends that your controller became disconnected, while enemies attack and kill your character
- Statues move their heads to look at you
- The room turns upside-down Alex gets a phone call from her dead grandfather
Seriously, the sanity effects are cool. Some people play this game just to see the sanity effects. In fact, they’re such a crucial part of the game that they dictate the possibility of a sequel, seeing as Nintendo has the patent for sanity effects.
5. Put an End to the Heresy
I love the end to the Paul chapter. Basically, in the Paul chapter, you spend over a half-hour running around and uncovering a secret cult that involves human sacrifice. Things get incredibly dramatic—Paul’s only friend, the Custodian, is killed by the cult—and at the high point in the drama, you are given the option to go forward and put an end to the heresy.
Once you do, what happens is this (at 1:24, 1:51, or 2:16):
Way to put an end to the heresy, Paul. After seeing this, the option “Should Paul enter and put an end to the heresy?” makes me laugh every time I see it.
6. Indiana Jones—I mean, Edwin Lindsey
One of the game’s characters is the adventuring archeologist Dr. Lindsey, who visits an ancient Cambodian tomb where he has to navigate through dangerous traps in order to find treasure.
Sound familiar? It should. This guy is basically Indiana Jones. He’s got the unshaven look, the hat, the gun, the fist-fighting skills…everything except the whip and the annoying Chinese sidekick.
Speaking of which, by the time this article comes out, there will be a new Indiana Jones movie, right? Even though Harrison Ford has passed retirement age? OK, let me make a prediction about what the movie will be like….
Michael’s Prediction of What Happens in the New Indiana Jones Movie
Indiana Jones: This is it, kid. We’re about to find the greatest lost treasure of them all.
Shia: What is it?
Indiana Jones: My dentures.
7. Playing the Organ
The obvious precursor to Guitar Hero.
You can play a church organ in this game, and it’s—wait—what?
Hold on a second, folks. I’m told that I offended some people with that joke I just made about Indiana Jones being old. In fact, beloved GameCola contributor Myrtle T. Blinkin has threatened to quit if I don’t make things right. So here to offer a rebuttal for the sake of all active senior citizens is Rolling Stones drummer Keith Richards
Keith Richards: Proof that Rolling Stones can gather moss.
8. Turning Into a Zombie
In the third chapter of the game, you take the role of a character who is actively turning into a zombie. As the level continues, Anthony starts to move slower, his skin gets paler and paler, and he starts to moan more often. Sort of like Michael Jackson, except a little less creepy, and a lot cooler. It really adds a sense of urgency to the entire level, and hey, who doesn’t want to play as a zombie? Great job on that one, Silicon Knights.
9. Fighting Anthony
To double the coolness, a few levels later, you run into Zombie Anthony as an enemy. It’s a total shocker to play as a certain character and to then be forced to kill that character later. It adds a level of depth to the death that you don’t reach through an NPC’s death. At least, that’s what I thought, ’cause after I was forced to kill Anthony, I cried for three hours. Just like the time I got stood up at senior prom.
Why did I get stood up at senior prom? Because my date was….
10. Lady Macbeth
One of the random servants in the game is attacked by a vampire. While she should be a typical unnamed character, she rises above the level of obscurity by pulling a Lady Macbeth.
I can’t get the blood out! I can’t get the blood out! Freaky! Creepy! Literary!
That’s it for this month! Boy, things got unexpectedly high-brow this month, what with the Latin, and the Edgar Allen Poe and Shakespeare references. Then again, there were a few low-brow jokes about Keith Richards and Indiana Jones being old. What a strange collection of things to talk about. It’s almost like the entire column this month was a great big sanity effect, isn’t it?
