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![[Review]](/v2/images/stories/review.png "[Review]") ![[PC]](/v2/images/stories/pc2.png "[PC]")
 This game, Robert D. Anderson & The Legacy of Cthulhu, is a fan-made product and as such I was informed that it should be considered differently when under review. But no matter how you cut it the pieces just don't add up to a full gaming experience which really was a let down as I was looking forward to this game.
The game looks to have been made with the commercially available FPS Creator engine which was made to allow games just like this to be created. The storyline has promise but it seems like the gameplay episodes just get in the way of telling it. I do not want to discourage the creation of fan-made products, but they need to be worth the purchase price. The gameplay is standard FPS fare in that you must run around and shoot things to survive as well as pick up keys to open doors and sometimes even move an object to get to some otherwise inaccessible location. But more on that later in the Gameplay section.
 From the very beginning I knew this game was going to be problematic when I found out that the install had no options and required 6.5GB of space. Upon further inspection I found that over 2GB of it could have been left on the DVD and not installed as it is bonus material and cut scene footage. Unbelievably when I uninstalled it at the end the save game data was something like 700MB.
After the massive install heaved its slimy octopus-headed bulk onto my hard drive I found that the game was organized just as advertised, a playable horror novel where each level is actually a 'chapter' in a book. But the playable levels seem more like they were manufactured to give the player something to do, specifically to unlock the cut scenes which are possibly the highlight of the entire gaming experience. In fact you do not even need to play the game to view the cut scenes, you can simply navigate to the folders where they reside and watch them which might be a better use of time.
 Graphics: 60% If I repeatedly use the word bland in this review I apologize, but it is the one word that continually came to mind while playing the game. From the stock, uninteresting wall and floor textures to the lifeless looks on both the living and undead in the game, right down to the Nazi propaganda and the weapon models. If I were to guess I would say that not a single texture was developed specifically for this game and they were all standard textures that came with the FPS Creator package. Did I mention Bland?
I should also mention the serious lack of adherence to the laws of physics. Light sources shine through doors, bodies drop and twitch and hang in space or they just slip in between all the bits and pieces of the atoms that make up the walls so that half of them are in the room and half of them are outside on the other side of the wall.
 Perhaps things wouldn't have been so bland if there had been some decent lighting in the game, or at least a torch (that's flashlight in America). Making things almost completely dark does not make them creepy, a feeling that totally eludes the player during the course of the game play; it simply makes things extremely difficult to see.
Did you know that if you hit something with the blade of an axe it will make a bullet like hole and give off sparks, even if the object you hit is wooden? Neither did I until I played this game. Yet another massive flaw that made me groan while playing. Sure the textures were bland and all that but they were appropriate, I mean there was tile in the toilets and stone walls in the castle and dirt on the ground.
Sound: 60% The sound would have been classified as forgettable if it had not been so annoying. The footsteps hardly ever matched the room and floor type and never varied in sound level, for instance while crouching and moving. Sometimes the footsteps continued on when I stopped, which would have been creepy in a Clive Barker game but here just made me shake my head in amazement. The guns generally sounded the same and nearly every enemy died with the same grunt.
 When you die, which I did a lot of, you go to a 'Game Over' screen with some really wicked industrial or Goth music. The only thing I couldn't figure out is why it was playing in a game that was supposed to be set in 1940 Bavaria. Not even KMFDM, one of the longest running electronic/industrial bands of all time, was around back then. So while the music was cool, it was totally misplaced and could at times completely tear your attention away from the uninteresting gameplay which was not really all that difficult. To help you during the mind-numbing wait for the chapters to load (up to 4 minutes for some) there are some audio bits that fill you in on story details, unfortunately they play every time you start a level or saved game and they generally play twice during the loading process and play over other audio bits at times.
Speaking of inappropriate, the commentary that is occasionally made by the main character reaches its peak when he says "Bazookas in an enclosed space, those lunatics" three times in one room, after I had shot and killed the bazooka guy, walked through his hovering, twitching corpse, inspected the whole room and then was making my way out the other door. Poor cue placement I would say.
 Gameplay: 70%
Oddly, while the game was not all that interesting I found myself continually playing it. Then after a while I just had to stop because I couldn't for the life of me remember why I was playing. After stumbling through the bug-laden chapter one where, if there was some sort of free-standing stairs, the whole level would turn to molasses on a cold January day in the Upper Peninsula (that's really cold and molasses is really slow) I realized that each chapter was its own executable file. So I suggest skipping the first chapter, it wasn't all that interesting anyway.
There's another problem with the game in that chapter 5 refuses to load, at all. So, if you happen to stumble across this game I suggest you play chapters 2-4 and then part of 6 to 15. Though even in these other levels there are massive amounts of problems like the eponymous getting stuck on invisible objects flaw which drove me crazy. So here's a tip to save you some sanity points (nod to Chaosium), if you randomly get stuck on something you can't see, try crouching or jumping, that usually does the trick.
 When you do manage to move around freely you're treated to not much in the way of anything. You manage to get a map of the entire facility but you have no way to even open it and look at it. There is no viewable inventory so things you pick up mysteriously go into some netherworld pocket to never be seen again, unless they are ammo or keys, those actually have a use. You cannot pick up random items in the world and if you could you wouldn't have any place to put them anyway. You cannot pick up health packs and save them for later, you can only do that with ammo. I still don't understand why there wasn't a torch, of course it wouldn't matter anyway because if I had found one and picked it up it would have just disappeared into my Cthulhu pocket and the Great Old One would have eaten it.
As a cherry on the topping of poor gameplay mechanics enemies manage to see and shoot you through doors and floors; there is nothing that I hate more than that because it is just simply not realistic not to mention infuriating.
Cut Scenes/Video: 80%
Perhaps the greatest part of the entire experience. The game and the storyline were obviously written by someone familiar with H.P. Lovecraft and the mythos. Unfortunately they totally fumbled on the creepy aspect of it all. In fact there was zero creepiness overall. It's a pity too because I was into the storyline for parts and wanted to see what the deal was with Anderson. I think they should take the cut scenes add in more scenes and make an hour long feature film out of it. I would be more inclined to buy that than this game. I actually really liked the fact that it was almost entirely in German since that is actually where the game takes place, a good deal of realism. the actors are obviously the fans from the 'fan-made' portion of the game design. Some of the acting is flat but hey, who wouldn't want to get themselves into the cut scenes of a video game?
 Controls/Interface: 50%
Forget about it, there is no interface. Well that's not entirely true, there is half an interface. A completely unconfigurable one. This game has no configuration options at all, not sound, video or controls. Not even a volume control. This of course ties in well with the 'you must install all 6.5GB of this material' which also had no configuration options either. You do have the choice of using the arrows or the W,A,S,D keys, but you will probably use the keys since the crouch button is C and is nowhere near the arrows and cannot be moved. I already bemoaned the lack of any sort of inventory system so I won't beat that dead horse. There is a cool little stylistic display that shows you ammunition and health in the corner. For some reason there was always a 1 in the upper left. It could have been the ONE life the character has in the game, luckily the levels are quite short and easy to navigate so you really only need one life per level. Though you do often lose guns and bullets and such going from level to level which was irksome.
Summary: 64% The summary average is just that, the average of all the other scores. This game is drab, dull and bland. Simply put, if your grandmother gives you this game as a present smile weakly and mutter 'thanks gran' because that's all the game is worth. I hate to be so harsh but 'fan-made' does not mean they can skimp on quality or quantity. This game is lacking in both and seems like even some further testing and tweaking just wouldn't improve it to a point where I could recommend purchasing it. I actually have five pages of notes I made while playing the game but I will refrain from making you feel like the game made me feel and stop here with a simple...skip this one. Cthulhu may very well come to devour the makers of this game for cuckolding him so.
 Readers have left 4 comments. 1. Untitled
Crawler, Registered First of all, I rated the article to the max because I liked the style of writing. Second, I disagree on some of the statements, because they simply aren`t true.
As writer for a Call of Cthulhu fanzine, I`ve received one copy last week and played through the entire game, so I guess I have a clue what I`m talking about:
- The graphics are bland, no discussion about that, and the animations are horrible
- Textures: Those are sometimes really good, as well as the lighting, and after reading through the TGC boards, I have learnt that every single texture was made from scratch instead of using the given ones.
- Gameplay: Is far from usual FPS gameplay, I remind of the poem riddle in chapter 4 and the summoning quest in chapter 6. Never seen something similar before...
- Storytelling: The story is great, and there are very creepy moments (The shoggoth in the dark!)
-Bugs: I had none, except of some clipping errors
- Overall: "Oddly, while the game was not all that interesting I found myself continually playing it." Well, I found myself playing it from beginning to end, and not a single moment of it was boring. The sidekicks are great "Clatu verata..." and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to play something "different". It may be trash, but it`s very entertaining trash then!
2. Untitled
SuperGuido, Super Administrator Thank you for your comments. They are always appreciated. I have been playing Call of Cthulhu and reading Lovecraft for over 20 years, so I believe I am qualified to speak on it as well. :) I also played through the whole game. I never said it was trash, I merely said I would skip it, meaning it is not worth the full price. I did enjoy the story and was interested in Anderson, but only from a cut scene perspective. I didn't FEEL like Anderson while playing the game. If you look through the structure of the game install you will see it looks like the standard FPS Creator directory structure and I do believe that a lot of the in-game textures are not original regardless of what has been said. I very much doubt that they created the wood, brick, tile etc... The quests in the chapters are simply puzzles to be solved. As they should be, they are puzzled themed for the world and I applaud them for doing that. Some game makers might overlook that facet of design. As to the bugs, I suffered through uninstalling and reinstalling the game 3 times just to make sure something did not go wrong during that process but alas the bugs remained. Perhaps the requirements for the game are slightly askew and should be higher on the minimum end. The install could definitely use some configuration like the option to not install all the video and bonus material. Yes the story is great, but the gameplay was far from creepy in any respect. Of course these are all just our opinions and everyone is entitled to their opinions in my world.  3. Untitled
Crawler, Registered Yes, I guess we have lot of common points in our opinions and the differences are just showing that we are all different minds (what I appreciate). By the way: During testing, I asked one of my friends who is playing around with the FPSC since its release, and he told me that he can`t see any stock media texture inside Anderson, except of the enemies (what could explain their terrible look). He also told me that many of the models must have been created for this one seperately, especially those in the chapters 10-14. In one point you`re absolutely right: On a minimum system it has no sense to be played, I tried it with an Athlon 2600, and it was no fun at all. However, on my notebook with dual centrino (or whatever that is called), it was smooth despite of the onboard graphics, and it made a much better "feel & look". It`s just funny that our opinions are not THAT different in most points, but you tend to say "Skip it" and I tend to say "Play it!"  4. Untitled
SuperGuido, Super Administrator I love reader email, so I thought I would post this one here for everyone, it sailed in from Norway...
I just wanted to say: Thanx for posting this review.
I just purchased this game today, and even after less than 30 minutes of playing, this piece of crap now resides in the bottom of my waste basket.
Everyting you pointed out in your review was exactly how I too did experience it. In other words, not a playable game. I just gave it a try on chapter 1 and encountered the "molasses" area and a case of "falling outside the map". Annoying as hell. I might have given it a try if I could just have configured my own keys.
The info attached in the cover mentioned something about a full manual in the "manual" directory on the game DVD. Does it exist on your copy ?
— Norwegian ReaderI checked on my disc and there is no manual folder or manual on it.
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