H.P Lovecraft would be in tears of joy as this series captures its dark atmosphere in a way not seen in a long time in g
The story is that you, detective Jack Walters was in an incident in Boston in the 1920s that made you lose your mind, however you were released from the mental institution and have now gone private dealing with missing persons and other such happenings. You are called in to investigate the disappearance of a shop clerk who is suspected of robbing his boss in the town of Innsmouth, which is a dark little fishing village.
As you progress you find out that the town ain't too friendly with outsiders that you and the store have in common and so you begin to unravel something more then just a missing person case. From the start the game is shown to be very dark and eerie with movements in the shadows and piercing eyes looking at you from the villagers. You will also notice the complete lack of a HUD, that's right no health bar, no ammo count no nothing all you have is your eyes and ears to keep you alert when your hurt Jack will whimper and scream in pain as you get shot, knifed, punched, and pushed off drops. When healing it isn't picking up a health kit but bandaging yourself up like in Metal gear solid 3 but with the realistic tone of when you've done these your character then performs them in real time so no point healing in mid combat as you WILL be attacked by the enemy at the first chance and you can't do much about it.
The game play is outstanding the whole sneaking around and investigating things is brilliant, they thought of a lot too as at one point you go to sleep in a hotel and if you don't lock the door you don't get the heads up that some guys have come to kill you until the pitchfork is in your chest. With the lock on it buys you time to move into the next room push a cabinet in front of the door as the lock is broken and climb through the window and make your escape as you are hunted down by the entire village who are shooting at you with an entire arsenal.
One system that deserves a mention is the sanity system, which is shown in game play from mental instabilities like talking to him and hallucinations. It has the king of play about like silent hill and the likes had but not of a 4th wall break (i.e. making it look like you changed channels). This can mean life of death as well if you ignore it, look at too many messed up things and he will go nuts or kill himself whichever is easier at the time. At the end the game will give you a sanity ranking with A being the best and a F being the worst. If you get an A you get a secret ending but I only got an B so I got the normal ending.
The sounds and graphics are well done and make it one scary experience with the lighting and just the whole look of the game makes it worth playing. There are many surprises in this game and for a lot of the time you run around with only a knife but be facing people with shotguns and Tommy guns. There have been reports of bugs and glitches in this game but I did not find any in my play through.
Though there is no multiplayer aspect or any chance of a sequel, this game has been one of the best experiences of video gaming in a long time and contributes to the horror series with its game play and sanity metre.