The Church in the Darkness

There are a number of things I love about this game. First, I like the idea. I vaguely remember the stories about the Reverend Jim Jones and the United States Congressman who died on a remote airstrip in New Guinea trying to investigate whether a family of his constituents was being held against its own will. I remember the grisly scene in which his followers either volunteered or were compelled to drink a poisoned beverage from a vat. It's where, I think, the expression "Don't drink the Kool-Aid" came from. The topic is timely. We seem to be living in the midst of a political cult these days whose members are frightening. Your mission in the game, similar to that of the doomed Congressman's, is to locate someone on the cult's compound, usually a young and impressionable relative, while avoiding detection. Confrontations, however, are unavoidable. Second, I loved the preponderance of choices. You can choose the gender of your avatar, as well as his or her ethnicity, not to mention your starting toolkit. The characters don't strike me as essentialized, which would be the danger of picking between a male and female and a spectrum of skin tones. They are just clear markers of different starting identities. Another thing I love about this game pertains to aesthetics. I love the church steeple against the hazy sunset on the title page, the rich, lush greens of the jungle and the maze of paths that spiderweb their way across the encampment, the ominous, atmospheric musical score that intensifies as danger approaches, usually in the form of armed cultists, the voices over loudspeakers that reinforce the highly controlled environment and contribute to the paranoia that pervades this game world, and the voice overs that do not sound nearly so wooden as in other games. The game also gets your adrenaline flowing. The more characters who notice your trespass into the compound, the more they swarm about you. You try not to call attention to yourself, but you can't help it. On a final note, while mastering all the controls requires a bit of a learning curve, nothing is so difficult to pick up as to be daunting. Having so many options available will necessarily complicate the game play but not ruin it. I will be compelled to return to this game again and again to see the different ways it will play out.

Excellent stealth game. Many different ways to play - you can go ninja style and have nobody see you, you can go in guns blazing, or something in between (though the heart of the game is stealth). The cult leaders personalities change with each playthrough and different NPCs that you can interact with appear in each playthrough so there is a good degree of replayability. Multiple endings you can get to depending on how you play. Also, plenty of Steam achievements to acquire. The retail price ($19.99) is a bit steep, but I still recommend it. On sale I highly recommend it.
Sadly, things didn't end well for the real cult this game is based on, but kudos to the developers for not letting that history be lost. In addition to stealth, this is a good addition to historical fiction. This game puts you there before it's too late. Can you avert the tragedy?

A cool trick this game pulls off is that the cult can have different flavors. Exploring the different moods of the commune is one of the game's chief joys. Great for narrative gaming fans

Exploitive cult simulator with sweet PS2 retro graphics.