It's all very unnerving, but what's more, with plenty of horrific zombie-like creatures to kill and very limited ammo, this is a seriously challenging training exercise. Generally, though, they look at each other and nod in that knowing and sinister way that is the cue for your immense paranoia to begin. They offer the odd bit of cautious advice on how to use your weapons, how to control Elsbeth and stuff like that. Your superiors look down on you from a glass-fronted gallery analysing each tentative step you make. Ironically, that is what's actually happening.

Even the training mission inside the haunted house induces the feeling that you are being constantly watched. So, with an engine that occasionally looks dated in places and a bolted-on plot, you find yourself hooked from the start. Think about it: what if the Quake III or UTengine had been used? What would we have been left with then? Another poxy, formulaic first-person shooter? The thought is terrifying, but the resulting game probably would not have been. And credit is due because a better choice could not have been made.

There are literally dozens of different engines that could have been used but, for whatever reason, somebody decided that the Nocturne engine would be the one.

In fairness, the whole game is a blatant Alone In The Dark rip-off, using the Nocturne game engine -but that's not necessarily a bad point.

She sets off to find out whether there's more to the murders than meets the eye. The player assumes the role of Elsbeth Holliday, a paranormal investigator who is not too dissimilar in attitude and style to Infogrames' own Edward Carnby. Without actually copying the plot of the cult hit, developer Terminal Reality has reached into the Blair Witch folklore and taken the player back to the '40s and the horrific murders of seven children by an old hermit named Rustin Parr. If the aim of Blair Witch Volume 1 - Rustin Parris to mimic the disturbing atmosphere of the film, this is the most faithful film tie-in we've ever played.

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