Heart of Darkness PS1

Welcome to my first ever blog. I plan to write about retro video games, anime, classic cartoons and other random topics that pop into my head and pop out onto the keyboard.

To start with I’ve chosen an old Playstation game called ‘The Heart of Darkness.’ Now oddly enough I’d never even heard of this game until a friend of mine in work mentioned it and showed me the gameplay footage on Youtube and I have to say it looked pretty cool.

On the 2D side scrolling screen was a kid blasting away at creepy shadows with a weapon that immediately reminded me of the ‘Proton Beam’ from ‘Ghostbusters.’  

Needless to say it had hooked me already. However I didn’t go ahead and purchase it for myself. Nope, my friend asked if I would kindly bid on the game for him on Ebay, as he didn’t want his missus finding out that he was buying more games again. He has quite the collection building you see. So I bid and won it for £2.50 with postage! Not bad eh?

Now fortunately he had the next week off work so I took advantage of an opportunity and tested the game out when it arrived. I even stopped playing The Last of Us just to try and finish this game! I know, crazy right!? Just seeing the Playstation title flash up brought back memories of the late 90’s. Old school. I love it.

The story starts with our hero Andy, your typical teenager, falling asleep during class at school. What follows next is a comedy of events that ends when Andy’s beloved dog Whisky is kidnapped during a solar eclipse. Now naturally any dog owner in their right mind would go to any means necessary to rescue their precious pet and that’s exactly what Andy does…in his spaceship that he keeps in his treehouse! Of course, every kid owns one these days right?

So Andy launches off and crash lands in the Darklands to save Whisky. The Darklands are of course ruled over by the Master of Darkness, no surprises there!

Once you are in the Darklands you are attacked by these shadow creatures who remind me of the ‘Heartless’ from ‘Kingdom Hearts’. Some can fly, some crawl but most will just run at you while another grabs you from behind. A large group of them will swarm the screen from either side while you blast away at them with the plasma cannon (also obtained from Andy’s treehouse.) This can be quite fun and I was gutted when you lose the cannon but later you end up obtaining magic powers; green energy that can be shot out from Andy’s hands. That was pretty cool but man I missed that cannon!

As the game progresses you come across an armoured lizard type enemy who can shoot and breathe fire at you. Once you’ve shot him enough times he disintegrates into two blobs on the floor. You have to destroy these quickly otherwise they will each grow into our lizard friends.

Apart from the enemies there are a few puzzles thrown at you. Some consist of using pressure pads to open doorways or using footholds to clamber about to the next screen while avoiding shadow spiders and I can safely say I’m NOT a fan of spiders! Maybe Spiderman but that’s different ok?

However, the main thing that stands out in this game for me and what it’s known for is the number of ways Andy can die. I know, it sounds bad but stay with me. There are multiple ways he can meet his demise. If you fall off a cliff you are treated to a short cutscene of Andy plummeting down to his doom. The shadow creatures can devour him and disintegrate him with fire balls leaving just his shoes on the screen. Other methods include him being crushed by columns, eaten by grubs, mantraps or piranha…shadows piranha actually! The one that sticks in my mind however is when Andy is grabbed by a flying shadow they snap his spine and carry him off…yeah I wasn’t expecting that either…

Don’t worry though, none of these are really graphic but the animations used in these little scenes are impressive.

What did strike me about this game is the graphics. They are pretty impressive for a PS1 game and a lot of 2D animated frames are used. Obviously compared to current generation it wouldn’t stand up but I think that adds to the charm of the game.

Overall I really enjoyed the experience. The voice acting was good and the game had some good comedy; just wait until you meet the Amigos! They seem to be the opposite of the shadows and are not really the brightest.

Another not so bright creature was this little, pink, bumbling servant to the Master of Darkness. He reminded me of ‘Gollum’ from ‘Lord of the Rings’ with his voice and his precious rocks, something that occurs towards the end of the game.

The game is short but a lot of fun. However be prepared to be frustrated as you will die a lot and some areas might take you a while to complete. Remember, patience is a virtue.

The game also comes with a pair of 3D glasses which you can put on to view a cutscene after the credits have rolled. Unfortunately this version didn’t have any glasses.

I won’t spoil what happens for you all. I recommend you go and play it for yourself J

So there you have it. Actually this would make a good film…