I've been pretty excited about Eternal Darkness for quite some time. But I've never really gotten crazy about it like some. What I did do was nothing. I tried to know as little about the story and the game as possible. I totally avoided it at E3 this year. Now I've finally got my hands on this title and all I can say that it was very worth the wait and I'm very glad that I kept it hidden from myself.

The story is, in a word, massive. I've completed the first 2 "chapters" so far. I'm not going to give a single thing about the plot away, because I want people to go into this game knowing nothing about it, like I did.

The graphics are very nice. They aren't as jaw-dropping as Resident Evil but that doesn't matter. The graphics are good and they get the job done. The sound, on the other hand, is fantastic. I've got my TV hooked up to my mini-stereo. Sadly, I don't have surround sound but the game sounds fantastic out of my speakers. The voice acting is outstanding, which is a surprise because most games have ok or sub-par voice acting.

The controls are also fantastic. Within seconds I was slicing monsters into tiny little pieces and avoiding hits like I'd been doing it all my life. Everything is spot-on.

I suppose the biggest thing about Eternal Darkness other than the story is the sanity system. When your character sees a monster, he or she flashes green and loses a little sanity. The lower the sanity, the more likely that character will start seeing/hearing/whatever crazy things. I've only experience one big sanity effect so far. If you don't want to know what it is skip to the next paragraph. For those of you who don't really care about a small spoiler like this, the effect involved the entire temple I was in shaking and eventually tilting itself an entire 45 degrees so everything was weird an angled. Rick says I've also been getting small effects like weird noises that are hard to notice. So I guess I've been getting those too.

So far, Eternal Darkness is everything I hoped it would be, and even more than that. All of its elements come together perfectly. If you're thinking you want this game, then GO GET IT!!!