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Kingdom Hearts 3

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Kingdom Hearts 3

Video games are weird, it’s just a fact. This is a medium in which one of the most successful iterations involves a heroic Italian plumber who jumps on evil mushrooms and rescues a princess from a spiky turtle. And another all-time classic is about an amphetamine addicted* hedgehog who attempts to acquire wealth and stay on the gear, running endlessly around diabolical mazes, grinning like a lunatic. The point is, games are so ubiquitously strange that it takes a truly bizarre entry to make one sit back and say: “Crikey, this is some weird shit!”

Kingdom Hearts III is such a game.

The plot is a byzantine nightmare, more convoluted than a thousand Inceptions, but the short hand is: a bunch of characters from Disney and Square Enix properties are on an adventure through various worlds from video games and movies to save the universe. Speaking in practical terms, that means a trio of heroes comprising Sora (young boy with silly hair and a keyblade), Donald Duck (sentient duck with a speech impediment, prone to rage) and Goofy (a creature we still don’t understand and perhaps never will) travel to far off lands to “discover the power of waking”. Congratulations if you understood the previous sentence, you’re absolutely in the minority.

The action plays out as a mixture of exploration, upgrading weapons and gear and combat loops, that are bright and sparkly and fun. You’ll spend most battles mashing the attack button, but eventually other combat moves unlock, including the inexplicable ability to use Disney theme park rides as weapons. You’ll do this, by the way, while interacting with all manner of characters from Disney and Pixar flicks including Frozen, Toy Story, Monsters Inc. and even Pirates of Caribbean (!?), amongst others.

The problem with Kingdom Hearts III isn’t the zany, surreal nutbaggery, it’s the ghastly writing and voice acting. Every line reading feels about a second too slow, with awkward Lynchian pauses between each leaden slab of mawkish word salad. Combined with the distracting decision to have the characters parrot some variation of “believe in yourself” every fifteen bloody minutes and it’s hard to escape the cloying tweeness. Still, there is an odd charm to Kingdom Hearts III at times. It’s a bit like watching a small child smacking together toys in a bathtub, hopped up on a sippy cup full of red cordial, unconcerned about things like logic and reason. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, and you won’t always be in the mood for it, but there’s an undeniable appeal here for those willing to brave the eccentricities.

Although, and it bears repeating, crikey this is some weird shit.

*probably

 
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Resident Evil 2

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Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 2, the game, was first released in 1998 and it blew audiences away. Although the previous installment had successfully introduced the concept of “survival horror” in 1996, part two honed the formula to a razor’s edge, delivering an experience that was scary, smart and absolutely absorbing. For those of us old enough to have been alive in that era, RE2 was a staggering achievement and managed to penetrate the ubiquitous haze of bong smoke and neglect to make an indelible impact on young psyches.

That being said, 1998 was a long-arse time ago, and time is least kind to video games. As the Resident Evil series lurched onwards it left those early entries behind, peaking recently with the somewhat divisive-but-brilliant Resident Evil VII: Biohazard (https://www.filmink.com.au/reviews/resident-evil-vii-biohazard/) which was a welcome return to pure survival horror. Still, when Capcom announced its Resident Evil 2 remaster it was hard not to get excited – but is it possible to twice catch horrific lightning in a bottle?

One thing we should get out of the way is that this isn’t an HD remaster but rather a full remake. The original RE2 featured static shots, clunky controls and graphics that were spectacular at the time but now look retina-damagingly awful. Although the game has been remastered for various systems over the years, presentation-wise it’s always looked… quaint. 2019’s Resident Evil 2 rebuilds the game from the ground up, putting the perspective in the RE4 over-the-shoulder view with a continuous camera that follows you around, not breaking for loading screens between every area. This is a welcome addition and makes the game play as smooth and immersive as your (lying) memories of the original.

Add to that, graphics as sharp and slick as any other modern release, replete with drippy, oozing zombies, genuinely scary, toothy monsters and character animations that make you actually feel for the other human characters – particularly when so many of them are viciously dispatched.

Actually, we’d be remiss not to mention the zombies at this point. In 1998, zombies seemed an amazingly fresh foe, having barely penetrated the cultural zeitgeist. In 2019, they’re basically a default option for most media, so how to make them scary again? RE2 adds a sense of unpredictability to the mix. The only way to permanently dispatch these ambulatory corpses is by destroying the head. You can do this using heavy weapons or grenades, however the zombies far outnumber your bullets so you simply don’t have the resources to kill them all. Therefore, you’ll need to leave some of the ghastly creatures lying around as potential jump scares, because they might rise at any moment (even if you’ve plugged ten rounds into their slack-jawed skulls) which adds a level of tension to an already scary game. See, Resident Evil 2 isn’t about killing all the monsters, it’s about surviving, solving the puzzles and escaping. It’s Capcom’s classic formula of puzzle solving under duress and it is edge-of-your-seat stuff, all the way through.

In 2019, video games pride themselves on being massive; the idea that more is more. Resident Evil 2 believes that to be a crock of shit, providing four of five medium sized areas to explore but you’ll know them like the back of your hand by the time the credits roll. The game also employs a map that really helps navigation, showing areas in red until you’ve solved the puzzles and collected all the loot in that area – whereupon it turns blue. This is a wonderful addition but much needed, especially as the game progresses and the character known as the Tyrant steps into view, providing a genuinely scary, seemingly invincible foe who dogs your steps like the STDemon from It Follows, and leaps out when you least expect it.

In terms of negatives, RE2 can be frustrating on occasion, particularly during boss fights where the lack of a dodge button would have been appreciated. And certainly, for some folks, the Tyrant is going to be a massive pain in the arse – although he does force you to think on your feet, which can be exhilarating. These are minor quibbles, however, in an overall experience that somehow keeps what was great about the original intact, while updating some of the wonkier aspects, like puzzles, voice acting and overall presentation.

Ultimately, Resident Evil 2 (2019) is everything a video game remake should be. It’s absolutely stunning to look at and a tense joy to play, paying nostalgic homage while improving nearly every aspect of the original. It’s scary, smart and absolutely absorbing – just like it was back in hazy 1998 – but with added levels of gore and unpredictability that will keep even series veterans on their toes. If you’ve never experienced the stories of Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield as they explore a bizarre, avant garde police station in the middle of zombie-infested Racoon City, now is absolutely the best time to do so. And hell, even if you have, 2019’s Resident Evil 2 remake is the best ever version of that iconic story.

 
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Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

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Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

Plane combat games are something of a rarity in this wretched year of 2019. Back in the olden days, when the PlayStation or PS2 reigned supreme in the lounge rooms of many, they were a dime a dozen with the best contender being the Ace Combat series. This frequently bizarre mix of unnecessarily convoluted storytelling paired with surprisingly detailed plane combat was a pleasing bit of airborne escapism. Then, for some reason, much like the western in cinema – the genre fell out of favour. Happily, it appears that the dark flightless time is over, as Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is here and it’s pretty bloody good, for the most part.

Ace Combat 7 is set in the same alternate earth as the previous games in the series and follows on from the events of Ace Combat 4 and 5. If you can’t remember those events, don’t stress, as the war between Erusea and Usea is just as overcooked and daft as previous entries and you can, and probably should, take it with several heaping handfuls of salt. In short, war has broken out and you, “Trigger”, will need to put missiles aplenty into your enemies. The story is actually truly bizarre, even by Ace Combat standards, because the character you play is a total non event until about halfway through the game and a far more interesting character – imprisoned mechanic Avril Mead – is the one narrating the shenanigans… and yet you can’t play as her. It’s a bizarre, and very clunky, storytelling device that doesn’t really work. However, that’s not the draw here.

What really matters in Ace Combat 7 is what happens in the air and for the most part the game is a triumph of giddy dog fights, bombing runs and set pieces set in vicious storms. It’s actually quite a tough game all told, with some missions featuring ridiculously short timers and insta-fail objectives that may have you punching the couch in frustration (sorry, couch). However, if you listen carefully to the mission objectives, and make sure you have a decent variety of planes taken from the unlockable trees, you should eventually triumph over the game’s 20 missions.

The game also features a robust VR mode and an online multiplayer mode, which is a nice value add and sure to have VR owners dusting off their tech. Ultimately, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is more of the same from the series, for good and ill. It’s fast-paced, frenetic, frustrating and full of fun – if you can get past the baffling narrative conceits and occasionally enraging difficulty spikes. And hell, it’s been a while since you’ve taken to the skies so fire up and go right into the danger zone!

 
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Just Cause 4

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Just Cause 4

The Just Cause series has always been a strange one. The mixture of vaguely grounded political intrigue and personal stakes often juxtapose awkwardly with the gonzo, Michael-Bay-after-a-fat-line-of-blow bullgoose lunacy of the action sequences and set pieces. Still, despite this inconsistency the games are usually a whole lot of fun, and this is true of the latest entry, Just Cause 4, although there are a few caveats.

Set in the fictional South American country of Solis, Rico Rodriguez is back to take on the Black Hand, an army of ne’er-do-wells run by Gabriela Morales. This rather generic premise leads to a rather generic campaign, whereby you’ll retake various areas of Solis, unlock more main and side missions, grapple and wingsuit your way across the sprawling environments and, of course, blow shit up with great alacrity.

Just Cause 4’s newest addition is extreme weather, including missions where you’ll be forced to brave tornados and super storms that fill the skies with deadly bolts of lightning (which is very, very frightening). Later on, you’ll also gain the ability to control said storms, which is a fine idea but its execution feels a little limited in this context. Other than that, it’s Just Cause business as usual – use the grapple hook to destroy stuff, shoot stuff, explode stuff, repeat. It’s classic but it also feels a little samey, particularly if you have vivid memories of Just Cause 3 which only came out in 2015.

More damning is the fact that a lot of Just Cause 4 is, well, rather ugly. Character models, cut scenes and even some environments look seriously janky at times, and while it never reaches the levels of Fallout 76’s hideousness, it’s strange to see nonetheless. It’s hard to get truly invested in Rico’s story when his ugly mug keeps clipping into his shirt, or the characters that he’s talking to drop textures or pop in and out of view.

Ultimately, Just Cause 4 is a fun time, with great explosions and physics-based mayhem. It’s also basically an oversized Just Cause 3 expansion, with unfortunate technical deficiencies that mar the overall experience. Treat it like a b-grade matinee movie, and you’ll likely enjoy the slightly shonky, but explosive shenanigans on offer.

 
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Darksiders III

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Darksiders III

In a world of nuanced, compelling narratives like Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War, there’s something almost quaint about a game like Darksiders III. Whereas GoW deconstructs ancient stories and superstition to try and ground the more esoteric elements of mythology in emotion, Darksiders III unapologetically leans into the goofiness.

You, the player, inhabit the role of Fury – third horse person of the apocalypse after Darksiders’ War and Darksiders II’s Death. Fury is a bit of a cranky moll, to be honest, wielding an acerbic wit and a powerful whip, she flits about the screen causing bulk carnage paired with nimble acrobatics. For reasons too convoluted to enter into without spending 45 minutes explaining the dense, silly backstory, Fury has to go to Earth – which is a total shitfight due to a war between angels and demons – and defeat creatures that are the literal personification of the seven deadly sins. To help her on the quest, Fury loses a horse but gains a spirit friend, and the mysterious Lord of Hollows assists her rise to power for reasons known only to him.

Darksiders III brims with style and goofy enthusiasm, and as a medium-budget hack and slash adventure there is fun to be had. Unfortunately, it lacks the depth of the previous entry, Darksiders II, and ugly framerate issues persist even when not much is happening on screen. This third entry seems more in line with a Dark Souls-esque experience, with challenging bosses all the way through, but never feels precise or tactical enough to wear that mantle comfortably.

Fury, also, is kind of a dickhead, offering snark and edgy witticisms that feel ripped straight out of a comic from the early 1990s. She’s fun to play, mind you, physically weaker than Death but faster and more agile, and the whip is a grand weapon/swinging device.

Ultimately, your enjoyment of Darksiders III is going to depend on your ability to adapt and accept. You’ll need to adapt to the new direction the series takes here, ignoring your love for the previous entry and focusing on what’s in front of you. You’ll also need to accept that the game has technical issues. Nothing like the bewildering mess of Fallout 76, but enough that you’ll notice it and it may break the immersion.

Darksiders III isn’t quite the sequel fans of the series have been waiting for, but it’s engaging enough that you’ll want to see another, probably final chapter down the road. Hopefully next time they’ll keep the bloody horse!

 
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Hitman 2

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Hitman 2

Hitman 2 proves one thing very well: sometimes plot can just get in the way. The second entry in the series since 2016’s bold and surprisingly effective reboot Hitman, Hitman 2 offers a familiar experience to its immediate predecessor but with enough polish and new tweaks to make the experience worthwhile.

Hitman 2 tells the tale of the bald barcode-bonced killer for hire, Agent 47. Old mate is still on the trail of the “Shadow Client” from the last game and it will take him all over the world to unravel a mystery that ranges from the unnecessarily convoluted to the downright silly. To make matters worse the between mission cutscenes are mainly a series of stills with exposition blurted over the top. This is likely due to the game’s comparatively small budget, but that doesn’t make these interludes any more compelling or coherent. Happily, they don’t matter. At all. You can, and should, skip right by these bits of business and get straight to what matters: large sprawling sandboxes full of murder toys!

See, once you bypass the aforementioned narrative info dumps you enter the real game. Hitman 2 offers the series’ distinctive sense of variety and black humour, gifting you with numerous ways of dispatching your targets in spectacular and frequently hilarious ways. Booby trapped cars, pre-programmed robots, explosive rubber duckies or just shoving a tattoo gun right inside a bloke’s ear – the game has it all. Each of the six levels are massive with multiple ways of tricking the AI and setting up legitimately satisfying kill scenarios. This might have felt grim in other hands, but the game’s sense of humour manifests in surprising ways. The fact that Agent 47 just happens to look exactly like a famous model/actor/hairdresser etc. is a frequent refrain and the monologues delivered by the soon-to-victims show them all as unlikable mongrels very much deserving of the ice embrace of the grave.

Hitman 2 is a little rough around the edges and light on narrative depth, but what it lacks in those areas it makes up for in viscerally creative murderous fun. Engaging and adaptable, Hitman 2 is a must for those feeling sociopathic in the silly season.

 
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Fallout 76

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Fallout 76

Conceptually Fallout 76 had a lot of potential. The idea of taking Bethesda’s popular post-apocalyptic RPG franchise and making it available as an online world could, if executed well, be a fascinating and intriguing evolution of the series. Imagine spending hours getting lost in byzantine quests with surprising outcomes, all the while sharing your shock and amazement with a group of up to three mates. What a premise! Sadly, however, what Fallout 76 actually delivers at time of writing is a baffling misstep, seemingly avoiding everything cool or interesting about the concept.

The plot is solid enough. The year is 2102 and it’s twenty five years since a nuclear war destroyed most of the earth. You, the player, are a dweller from Vault 76 – an underground bunker in West Virginia – and are now tasked with heading out into the wasteland, fixing what you can and making steps to repopulate the treacherous landscape.

Quite honestly, the first few hours of Fallout 76 are a good deal of fun. You leave the vault and basically need to scavenge weapons, armour and food just to stay alive. You’ll also complete simple, but effective, quests to level up and slowly learn more about the massive open world you’ve wandered into. There’s a genuine sense of discovery and excitement in those early hours, particularly when playing with friends, and you can’t wait until the proper quests begin and you can embark on the real adventure. The problem? The real adventure never arrives. The early hours are basically exactly the same as the later hours, with bigger, scarier monsters but no mission variety.

A major conceit in the game is that everyone is dead. All the humans were killed, so it means that every quest you go on involves schlepping to a place, having a look around, finding a skeleton and then listening to a long holotape and/or reading green text on black on an inexplicably intact computer monitor. This sort of environmental storytelling has worked in Fallout games before, because you can find extra information about the world and dig into the lore if you so wish. However, in Fallout 76 this isn’t the extra spice that makes it nice, this is the whole of the story. Every bastard has carked it which means there are no NPCs, no characters to engage with, no meaningful resolutions to narrative threads and no real point in getting emotionally invested. Even the few quest-giving robots that exist are shallow as hell because there are zero dialogue options and no way of having a discussion with them.

Combine this genuinely baffling storytelling decision from a company known for good stories with janky, unresponsive shooting made worse by turning VATS (a system whereby you could slow time and take enemies down with strategy in previous titles) into a barely functional auto-aim and a legion of bugs, crashes, glitches, frame rate issues and legitimately broken mission objectives and you’ve got a game that feels profoundly undercooked and likely about eighteen months away from being ready to release.

That’s not to say that there aren’t fun moments with friends. You can team up with mates and bumble through the wasteland, getting into fights with monsters and other players (although the PvP is deeply tedious and should probably be ignored) but if shooting shit with your mates is the goal there are better, and much cheaper, games out there! It’s genuinely staggering that a AAA game company thought releasing this shallow, borderline broken title in this state was acceptable and yet here we are.

Look, it’s not all doom and gloom. Perhaps in twelve months Bethesda will have patched this to an acceptable state, because the shooting/looting/crafting loop can be fine, if a tad simplistic, but we simply can’t recommend this game in its current incarnation. Every year one game seems to stand out as the big disappointment of that release period. In times past we’ve had No Man’s Sky, Mass Effect: Andromeda and, unfortunately, this year’s bummer is Fallout 76. “War never changes,” or so the quote goes, but Fallout apparently does and sadly this time it was not a change for the better.

 
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Red Dead Redemption 2

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Red Dead Redemption 2

The original Red Dead Redemption came out on consoles in 2010. It was a complete anathema to most games, a truly singular piece of work. For a start it was a western, a genre of game that is so niche as to be practically nonexistent. Further, it came from Rockstar Games – a studio famous for creating the controversial Grand Theft Auto series – and yet was a measured, deliberately paced rumination on life in the old west, that rarely resorted to graphic violence or empty snark to make its point. Conceptually and creatively it was a rare and beautiful thing and in terms of the final product it was an absolute masterpiece and one of the finest video games ever created.

The idea of a sequel to this wonderful title seemed unlikely, after all, the first game was respected and critically beloved but hadn’t exactly set the world on fire sales-wise. Despite this, Red Dead Redemption 2 is here and once again the bar has been raised.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is actually a prequel to Red Dead Redemption (and has no discernible connection to Red Dead Revolver which is totally fine because it was a bit naff). This time around you play Arthur Morgan, second in command to Dutch van de Linde of the infamous Van de Linde gang (the same people you were hunting in Red Dead Redemption).

Prequels are always a risky proposition as finding out how things happened is often a disappointment, and probably should have been left to the imagination. Happily, in this case, going back in time was a good move; think Better Call Saul as opposed to the Star Wars prequels.

The original RDR was a focused narrative about a man who is forced to hunt down his former gang members. It had a classic film feel, and easily could have been the plot for a spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood as the man with no name. RDR 2, by comparison, is more like an entire TV series. The mechanics of being a member of a gang are initially daunting, because you’ll have dozens of people chasing you for help with missions, food acquisition, conflict resolution and even debt collection. The original’s mysterious man on a mission vibe is gone, but in its place is a deeper, often much more nuanced look at group dynamics at a strange, iconic time in humanity’s history.

Subtext aside, there’s also a lot going on with the story proper. Dutch and Arthur have come off a disastrous job that ended in violence and loss of life, and they spend most of the game’s massive runtime trying to piece themselves together and earn enough cash to get out of the life.

If you’ve ever seen a western, or watched a crime movie, you can probably figure out that things won’t go according to plan and there’s a bittersweet fascination in watching a group of lawless idealists facing the blunt and thuggish realities of greed and human nature.

Gameplay-wise Rockstar hasn’t exactly broken their mould. You’ll head to various characters to trigger missions, run into strangers out in the world and come across all manner of unexpected events as the dizzying array of systems come together in surprising ways.

You might start off heading towards a mission, but then a woman will call for help from the side of the road. You’ll go to help her and then – bugger! – turns out she was a honey trap and now some bandits are shooting at you. You blow those fools away, but someone witnesses the act without understanding why you shot them and now there’s a witness to a homicide! You chase after the witness, but do you threaten them or kill them? Because the last thing you need is the law on your tail, but can your hands really take being stained with more blood?

These sorts of random confluences occur all the time, often in unique and surprising ways, giving the open world a feeling of life and authenticity.

On the downside, the law are incredibly obnoxious and frequently appear to have psychic powers when they’re giving chase, which can sap the joy right quick when you’re moseying about more densely populated areas.

Perhaps this is Rockstar’s way of making you agree with Arthur who hates the big city and would rather be riding on the plain, but crikey it’ll give you the roaring shits at times!

While we’re on the subject of negatives, it should also be noted that at times the controls are a little clunky. You’ll quite often pull a gun when you’re trying to say hello and punch a horse accidentally, which is objectively hilarious but also a tad irksome. In the scheme of things these are minor, but worth nothing anyway.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is also paced unlike any other video game, including the first RDR. It’s deliberately paced, which is reviewer speak for ‘slow’. The map is massive, and your starting horses are quick to tire, and fast travel options don’t open for ages. You’ll be forced, very often, to ride across lengthy sections of America, but that’s the game training you to understand the rhythms of the title.

The game is slow because the west is slow, drink it in, don’t be in a rush to finish everything, and take your time. It’s difficult at first, particularly in the game’s slightly claustrophobic opening sections, but it becomes seductive and then utterly engaging.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is perhaps not as focused as the previous game, but it’s not trying to be. This is a sprawling epic, a whole series on Netflix as opposed to a single movie. It also has an unexpectedly emotional core that may have you tearing up at least a couple of times, and never relies on the easy cynicism of GTA V or even the constant wry disappointment that typified so many of the missions in RDR.

This is a tale to be savoured and enjoyed, it’s a fine whiskey so try and sip it if you can. Even if you ignore every side quest (and you shouldn’t!), the game is a good 50-60 hours long, so expect to be at it for a while. That’s before the online content drops some time later in the year so in terms of value for money RDR 2 is hard to beat.

Ultimately, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a sprawling, epic masterpiece. While the story isn’t quite as focused as the original RDR, the world and characters it offers the player are second to none.

Gorgeous to behold, fascinating to hear and an absolute delight to inhabit, RDR 2 is an embarrassment of western-style riches and a must own title in any console owner’s video game library.

 
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Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game

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Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game

H.P. Lovecraft’s legacy of otherworldly cosmic horror and profound loathing has cast a long shadow. How long? Well, the bloke’s been dead for 81 years and he’s still influencing popular culture to a shocking degree. The reclusive, super-talented-but-extremely-racist weirdo from Providence, Rhode Island, has left the world a unique vision of Elder Gods, slimy tentacle-faced beasties and strange cults that have had a profound effect on creative types like Alan Moore, Guillermo Del Toro, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Stuart Gordon, Thomas Ligotti and, look, bloody everyone to be honest! The dude had an impact, is what we’re saying here.

It’s natural, then, that creators of video games would be drawn to his frequently grim vision although the results have been patchy. See, Lovecraft’s stories tend to depend on unreliable narrators, often writing in journals, about things that drive you mad just by glimpsing them. This is a fantastic literary conceit but doesn’t work as well in the context of a game where you, the player, need to actually play. The latest attempt to capture the master’s mood is Cyanide’s Call of Cthulhu, based on the old tabletop RPG which itself was based on one of Lovecraft’s better-loved tales of the same name.

You play the part of grizzled war vet Edward Pierce, a private dick who drinks too much, self-medicates with pills and delivers frequent grouchy soliloquies. In 1924 Boston, Edward looks like he’s going to drink and mope himself to death until a new case takes him to Darkwater Island where shit really kicks off.

Being a Lovecraft tale lots of scary things greet old Eddie: strange family secrets, rough criminal types and terrifying Boston accents; not to mention a cult that worships a certain calamari-faced deity with a name that’s hard to spell and say…

Call of Cthulhu is, ultimately, a bit of a mood piece. The gameplay entails a lot of exploring, light puzzle solving, talking to people, putting together crime scenes with some stealth sections and very brief combat thrown in late in the tale. It is, for want of a better term, a bit of a walking simulator. The good news is it’s a pretty decent walking simulator with a solid, albeit predictable, central storyline that manages to engage for its 7-10 hour playthrough. The characters are interesting enough, the setting suitably atmospheric and while the reveals towards the end are never particularly terrifying – can Cthulhu really be all that scary in 2018 with his current market oversaturation? – they should satisfy anyone craving a light Lovecraftian perambulation.

Call of Cthulhu won’t drive you gibberingly insane with its vision of ancient Gods rising from the depths, but it provides an engaging yarn that is somewhat let down by shonky voice acting and stiff character animation. Worth a look for fans of twitchy old Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and hell – maybe if it does well there’s a chance Guillermo Del Toro’s oft shitcanned At The Mountains of Madness will live to scare the pants off us all.