Welcome back, my vengeance-seeking boys and ghouls. Halloween may be over, but the air is still chilled. The leaves still crunch underfoot. We’ve still got games to write about. Over the next three weeks, we’ll be looking at a trilogy of video games which take place in the cinematic universe revealed in The Blair Witch Project. Three different games developed by three different studios exploring three different aspects of the Blair Witch mythos, all using the engine developed by Terminal Reality for their cult hit Nocturne?! This is going to be the best three weeks of my life where I party like it’s 1999 all over again! Or it’ll end with my editor wuss-slapping me in the face because “real gamers don’t bawl like that when told to play a shitty game, Michael.” I’m going to regret this, aren’t I…?

Blair Witch Volume 2: The Legend of Coffin Rock (Human Head Studios, 2000)

Title screen

To casual observers unfamiliar with local history, Coffin Rock seems little more than one of many rocky outcroppings which dot the landscape of the Black Forest Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland. Those who know the territory however tend to give the place a wide berth, for Coffin Rock was a site of unbridled terror, torture, and death for five unfortunate men.

This ain’t no 19th century grocery list…

In 1886, the eight year old Robin Weaver wandered into the woods surrounding the town and failed to return. Noting the disappearance, five men of Burkittsville volunteered as a search party and set out to look for her. When they too failed to return after several hours, another party was assembled and dispatched to look for both the original searchers and Weaver herself. The second group found the first, and immediately wished they hadn’t. Someone or something had stripped the original search team of their clothing, bound them to each other hand-to-foot, carved pagan runes and symbols into their flesh, and ritualistically disemboweled them. The amount of blood and carnage present indicated this had taken place while the men were still alive. Stunned and fear-struck, the second party returned to town for reinforcements and assistance. By the time they returned to Coffin Rock, the bodies had all been removed leaving behind only the blood evidence of the ruinous ritual. Robin Weaver later made her way back to town unharmed, but claimed no memory of what happened to her in the woods beyond meeting a strange woman whose feet never quite touched the ground.

A stream in the woods.

The Legend of Coffin Rock sets out to explore this gruesome piece of folklore and history through the eyes of a man named Lazarus. A soldier for the Union during the Civil War, Lazarus and the rest of his men wandered into the Black Forest Hills and found themselves hunted down by forces of evil beyond their comprehension. One by one, his fellow soldiers fell until only Lazarus himself remained. Panicked with fear, terrified at the loss of his comrades, Lazarus composed a final entry in his journal, a letter to his beloved Anne, and laid down to await the arrival of the beast which would claim his life.

Stick figures dangle as Lazarus scribes his journal.

Instead of finding death, Lazarus is awoken one morning by a young woman who beseeches him to come with her to her grandmother’s house. Unsure what to do, and commanded by the voice of an angry woman (possibly the same voice which later drives Rustin Parr insane) to “Follow her!”, Lazarus picks up his saber and marches down the path into a situation straight out of his nightmares. So far, so good?

A friendly farmhouse…or is it?

Ehhh…not exactly. Maybe I went in with higher expectations than I should have. Human Head Studios was previously responsible for Rune, an epic action game of Viking axe combat, and they should have been the perfect match for a game based on what is easily the creepiest and most violent piece of folklore in the Blair Witch universe. Unfortunately whether hamstrung by too little development time or a budget that didn’t allow them to build the game they wanted, Human Head turned in a mediocre effort which feels rushed, incomplete, and worst of all, not scary in the least.

The Nocturne engine renders beautiful outdoors areas.

There are some beautiful visuals to be had in The Legend of Coffin Rock. The Nocturne engine, as noted in the previous entry, allowed for some fabulous backgrounds along with top-notch light, shadow, transparency and particle effects. For some reason, Human Head saw fit to utilize these in only the most cursory fashion and attempted to create what can only be described as a point-and-click adventure, something the Nocturne engine isn’t well suited to handle.

Killing guys in gray.

They also shoot themselves in the foot by making what should be the pivotal plot twist obvious from the very start: from his massive cranial trauma to the blue-gray pallor of his skin and even down to his name, it’s clear to the most casual player (but not, apparently, to the residents of Burkittsville, who are supposed to be a nervous and superstitious lot) that Lazarus is no longer among the living. So while his backstory is unfolding through cut-scenes and interactive flashbacks, we already know the reveal it’s building up to. Hardly ‘The Sixth Sense’ material here.

“Also, you’re a zombie.”

Combat in Coffin Rock is clunky at best, especially melee, but even the gunplay is nothing to write home about. Hobbled by the Nocturne engine’s tank-like controls and slow character animation for Lazarus, I found it best to just ignore enemies and attempt to outrun them unless doing so was impossible. As an additional irritant, the AI isn’t very well implemented. During one flashback, where Lazarus and his men were supposed to be engaging a group of Confederate soldiers in a pitched battle, I was the only one actually firing. The rest of my team were content to stand around looking confused as every Confederate rifle rained death at us from across the screen. Human Head’s choice of where to implement the cinematic camera angles also displays a lack of experience with this technique, as perspective shifts continually conspire to impede your progress. Fighting the camera is basically a game-spanning boss battle in and of itself.

Spooky shadows…

Ultimately Legend of Coffin Rock is a cluster of nifty ideas packed inefficiently into the wrong game. Presented strictly as a point-and-click adventure, with the real-time combat elements either expunged entirely or greatly limited, Human Head could have produced a compelling addition to the Blair Witch mythos. Unfortunately, while Terminal Reality had the advantage of working with the Nocturne engine and used that to create a short but enjoyable action/adventure hybrid, Human Head did not share this luxury. They gave it a good try, but that inexperience shows, and ultimately makes Legend of Coffin Rock a very difficult recommendation for the average horror enthusiast. Will The Elly Kedward Tale improve upon things? Only way to find out is to check for yourselves.

Expect to experience failure a lot.

Michael Crisman

In 1979, Michael Crisman was mauled by a radioactive Gorgar pinball machine. After the wounds healed, doctors discovered his DNA had been re-coded. No longer fully human, Michael requires regular infusions of video games in order to continue living among you. If you see him, he can see you. Make no sudden moves, but instead bribe him with old issues of computer and video game magazines or a mint-in-box copy of Dragon Warrior IV.


If he made you laugh, drop a tip in his jar at http://paypal.me/modernzorker


(If he didn't make you laugh, donate to cure his compulsion to bang keyboards by sending an absurdly huge amount of money to his tip jar instead. That'll show him!)