By: Silicon Knights

Violence and gore in a Nintendo game. Excellent.

Eternal Darkness is the story of twelve characters, chosen by fate to combat an ancient evil spanning two thousand years of history. The game begins with Alexandra Roivas, a heroine who discovers that her grandfather has been murdered. She decides to investigate his mansion in Rhode Island, apparently the home of the long Roivas family line. There Alex discovers the Tome of Eternal Darkness, a collection of his grandfather's investigations into the work of the Ancients.

The mansion acts as a hub for the impressively varied levels in the game. Levels include playing as a Roman centurion, a WWII field journalist, a Canadian industrial firefighter, and a monestary monk. As Alex discovers pages from the Tome, the game switches to a narrative and cutscene that introduces the level. Then you complete the chapter by playing through it. The presentation is just so slick, and goes a long way in sucking you into the story.

As you can tell, the themes in this game are pretty mature. There are so many freaky events that occur in the game, that it's hard to justify spoiling them. However, one of the major implementations in Eternal Darkness is the completely new, never-been-done-before sanity system. As your characters meet the ungodly creatures in the game, you will start to lose sanity, indicated by a meter. As your sanity wanes, your character will start to hallucinate. Your character might start to hear knocking or footsteps, to talk to him or herself, or to see the walls start to bleed. Sanify effects range from subtle, to visceral, to just plain weird. I won't ruin any of the really good ones, but the beauty of the sanity system is that you don't realize the game is playing tricks on you until a white flash appears. Eternal Darkness forces the *player* to question if what is happening on screen is real.

Eternal Darkness is played from a third-person perspective with a wonderfully executed camera system. It not only keeps the action in the middle of the screen, but serves to point out the important parts of the level. It also sweeps and pans for dramatic effect. The gameplay in Eternal Darkness is heavy on puzzle-solving and item-collecting - find this to open that, kill this to recover that. In fact, the game is fairly short, even the first time through. But with rewards for the completing it a second and third time, and the amazingly fun gameplay, you won't feel the slightest bit ripped-off.

The graphics are very impressive in some areas, and surprisingly poor in others. I say 'suprisingly poor' because most of the characters and environments are stunning, sporting beautiful textures and lighting. Since development of Eternal Darkness began on Nintendo 64, some of the character models in the cutscenes are blocky and animate unnaturally. On the other hand, the sound and voice acting in the game are astounding.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is the most memorable game I've played in a while. Whether it's the story, the presentation, the graphics, the sound, or the sanity effects, Eternal Darkness has Nintendo quality written all over it. Renting Eternal Darkness won't allow you to experience the game to its fullest. OWN IT.