The 11th Hour

This game was the first to ever seriously scare me. I was seven years old watching my dad play The 11th Hour when a cutscene of a women's face shifting into some horrible bug-eyed monstrosity freaked me out so badly I ran upstairs and wouldn't touch the computer for weeks. Naturally, this game would never have that kind of effect on a kid raised on today's games, but it still holds a darkly comedic appeal, whether or not most of the comedy is intentional. This game's predecessor, The 7th Guest, was no doubt a spooky game, but also a rather PG one, with cartoonish characters and a mostly pristine mansion that looks like the dollhouse of a psychopath. The 11th Hour steers the series deep into the macabre. The host mansion is now a dark, rotting mess loaded with bloody surprises and gruesome traps. The designers really put a lot of effort into giving you the impression that something horrible happened in every room you step into (and could happen to you). As in the previous game, the primary focus rests on puzzle-solving, and unlike other adventure games you may have played, the puzzles are not necessarily integrated into the environment, like trying to start a broken generator or anything. Rather, you're retracing the steps left by the mansion's insane owner Stauf, who left deliberate puzzles throughout the house, some of which can be brutally difficult and lengthy to solve. This gives the game a rather anarchic structure: There's no logic to the puzzles thrown at you, so each one tends to be radically different from the last. The story of the 11th Hour is also a strong departure from The 7th Guest, and this is were most fans of the short-lived series jump ship on this game. The developers went for more of a contemporary mystery story this time, and the result is an FMV-heavy narrative with the aesthetics of an early-90's TV crime drama. As you solve puzzles in the mansion, you unlock video clips that offer you a glimpse at what's happening in the outside world and lead you to solve the primary mystery. The cutscenes are just as poorly acted as in The 7th Guest, but since this game doesn't have its predecessor's cartoonish charm, it's harder to forgive the performances. Still, anybody who survived the cutscenes of the 3DO days should appreciate the accidental hilarity the actors offer. The 11th Hour is a controversial title no doubt, with fans of The 7th Guest urging players away from this sequel. But on it's own, the game has a wonderfully unique macabre atmosphere while retaining the spontaneous puzzles of the original. Perhaps it is difficult to like both games (I personally thought 7th Guest looks too much like a Saturday Morning cartoon), but if you want a spooky, cerebral adventure into darkness and decay, the 11th Hour is worth the trip.

This is by far the best re-release of 11th Hour (it was previously available from dotemu, who didn't truly offer a framerate / compatibility fix) - this appears to have its own shell and works absolutely perfectly on both Windows XP and Windows 7, with the original intended framerate - I can't thank you guys enough!! The game itself is a slightly more frustrating variation on The 7th Guest; some of the puzzles where you actually play against Stauf are maddeningly difficult (not to mention the unforgivably difficult "furniture" puzzle). Nevertheless, the game is good fun if you enjoyed 7th Guest, and the story wanders quite a bit, but all in all it feels great and has that neat early 1990s feel of 'pushing boundaries' via CD Rom. Thank you GoG for another perfect release!!

The puzzles alone are definitely worth the price of the admission. They're a giant leap for mankind from 7th Guest puzzles, most of which weren't that hard. Also, they threw in scavenger hunts for an extra challenge and you have to solve the puzzle in the room the item is in before you can search it out. Great graphics for it's time too. Music actually sounds better; it's mostly the songs from 7G remixed, though they're still .midi sound. You can skip past making trips and annoying interruptions from Stauf by right-clicking. You can also opt out of watching the annoying cut-scenes and hall your ass to the puzzles. The acting is slightly less awful (and awkward) than the 7G. I was also glad I didn't have see something like the Marti'n Burden getting nailed by a creepy 60 year old Edward Knox. Bleh. Now the cons: While the puzzles are definitely more challenging, some of them border on damn near impossible, with rules that are often hard to understand; I'm still not sure I fully understand the cash register puzzle. Some scavenger hunts are way to hard to figure out without help, and even after that, the answers are pretty vague. The story line is awful. Like what you'd get if makers of popular soap operas such as "Days of Our Lives" and "As the World Turns" decided to make psychological thriller. No more ghostly apparitions; very disappointing. No more creepy Ouiji board for your main menu. Now you carry around what's supposed to be a Palm Pilot, though it more resembles an Acer mini laptop. A lot less supernatural elements. 7G had you climbing into sinks and holes on a pool table and magically appearing in the kitchen; walking through tiny dollhouse door just to get to the next room; and stepping into a painting or watching them eerily come to life . Those have been replaced by opening secret passages and watching the scenes on your "Palm Pilot." Crashes...a lot. Little can be done to help that since there's no option to change graphics to a lower setting. So that's my review. Pretty good game, though somewhat bogged down with bugs and a lot of really bad ideas.

The story here is interesting and the FMV is good, but the core gameplay is so mind-numbingly stupid that you won't want to finish the game. You don't collect things or use objects in this game, you just click on things. What do you click on? Whatever the disembodied house voice tells you to click on (assuming you can decipher the asinine riddles). Sometimes you have to solve a puzzle to be able to click on the thing. What does the puzzle have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing, it's just a puzzle. Click, click, puzzle, click, video. Repeat. Over and over again. The pre-rendered graphics are nice, music is awesome, the atmosphere is creepy, and the humor is dark. The only thing that is missing here is the actual GAME. It's worth a try for $5, but not for $10.