Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

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Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Offical Boxart Release Date: 2005 Developer: Headfirst Productions Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Series: Call of Cthulhu Platforms: Xbox PC Genre: First-Person Shooter

The first entry in a planned-but-never-realized trilogy of games based on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a first-person survival horror game heavily based around Lovecraft's novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and also has plot elements borrowed from the Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG adventure modules published by Chaosium, Inc.

The game puts the player in the role of a private investigator named Jack Walters, known for this preternatural hunches, in the year 1916. Summoned to deal with an armed standoff between the authorities and an armed cult in Boston, Massachusetts, he discovers alien technology within the cult's manor house and quickly blacks out after activating a gate-like device. Deemed insane and sent to Arkham Asylum, he is shortly released and spends the next six years in a fugue state before regaining his former memories and personality. Trying to restore a sense of normality to his interrupted life, Jack resumes his former career in 1922 and takes on a missing persons case in the isolationist port town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. What he discovers there will severely test his physical and mental limits, and bring into question his own true nature.

The following weapons appear in the game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

WARNING! THIS PAGE CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Overview

The game was notable for being one of the pioneering games to feature no ingame HUD by default, and a sanity meter (the first video game to use the latter element tbeing Eternal Darkness). The sanity meter tracks Jack's mental resistance to distressing imagery and/or alien mental influence. If it drops too low, Jack's vision will start to blur and waver, he may start to hear hallucinatory audio, and the player's controls may be scrambled. Taking too much sanity damage will result in "Massive Sanity Failure," whereupon Jack will commit suicide with whatever weapon he has at hand or go irrevocably insane. The lack of an ingame HUD necessitates the use of iron sights on firearms for accurate shots, and the player will need to mentally track ammunition expenditure to avoid being caught with an empty firearm at an inopportune moment (reloading with a partially-loaded firearm will simply return the unused rounds to the common ammunition pool, however).

To increase the survival horror factor, firearms and/or ammunition cannot be looted from killed enemies and must instead be found throughout the game's various levels. Ammunition in this game is also capped to a maximum value Jack can carry with him at any given time, specified below for each weapon.

Handguns

Colt 1911

The Colt 1911 is one of the most standard handguns available in the game, and can be carried by both the player or enemies. It holds 8 rounds plus one in the chamber (if the gun is reloaded and the slide racked again). It does relatively low damage in comparison to the other weapons of the game. The Colt 1911 is found in the Police station and is commonly given to the player. The protagonist is issued with two Colt 1911s by the FBI over the course of the game.

Smith & Wesson M1917

The Smith & Wesson M1917 is one of the only two handguns available in the game. It holds 6 rounds of ".45 LR" and does higher damage than the Colt 1911 handgun available in the game. It can be wielded by both players and enemies and is found frequently during the game. Earlier versions included wooden grips and a chrome finish, whereas it was eventually modified to have a grittier and rustier finish and ivory grips. The gun was originally much more common and issued to the player in almost every chapter rather than the Colt 1911. It is interesting to note that the revolver is featured in the introduction map which takes place in 1916, one year before the release of this revolver.

Shotguns

Double-barreled elephant shotgun

A Double-barreled shotgun is found in the Police station and various other areas of the game. It is technically an Elephant gun, as there are two shotguns that currently still exist in the game, an Iver Johnson Hercules 12 gauge double barrel shotgun which is only wielded by enemies, and the current 4-bore Elephant Shotgun which is wielded by only the player and is known as a simple double barrel 12 gauge shotgun. It has fancy engravings, a very large barrel and a cheek-rest on the stock that remain to show its' previous history in the game as an elephant gun.

Iver Johnson Hercules 12 gauge Shotgun

The Iver Johnson Hercules 12 gauge shotgun is a double barreled shotgun, smaller than the standard game shotgun and is only wielded by enemies. It was previously wielded by both the player and enemies in early versions of the game.

Submachine Guns

M1921 Thompson

A M1921 Thompson. It can be found multiple times in the game and holds the standard 50-round drum. Earlier variants of the gun in the game could be used with a stick magazine that held 20 or 30 rounds (the amounts were switched as developers playtested it) before finally settling on the classic drum magazine.

Rifles

M1903 Springfield

The game features a M1903 Springfield rifle. The rifle in the game currently holds 5 rounds loaded into the internal magazine via stripper clip. Early variants of the rifle in game had working adjustable sights and a bayonet for melee-charges, as well as a scoped version for longer range sniping. The game variant of the rifle only features a circular hood sight rather than the standardsights for an M1903. These are generally only fitted to protect the blade during transport.

Springfield M1903 Mk 1 - .30-06

Machine Guns

Browning M2

The Browning M2 is seen twice in the game, one in the Marsh refinery where it is used by one of Marsh's men open fire on the player at the start of the refinery level, and again on the Cutter Urania where it was originally used by the player. Current versions are no longer usable and the Urania version is described as "Something else that's broken." by the player upon inspection.

Other

M2 Flamethrower

The game features an M2 Flamethrower which is used by the player to melt ice away from a door and kill "Josiah Bentley", a Star Spawn of Cthulhu. In earlier versions of the game, it could be wielded by players and carried around, however the decision to remove it was made as there were too many weapons in the game at that point in development. It currently is only carried by a US Marine and is then left in the snow.

Cut Weapons

Multiple weapons were removed from the game and only exist in the beta. The weapons can be seen in the photo below and consist of the following:

Colt Python

Early versions of the game included a .357 black Colt Python with wooden grips and a 6" barrel. The Python was a temporary weapon and removed once research began on authentic 1920s era weaponry where it was replaced with an Smith & Wesson M1917.

Luger P08

Early pre-2002 versions of the game include a Luger P-08 in 9mm. It was removed as it was determined there were too many handguns in the game.

Mauser C96 "Broomhandle" Pistol

The game initially featured a Mauser 1896 self-loading Pistol which was removed close to release as it was determined there were too many guns in the game. It was chambered for the 7.63×25mm Mauser round and the internal magazine held 10 rounds. It was reloaded via a stripper clip similar to the Springfield M1903 seen in the game.

Winchester 1897 Shotgun

Police in the game initially carried a pump action M1897 Trench Shotgun. It held 5 rounds and was the lowest-power shotgun in the game in order to balance out the gameplay with the double barrel shotguns.

Other gameplay weapons that have been omitted (as they are not firearms):

Stag Knife, Crowbar, Baton, Yithian energy cannon, Deep one poison spear, fishing harpoon, hand grenade, dynamite, tomahawk, metal bar and a 2x4 with a nail through it. These can be seen in the old weapons render in this article.