Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is an unlikely candidate for a GameCube game, as it bears only the second M-rating in the short history of the console. Developed by veterans Silicon Knights, Eternal Darkness is a gritty, gory game that stands in stark contrast to the sugary-sweet lineup typically put out by Nintendo, and will probably find favor with older GameCube owners. This title was originally slated to be an N64 game, but was smartly shifted to the GameCube once the new system was announced. While vestiges of its cartridge-based heritage creep up occasionally, the game is a next-generation title through and through. Best described as a horror-action-RPG (not survival horror, as some reviewers incorrectly state), Eternal Darkness is a surprisingly deep game featuring a number of novel ideas that horror fans should appreciate.

Eternal Darkness has been somewhat of a kick-bitch for the past year or so, due to a terribly underwhelming demo featured in last summers Nintendo Cube Club. Featuring insipid character designs, suspect control and boring, repetitive gameplay, the ED demo left a sour taste in the mouths of many gamers, and expectations of the game were suitably low. Has anything changed in the past year? Thankfully the answer is yes. The weaknesses of the demo are still the same weaknesses of the final product, but Silicon Knights has done a great job in turning Eternal Darkness into a quality title. I must confess that I was surprised by certain aspects of the game, including the presentation, the voice acting and the inventive play mechanics that elevate the title into more than a simple hack-n-slash affair.

In the game you play the role of Alexandria Roivas, who is called to her grandfather's mansion to investigate his recent murder. While searching the house she discovers a gruesome artifact entitled the Tome of Eternal Darkness, which recounts the grisly details of her ancestors' struggles against the forces of darkness. By finding pages of the tome throughout the mansion, you get to relive the exploits of Alex's many ancestors through a variety of time periods, from ancient Rome to 14th Century France to the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991. Completing one of the twelve chapters in the tome will reveal more clues about the murder, and will allow Alex to progress further through the mansion. You can save your game anywhere with few exceptions, and the functions of saving game data and loading new rooms are incredibly quick. Once you've initiated a chapter, you must follow through to completion. The scenarios are compelling and well-designed, and reveal fragments of the main story in manageable chunks. This is an exceptional premise for a game, and Silicon Knights pulls it off remarkably well.

The presentation is quite good, and features great voice acting from the likes of Soul Reaver veterans Michael Bell and Richard Doyle. While some of the voices are less than stellar, they seem to fit each character for the most part and the vast majority of lines are delivered with gusto. The game script is well-written and the story itself is fairly interesting, even though tales of magic spells and ancient gods really aren't my cup of tea. The game is permeated with dark, jarring musical accompaniments which set the tone quite effectively, and the brooding sound is occasionally punctuated by screams or creepy laughter. The sound is full and loud, and takes advantage of Dolby Pro Logic II, though I experienced better audio results with the regular stereo sound. Characters emit a pleasing assortment of grunts and barks as they slash their way through the undead (though Anthony screams like a little bitch). Although this isn't a scary game by any stretch, there were a few moments that startled me and kept my complacency to a minimum.

Real-time scenes are interspersed with pre-rendered FMV segments, but these simply use the in-game models and don't appear to be of any higher quality. The movies themselves are compressed quite heavily, giving the FMV a blurry, messy look. Cutscenes are numerous, and I must chastise Silicon Knights for preventing the player from skipping these scenes. I had to watch the same movie several times as I struggled with a boss monster fight in one of the chapters, lending feelings of irritation I shouldn't have to experience. Eternal Darkness features a true 16x9 widescreen mode that looks great with the 16x9 enhancement on my Wega. Curiously, the game crops cutscenes and movies to a full-frame ratio, making them downright tiny when using the widescreen option. Luckily the game stores all the movies and cutscenes, so you can rewatch them later if you choose. You might find this necessary, as the inter-twining story is not always easy to follow.

There are a total of 12 playable characters, including the present-day Alex. Many of the character designs themselves are run-of-the-mill, which is quite disappointing in a game that relies so heavily on its characters. Some, like Alex, Maximillian, Michael and Ellia possess a fair degree of charm and are a pleasure to play with. The game is littered with some subpar performers, ranging from The Roman Guy™ (Pious) to The Persian Guy™ (Karim). Silicon Knights has presented a compelling assortment of time periods and environments, and while I like the multiple character angle, it would behoove them to hire better character designers in the future. (I have to give them their due, however, for slipping a set of nipples into a Nintendo game.) Each character plays similarly in terms of weapon ability and walking speed, though some of the heavier characters run more slowly. All characters can use magic once they located the Tome of Eternal Darkness, which usually shows up towards the beginning of each chapter.

Controlling the lineage of the Roivas family is quite easy, with tight analog control that allows movement in any direction. If you hate the up-to-move-forward control scheme found in the Resident Evil and Silent Hill games, you'll find welcome relief in Eternal Darkness. Holding the right trigger allows you to target the closest adversary, and moving the analog stick around enables individual targeting of head, chest and arms. While you can attack freely with the A button, targeting is a better strategy, as decapitating enemies reduces their attacking prowess considerably. Weapon selection is appropriate to the current era, so Karim attacks with Tulwars and Maximillian fights with flintlock pistols. Control can get a bit wonky at times, especially when fighting a horde of enemies in a tight corridor. Melee weapons have a tendency to snag on walls, so you can't swing freely in tight spaces. The weapons you're given vary in effectiveness, and my experience has shown that melee weapons are much more effective for general foes, while the ranged weapons (especially the toppling power of the Elephant Gun!) are better suited to larger foes. Ammo is plentiful, which should ease the minds of survival horror pussies.

Speaking of enemies, you'll do battle against some nasty-looking creatures, from skinless zombies to giant arachnids. Your standard enemies can be hacked to pieces using the targeting system. Headless bodies will still walk around trying to kill you, but they won't be able to follow your movements. Gangs of enemies can be quite troublesome, so it's best to isolate one target and finish foes off one at a time. Downed beasts can be finished off with a killing blow, which will restore some sanity but will leave you open to attack briefly. A sound-sensitive enemy called the Trapper has the ability to zap you into an alternate world, where you'll have to jump through a series of color-coded portals to escape. I found this element unnecessary and frustrating, and cursed Silicon Knights every time it happened. While the enemy design is quite good and carries through with the dark theme of the game, the variety is sadly limited to about six different designs. You'll unfortunately be fighting the same things over and over again, regardless of time period. A few more enemies would have sweetened the deal.

Silicon Knights has implemented a cool rune-base magic system that gradually increases in power and flexibility as the game progresses. To cast a spell you need to collect runes, tablets and the spell itself, in addition to a circle of power. Magic spells can be cast with one of three different alignments (red, green or blue) which affect the outcome of the spell. For instance, casting the Restore spell with green alignment will restore sanity, but aligning it to red will restore health instead. Many puzzles involve the use of correctly-aligned magic spells, and skillfully using combinations of spells is key to some of the harder battles later in the game. You must stand still to invoke a spell, which leaves you susceptible to attack, especially during the casting of higher-level magic. While this tends to regulate the use the more effective spells, it's somewhat frustrating to have the casting of a 7-point spell negated due to stray blow from an enemy. I can live with that, but I feel downright silly running in circles to restore my magic meter. But overall the system works pretty well, and supports the combat system effectively.

Perhaps the most innovative feature in Eternal Darkness is the Sanity Meter. Similar to the Health and Magic meters, the Sanity Meter decreases when your character is spotted by the forces of darkness. Defeating enemies with a killing blow will restore some of your sanity, and you can use items and magic spells to restore it as well. Once your sanity declines, you'll become to notice some strange things, like cackling laughter, pounding on doors and blood running down walls. The camera angle will skew to steep angles, giving the visuals an off-balance feeling that lets you know something is wrong. Your character may even begin to mutter to themselves in hysterical ravings. Some of these sanity effects are quite clever, involving odd modifications of the audiovisual display itself. I had a blast running around with a depleted sanity meter, just trying to witness all the different effects. You'll begin to lose health if your sanity remains depleted, so it's imperative to restore sanity before and after most combat situations. This is a novel idea and is executed very well, lending an extra layer of depth to an already solid experience.

Eternal Darkness sports unusually smooth visuals considering the lack of anti-aliasing. The environments are limited to small indoor areas, so the geometric diversity and texture detail are very high and pop-in is non-existent. The character models are the weak point of the visual package, lacking details found in games like Silent Hill 2 or Resident Evil. While not exactly blocky, the models show markedly low numbers of polygons, and the texture work falls short of those adorning the walls and floors. Lip-syncing is the standard generic lip movement you see in most games; I wish more developers would take to time to properly animate character faces during speech, like Crystal Dynamics did with Soul Reaver 2. Certain areas feature interesting layered textures, such as a floor of screaming skulls that adds a tangible sense of depth. While there are a wide variety of time periods, there are surprisingly few areas to explore, and you'll be forced to traverse the jungle ruins, desert ruins and Roivas mansion several times. Some of the scenery and puzzles change from era to era, but it would have been nice to explore a few more areas than what is available. Overall the game looks quite good, and is a marked improvement over last years' demo. I'd rate it on par with the visuals in Soul Reaver 2, which is quite an accomplishment.

Based on my experiences with the demo, I rented Eternal Darkness fully expecting it to be an inferior product, despite the glowing reviews. And while it's not quite as good as IGN or Gamespot make it out to be, this is a well-polished game with solid play mechanics and some truly novel ideas. I'm truly shocked at how much of an improvement Silicon Knights has made during the development of this game. It's a short ride (about 14 hours), but offers some branch points that should make for a slightly different experience on replay. I'm not that fond of the story, but the mystical themes should find favor with fans of Poe or Lovecraft. The super-cool insanity effects are worth the price of admission alone, so GameCube owners looking for something with a little bite should be pleased. Overall Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a great title despite a few nagging problems, and is worthy of a rental or outright purchase, depending on your gaming budget.