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The first of three games being put out by "The Gathering of
Developers"; this one is done by Terminal Reality, makers of Nocturne. The
games will delve into the mythos surrounding the Blair Witch Project. In "Blair
Witch Volume I: Rustin Parr" were taken back to the 1940s and the Rustin Parr
murders.
Now if you recall, Rustin Parr was an old hermit who lived outside of
Berkettsville in the infamous woods. He rarely came to town and, he started
coming by less and less. Eventually he stopped, all a suddenly children from
the town started disappearing. No one suspected Parr; eight children
disappeared. One day Rustin came into town and said, "Im finally finished".
With that he took the Sheriff up to his cabin where he had killed seven kids in
his basement all while making this one kid, Kyle Brody, stand in the corner.
Well the police found the bodies and Kyle dazed outside Parrs house. Parr
claimed an "old lady ghost" told him to do it. No one believed him; this is
where the game picks up.
You are Doctor Elspeth Holiday (Yeah I know the name Doc. Holiday is a
little corny but bear with me) an agent from Spookhouse. Spookhouse is a secret
government agency set up by Teddy Roosevelt to look into spooky crap:
werewolves, zombies vampires, you know all that good crap. (This is all from
the game Nocturne btw.) In fact when you begin the game you deal with several
characters from Nocturne. The Stranger for instance is convinced that there is
no Blair Witch cause hes been there several times and never found anything
(The Stranger being the main character from Nocturne). Anyway you are ordered
to go to Burkettsville and check things out, undercover of course.
You arrive in Burkettsville before they hang Parr, but after all the
reporters leave. Your cover: youre from a neighboring county and your niece
disappeared, and youre there to see, if just maybe Rustin had something to do
with it. The people in the small town have two basic reactions, either one:
theyre helpful and sympathetic, or two: theyre assholes to you.
The controls are a mouse/keyboard configuration, it takes a minute to
get used to, but its not hard to master, memorizing the hot keys is the trick.
I did find some difficulties with the mouse, but thats probably cause my
mouse is old and sucks; Id already known I needed a new one.
The Nocturne engine isnt the newest or the flashiest engine out today,
but its nice; one of the best fixed camera engines Ive seen. It might be
fixed with its camera angles, but its not pre-rendered backgrounds; its real
time. You really have to play the game to see how nice it is. All the objects,
everything, casts a shadow. At night with the flashlight, its amazing
atmosphere. Leaves in the forest move when you walk through them; its great.
The only problem I have with the video and graphics is the video of the
characters talking, the lips arent synced well, but I guess its better then
Nocturne when the lips didnt move at all.
The Sound is great; I mean great, spifftastic! The zombie groans, the
gunfire, the voices, shit the voices, all the characters have individually
voiced tracks. Its really nice. Elspeths voice is nice. it doesnt rag on
you despite how much you hear it, or when it doesnt tell you what you want it
to "Id better not use my gear in town" Dammit I want my gun, fine...
One last thing, the atmosphere, I mean when I loaded the game there was
a spooky crying, sounded like a little girl. It was kinda spooky, course the
loading took awhile, and it got annoying quick. But after that it came to the
main game screen, and it told me to turn all the lights off in the computer
area, "Ok what the hell, why not" I think. So I do, I sit down and hit
continue; then it takes me through a couple of screens having me set my
brightness, and contrast setting to the proper level. At first I thought it
was too dark, but once into the game it was perfect; it was great, and I still
have them at that setting in my main windows and its not that noticeable.
Bottom line, its a good game; Nocturne fans gotta get this, hell at
$19.00. Its a must have for everyone. Theres no shaky cameras, or
snot-o-vision. Its a good game, and Im told it takes longer to finish then
such full priced games as F.A.K.K.
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