Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (GameCube)

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The sanity system is more than just a clever diversion. Once your sanity meter is at the bottom, every time you catch a glimpse of an enemy you'll lose some health. Restoring sanity is no easy task, either. You can finish off enemies to restore a little bit at a time, and some characters have special abilities or items (like a flask of whiskey) that will get their minds back in order. Also, the size of each character's sanity meter is based on his or her life experiences. You'll find that priests and other insightful characters have a larger sanity meter than the more brutish characters and therefore can endure much more before they start to crack up. More than just a cheap trick, the sanity meter adds a significant dimension to Eternal Darkness. Just when you think you have it all figured out you'll be fooled again, and there are several points where you'll have problems guessing just what is or isn't real.

Back in the 16-bit days of video games, it wasn't out of the ordinary for developers to design games in such a way that the most visually impressive aspects were shown later on in the game to reward players. This old-school ideal holds true for Eternal Darkness as well. At first, the visual offerings seem very plain and subdued, but by the time you've made it to the fifth or sixth character, you begin to realize that the game's visual subtleties are many. With Eternal Darkness taking place in so many different time periods, there's a wide variety of terrain to explore. Some of the areas will also be revisited during different points in time, and it's interesting to see how the changes in technology have been implemented or how some areas have aged over the years. The game plays from fixed camera angles, and it's obvious that a great deal of care went into making sure that the dynamic camera never fails to give you a perfect view of the action. The texturing in the game is one of its most indelible visual traits. Some of the animated textures look particularly good, and you'll find multilayered textures in many areas to give the floors a grooved look.

The character models are probably the game's weakest visual link, thanks to some low-resolution textures that can make their features a bit blurry at times. However, the facial animation is excellent during the game's many real-time cinemas, as the characters' faces will animate realistically while talking. The clothing is also incredibly well done, thanks to textures that will react properly to movement instead of clipping through each other. The enemy models are hit and miss. The most common enemies in the game show up far too often and are too uninventive for something that is supposed to represent an ancient evil. To be fair, some of the later enemies in the game are as creepy as can be, but it takes far too long before they make an appearance. Graphical trickery like multicolored volumetric fog is prevalent, and it even ties into the gameplay. If you enter a room with colored fogging, the color of the fog will clue you in to the magical alignment of the creatures in that room. The real-time lighting engine is also profound, with light from enchanted items and spells bouncing off the walls and streaking across the faces of characters. Self-shadowing is also implemented on the character models to startling effect. The animation features the same level of detail as the rest of the game--characters will bend down and step on a crossbow to reload it, and there are a dozen different walking animations for each character depending upon his or her level of health.

The polygon-pushing power of the graphics engine used for Eternal Darkness is impressive, even if most of the game takes place indoors. It allows an incredible amount of detail to be displayed in each room--each object in each room is individually modeled. And when the game's environments do open up a bit, it's a sight to behold. At any rate, despite a few rough edges in the visuals, all it takes is seeing the colored lighting, fog, and detailed environments onscreen all at once, with no hit to the perfectly smooth frame rate, to truly appreciate the graphics of Eternal Darkness. A few small visual elements remind you that the game started out as a Nintendo 64 project, but on the whole, the development team has done an excellent job of creating a definitive next-level visual experience. So while Eternal Darkness' graphics won't floor you right off the bat, it's surprising how many areas of the game come close to matching the visual quality of the prerendered environments in the recently released Resident Evil remake. Overall, it's one of the most visually impressive games on the console.

Sound isn't always a priority for game developers, so the sound in Eternal Darkness is certainly exceptional. For one thing, it makes use of Dolby Pro Logic II, and the channel separation is excellent. Some of the sanity effects come in the form of sound, and you'll be shocked at the quality of the samples and how well placed they are in the surround environment. Also, the voice acting in the game is truly outstanding. There are dozens of characters in the game and literally hours of spoken dialogue, yet only a few lines out of hundreds seem even the least bit stilted. The music for the game is a mix of world music and Celtic compositions that bear a striking resemblance to the work of groups like Dead Can Dance. More than appropriate, the music sets the tone for the game rather well and helps establish its timeless nature.

As perhaps the most legitimately mature M-rated console game to ever be released, Eternal Darkness sets a new standard for the action adventure genre. Featuring a gripping story that never lets up, inventive gameplay, sky-high production values, and an attention to detail that is seldom matched, it's an experience like no other. It's a must-buy for anyone who appreciates an amazing story coupled with equally amazing gameplay, and since it offers almost 30 hours of gameplay each time through (and incentive to play through more than once), it's well worth the money spent. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem will long be remembered as Nintendo's first real step toward broadening its horizons, and may well represent a turning point for video games in general.

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