60+ hours of gameplay in ED? (although you will just ignore this)

[DeathsHand]

Ok, yesterday I bought blood omen to give it another try... of course that's made by Silicon Knights... and on the back it says it has 100+ hours of gameplay...... :confused:

has anybody beaten blood omen, and do you think it took you 100+ hours to beat it?

Cuz 100+ hours sounds unlikely for blood omen, IMO, and 60+ hours sounds unlikely for ED, IMO...

Maybe SK just has a tendency to stretch their numbers out a bit ;)

[fingersman]

Well companies do have a habit of streching out the gameplay hours a little....Sk probadly mean 100+ hours for slow people ;)...cause I don't think that it would take anyone at GT that long to beat the game. But we'll have to wait and see.

Hey I answered your thread and didn't ignore you...so errrrrrrr.....can i have about 4000 of that Gt cash you have?? :Dj/k

[Xantar]

Not so fast, fingersman. That would give you 5000 doubloons which means you would purchase a permanent custom rank. We can't have people buying custom ranks too soon...

[gekko]

Me and my friend put quite a bit of time into Blood Omen. He had beaten it earlier, and I didn't count. It was a long game though.

[fingersman]

Originally posted by Xantar
Not so fast, fingersman. That would give you 5000 doubloons which means you would purchase a permanent custom rank. We can't have people buying custom ranks too soon...

Oh manmmm..that's...... sucks.....Dh has enough to buy me a custom rank and be a mod for 3 months

*goes in a corner to sulk* j/k
I don't really want his money....I want earn it...it would feel better...when I see THE SEXIEST ONE ...and know that I earned that bymyself...ah maybe SF will finally get that custon rank he wanted.

BTW Xantar..when is your next chapter coming??

Opps a little off track here..:D hehehe

Oh I'm sure ED will be a fairly long game atleast 40++ hours I hope.

[Shadow_Link]

I never keep count of the time in actual numbers when I am playing a game. I usually rank timings under the following headings:

Very Short
Short
Medium
Long
Very long

Blood Omen, for me, came between long and very long, but nearer to the latter...

[C.H]

Your right, the game probably wont take 60 hours to complete.

But also keep in mind that it's suppose to have multiple routes to complete the game.

But like other people above me just said, you can only wait and see.

[The_Dunadan]

maybe it means it takes that long to complete every single thing in the game and find every item?

[gekko]

Well think of it this way. How long did it take me to beat SSX Tricky? Probably about 2-3 hours. But I only did Mac. Now if EA was marketing that, they would go a lot further. All gold medals for every character and all trick books complete. Furthermore, they would base it on the assumption that you never played SSX, and wasn't able to walk through the game, like i did.

EA could easily claim 60+ hours for SSX Tricky. But it really wouldn't take that long. I mean, do you think beating ED as beating it once? Or beating it, following the entire story, with each character? SK is going to assume you take the time to read every note, to explore every room, and to beat it with all the characters.

Denis Dyack said something special will come to the players who beat it with all the characters, so I will. But 60 hours? Ya, right. I don't spend 60 hours on a game, EVER. You know how long that is? I spent 200 on PSO, but that was just building my character, not beating the game. I spend lots of times of sports games, but not to beat it.

Expect ED to take a few hours with each character. I wouldn't expect it to be too much longer than a typical run through RE. Hell, you're an RE addict like me. What game seemed easier, RE or RE3? RE3 I would hope. My point is, once you play through the game once, it doesn't matter how many changes you add, it becomes easier. Once you play through ED, go ahead and change things up a bit, but the game will still go faster once you're used to the game, the puzzles, and all that stuff.

[thatmariolover]

Guys, SK has NEVER said that ED will take 60+ hours. They said 40-60 hours your first time through. But that doesn't include the 4 1/2 hours of cinematics.

Believe me, though, you will want to play it again:

Eternal Darkness is a very hard game to label. At first glance many people would just write it off as another Survival Horror game, but they would be so wrong. Eternal Darkness is a story told through a game. Forget about other games now-days where character models and code come before the storyline. For once it's going to be the other way around. The way it often used to be; the way it always should be.



History:

The developer, Silicon Knights, began making Eternal Darkness for the N64 sometime in late 1996 or early 1997. The advanced storyline, graphics, and gameplay caught Nintendo's attention and Silicon Knights became a 2nd party developer for Nintendo. After capturing the public eye by mentioning details about the advanced "sanity effects" used in the game, along with rave previews from just about everyone, the title vanished for a while. Many gaming publications speculated that it was going to be made a Gamecube game rather than an N64; they were more right than they knew.

The storyline itself has been strongly influenced by the likes of Edgar Allen Poe, Alfred Hitchcock, William Shakespeare, and other famous writers. This explains why the game's main focus is on story, not on character development (however, there is still character development). The playable part of the story spans over 2,000 years but the entire storyline used in the game begins long before your characters come into play. There are 13 playable characters (presumably each living in their own unique time period). Each of the different eras in which the characters live are historically
correct.



Gameplay:

A sanity meter is used in the game to add to the effect of fear. Depending on what you've gone through in the game, your sanity meter will drain or increase. Unlike Resident Evil games, you are encouraged to kill your enemies rather than run away from them. If you don't attack them, your sanity meter will decrease; however killing them will have the inverse effect.

When your sanity meter is low, your character will lose grip on reality. Some of the less subtle effects include walls dripping with blood, legs and arms falling off and your head exploding (immediately after you'll find yourself at the beginning of the room, as if nothing had happened), going into your inventory to find all of your possessions missing and then all of the sudden to have them flash back onto the screen, pictures on the wall changing as you pass them, and (if using surround sound) strange sounds and voices will circle you.

A vast and unique spell system has been added to the game. With this system you can directly attack your enemies, cast spells of protection, or even augment your weapons with special abilities. Different reports have conflicting figures, but it's been gathered that there are between 120 to several hundred spells throughout the game. Your sanity meter will decrease if you use too much magic; so be sparing.

In each time period, there will be many similarities, but also many differences. Many of these differences and similarities will vary depending on your choices in the game (as it has multiple endings). The weapons will change according to your time period, for example. Doors could be open, closed, or non-existent depending on the time period you're in, and the choices you've made in the other time periods.

The Doom Decision Room plays a large role in determining the future you encounter later in the game. This room contains three pedestals with red, green, and blue orbs on them. Depending on the orb you choose, every single element of the game changes in some way, monsters, clothes, spells, storyline, etc. The orbs represent "the ancient ones".

The ancient ones are beings that once ruled the earth. They have been forced to sleep with the ice age and plate movement until the time is right for them to reclaim the earth. Secret organizations help them throughout the game. Their plans for world domination have been carefully planned over 2 Millennia and that plan is executed on May 5th 2000 the date of the planetary alignment (date may have changed). It is speculated that the ancient ones are the main enemies in the game.

The main objective of Eternal Darkness has yet to be unveiled. It seems as though you play through the past as the different characters. From time period to time period you will encounter many of the same buildings (although they will most definately have changed). However, it is highly likely that your decisions will determine the objective. So if you kill somebody early on in the game, a certain thing will have never happened, and that makes your objective easier or harder. Of course this is pure speculation.

There are many varying enemies throughout the game. Some of these are era specific. These enemies include "the trapper" and "the horror"; not much is known about these enemies at the current time. Other, more recognizable enemies include mummies, zombies, and giant moths. Many of the different enemies will need to be killed in a certain way. For example, mummies will need to be burned (there are various torches throughout the levels).

The game features full speech and even features people speaking in authentic Latin at one point. With many different paths to take throughout the game, the 1st time through should take someone 40-60 hours. But that doesn't consider that you'll want to go back and do things a different way. The game was designed with replay value in mind; so going back to see things from a certain viewpoint is definitely possible, and very rewarding.

Throughout the game, many unexpected things will happen. It is chock full of surprises. For example, some of your characters will die throughout the game as a part of the storyline. Other characters can be killed while you're playing, but if you fail to complete an objective before doing so it could screw things up for you in the future (or if you died before completing a major objective, the future may have been changed in a way that there's no way to stop the evil from consuming the earth).

The games other features include a journal to help you keep track of various decisions you make and to help remind you of what has gone on in the game; and many different puzzles are used to improve the story. Silicon Knights will try to keep them from being overly difficult, as they want the story to flow. Hints will be left for you to find.


Characters:

Eternal Darkness has a very large cast of playable characters. While it is unknown if you will play all of the characters in each of the different paths in the game, it is likely that you will meet most of them. One of these characters is Joseph De Molay. Joseph is an armor clad Knight Templar living in the early 14th century.

The main character is Alexandra Roivas. Living in the late 20th century (early 21st), she comes to her grandfather's mansion after he encounters a bloody death. The police question her, leave, and Alexandra stays; she explores her grandfather's mansion hoping to find some answers. While she is looking around, She comes across a book that flies off of the shelf in an impressive show of lighting. Rumor suggests that the story is told through her reading the book. As previously noted, you control much of what happens in this story.

An undead person (name unknown) who lived in the late 18th or early 19th century is another character. He worked for a king before an enchanted scroll that he came into contact with killed him. He was slowly transformed into a Zombie and didn't even know it until well into the process.

One of the more famous characters is Pious Augustus. He is a Roman Centurion from 100 AD, but not much else is known about him except for the fact that he encounters the doom decision room. Other less known characters included in the game are a Special Forces officer, a Psychiatrist, and a monk from the Inquisitional period.



Graphics:

Eternal Darkness features an advanced 3-D engine. Lighting will range from radiosity lightmaps to ray-traced lightmaps; so the old polygon lighting used in other games has pretty much been abandoned. Textures will be high resolution and feature bump-mapping and dirt-mapping. Other graphical points of interest include volumetric fogging, 24-bit color, 640x480 resolution, and a framerate of 60 FPS.


Sound:

Eternal Darkness is not going to be lacking in any department. Sound is a very important part of a gaming experience, which is why Silicon Knights has worked so hard on it (both in previous projects and future ones). Eternal Darkness will feature several hours of audio. Much of which is music and voice acting. The game will also feature full surround sound, and all recordings will be at the highest bitrate possible.

The voice acting will be top notch. Professional actors have been hired to do the voices of the characters and should be extremely good. Steve Henifin is doing the music and sound effects for Eternal Darkness. He also worked on Blood Omen. There's a lot of music in Eternal Darkness. Much of which is specific to the era you're in.



Conclusion:
Eternal Darkness is a deep and compelling tale told through over 4 1/2 hours of video and audio alongside 40-60 hours of gameplay time that will be officially unveiled next month. It is going to be a huge game and should definitely live up to its hype. Make sure to look for more info on this game in the coming months. It's going to be a big one.

[DeathsHand]

ok 40-60, I was off a bit... excuuuuuse me :p

J/K

anyways... I still don't think the game will be very good :sneaky:

[GameKinG]

Maybe they were wrond about blood omen and learned not to stretch it so much. For all we know they could have said ED was 120 hours. Maybe its really 70 hours. I HAVE NO CLUE. But I can say to not judge SK before you find the real reason.

[Fez]

Yeah.

[Angrist]

Originally posted by Fez
Yeah. You'll never earn more doubloons with posts like that. :Poke:

[Gamer]

Well, judging by the reviews on ED, i would estimate, probably around 60 hours, but hey, you never know, i mean, 100hours is possible, and there are lots of characters to play with and many puzzles to solve and things to collect and do.

[surfin4lifer]

If you do every damn thing in the game it is going to take about 100 hours.

The first time playing it it would probably take alot more than 100 hours.

that really isn't that long if you think about it. If you played 5 hours a day it would only take 20 days. And I'm sure most games take somewhere around that ammount of time to beat.