Eternal Darkness.  The game that actually toys with your mind.  Silicon Knights (the developers) truly did a remarkable job when it comes to story.  While the gameplay wasn’t particularly deep, the atmosphere and story kept players hooked until the end.  That is not to say that the gameplay was poor though, because it wasn’t.  Varied weapons and a “magick” system make combat fun.

I’ll start this off by talking about the most unique feature of Eternal Darkness, the sanity system.  Unlike most other games, in which taking out hordes of zombies and monsters seem absolutely normal to our heroes, this is not so in Eternal Darkness.  Seeing a monster reduces your “sanity meter” (it would for me too if I came face to face with one of those things).  If that meter depleted too much, your character would start to experience some bizarre effects (side effects include: bleeding walls, moving statues, and hallucinations).  Of course, even you as a player would experience some anomalies (volume diminishing, TV input changing and even possibly turning off).  It was fun to periodically allow the meter to deplete just to witness some of these interesting sanity effects.

A sanity meter alone though is not enough to warrant a spot on our Hidden Gems list though.  Eternal Darkness also had a very interesting story to boot.  Without spoiling anything, the story revolves around this dark tome in which each chapter is centered around a certain character.  Each character seems to be connected in some way even though their stories can be centuries apart.  Playing through different locales during different time periods was quite interesting needless to say.  Not only did locales change, but your weapons also reflect the new time period (ranging from a Roman Gladius to modern firearms).

For a truly unique take on the horror genre, Eternal Darkness is a great choice.  Good gameplay, a great sanity system, and terrific story make Eternal Darkness one of my favorite Gamecube games of all time.