It’s during the first cut scene as the game begins, when we meet our heroine Alexandra Roivas, that it becomes clear how much time Silicon Knights spent on Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. Like Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls, and Grand Theft Auto 3 before it, there are a growing number of next gen console games allowing developers to work on a project for an extraordinary amount of time, waiting for hardware to catch up to the places where the creators’ imaginations can take gamers. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem began as a Nintendo 64 title, but it became clear that Silicon Knights wanted to do a lot more. What started as a simple project became a labor of love.

Four years in the making, that love becomes obvious as you hear honest-to-goodness acting coming from the 3D polygons of Alexandra: she’s desperate with emotion as she talks to a passionate-but-helpless police detective over the death of her grandfather. You’ll see in real time, the detective regard her with cool eyes, calculating the effect of his words, waiting for the right moment to offer comfort he doesn’t have. There’s a real script here, and nuanced voice acting that seems too good for video games. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is, perhaps, the first convincing argument that interactive entertainment and quality cinema can be one in the same genre - and the Nintendo GameCube has it. Fitting, I think, since the Big N has a reputation for putting out not just good games, but defining ones. And Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem certainly fits the bill.

The Game Play

Taking place over the course of several hundred years, EDSR’s story follows some 12 random characters uniquely affected by the game’s occult plot device, the Tome of Darkness. Players control each character in various vignettes - macabre, twilight zone-inspired levels of self-contained stories that tie in marvelously within the game’s rather intricate plot. Each character, of course, has different attributes; some are faster, some are stronger, some tire quickly, some are better fighters. Outside of what each story contributes to the over arcing plot, the secret of Eternal Darkness comes via the fascinating magic/time system. Your ‘bookend’ character, Alexandra Roivas, must try to uncover exactly what killed her grandfather and each of the characters involved in this far-reaching storyline, play some part in his death.

There are two unique gameplay elements to EDSR. The first is the selective attack system. With its easy-to-use interface, players can choose what parts of enemies to attack during real-time melee combat. Hack off a head, and your enemy flails blindly. Hack off the limbs, and he’s ripe for your finishing maneuver. In this way, combat keeps a level of excitement – an important note, considering that action can become redundant due to the limited enemy types occupying most of the game. To that end, developer Silicon Knights focused on the game’s second major aspect: the magic system. Players create spells for healing and offensive incantations, which are passed on from one character in the story to the next. Alexandria, apparently the last to be affected by the Tome, must inherit the abilities of each ancestral cosmic participant, in order to overcome the puzzles she needs to complete the game. In execution, this non-linear, non hunt-and-seek method of exploration, is extremely satisfying. Take for example, early in the game, a room with magically locked door. Alexandra has no weapons, nor any grasp of magic. You fiddle with the door, no luck, move on. Later, you play a character in the ancient past that discovers the ability to enchant items. Alexandra reads the Tome, inherits his life experience in our time, and makes the learned incantation needed. She proceeds through the door to the next challenge.

Gone is the persistent back-tracking method of similar survival horror games. The focus is fear here, not frustration. There only a few confusing moments in the entire game, most of which just require careful examination of an area. Because a character rarely carries over 6 or so items at a time, never need the user concern himself with storing useless trinkets that don’t significantly – and quickly – affect the immediate situation. Combined with an excellent camera and polished, pick-up and play controls, any level of gamer can appreciate EDSR and gather the same experience. With the potential for three branching storylines, there’s triple incentive to replay the game, too. Rumor has it that a fourth ending and storyline is hidden deep within the game for those persistent players that can’t get enough of EDSR’s enthralling world.

The Production

EDSR’s graphics are equally outstanding. There’s a level of detail in each room that screams the time and effort Silicon Knights put into this game. Often, players will revisit places they’ve been during various time periods. Artifacts in the room will accurately reflect the appropriate period, offering an impressive amount of realism. Enter a room with lights and doorways created in the 20th century, go back to that same room 100 years ago, and the room shows substantially different aspects that weren’t available before. Facial animations express appropriate fear and emotion, and the much-hyped Sanity Meter (which is EDSR’s most clever game play element) provide Eternal Darkness with some of the game’s most frightening moments.

The audio and visual here work hand-in-hand to create a terribly upsetting atmosphere. Using Dolby Digital audio separation, players will hear knocking on doors when you’re in a house alone, or walking on stairs that you’re standing right beside. Due to the game’s constant altering of player perception (see Insanity Meter section), later in the game, it becomes impossible to tell what’s real and what isn’t. It’s downright frightening to hear some of the background noises Silicon Knights lets slip into your subconscious. A baby crying. A woman screaming for her life as she’s beaten by an unseen attacker. Shrieks and wails from an invisible soul that could be fake, or could be in a door just down the hallway. You’ll lurch just as hard on your first door pounding as with the first time the bassy roar of a demonic voice howls from your speakers upon casting your first healing incantation. The game is disturbing in a way that Hollywood would be envious of. EDSR is a game to be experienced as much as played.

The Insanity Meter

Saving EDSR’s greatest feature for last, the insanity meter is what makes the game truly unpredictable. The more horrifying events a character sees, the more that character – and ultimately you the player – looses his grip on reality. A meter slowly depletes, depending on the fortitude of a given player in the game. Say, for example, your generally rational doctor character of the 20th century sees a demon. His meter will diminish a bit more rapidly than, say, an AD Egyptian child of the occult who is perhaps more adjusted to such possibilities. In the end, no matter who the character, the effect the meter has on your overall game experience will change expectations of survival horror games from this point on. Wall and pictures may bleed blood. The wails of some invisible torture get louder and more discomforting as you play. There are too many ‘insanity effects’ to count, by my absolute favorite (and I won’t spoil where it happens) occurs when I engage in an awesome battle nearly ending my life and game, only to discover seconds later in a flash of light, that the fight never happened at all!

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is full of the polish and creativity that makes Nintendo’s name brand the most valuable on the market for a reason. As a gaming experience, Silicon Knights' attention to play balance, control, cinematic cuts, story, and atmosphere, is unparalleled. Before you ask, yes, I say - even better than the almighty Resident Evil franchise. Second, and maybe even surpassing, Konami’s excellent Silent Hill games, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, is an experience that no fan of horror should go without trying. Never has there been a stronger argument for the whole being greater than the sum of it's parts. However when the individual parts equal 13 fantastically diverse play experiences, the sum is nothing short outstanding. This is classic stuff.