The terror began... When you were eight and your twin brother Alex vanished into the black maze of mine tunnels beneath Vista forge - the home of your Uncle Boris' demon-filled Waxworks.
Twenty years later... Uncle Boris dies, leaving you his collection of fiendish displays - and the stupefying news that Alex is alive. Possessed by a 500 year old family curse, your brother schemes to resurrect the undead denizens of...
Five blood-soaked worlds of the past, present and future... 19th Century London, ancient Egypt, an abandoned mine shaft, a haunted cemetery and the malevolent chambers of the Waxworks itself.
Your only hope... To save Alex lies in removing the curse of the witch Ixona. And a courage you're not sure you possess.
Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 512MB RAM (1 GB recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.
I didn't know of this game until I stumbled on a video of its death scenes on YouTube, and was fairly surprised how graphic they were. Shortly after, I found GOG and discovered that it was for sale here - given the very reasonable prices and no DRM, I decided to have a go at a new-old game for a while.... full review
The game starts you off letting you pick which of four sections to solve in any order you choose, each set in a different time period playing past members of your family with a different nemesis to confront; your evil twin at the time. The story is slightly junky and is more of an excuse to go for the split time-periods and situations, which are actually very cool and a great idea employed quite well, so it's easily forgiven.
The way the game has been split up allows for some good creativity and experimentation in the game, with each section playing quite differently to the last. The Pyramid waxwork is very trap and puzzle based, the Victorian work is based around avoiding confrontations, the Graveyard being the opposite and very combat heavy with the Mines waxwork playing like a point and click Resident Evil game, complete with ammo depreivation. The Victorian waxwork is based around the premise that your evil twin of the time was Jack the Ripper, which I thought was a very nice touch and gave that scenario a lot of atmosphere.
The graphics are fine for the era, with the odd rough part but are mostly clear and moody. The death scenes especially are very graphical and probably gain more power than they otherwise have because of their graphical style, especially in the mines where the ways to die are exceedingly grisly.
Sounds are few and far between but are pretty good, however the music gets repetitive and the instrumentation is very low-fi and harsh. While this is great for the death scenes it's too much for the general play and will probably get the volume-down treatment. The Graveyard and the Pyramid especially are most at fault for this. It's really a shame as it's arguably the only fly in the stylistic ointment of the game.
Gameplay is where the game is truly unique. The first person viewpont and the point-and-click adventure style works well here, and it shows that there was a good amount of thought put into the game flow. The puzzles are logical and dont need leaps of mental faith ("try every combination" syndrome) as infamously seen in point-and-click games from time to time, but the exploration element brought on by the first person element means that the puzzles are mostly superficial and are based about being to locate all parts of a jigsaw puzzle. Despite this I wasn't lost for what I should be doing or looking for next in the game, and was free of the feeling of frustration brought on by no clear route forward. The way the game is laid out also changes the impact as after each stage your items and stats are reset. This means that the developers were free to experiment with different formulas for basic gameplay as mentioned before, and this kept the game feeling fresh.
What didn't work as well was the combat system. The game keeps up an experience counter through each level, which boosts your health and your combat skills slightly as you progress. This would have worked well if there was something for it to worth with. The combat system is a simple affair of repeatedly clicking on the enemy until it dies or you die, which is just not all that compelling, and it is a wasted oppurtunity to make combat more meaningful and worked into the game better than it currently is, where it stands simply as a mildly annoying distraction from your task of locating items and solving puzzles. It's made a sadder fact by the only real experimentation with the system in the Graveyard work, where you can hack off the head and limbs of zombies in any order you wish, and it shows that if a little more work was applied to making combat more involved especially in the Pyramid, then this could have been far better woven into the game.
Each section took me about an hour to two hours to complete; length is not a strength in the game but it was very enjoyable experience indeed. All things considered, more than worth the money marred by a combat system in need of improvement and some weak music.
If you like the specter of death hanging over your head at all times, running from zombies, monsters, egyptians, the police, etc... Then this is definitely the game for you!
Gameplay is simple; by era, do whatever your uncle tells you to, be it rescue the princess, kill the vampire, or any other task. Yet the variety of environments keep the game fresh.
Be forewarned,... full review though, this game is definitely not for children...it's gory depictions of death either by the main character or anyone that dies make it stand out among the horror genre.
Some flaws, but still recommended, if you like horror.
(by
Nosferatu)
I played the Amiga-version of this game back in the nineties, but it's almost exactly the same as the pc version, so I think I can make a review anyway. I know the music is different, so I will not comment on that. So this is basically a review of the Amiga-version, I hope this is ok. And I have written the review with this in mind.... full review
This is an adventure game with combat, and I wouldn't call it an rpg. It has experience and level progression, but that's about it (when it comes to rpg-elements). What this game is about, is realtime-combat, exploring, and puzzle-solving (often of the use the correct object in the correct place kind, just like in many other "point-and-click-adventure-games" from the nineties).
It also plays a lot like "Dungeon master" and "Eye of the beholder", if you are familiar with those games. Because of the 2D nature of the game, you move in "steps", and most of the game can be described as labyrints.
Waxworks is a very difficult game, be aware of this, it doesn't hold your hand, and can be very unforgiving. I think this is a good thing, but maybe that's just me ;) (if it doesn't take it too far, read about the flaws I talk about later)
The story isn't very good, but the atmosphere is. Sometimes the horror is a bit cheesy, but it's not totally silly either. The game is very gory, and every time you die, you will see an image of your mutilated corpse (different depending on how you died). Very disturbing stuff, and if you think you will find this offensive, this is not a game for you. This is probably the goriest game I have ever played.
There are 4 waxworks in the game (or 5, but the last one is finished in about 1 minute, so I don't count that one), and each one transports you to a different time period where you have to kill your evil ancestor. The waxworks are so different, that it almost feels like 4 different games, but it adds to the variety. The best one IMO, is Jack the ripper, it really feels like Whitechapel, during those times (ok, I haven't been there, but I like how it looks in the game).
There are some flaws however:
The combat is not good. And that was a nice way of saying it...
And a lot of the game is about combat.... Most often, you just klick on the bodypart you want to aim at, and hope for luck. Often (very often), you die because you were unlucky, not because you did anything wrong.
Sometimes, there are ways to kill enemies without fighting them, but that's not always possible.
There are also ways to make the game unsolveable, and the game doesn't tell you about it, and it's not obvious that you made a mistake either. Maybe you didn't pixel-hunt enough in a certain place, and missed an item you needed later? Too bad, you can't go back, and you can't figure out why you can't progress. Not good.
But still, this is a good game, and if you like horror (and can live with the flaws), and also Iike adventure-games of this kind, I recommend Waxworks. Maybe not as a fullprice game, but here on GOG, everything is cheap :)
vinehair)
Bicro)
Nosferatu)