A Gamer's Worst Fear

                There are few things more irritating when playing a video game than something going completely wrong on a physical level.  Say for instance, you are in a heated battle with an enemy and your health is dwindling to dangerously low levels, when all of a sudden someone unplugs the video chord.  The dominant urge is to swear and punch this person (who has just raised his a**hole level to newfound heights) before you frantically fumble around trying to plug your system back in.  By the time that everything is back to normal, the damage has already been done.  There you lie, dead because of someone else’s ignorance.

                Moments where a gaming experience goes awry on a physical level leave the player feeling helpless.  There is nothing the player can do but watch as technology fails him.  In 2002, a game came out with this kind of chaotic manipulation in mind called “Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem.”  It is the first game directly published by Nintendo to earn an M rating and one of the first games to severely screw with my mind.

The game's cover.

                “Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem” is a game that takes place from 25 BC all the way to 2000 AD.  The game revolves around Alexandra Roivas who, while investigating the mysterious murder of her grandfather, comes across a tome bound with human skin and bone in her grandfather’s mansion.  The book is called The Tome of Eternal Darkness (don’t you love when the title of games pops up in the game) and when she reads it she experiences a scene in the life of Pious Augustus, a respected Roman Centurion in 26 BC.  Augustus is trying to summon one of three Ancients, powerful godlike beings, into this reality while a fourth ancient named Mantorok tries to stop this from happening.  If this summoning is accomplished, the Ancient would feast on the souls of all living beings and cast the universe into the horror of eternal darkness.

Alexandra hates when godlike beings threaten humanity.

                Seeing as how a godlike being eating all living souls might cause some discomfort for her future plans, Alexandra decides to find the missing chapters of the tome scattered throughout the mansion.  Each chapter that she finds causes her to relive the experiences of individuals who either crossed paths with Pious or other servants of the ancients over the centuries.  During the course of the game you control twelve different characters that each brings something vitally important to the overall plot.  While the story and settings of the game are creepy enough by themselves, it is the gameplay, specifically the sanity meter, which makes the game really stand out and drive the player insane.

Just finishing a monster so as to not go insane. No big deal.

                The sanity meter is a wonderfully Nintendo patented idea that is represented by an on screen green bar that can be depleted under various conditions, like being seen by an enemy.  The trick is to keep this bar from dropping by doing things like not being noticed or killing enemies with a finishing move, because when the bar becomes low enough various mind-bending effects begin to occur. The screaming voices of women and children begin to be heard, walls begin to bleed, the heads of statues will follow your characters movements, and so on, but the worst effects are those that seem to interact with the physical world.  Sometimes the game’s audio will mute or slowly drop in increments while other times the TV will appear to shut off or change video modes.  The game begins to make the player think that he is actually going insane.  It’s a terrifying effect that can affect your actual sanity without prior knowledge.  The most terrifying of these effects is one that had me praying that the game was lying to me.

One sanity effect kicks you back to the start screen bearing this quote.

                Saving your game is a natural thing in video games.  One needs to log his progress in order to continue at a later time.  It is common sense. “Eternal Darkness” attacked this vital gaming pillar during my playthrough and it shattered me for a moment.  Once, when my sanity meter was low, I saved my game.  After a successful save, I was greeted with this message, “Delete All Saved Games? Are you sure you want to delete all of your Saved Games? (Note: All of your progress so far will be lost!).” The game gave me options of “Yes” and “Continue Without Saving.”  I was drastically confused by what the screen was telling me so I quickly chose the latter.  I proceeded to watch in horror as the game disregarded my choice and showed a progress bar titled “Deleting” pop up on screen.  That little yellow progress bar was the worst thing I had ever seen.  I watched as hours of progress slipped away down the drain and for a brief moment my mind was fried.  When a message stating, “You have successfully Deleted all of your Saved Games,” appeared, I dropped my controller in disbelief.  Did that really just happen?  Seconds later, the game screamed, “This isn’t really happening,” in a struggling tone and life rushed back to my brain.

One of gaming's greatest what the hell moments.

                “Eternal Darkness” had just pulled the biggest a**hole move in gaming history.  The game actually made me believe it had deleted all of my progress for one brief moment.  In that single second, it made every gamer live their worst nightmare: that their gaming technology at one point might be corrupted or fail them.  It is a gaming moment that I will never forget.  The game broke me for just a second, but that second was one of the scariest moments of gaming I have ever experienced.

                Did you have a similar experience with “Eternal Darkness” or maybe you think I’m just being a baby.  If so, sound off in the comments section or follow me on Twitter (@nevstorm5) and give me a shout out.  Be sure to check out some of the sanity effects in the video below.  Until the next time, folks!