Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land Is A Game That Lovecraft Would Play
Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land ($4.99) by Red Wasp Design is a turn based strategy game based on a character created by H.P. Lovecraft. Control a team of soldiers sent to uncover the mystery of the ancient Cthulhu, but be warned. The chances of actually winning against the supernatural creature are practically nil. It is the way Lovecraft would have wanted it.
The first thing players should do is learn movement and attack in the training level. Here, players will get a basic understanding of the hit points, action points, dexterity, and sanity rankings, as well as movement and weapon usage. The basics will get you started, but there is plenty of learning as the game continues.
Players are given a team of soldiers and investigators that they command by tapping for movement or activating weapons. They are pitted against enemy soldiers and cultists as they work to uncover clues that will lead to the mysterious ancient one.
This is a fantastic video game version of the role-play game Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium. It utilizes a similar story line, but doesn’t need a group of four friends to be able to play. Instead of the role of dice, actions and outcomes are based on percentages from characters’ statistics.
One annoying thing about this game is the camera follow feature. The “camera” will follow the action of the character that is selected. Which means, if a player taps the enemy and shoots, the view will go from the selected character to the selected enemy and back to the character. Most of the time, players will need to swipe back to the enemy again in order to select him for a second attack. This gets pretty irritating when there are five soldiers and 15 enemies, all out of range of the screen.
The action unfolds slowly, as it should for turn based strategy games. The graphics are high quality and the sound effects create an eerie atmosphere in the game. Fans of this genre will enjoy the heavy strategy planning needed to complete each mission. Fans of H.P. Lovecraft will enjoy the game's plot. The price is a bit hefty, but the game is entertaining and there aren’t a whole lot of good Cthulhu based games for iOS, so it is worth the price. Pick it up in the App Store for $4.99.
