What's this? A horror game published by Nintendo? But this one is no Resident Evil...

Eternal Darkness has been in development for a long time. It started off being planned for the N64. As development went on they realised it was too ambitious for the console so they moved it to the Gamecube. Thank god they did Eternal Darkness is an epic psychological thriller, with a storyline that spans centuries. You start the game playing as Alexandra Roivas, who's grandfather was recently brutally murdered, the police have no clues, so Alex decides to explore his mansion to find any clues. She (you) soon find a strange book made from skin and bones called the 'Tome of Eternal Darkness' and start to read it.. As you read the book, you play out the story as the character in the book. After each chapter you return to play as Alex until you find another chapter of the book.. Erm, I've probably lost you now so I'll move on to..

ED doesn't look like the best game in the world, it has some nice effects but doesn't shine like a new Gamecube game should. It reminds me of 007: Agent Under Fire with it's PS2 style graphics. The framerate is high, and is one of the few games that support a widescreen (16:9) mode. The particle effects employed when you cast magic are good. The game uses prerendered FMV and FMA (real time) to tell it's tale and are used well, and not boring the player too much

Throughout the whole game, music and sounds are used to spook you. When your sanity bar gets lower you start to hear knocks on the doors, and footsteps on the creaky floors, very effective! The game fully supports Dolby Pro-Logic 2, if you have the equipment to use it, this makes the audio surround you much more effectively than a standard stereo setup. All the characters have voices and there is even some narration when you start and end a chapter!

Control of your character in Eternal Darkness is very easy and intuitive, it uses the now common 'push harder to move faster' analogue control scheme. Fighting is also managed very well, you press R to raise your weapon and you the stick to aim for a body part. (Up for head, left for left arm etc.) then press A to slash/shoot depending on your weapon. Also you can learn various magick (not a typo) which can do various things from summoning a zombie to healing yourself.

ED is quite a long game, with 12 chapters each lasting a good hour. Also early on in the game you get to choose from three different artifacts (Red, Blue and Green) each with a different story/ending. So the game has at least 3x replayability Also the sanity effects, which I will explain shortly, are worth playing for =) ED isn't too hard, but make sure you save often because there are no lives in this game, if you die then you restart from your last save!

Now, the sanity effects.. Each time you see a scary monster, you lose 'sanity', this means you can start to hallucinate! For example, in one chapter when I was running low on health I cast the spell to regain life, and my entire body exploded instead! The screen then flashed white and the character said 'This isn't really happening!' Another example.. You are playing the game with a zombie thing following you, and all of a sudden your TV turns its self off! After a second it comes back on with a white flash! I don't want to tell you all of the effects that I have experienced in the game, but suffice to say, some are quite shocking! And don't worry you can regain sanity by finishing off a monster or using a magick spell

Great story, great sound, great gameplay, great game! Buy it!