Underrated and influential industry defining survival horror masterpiece classic spotlight "Nocturne"
It's the 1920s, you play as Joshua Stranger a strange and mysterious individual who doesn't quite know of his past, not remembering the memories they once contained. He has a penchant at survival skills, all of the resources of a great detective, and one of the best agents in the organization. He has a true hatred for supernatural monsters but respects those he has to work with based on their skills and techniques not their appearance or birth right.
He is a member of the organization known as "The Spookhouse" who have investigated the darkened events of Rustin Parr behind The Blair Witch, but they also investigate Cosmic otherworldly gods, lovecraftian cults, vampires, werewolves and anything that goes bump in the night. The organization was established by Teddy Rosenvelt who fought off a pack of werewolves during the Civil War during his career.
The game has five chapters that travels you from the swamps of the south, to gothic European castles filled with shadowed creatures of darkness, Frankenstein like monsters reanimated by the mob, lovecraftian gods that want to bring about the end of the world, Baron Samedi assisting you with the curse of a village of the dead, to a mysterious individual who slaughters through the organization headquarters to leave the Stranger a mysterious hint that he knows his true past.
The game is a fixed camera, third person survival horror narrative. The atmosphere is so thick, dense, creepy, and hauntingly unnerving never knowing what is about to come at you or torment you from the dark backgrounds of the environment. It uses a unique mechanic where you had laser sights on the pistols which would allow you to free aim and target limbs on their bodies to get better damage and accuracy.
The reason this forgotten underrated masterpiece in the survival horror genre defined the industry is due to the unique elements that stood it apart from every other experience in the genre. The developers at the talented "Terminal Reality" had programmed actual visible breath to be shown from the characters mouths as their bodies moved due to the air they had in the atmosphere. Wind would push leaves, trees, as well as your tail of the trenchcoat/capes around in the direction of the breeze flowing around you. The light effects would shine eerily from different perspectives, such as a Werewolf infested forest had the moonlights bright beam shining down through the branches, or you had an old movie projectors light shining around from the screen that illuminated the enemies and kept the others in the darkness until they got closer.
The games theme song was very influential in the genre of horror/survival horror and other mediums for the next few decades. The song was used for the hit TV series "Fear Factor" for that theme song, many old and modern commercials and some notable themes in video games.
The franchise is connected to "Bloodrayne 1&2" with some characters from Nocturne appearing in the plot and story of Bloodrayne but loosely tied in to make the Bloodrayne franchise stand out on its own.
Lynn Mathis did the excellent confident, professional, mature, wise/aged, vulnerable stoic protagonist Joshua Stranger so well, and was iconic for the role but sadly passed away.
With Terminal Reality somewhat dead in the waters after the release of Ghostbusters the video game(all of the main actors doing their likeness/voice) and the Walking Dead game with Norman Reedus it seems that Nocturnes fate and Joshua Stranger is left in Limbo until someone like THQ Nordic or another studio buys the rights.
Back after the success of The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Deep Rising, before Van Helsing. Stephan Sommers was in the talks and negotiation stage for a live action movie with Joshua Stranger and the events of Nocturne but sadly negotiations fell through and it never happened but he would have treated the IP title with the pulpy, gothic action horror it deserved.
It was a single player, PC only experience that is 100% worth playing if you can find it and run it up. The voice work, atmosphere, scares, puzzles, and horror is something that still holds up extremely well and plays even better. It's so damn unique!
The trailers for the game are 100% nightmare fuel and adds so much passion for the universe of horror
One trailer has an insane asylum patient(played by Joshua Strangers voice actor) discussing the nightmares that he survived and how much the agents of the Spookhouse fight to make the world a lot better.
Another trailer has constables walking through the darkened foggy woods with lanterns noticing a dead body,
A final trailer happened with Teddy Rosenvelt discussing how he fought against a monstrous beast in the civil war, and how much it impacted his life.
Here is the link for a full free PC game download no viruses, which houses even more classic titles for you to check out if interested. :)
https://collectionchamber.blogspot.com/2015/03/nocturne.html?m=1
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