Sanitarium

I played a lot of point and click adventure games as a kid growing up in the 90's, but I never played Sanitarium until 2018, which is a shame because it is an excellent game. It's been sitting in my backlog for many years, and I put off playing it, assuming that it would be like other adventure games from that era, full of sudden deaths (like Sierra games) or dead ends, but Sanitarium isn't like Sierra or LucasArts adventure games at all. The most immediate thing about the game is that its graphics are more like Fallout 1/2 or Planescape Torment than a traditional point and click adventure game. It's plot, fractured and divided by chapters that have you visiting wildly different areas, is appropriately messed up for a psychological horror game, and sometimes violent and gross. The atmosphere established by the game is probably the best thing about it, escpecially in the first two chapters. The game itself is simpler than most adventure games, as there is no obtuse verb menu, and the player inventory gets rid of items after you are finished with them. This solves the problem of so many adventure games, where you get stuck and are trying to use every item with every other thing on the screen. While a couple of puzzles were difficult, most of them were very reasonable. I don't want to spoil too much of the game, as I didn't really know anything about the plot going into it, and there are a lot of weird surprises. If you like adventure games, play Sanitarium.

Got this as a freebie so my complaining rights are limited. It's also almost 25 years old so it wasn't designed for today's much better hardware and finer grained screens. The navigation, which is important at various crucial parts of the game, is very frustrating. Frequently you'll find your character going in the opposite direction from which you intended because you moved beyond some sort of boundary. Sometimes it seems impossible to get from point A to point B until you finally do the same thing you've been trying over and over only this time it works. There are puzzles that depend on precise navigation. They are real vocabulary building exercises. Oh, puzzles. All point and click games have problems to solve that are called puzzles. In this game there are problems that have no logic at all to them. The only way to solve them without a walk through is by systematically trying everything possible. Some of the puzzles do have clues. Some have none at all. Consider a machine with a wheel control that can be moved counterclockwise or clockwise. Imagine that for no particular reason you must move the wheel in only one direction even though you can arrive at the "correct" settings from either direction. I know, like a wheel type combination lock. The good part is the insane story line. The how come for the story is a spoiler. At various times your character may be a man with a heavily bandaged head, a little girl, a four armed cyclops, or an Aztec god. The story takes place in a hospital, an Aztec village, a small American town, a circus on an island, and other seemingly unrelated locales. Each section has an internal logic of sorts. Some of the dialogue is clever although the voice acting is not terribly good compared to modern big budget games. I finished the game with the aid of a walk through. I swore at the puzzles and character navigation problems. The story made me want to finish in spite of the mechanics.

When I was younger, I played every single adventure game that was available. And Sanitaruim was the best of all (then long pause, then The Longest journey, even longer pause and then comes the rest)

If you love weird and bizarre worlds and mentally ill environments then Sanitarium is your game. The story is awesome (it would work as a book as well imo) and the characters and dialogs are entertaining. The only reason why I gave it only 4 points is the fact that the puzzles and levels are way too easy and therefore the game is really short. I finished it within 12 hours of play. Still, brilliant work, a must have in an adventure gamer's collection.

i got this and undyinig in a 2-pack at best buy or walmart or something for $5 or $10 (10 years ago?) -- talk about a bargain before digital distribution redefined the word! Sanitarium blew me away with the immersive story and, considering, enjoyable artwork and setting. I look forward to revisiting this game again.