Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land

Beaten The Game on Hard in 7 Hours. so this is a final opinion for those choosing to buy the game. Wasn't Awfully hard, compared to a game of Classic Difficulty XCOM. Which is absolutely titanic in size and im going to be comparing this Sadly but Admitably Inferior Product to. I feel like ive gotten my moneys worth in this game, i'll try the DLC another day but here is my two cents. The people who are complaining about the game's controls in the reviews are pretty stupid, sure i found problems initally with UI where clicking anything didn't work. Restarted and worked flawlessly. Following the Tutorial, for people who don't get it. You CLICK YOUR UNIT that you want to attack with and then RIGHT CLICK on the enemy you want to attack, you can keep the Attack Tab up at the same time, so you can change weapons which is nice. You can also tilt the game environment with the arrows at the side of the screen. (You know, the ones that are sorta spinning.) Its inconveienent but its not all that bad. The funny thing is if you actually listen to the tutorial it explains it, i think the tutorial should be implimented into the campaign rather than a option of the latter as it helps alot with the UI. The Combat for the most part is about pushing forward and keeping the team together, if you go in thinking this is like XCOM you will get thrashed by trying to camp in the later levels. The enemies will just continually respawn at certain points until you know nothing but multiple Cthuhid's (Like im telling you what THAT is!) crushing you into dust. Its barely XCOM as we know it, Overwatch is no longer a command you can initalise, instead you simply hold left over points for Overwatch and to my knowledge they do not pass over to the next turn of play. Which means you should leech every single action point out of your characters to maximise efficency. Otherwise your just going to lose it shooting a creature you don't want to shoot at, which is already in your line of sight. Some of the Enemies in the game are strictly for tanking, and they will become a serious hazard if you don't get your guys with shotguns upgraded. Melee units are literally amazing against the later Cthuhids later in the game, but look absolutely silly with a guy with a tiny shovel taking down a abberation half his size. Sanity becomes a Massive issue towards the end of the game, nearly all your soldiers will go insane if you do not have either your investigators a Sanity Restoration book on them. Also max up any Sanity based ablities as they will help you later on. The enemy pacing is nice, and i like how the gameplay becomes from fighting humans to outright nightmares, especially the slow leaning on taking Sanity more seriously above Mustard Gas protection. Its enjoyable but might be frustrating for those who just aren't used to turn based strategy games. You need to plan things out for the long run, looking over the map design and finding what route is easier. I'd say Gas Masks are redundant once you've got your main soldiers kitted out and your investigators their own Gas Masks, especially towards the end of the game. Its also pretty important you build your team specifically to synergise with each other and to keep pushing forward. As long as your team compliments each other, you will always be moving forward or at least working towards a end goal. Gameplay however has plenty of flaws, the Lack of a Cover System makes human combat rather awkward, moments where your not sure if a bit of a building is cover or a small cubby hole to shoot through are plenty and there are a few hinderance with UI but i found the game pretty much doesn't really have too many of them and looks simple to fix with a simple patch. The Graphics are a major problem, i mean they look okay for the asthetic but they could defintely be more repulsive or have something more to it. I Appreciate the attempt by the developers but it is definitely not a pretty game and i feel if they put more into the actual graphics, it'd look okay. They aren't really what get in the way. The Story isn't all that interesting but its not completely dull, often there are these particularly tense( or Annoying.) Sections where your Main Protagonist is taken into a small dream and forced to do a stand against various foreshadowing creatures. Its nice to see it and i found it short but a good way to earn some extra xp, which your going to need. The Antgonist is rather forgettable sadly, i don't really see why he has much of a story to begin with. Im much more interested into one of the investigator's Backstory.(Not going to spoil it for those who are really into this.) Im not going to spoil things but the locations are vaguely interesting, its nice to see a WW1 Scene rather than the sorts of horror locations i typically expect in games these days. The Music and Voice Acting is next to non-existent, which for a £3 Game.. Im not complaining. I didn't expect to have that much fun with it as i did, but i was pleasantly surprised, being both a XCOM fan and a Fan of the Original works so it practically screamed BUY to me. Its £3, or $5. Seriously, i can think of ice cream more expensive than that and ive had alot more fun with this game than any amount of Ice Cream ive dared to eat. (Yes you can use that on the cover or Whatever.) I think with a few gameplay tweaks, a massive improvement to graphics and sound. Overall a larger and higher quality game, you have a potential competitor to XCOM with a great universe to base itself from. TL:DR? I Recommend, Lots of Fun for the strategy fan, Cheap ($5 People! 5!) and Short piece inbetween bigger titles. Needs Gameplay Overhauls and a even bigger Graphical Overhaul, with sound for a potential sequel for PC, otherwise.

Sadly one of those games where the PC optimisation is lacking if not totally absent. Commands work sporadically, focus changes without reason and the keyboard commands are not at all intuitive. It may have been a great tablet game but it is not living up to it on PC.

This is a game I heard some positive buzz back when it came out on smartphones ages ago, but unfortunately virtually nothing was done to polish and prepare it for a PC release. I won't speak much to writing and presentation, since the controls kept me from progressing very far. They are wildly unintuitive, it seems no consideration was given to updating them for PC gamers. The many, many developers now porting their smartphone games to the Steam marketplace really need to realize what works on one device does not always work for another. Taking the time to fix up your release for the new audience will earn you a lot of mileage, and a lot less negative reviews.

Wow! So many negative reviews on that little baby! From my point, all that hatred is being misplaced, this game doesn't deserve such bad comments! What we have here is a turn-based squad tactical game, which looks like something from 20th century (Gorky 17, anyone?). Actually it is an indie game and, what's the worst, mobile port. Being a touchpad game is certainly a disadvantage for PC gamers, but Hey! There are actually many very good titles from mobile platforms! And while we obviously have some flaws with the visuals and controls, it is not the reason to take this bird down! Let me tell you about what is good with that "Call of Cthulhu". For a start, we have a decent, even profound turn-based combat. And it is only getting better, when we are going deeper into the darkness. While the first mission feels like a mundane work about clearing the trenches from Krauts, soon we'll be fighting the abyss monsters, and there the game shows its best piece of mechanic. See, we have RPG elements here, and it is quite possible to make one ubersoldier who will be calling all the shots... in theory. In practice, we have a consciousness as a stat, and it depletes very quickly when fighting the monsters. You can't fight the evil and be untouchable by it, see? It is impossible to beat "Cthulhu" with a single champion. To make all this thing right, you need to keep all your squad in one solid fist, and make sure everybody is covered. Another interesting thing about "Sanity" stat is that it is your mana... of a kind. Closer to the end of the game, you'll get a set of grimoires to make some spells (like draining enemy's action points, or even hurt all bad things on the map). And to cast a spell - you need your "Sanity" high. I think that's a neat concept, and it actually works! Finally, as of good part, this game takes place in the year of 1915, in the middle of the Great War. I think that's kind of rare topic, so that's a plus point for me. If that's not your thing, have another: there is a second campaign, where you play as bad guys, commanding monsters to eat people! How do you like the Dark Side, huh? No? Okay, you don't need to play for Evil to get all achievements, and to beat that game on gold, you'll need less than 10 hours. Guess, that's a plus, after all. Now, about bad things and complaints for this game: 1) While it is a mobile game, it's quite hard for casual players. Turn-based tactical games should be like that, actually, but that is hurting some weaklings nowadays. Pity on them. 2) Controls of this game... so many complaints about them! In fact, they are not exactly of "dream-come-true" type, but I found them tolerable. Yeah, I've seen manual and tips beforehand, and played a training mission to get in tune, but after that - all were fine. 3) Graphics, visuals - yeah, they look not so bright. Certainly not a match for modern XCom glamour. But hey! That game was made by a team of 5 men, and it is priced less than $5 - even without discount! The only thing I can complain is a twitching camera. You take your soldier, pointing him an enemy to be mowed down, blam! And just after the shot, camera making a twitch back to your man. It is getting anxious quite fast, especially when you meet stormtroopers and other enemies who need to be shot at more than once. You point at them, blam! And you need to point your gun again from the start, like we are playing a shooting sim, and not a turn-based strategy. But, you know what? It is a small issue. It is not even a bug. 4) Bugs. Many people writing about bugs, but no one cares to name them. I've not seen any bugs in the game, only spiders and tentacle monsters. But it is predictable from a game with such a name. Again, no real bugs occurred (was tested on 3 PC I'm currently using). Conclusion. That game not about nice-looking, like some casual players are expecting. Even worse, it is a mobile port, so it looks clunky, and it plays a bit clunky as well. But, with its cost, we have a decent, even engaging turn-based squad tactical game, where you really have to think about next moves. And we have quite an original setting, of Lavcraftian stories, and the Great War. The story is inferior (usual thing in the most of turn-based strategies), and mechanics are good and entertaining for the fan of such games (good mechanic is the MUST for any TBS). So, buy it, if you are looking for a new approach in turn-based squad-based tactical games. And Avoid It, if you are familiar with this genre only via new "XCOM" title, or have a zero tolerance to old-school-styled stuff. My mark is 7.5/10 - fairly acceptable. Short, but satisfying. PS: Thanks to Cunning Fox, who gifted it to me!

played it a fair few hours. Very much a Julian Gollop style Laser Squad game and but with some seriously horrendous input HCI issues,. the controls were clearly done with a touch-screen in mind and it hasnt translated over to the PC well, also, the deal breaker; the fcuker crashes! Crashes to the point where I couldnt get past turn 22 on the 4th level. Screw that, lifes too short to mess around with workarounds and Windows settings. 6/10 for me, would been 8/10 if actually worked and had decent keyboard/mouse control.

In Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land, it's basically the characters you control being dropped off for a happy-go-lucky jaunt of shooting eldritch horrors and cultists in the face, learning things man was never meant to know, and spamming lots of Psychoanlysis checks. Really though, Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is what you pay for. It's a good game, but short and sweet. It has it's replay value, but for most people, once you finish it you probably won't be touching it again, save for the extra missions. As a game, it holds up well, although it's not entirely faithful to the Mythos (we all know that the invesitgators would get their s*** slapped by these things). But, relating to the Call of Cthulhu tabletop game by Chaosium? These are all characters you may very well expect to see in any other CoC tabletop campaign. I'd say that if you're looking for a quick game with some interesting survival elements and a fun battle system, pick this one up. But if you're looking for something a bit more in-depth and drawn out in your RPG strategy collection, this is a game that wont' be satisfying you any time soon.

Longevity: It's unfortunately quite short :( but there is a bit o replayability, cause you want play again a mission to have better result (or try other weapons and characters) Fun: It's really enjoyable with nice quotation from lovecraft's work Gameplay: A Tactical game in some ways similar to X-Com, but not so challenging, complex and difficult (but it's not easy at all) Story: Very Linear but solid and in pure Lovecraftian style. Sounds and Ambient Music: Not excellent but well done and very immersive. It's a good game :)

Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is a turn-based strategy title with minor RPG elements. As you may have guessed from the name, the game is based off of H.P. Lovecraft's works within the Cthulhu Mythos; it also features some narrative based off of Herbert West - Reanimator. Since the developer/publisher Red Wasp Design Ltd have disband, this title has been disabled for purchase on the store page. That being said, there are keys still floating around if you truly wish to buy or trade for it. Set in the year 1915 during World War I, you will control a team of investigators and soldiers who have been sent on a mission to investigate the Cult of the Awakened. The head of the cult, Docktor Kaul, has stolen the reanimation technology from Herbert West and he has combined it with arcane mythos magic in order to raise a powerful undead army using the casualties from The Great War. Docktor Kaul wants to eliminate all of humanity to make room for a new, superior, hybrid species; half human, half Star Spawn of Cthulhu. I'm personally a huge fan of Cthulhu and H.P. Lovecraft in general. It saddens me to say that this game is abysmally boring; what you see in the trailer is pretty much what you get. The environments are almost soundless, the gameplay is excruciatingly slow-paced, the dialogue is uninteresting, and the level designs are dull with a good chunk of them featuring trenches. From the screenshots and trailer on the store page, you may think that you will be playing in a semi-open world, but in reality the maps are suffocatingly small. All of this makes sense once you know that Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is a mobile port, one that surprisingly won a few awards. A lot of people have had problems with the mechanics of the game, but if you take the Basic Training course at the beginning they're much easier to understand. They're still pretty awful controls, but at least there is a small tutorial. If you left click an enemy, the screen jumps to it and reveals all of its stats; you have to right click it to attack. Each investigator/soldier has a set of numbers that indicates their health, action points, and sanity. Action points are used to move around the map and attack monsters, and they can be reset by ending your turn. The sanity points go down each time the character attacks and/or gets hit by a foe that is not of the human variety. If a character runs out of sanity, they either freeze up for several turns or go in to a manic mode, dealing a ton of damage but then they become incapacitated afterward. If you fail to revive an incapacitated team member, they die within a set number of turns; this can also be said for when all health points are depleted. If a "main member" dies, you must restart the entire level again. Some levels also have a limited amount of turns that can be expended before the level will end in a game over. In many cases, you must also wait X amount of turns for one of the main investigators to research something before you can move forward. Each investigator and soldier can have two weapons, two items, and two pieces of armor; the further progress you make in the game, the more weapons, items, and armor that you unlock. However, you must purchase these things from the store at the end of each level. Likewise, you also spend any earned experience points at the end of a level. You only get one massive sum of XP, it is not divided up per character. Honestly, the game is made easy even on hard difficulty if you just put all of the XP into the rifle weapon for each character, and buy rifles for each of them. They do the most damage, and have the longest range. It's a huge loophole that negates almost any challenge that this title could've had. Overall, the most irritating thing about this title is the fact that every single time you attack an enemy, the screen has to jump to center on it; even if you're just a couple of steps away. The timing isn't always the same, so while your eyes are expecting the quick motion and follow through with it, it doesn't happen, leaving your eyes to constantly want to dart all over the place. This lovely feature, combined with some of the most dry and dusty gameplay ever conceived, makes Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land hard to recommend even to the most avid H.P. Lovecraft fan. [h1] Rating: [b]2.0/5.0[/b] - It's not awful, but it's not great.[/h1] The Horror Network [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28221963/]Curator[/url] | [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thehorrornetwork]Group[/url] Click for Gore

[h1]IN A WORD: [b]MAYBE[/b] [/h1] [h1]IN A NUTSHELL:[/h1] [quote=] [b]WHAT TO EXPECT:[/b] Story driven RPG. Lovecraftian mythos. World War One setting. Turn-based, WEGOUGO combat with a squad of characters. Focused stat and inventory based system. Authentic period weapons equipment, armour, skills. Unique Sanity system. Limited enemy types. Dated graphics. Low quality sound and audio. Clunky GUI. Basic but solid AI. Small number of missions/low content. Singleplayer only. Free DLC with missions played by the opposite side. [b]ACHIEVEMENTS:[/b] MISSION BASED. WITH SPECIAL CONDITIONS. [b]STATUS:[/b] COMPLETE. BUT ABANDONED. [b]WHEN TO BUY:[/b] IF YOU CAN FIND A KEY. NOT SOLD ON STEAM. [/quote] [i]More info below....[/i] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2409617012 [h1]THE LOWDOWN:[/h1] Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land (CoC:TWL) is a story-driven RPG with tactical turn-based encounters fought against the dark forces of the Cthulhu mythos and their human counterparts. Set during the Great War of 1914-18, player's take control of a squad of soldiers and investigators racing against the clock to thwart the coming of the Dark Ones. The fate of humanity is in their hands. The game is played from an isometric perspective across nine missions. Each level tasks the group to achieve a number of objectives across a variety of maps, which can be rotated in 4x90 degree segments. WEGOUGO is used to move individuals across the map. As they do so a number of enemies of varied capabilities spawn in groups and attack. Some use human-made weapons. Others possess otherworldly powers. Characters have a handful of stats and a small inventory of six slots. Stats determine action points, damage protection, a weapon use and effectiveness of weapons, abilities, health-kits, other equipment or the casting arcane spells. Inventory holds two weapons, two items and two pieces of armour. Spell-books straddle weapon or item categories. Action points determine what characters can do in a turn. Standard mechanics include; snapshot, aimed shot, melee attack, cast spell and swap or use items. Characters and enemies with unused action points can use overwatch to shoot in defence, when it is not their turn. One special item, a carrier pigeon provides the ability to call in limited artillery strikes. A unique mechanic central to the Cthulhu mythos is the sanity stat. Every attack conducted reduces a character's sanity. If this stat reaches zero the character becomes unhinged and sometimes cannot be controlled. Sanity can only be regained with the aid of spells initially known only to the civilian investigators in the party. Possible effects result in the character becoming paralysed with terror or for fear to boost their survival instinct, thus enhancing their abilities. Another intriguing feature are pooled experience points. These are gained upon completing missions which can used to raise stats or skills, across any member of the team. The higher the skill or stat, the higher the cost to raise. Map locations are generic, based on the battlefields of WWI and mysterious locations found in Lovecraftian literature. Trenches can be entered to protect characters from damage. While mustard gas resides in a few locations, causing damage to any one that traverses them. Gas masks reduce or nullifies their effect. Health stations used to heal are spread around the map. If a member of the party has their hit-points reduced to zero, the player has three turns to revive them using another character with a healing kit or spell. Objectives once achieved, trigger the next one or if completed, signal the end of the current mission. If a key character dies, the mission fails and must be restarted. A DLC of extra missions where the player takes on the mission of the other side is included for free. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2409612726 [h1]THE GOOD:[/h1] + Well designed and balanced missions. Just enough variation. (Played on Hard) + Perfectly written and executed Lovecraftian story from the Cthulhu mythos. + Possess a complimentary set of turn-based mechanics. (Combat, character interaction and special abilities) + Good range of era appropriate equipable weapons, equipment and armour. + Well-balanced stats and skills. Rather unique group experience point pool allocation. + Solid overwatch feature. + Forgiving re-start mechanism. From the last turn or last objective. [h1]THE BAD:[/h1] - Low on content. - Static spawns. Not enough dynamic elements. - No item recommendations for key equipment. - Missing some kind of unit overview showing which units are still to have their turn. - Not the best AI pathing. Sometimes units can walk into gas zones. - No manual save feature. - Cannot change equipment once the next mission is started. Can only replay levels from that point on. - Cannot reset character stats. - Soundtrack captures the setting but quality is below standard. [h1]AND THE REST:[/h1] * Decent Cthulhu mythos based story. * Small well designed levels. * Graphics outdated. But somehow nostalgic. * Well designed UI. Feels clunky, like it came from a mobile port. * Small compact inventory. Balanced and adequate for the missions. * Solid aggressive AI. But prone to suicide itself in the gas-filled areas. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2409620602 [h1]ANALYSIS:[/h1] Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is no more. Removed from Steam. The few remaining keys that may exist now float in the ether of digital retailers. The keys no doubt wait for the next [un-]lucky party to find them and pluck them from the places between [gaming] worlds. For with the developers defunct, there will be no more. Before I managed to find my key, this game was on my wishlist for a good many years. I thank my lucky stars I was able to purchase one. There are some features that could have been different. It will not be a game for everyone. Even fans of TB games. Some gamers will undoubtably compare its offerings with more modern incarnations. Despite the clunky GUI. Despite its dated appearance. Despite the lame and uninteresting in-game background audio. Despite the small, limited maps. Despite the simplistic missions. Despite the lack of dynamicity. Despite there being only 9 missions in the main campaign. Despite the overall limited nature of gameplay. Its virtually a perfect game for me. There are quite a few reasons why these limitations can be overlooked. Simply put - I love a Lovecraftian story. I love simple turn-based gameplay. I love streamlined squad-based combat. I love WW1/WW2 setting. I love well-balanced RPG mechanics and I love unique touches that make games stand out. Even if in a minor way. Okay so I exaggerate when I say love. Yet all these elements attracted my interest. They pulled me in. Provided an experience that was greater than the minor discounted price I paid for a game that no one will publicise or work on again. I love these types of hidden gems. That's what CoC: TWL was for me. A hidden gem. While nothing here screams genre-defining, CoC:TWL is one of those games that combined every feature in its locker to collectively provide an experience without annoyance. A believeable game world. With mechanics that were grasped with ease. Where no bugs or issues raised their their terrifying heads. Where no fanfare was heard. Nor fuss to brush off. No need to announce its existence. Which is just how the Dark Ones like it! [h1]VERDICT:[/h1] Ultimately CoC: TWL is a game few will get to play. Especially if you are reading this! Though if you miss out on playing this game you may just kick yourself. At least it will not signal the end of the world. <Insert evil Cthulhu laugh> [quote=]Thank you for reading. | Find my reviews[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40556040-The-Irregular-Gamer/] here[/url].[/quote]