Nocturne (PC game)
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| Nocturne | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Terminal Reality |
| Publisher(s) | Gathering of Developers |
| Release date(s) | 1999 |
| Genre(s) | Action |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: M |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Media | CD-ROM |
Nocturne is a video game released for PC by Terminal Reality in 1999. It is a survival horror set in the late 1920s and early 1930s, starring the player as The Stranger, an operative of a fictional American Government secret organization known as "Spookhouse", created by President Theodore Roosevelt to fight monsters. He goes on missions to investigate four strange cases and save people from classical monsters, such as werewolves, zombies, vampires, and others kinds of horrible creatures.
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[edit] Graphics and gameplay
The game sold moderately well, driven largely by its graphics; they were cutting-edge in 1999, and they are still fairly solid today. The shadow effects, one of the biggest selling points, are intricate and realistic, and the makers strongly encourage players to play in a darkened room for maximum effect. The sound is also very detailed. The two major problems with Nocturne are its camera angles and controls. Like many survival horror games, Nocturne features prerendered backgrounds against which 3D models are rendered in realtime. Because of this, survival horror game makers must carefully choose the positions of the camera angles, which are universally static. The camera angles frequently are chosen more for style than function; it is not uncommon to be unable to clearly see what you are doing.
The controls are fairly standard for the genre, but one of the problems is that controls for moving and aiming are separate. In addition, one has to draw a weapon. Thus, if The Stranger encounters an enemy, he must draw his weapon, aim, move to avoid the enemy, and fire with separate controls. This difficulty is greatly eased with the use of a gamepad and the "Auto-Aim" option on the "Controls" menu. However, as the majority of PC game players do not use gamepads, they have some difficulty adjusting to the keyboard control layout as it is closer to the control scheme of a first-person shooter like Quake rather than that of a 3rd-person game like Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark.
[edit] Storyline
Instead of a single over-arching story, Nocturne's gameplay is broken up into 4 independent Acts. Each Act is a self-contained campaign that can be selected as soon as the game begins. Although the 4 Acts can be played in any order, they progress in chronological order from 1 to 4 and thus some very minor details (such as agents that join or leave the Spookhouse organization as time passes) are easiest to see when you play the Acts in that order. The Acts are as follows:
[edit] Act I: Dark Reign of the Vampire King
The Stranger reluctantly teams up with a half-vampire Spookhouse agent named Svetlana Lupescu to retrieve a powerful artifact from a remote vampire-occupied castle in Germany. This chapter features a large number of different enemies, including ghouls, werewolves, and vampires. Different enemies have different weaknesses, creating a greater variety of gameplay.
[edit] Act II: Tomb of the Underground God
The Stranger uses his dual pistols and a double-barrel shotgun to battle a zombie outbreak in a small, secluded wild-west style American town. As the title suggests, an H.P. Lovecraft-style entity ultimately makes an appearance. This chapter is mostly about killing zombies, although other monstrous creatures appear towards the end of the chapter.
[edit] Act III: Windy City Massacre
Al Capone is creating an army of Frankenstein-style reanimated mobsters, so The Stranger packs up his tommygun and travels to Chicago to stop this nefarious plot. This chapter has less of a horror feel and is more like an action movie. The only enemy you face are the Frankenmobsters, who (despite the fact they have green skin), behave pretty much like human opponents; yelling wisecracks, talking amongst themselves, and fighting with tommyguns.
[edit] Act IV: The House on the Edge of Hell
Responding to a call for assistance, The Stranger is dispatched to the remote mansion of Hamilton Killian, a retired Spookhouse agent with many of the same qualities as The Stranger (including an overwhelming hatred of monsters) and who, in his time, was widely regarded to be one of the organization's best monster hunters. Through a convoluted series of events, The Stranger is placed in a massive, puzzle-filled deathtrap and forced to face enemies from the game's previous 3 Acts who are also trapped in there with him.
[edit] The Epilogue
Once all 4 Acts have been played and beaten, a short 5-minute interactive epilogue is unlocked that thrusts The Stranger into a grim cliffhanger that paves the way for a sequel that has yet to be announced or released.
[edit] Spookhouse
The Spookhouse is a major agency seen in the game. It's the Supernatural Domestic Defense and League of Research, a secret agency that deals and fight the supernatural evil, founded in 1903, after the President Roosevelt killed a werewolf during a hunting (so realizing that monsters could be a threat to the country). Some of the most prominent's agents from Spookhouse are:
- The Stranger - The main character in the game. A man without past, identity or history, was employed by the Spookhouse in 1923 in strange circustances. He hates all kinds of monsters and speaks only when is necessary.
- Colonel Hapscomb - Former colonel of the army, Hapscomb is the Vice-diretor from the Spookhouse. He is always met by the player at the beginning of an act to tell Stranger what he must do. He is hook-handed and wears an eyepatch.
- General Biggs - A General of the USA Army that helped Stranger on the Third Act. He is a close friend of Colonel Hapscomb.
- Svetlana Lupescu - Supernatural huntress of human mother and vampire father, she is one of the top operatives of the Spookhouse. Svetlana is very important on the First Act, when she is the partner of Stranger. Has only very briefs appearances on the following Acts.
- Moloch - A demon that was "rejected both on heaven and hell", Moloch is not officially a Spookhouse operative, but became a volunteer after he helped the operatives on a "Nepalese Horucide on 1927" to destroy the demon underworld that had cast him out of Hell centuries before. He assisted in the sealing of the portal in the mountains of Nepal, and Spookhouse brought him back to America afterwards to consider him as a potential agent. He was missing during most of the game after a mission on Spain, so appeared briefly on the beginning of the First Act, which happened before he went to Spain. Later, he is found on the Fourth Act and helps Stranger.
- Scat Dazzle - Partner of The Stranger on the Second Act, he is a voodoo expert since he was a child. He can summon the Baron Samedi, an extremely powerful Loa who looks like a skeleton. Scat was dead on the beginning of the Second Act, but was ressurrected by the Baron Samedi. It was implied that he had died many times before, always being resurrected.
- Haystack - A very strong boxer, who can defeat monsters only with his fists, and special, monster specific gloves. Appears on the beginning of all the four Acts.
- Hiram Mottra - Hiram's service to Spookhouse consists mainly of research and documentation. Occasionally he is called upon to go into the field in a combat capacity, but his nervous nature and considerable bulk make him ill equipped as a soldier. To compensate he tends to carry an assortment of silver, wood and mercury weapons so that he can handle confrontations with practically any supernatural creature. His education included a small amount of medical training, so his services as a medic are sometimes employed. He often utilizes his unproven extra sense that allows him to "feel" aggressive thoughts directed at him. Some think this "sixth sense" is actually just paranoia, but more often than not, his feelings prove true.
- Elspeth "Doc" Holliday - The chief scientist of the Spookhouse. She always helps The Stranger, supplying him with weapons and devices invented by herself. She is the main character on the semi-sequel Blair Witch Vol. 1: Rustin Parr.
- Justine - Justine appears only on the semi-sequel, as an assistant to Doc Holliday. Not too much is revealed about her.
- Vicenzo "Icepick" Gasparro - Originally an enforcer for the Ghiberti Family in Chicago, Icepick was betrayed and "sold" to Professor Loathring as an early experiment in Al Capone's "Frankenmob" scheme. Already a large man, Gasparro was induced to experimental medical procedures that transformed him into a horribly scarred and stitched together giant. After the Third Act, he was recruted by the Spookhouse and trained by Doc Holliday, turning very loyal to her.
- Gabriela Augustini - She did not appear in the final version of the game, but in early versions she was intended to have a great role or maybe be one of the main characters. Can be unlocked by players who changes the system files. She's almost a woman counterpart of The Stranger.
[edit] Semi-sequel
There is also a "semi sequel" of Nocturne, what is actually a crossover, of the Nocturne game and the Blair Witch legend. The game, "Blair Witch vol. I: Rustin Parr", is the first of a trilogy of Blair Witch games, published by Gathering of Developers. The game stars the Spookhouse agent Elspeth "Doc" Holliday, investigating the legend of the Blair Witch. The story envolves around that an old hermit named Rustin Parr, killed seven children in Burkittsville and said that he was doing it for an "old woman ghost", the Blair Witch. Spookhouse became interested in the case, and Doc is sent to investigate. The game was developed by Terminal Reality and use the Nocturne Engine. Some agents from Nocturne appear in the game.
[edit] Influence on other games
The Nocturne engine was licensed and used to create the three games in the The Blair Witch Project trilogy. The first game in the series, The Blair Witch Project: Rustin Parr, was created by Terminal Reality and featured characters from Nocturne (including Doc Holliday as the main character) investigating the Blair Witch legend.
Nocturne was also heavily influential in the creation of Terminal Reality's BloodRayne game. The main protagonist of BloodRayne, the half-vampire Rayne, is based upon the Nocturne character Svetlana Lupescu (Rayne's costume in the beta version suggests she was originally supposed to be Svetlana), and the first BloodRayne game contains several references to Nocturne, including several levels that take place in the German castle from Nocturne's Act I.
[edit] Trivia
- On the game's official Website (which has since been closed down), computer models of monsters which did not appear in the final version of the game could be seen. Also, one of the characters, Moloch, could be seen changing his appearance from a large demon with shredded wings, horns and hoofed feet, to that of an average man.
- The soundtrack of Nocturne is public domain music which appears occasionally on television adverts and dramas in Asia, especially in Hong Kong TVB dramas. It is most prominent in the hit NBC TV reality series "Fear Factor". It has also been used in commercials for TAG Body Shots. 'Metalized' versions of several cues can be heard on the album Death's Design by Diabolical Masquerade. Music used in some action scenes also features in the soundtrack of the 2002 Japanese movie Returner.
- In the semi-sequel Blair Witch Project: Rustin Parr, the shop music at Kohl could be heard in ASDA TV adverts at one time.
- There was talk of a TV series of Nocturne aimed at PG-13, but there is no trace of it anymore.
- The reason that the game BloodRayne had similar elements to Nocturne was because it had been planned as the sequel to Nocturne. The story and elements were changed because Nocturne did not sell quite as well as had been hoped in the market.
- The Stranger's voice was performed by Lynn Mathis who died in 2003.
- The lounge song in episode 3 is sung by Mary Beth Brooks through a telephone conversation to Terminal Reality recording studio.
