Darkness Within: In Pursuit Of Loath Nolder

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $17.94

Features:

• Built-in Hint System with 3 Difficulty Levels ¿ Players can choose to play in Standard, Detective, or Senior Detective modes.
• Unique Inventory System ¿ Utilizing the ¿thinking screen' allows players to collect and examine items, and thoughts. Clues can also be researched, combined or used.
• Dynamic Puzzles and Features ¿ Traditional adventure game puzzles are complimented by deciphering dreams and underlining excerpts in documents to garner critical clues.
• Enhanced Gameplay Experience ¿ The proprietary game engine enables compelling special effects and stunning visuals in a panoramic first person game environment.
• Eerie Gameplay Atmosphere ¿ An immersive experience is created by a fascinating story, chilling real-time cut scenes, and haunting music.

Customer Reviews:

Not As Good As I Had Hoped [Posted on 2008-01-25]
This game did have good sound effects but left a lot to be desired in the scary department. It doesn't hold a candle to Silent Hill or Fatal Frame style games. The storyline left me in the dark for a solid explanation. Guess I'm just not smart enough to have caught it. For me, it was a bust.

Worst Adventure game I've ever played. [Posted on 2008-01-31]
By far, the WORST adventure game I've EVER played.

I bought it because it was cheap and another review here on amazon said that walkthroughs weren't needed. I can only assume the person who said a walkthrough wasn't needed is either a super genius, the maker of the game or a liar.

To make matters worse, this game is apparently so unpopular that there aren't any walkthroughs (or in fact any information of any kind) anywhere online. So if you get stuck (and you will) then its pretty much game over.

To Be Avoided [Posted on 2008-02-02]
This a "pick up the key" game rather than a logic-puzzle game. The activities are tedious and unsatisfying. The story and aesthetics are unimaginative. Mainly a bunch of rooms with many items of no value. (But gee, you can pick up keys.) The music is almost not present at all. One is asked to read many long, poorly written texts. The positive reviewers on this site sound like company shills. Don't believe 'em.

Lovecraft lives on!  [Posted on 2008-03-04]
Finding Lovecraftian games is a difficult process. Sure, many a game uses elements of the author, but few capture the essence of his work. The psychological horror of the unknown is what appeals to true Lovecraftian fans, not the use of a shotgun on a Deep One. No offense to the enjoyable "Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth". "Darkness Within, in the Pursuit of Loath Nolder" delivers when it comes to being faithful to the Lovecraftian genre. It will truly SCARE you.

The game is a point and click mystery adventure, strikingly similar to "Scratches", but far longer and more creepy. You play the role of Howard, a detective out to catch a private investigator gone bad, one Loath Nolder. During the case you have phantoms to chase, books to read, puzzles to solve, and the sinking sensation that you are either A. Going mad, or B. Something terrible really is happening and you sure wish you were going mad!

The puzzles are fairly easy and it seems the developers were more interestd in storyline than complex math equations or wordy riddles or heavy pixel hunting (thank you). There is a lot of reading to do, but that is the point. The game is more an interactive book, than a true adventure point and click. If you want something like that, check out "Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (Cthulu Loves you!)" However that particular game won't scare you like this one will!

What about graphics? Scenery is well done and even by day exceedingly creepy. However the graphics, when it comes to the 'few' living beings you encounter, are terrible and incredibly dated given when the game was made. We are talking late 90's graphics when it comes to people, but great when it comes to objects. Odd mix.

So far we have a game with easy puzzles, lots of reading, and graphics that are excellent, so long as nothing alive is involved. Why the 4 stars? The game is scary! Genuinely, heart stoppingly, scary. The plot is very layered and does not rip directly from HP Lovecraft, but is clearly inspired by him. Little Lovecraftian phrases riddle the game such as Curwen, Pickman, the author of the Necronomicon Al-Azif, beyond the spheres, and the dark places below etc. etc. But the plot itself has many unique elements. Although I'm well versed in Lovecraft, the game took its own twists and bends that kept me guessing as to what was going on. I still don't think I figured it out! Is the world about to end? Are my friends my friends? Am I just paranoid? Did I take my medicine today? Bah...who needs medicine!...and why don't I have a gun? Oh right, the game is set in England where detectives walk about armed with polite manners.

I completed the game in a little over 8 hours (and there seemed to be some areas not fully developed...or I just missed the needed item/clue to go there). Not a lot of game play, but judging by my score at the end, I missed a lot of story developing hints and secret rooms. This is a shame. The game is fairly linear, and I wish they would have led me to every nook and cranny, easter egg, and secret room. Why? Because replay for a game like this is rather low.

If you want to be scared and you like the Lovecraftian genre, give "Darkness Within" a try. Games like these need gamer support and praise! A forum about the game indicated the developers were planning on more, and I wish them well! R'yleh is surely about to rise though, so they best hurry!

Very good game [Posted on 2008-04-27]
This game was very enjoyable and it took me 28 hours to beat (the game tracks your time of game play), the puzzles were difficult enough to stump me a while but weren't so difficult that i had to use a walkthrough. Another neat factor of this game, is when the game ends it rates your gameplay and there were a lot of "secret stuff" i missed; which is good because it made me want to play the game again. The only reason i didn't give this game 5 stars is because i don't feel that there is enough voice/communication with other characters in this game. There is a very small amount of talking in this game, so there is long amounts of silence which makes the game lonely at times. But other than that, it was a very different and entertaining game with an interesting plot.

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