Sanitarium

I have a win 7 operating system and the game crashes randomly to desktop once in a while.

Sanitarium still holds up today. It's a good game, good cinematics for such an old game. I enjoyed most of it, but it does have some flaws. Remember to save often if you just encounter something that you can 'undo'. Had a bug so a text wasn't visible so I had to redo that whole section because of it. The slow walking, (Despite 1 character that walks faster) certain voices in the game were pretty bad. The story is pretty nice, but I felt the ending wasn't made. It just happened and that was that. Credits roll. Despite the minor flaws and a bad ending. It's still worth playing. For it's age it's certainly has aged very well.

I had a couple of crashes. Overall the game was stable enough to keep me motivated. Quick save/quick load hotkeys would not work for me. Hint: If you see some weird colored pixels, try alt-tabbing out of the game and back in again. The walking mechanics (hold right click) are annoying at first. The majority of the gameflow is intuitive. Most puzzles can be learned by trial/error.

Many people will like this game because of its immersive and interesting psychedelic setting. However, gameplay-wise, it's simply not challenging enough. The puzzles are easy and the solutions are mostly as clear as day, so I'm afraid that overall this game is pretty average — perhaps this was done intentionally to assure that the game will flow from scene to scene seamlessly. But for me, the lack of challenge bugged me more than anything, so I can't really give this game anything more than three stars. Would recommend to those who play adventure games for the story and the atmosphere, though.

This is really the perfect setup. Incredible art, jaw-dropping effects, convincing narrative and voice acting, intelligent puzzles, friendly UI ... So, then, why am I giving it 2 stars? About halfway through the game, things start changing. First, you become a comic book action - thing - wandering through repetitive tunnel structures, and then it goes downhill. The story starts turning cheesy, the clues alternate between directions and misdirections, more than riddles they are either very direct or just ambiguous meaning it turns into pixel hunting. I don't want to spoil too much, but when it touches history all of the great world-building completely falls apart. It's not dumb fun in a campy sort of way, more like dreary and unimaginative. The great voice acting completely falls as well and that is when pixel hunting ramps up. Walking becomes buggy, the story makes little attempt at making any sense of this. In short, it becomes a chore, and when I'm working I ask for pay, rather than purchasing. It's regretful because the setup could be for one of the greatest games ever created and it seems to others that is the case. If you know a little bit of history you may find the hamfisted approach not worth the absolute lack of beta testing that section implies. Honestly, I didn't finish it, I moved on to better things such as Planescape Torment. It's up to you, it's your time and your money. Maybe if you temper your expectations you'll enjoy I sadly was very pampered with the incredible setup so that felt like a shower in battery acid. Not painful at first but it was burning before I dropped this (PS wear gloves, battery acid has a delayed discomfort) PS Bought this at Waldo's 1 dollar mart, and I can't think of a more fitting place for it. It's a shame really, it had so much potential.