Sanitarium

This game lets you explore various creepy environments while trying to uncover exactly how your character fits into the mysterious story. While it's a relatively simple adventure game with some typical pixel hunting and NPC dialogue, numerous location changes, well-paced puzzles, and great atmosphere keep the game feeling fresh until the end. The graphics have aged surprisingly well; although the 3D cutscenes feature pretty stiff animation and effects by today's standards, they were pretty impressive at the time this game was originally released. The game's numerous pre-rendered 3D backgrounds have plenty of grimy and gory details, and do a wonderful job of setting a dark and depressing atmosphere, Sound is a mixed bag: Voice work can be atrocious at times, monotone and passable at others. Sound effects and music, on the other hand, are perfect. This is a solid release. Hasn't crashed on me yet, and absolutely no tweaking or effort required to get it running on modern machines, including my aspire one netbook. Thanks GOG!

Just finished this Adventure and wow i have to say I really liked the style. At first I was a bit repulsed by the Right-Click-Movement but I got adapted to it pretty quickly and could see why the developers implented it. The story progession is also superb. Its pretty nice storytelling if you have to think about what means what and not get the answers puked right into the face! All in all, if you like horror, can stand a bit of fleshcrafting,are NOT SCARED OF CLOWNS (This is important!) and can stand one or two hard puzzles in a while give this one a try! Great Adventure!

I just finished this game moments ago. This game has been on my want-to-play list since it first came out during my childhood. I got my hands on an abandonware version several years ago but never got very far into it. I was happy to be able to buy it legally on GOG! This game is now one of my favorite adventure games. Despite several technical flaws, the plot and setting of venturing through spaces which are entirely hallucinations is intriguing, and really carries the game through to the end. It provides an interesting variety to the setting of the game as you visit several locations which are wildly different in tone, as you may be able to see from the screenshots. I won't say any more to avoid spoilers, but it does stay fresh. This game does have a few technical issues. The most annoying are the crashes... it crashed somewhat frequently on my Windows 7 machine, so I had to get in the habit of saving frequently. In addition, the quick save hotkey didn't appear to be functional, although that would have been very handy. Lastly, walking around in the game is a bit tedious. Your character usually moves on the slow side and tends to get snagged on corners and invisible walls. He doesn't get stuck permanently, he just temporarily moves slowly or stops, which gets annoying. Most of the puzzles are actually pretty logical. I was able to progress through the game with little outside assistance. I did consult the universal hint system on a few occasions where I was stumped. I recommend it if you get stuck: http://www.uhs-hints.com/uhsweb/hints/starium/ All in all, this is a wonderful game that outshines its flaws. A really unique gem from the past that is pretty much unlike any other game I can think of. Recently, Batman Arkham Asylum did have some compelling hallucination sequences sprinkled throughout. But these sequences are pretty much the entire game of Sanitarium, in a good way - the concept is explored to its full potential. If you like adventure games and a bit of darkness in your fiction, I highly recommend this game. Parts of it were deeply disturbing, far more so than one of these modern scare-fest games. There were also a few bits of humor- some of the inmates are pretty entertaining. I also appreciated the deliberate "red herrings". :) If you do play, finish it! It's worth it.

I remember when GoG posted a status update on Facebook sighting on a new game in their catalogue and if we could guess which game was it. I was stunned to see how many people thought and wanted that game to be Sanitarium. Unfortunately Sanitarium wasnt added that day but damn it was about time it came! I was pleased for the inclusion of the manual and the soundtrack but I hoped for a background image or even poster-sized image you could print and put it in your room! I certainly would! Its good to be back to the Sanitarium :P Now excuse me while I play tik-tak-toe with the "flat-legged" girl in the playground....

I never liked puzzle point and click games. But this game was so good, that I had to finish it. It truly is a masterpiece.