Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder Review (PC)

Genre: Adventure/Point 'n' Click

Developer: Zoetrope Interactive

Publisher: Lighhouse Interactive

Release Year: 2007

System: PC

At last after many hours of searching trying and aborting many wannabe adventure/horror/point'n'click games i finally found out this masterpiece! Im surprised with all my ignorance all these years for this adventure lovecraftian gem, because im a huge fan of Lovecraft's work, but never it's too late i guess. I bought it surprisingly cheap and gave it a go in an instance. One more good thing about it, is that it is one of the very few games i tried lately and it worked without any unexpected errors, crashes, glitches etc. Despite the 10 years that it has on its back it seems to run pretty smoothly on an windows 8.1 system!

PLOT: 10/10

As police detective Howard E. Loreid, you are tasked to solve the murder of Clark Field, a wealthy man involved in the occult. Your number one suspect is Loath Nolder, a highly respected private investigator. After mysteriously abandoning his last case and abrutply resurfacing five years later one wonders how venerated P.I. Loath Nolder has turned fugitive murder suspect. Your seemingly routine investigation takes a dramatic twist as terrifying happenings begin to plague your psyche. Staying true to the original author's atmosphere, the plot is a genuine child of Lovecraft's work as if he wrote it himself. There even similar names to his as he used to do in his writings. Not much more to say here, the rating speaks itself.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10

The gameplay is like those we have seen on so many gems of the genre like Dracula, Scratches etc. With 360' angle to turn around and still environments to explore. You have your inventory in your right click and you interact with ur environment by left clicking. The really nice addition to the gameplay is the way that you collect clues through letters and notes. You actually rea them underline the important things and think about them! Other than that there are the choices to combine stuff in your invenotry or with your surroundings. Just one of my hesitant thoughts here is that maybe they could make clue collecting process somewhat easier (when it comes to where you click and all that).

GRAPHICS: 7/10

The graphics of Darkness Within is what would someone expect of development companies that we dont see very often. They are pretty decent for what they want to give us imagine and narrate. Nothing more or nothing less. They are pretty and stiff in formal rooms such as offices and dark gothic and grotesque in more threatening and unfriendly territories. Only when it comes to the cutscenes we are reminded that maybe this games was a low budget production. With not so much of a texture depth and stiff movement it reminds games even 5 years back of its release.

MUSIC/ATMOSPHERE: 10/10

Its music and atmosphere couldnt be better! Eerrie, stressful and ominus piano keys cello strings and many more are there to highlight every action from the clues discoveries that you makes as you progress to the windy drafts of dark basements. The sound is dressing really creepy what the story wants to tell us without overeacting and there is to raise every single hair on our backs when it must!

OVERALL: 9/10

Without wanting to waste your time (you should paly the game by now and not read those bubbling lines) id say simply that its a games that every H.P. Lovecraft's fan must play as well as every adventure fan. It combines all the classic elements we loved in masterpieces such as Atlantis, Dark Fall, Dracula, The Legend of the Prophets and the Assassins etc. with some really innovative gameplay elements.