Ok, first of all I was always a great adept of adventure games: Gabriel Knight, Tex Murphy, Phantasmagora, Police Quest, Indiana Jones, The Neverhood, etc. All games that mark my childhood and growing ages. But this one, this one marked me in many ways. It's premise is very simple: You control the character, talk to npc's, use items to solve puzzles. The camera is in isometric view, and the graphics are, even if dated, aging really well. Nothing easier and this review could very well be about any generic adventure game out there. But when you start the game and realize you are in a very uncommon sanitarium, Angel statues become living, deformed children play in a city where all grownups are gone and you can become a comic book character, that's when things start to build up. You start as an amnesiac male, waking up in one of the most weird and disturbing places i've seen in a videogame. Not knowing who you are or where you are, you start talking to other patients only to realize that there is no one sane...but yourself. This part serves only as an introduction. The real game starts when you travel to a small town and have your first "chit-chat" with the local children. Not wanting to spoil anybody, let's just say you are in for a really insane experience. The game consists of mainly in-game scenes, but some FMV's show some of the player's flashbacks. This is one of the best adventure games out there, and even one of the best, atmospheric and rich story games in general. I can only say that you have to be crazy not to buy Sanitarium.
Unfortunately it really was the last on the series. Sort of a remake of the first game, Overseer takes us back to the case of Mean Streets, following a series of flashbacks (Tex is narrating the case do Chelse). With two versions, CD or DVD for superior video quality, this game is a bit different than Under a Killing Moon and The Pandora Directive in the interface design. It is more "clean" and less cluttered with menus, which are hidden on the edge of the screen, leaving space to investigate everything at ease. Even those who played the first game should really visit this one. Tex really went away with a bang!
What to say? After playing Under a Killing Moon and falling in love for it, I was sure there was no chance for a sequel to come out. After all, we are talking about a genre that was not understood by everyone. Seeing the game on sale for the first time took me quite the shock, since there was no previews, articles, nothing, in magazines or what-so-ever where I live. I bought it without thinking twice and ran home to try it. The evolution from the first game was amazing. The FMV's where improved, the 3D graphics also received a major lift up and the storyline/acting was better than before, including several "arcs" (let's call them jobs) in the middle of the main job that Tex had to solve. For those who never played the first game, this is all nonsense of course. The game is based in 3 different gameplay styles: 1. Free roaming - Traveling around places, rooms, streets. Really gives us a great sense of freedom. 2. Dialogue - This is where you gain most of the clues to progress trough the game, talking with other characters. 3. Puzzle Solving - Of course a game like this had to include several puzzles. They go from the most basic like buying new stuff from the Electronics Shop to stopping a burglar jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Even if you never played UAKM before, be sure to pick this one because it's well worth it!
So there I was, holding a game in my hands that i've never heard about before. I was really curious about it's graphics and noir style and since it was cheap (I found it as a bargain in a shop i knew) i though "heh, why not". A game with 4 cd's was rare back in those days. Only FMV's games like Phantasmagoria, Gabriel Knight 2, etc, had them so I was thrilled to try another one of that kind of games. And I was blown away. The freedom of strolling around in a post-apocalyptic city, the dialogs, the quality of the cinematics, everything was top-notch. I like to divide the game into 3 types of gameplay: - Exploration: walking around freely either in town or other places - Puzzle/"Quest" solving: using items, solving puzzles, etc - Dialogues: like the name says, talking to other characters which is a fundamental part of the game All these 3 parts combined made one hell of a game and let's face it, it wouldn't be the same without Chris Jones playing Tex Murphy. And here I am, buying the game again just to travel again to New San Francisco.
