Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder (PC) Review

Howard Loried isn't enjoying his life. That's made perfectly clear by the introduction scenes, where he is found locked up in a mental institute, having been found wandering around ranting and raving, arguing with himself. He writes notes to convince himself of his madness. As he writes, the player traces his steps, starting with a mini-nightmare sequence followed up with a short tutorial sequence, and then the game begins!

Darkness Within doesn't beat around the bush. The use of visual and audio cues to set the mood is masterfully done. A psychological horror lives or dies by the use of these tools, so credit should be given where it is due: the throbbing, menacing music as Howard approaches or finds a key clue, combined with incessant - annoying, even - humming background noises that just won't stop. That grandfather clock, ticking away in the background; it's maddening, yet so effective. Things have an uncanny knack of going bump at the appropriate moment, and scare chords and intense music is enough to get the hair on the back of the neck standing to attention.

Married with a visual style that could be described almost as 'fuzzy,' like a blurry hand-held camera, Darkness Within paints a bleak and dark picture to each and every scene. Light is a rarity; the noise and the darkness is a dizzying mix that gives a real sense and understanding as to why Howard's mind is all over the place. Even better, when Howard does decide to have an episode, a panic attack or an 'Oh crap' moment, the view distorts, a heartbeat pounds, the music escalates and it gets freaky in the sense that as Howard desires to flee, so, too, does the player. Whatever is behind that crack, that wall, that door, there is a palpable feeling of not wanting to be there if and when it decides to show itself.

This freaky atmosphere is compounded by the very game mechanics. Darkness Within is an adventure game, a node-based game, where clicking moves the camera (representing Howard's very own eyes) forward. Selecting items zooms in or allows for opening things. It's restrictive, old-school, and that's not a negative point at all because the restrictive movement lends to the ambient atmosphere.

Being a detective, Howard has certain tools available to him. There's a genre-typical 'thinking' screen, where clues and items can be mixed and matched in a slot bar for Howard to 'think' about. For the most part, this works well enough. For example, say there's a clue in a book about the number XI being seen in a room of mirrors. Dropping the clue 'XI' and 'Mirrors' into the boxes and clicking combine/think causes Howard to have a eureka moment and recognise that the number should be reversed and therefore 'IX.' However, there's a downside to this system, especially when it's linked to some puzzles. Sometimes, the player may be aware of a puzzle solution before Howard is, but can't quite find the right clues to mix and match. Howard's responses to an incorrect sequence of clues are quite unhelpful, too.

There's another mechanic in place, one that is quite unique and extremely good. When a book or letter or any written clue is found, Howard can highlight individual words, phrases or sentences, thereby identifying new clues to add into the mix. Some of these are hidden, but there's a handy clue counter available, and on the lower difficulties this process can be done automatically without user input. Likewise, on the higher difficulties, there's no clue counter and absolutely every document with text can be highlighted, which can waste a lot of time, but is a sure-fire way to get people reading. The mechanic is simple and effective, and every clue can be found via trial and error eventually, anyway, but other games should take note and perhaps inspiration from this, as it's a very curious mechanic.

Darkness Within isn't perfect, however. Voice acting is a weak point, with dialogue occasionally trying too hard to be descriptive and suspenseful, when the music and ambient sounds already do the job effectively. The plot itself suffers from some pacing and information issues. Darkness Within is slow, painfully so; it's a design decision that makes sense, but is too extreme. The pacing is off, and combined with Howard getting far too panicky far too easily at times, has an effect of causing a feeling of ambivalence. At some point, the music and sound isn't going to cut it anymore; if the game was faster or if the psychological scares were stronger, then this would be mitigated somewhat.

The information handed out by the plot is almost threadbare at times. Howard is pursuing Nolder via researching his victim, Clark Field, but this bit of information is easily pushed aside by the interruptions of Howard's nightmares and, bizarrely, sometimes by the amount of clue hunting and puzzle solving he has to do. It isn't helped that most characters that crop up in the investigation have a name but no discernible 'face' to them. They oftentimes aren't met, and there's a strong risk of a dissonance between Howard and the player, simply because of Howard's interests. This is a man who has some very curious tastes in poetry and art, but this point may only apply to those who don't have a profound interest in all things Lovecraftian.

The further along the game progresses, the less effective the music and ambient noises become. Eventually, the lack of danger combined with a poor conveyance of Howard's freaking out results in a game that starts strongly but falters, leaving a sour experience of just going through the motions and tuning out of the experience.

Essentially, then, Darkness Within is a mixed bag, on the one hand offering an atmospheric psychological horror and thriller, yet falling short of doing what it sets out to do by not quite maintaining the story at the forefront of the experience. If that had been the case and pacing had been resolved, then it would likely have hit on a winning formula. As it stands it lands just on the right side of 'good' but fails to push on to be 'excellent.'