Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage Demo

H.P. Lovecraft is by far one of the most well-known and admired horror writers out there, thanks to the multitude of haunting short stories he devised over the course of his life. Naturally, some of them were integrated into other works of art as well, whether it's books, movies, or even video games. Although Cthulhu is his most popular creation, there are plenty of other horrifying monsters and tales lying dormant at the bottom of his pages.

Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage is an adventure game inspired by Lovecraft's universe, which means that horrible monsters and terrifying events are to be expected. Unlike the previous release, however, this new installment opts for a fully 3D game world, thus dropping the pre-rendered environments that were used in the original game. Fortunately, most of the other ideas have been kept largely intact in the transition, which in this case is a good thing.

The story follows detective the same Howard Loreid, as he is confronted with yet another wave of paranormal happenings that twist his concept of reality and turn his world upside down. This time, however, he finds out that things from his own past are not what they seemed and the nightmares reveal disturbing details about his life, which push Howard to try and end his torment once and forever.

Although the environment is now in three dimensions, those who played the first part should not have too much trouble adapting to the new interface, given the fact that it resembles the old one pretty closely. However, the fact that you can move freely should act as a catalyst when it comes to immersing yourself into the atmosphere, while the inspired level design definitely helps a lot as well.

As far as the puzzles are concerned, the new perspective did not have too much of an influence on them, although they might not be as inspired as in the original episode. They can still give you a few headaches, though, especially since you have to tackle a variety of conundrums regarding mysterious notes, strange dreams and various other kinds of dizzying pieces of evidence that somehow ties in together toward the end.

Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage may not be as good or as original as the first game was, but it is certainly a good adventure title and you can have a wonderful time with it. Lovecraft would be slightly impressed at the story and the setting, since it does hit on many of the same points and ideas.