I'm playing Eternal Darkness again. It's a bit of a slow time for new games, and I always intended to run through the game for the full 3x sequence, so I'm finally making good on my internal monologue.
I'm struck again by how damned good this game is, and how terribly it sold. As many have said before, Nintendo is cursed by their own success. By and large, Nintendo owners buy only Nintendo-made franchises. Third party games typically undersell on GameCube, while the recognizable Nintendo name brands outsell just about any game for any system. Your Mario, your Zelda... hell, we've even formed a thirst for the second tier Nintendo games, your F-Zero, your Metroid. Fanboys are already drooling over stinking Earthbound and Fire Emblem, two Nintendo franchises that (former) haven't been seen since the SNES, and (latter) have never had a US game release, but are scheduled to appear in new GBA games.
Eternal Darkness was even half a Nintendo property, developed by N second party Silicon Knights... it was an early and dramatic push for M-rated GameCube games... every single review everywhere glowed and glowed about it... and not even any of that could sell it.
If you own a GameCube and you do not have Eternal Darkness, you're an idiot. That's it. Idiot. I don't know why you skipped over this one, or why you won't buy it now that it's discounted down to under $20.
Or maybe I do. To tell the truth, I didn't hold any interest in Eternal Darkness when I first heard of it. My first exposure to the game was a single screenshot on one of the original GameCube launch posters. A shot of some boring Roman-looking dude lurching toward the camera. There was an "M" in the corner, and I recall thinking, "Rated M for what? Bloody gladiator combat? Pshaw." I wasn't interested in the initial storyline reports either... a gothic horror adventure across time, with multiple playable characters. The word "Lovecraftian" was bandied about.
Then there's the box art. Shows a pile of stones. And some colored lighting. Not exactly a mass-market-friendly sort of box. Casual gamers - the demographic that drives sales, unfortunately - need some sort of explosion or punching-related graphic on the cover before they'll look into it. (Even Mario is usually thrusting a fist in some fashion.) Large guns are also a big help.
So if you never hit any reviews, be they magazine or online, I guess I can see why you overlooked it. Well, now is your chance to correct it. IGN even kicked off a Buy Eternal Darkness in 2003 campaign. Here's my review of the game (from last August)... and I'll likely be adding some new comments as I play through this time. A year later, this is still a standout title. Great sound, great graphics, great gameplay, great story. And the patented insanity effects are too cool to describe with spoiling them for you.
One last time: If you own a GameCube and you do not have Eternal Darkness, you're an idiot.
