Let's be clear here. If you're hankering for a Sierra FMV adventure game your first stop should be the excellent Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within. Phantamasgoria 2 is not in that league, either in game design, writing, or acting. However, while game elements and puzzles in P2 are light and either hilariously easy or obtuse by turns, there are definitely things to be said for the game's atmosphere and storyline. The idea is that the protagonist, Curtis, may be losing his mind. Even, maybe, committing the horrific murders at his workplace that propel the bulk of the story. The developers elaborate on this theme rather nicely, with plenty of freaky hallucinations, bizarre e-mails on Curtis's work computer, and similar. P2 also features a refreshingly unstereotyped, amusing and likeable gay character in Trevor, Curtis's best friend (and sometime object of Curtis' more repressed fantasies). Unfortunately, the game kind of thuds to a halt in the final moments, dumping many of the more promising elements for a bizarre left field turn and obtuse final area. It's a worthwhile experience, certainly far more so than the original Phantamasgoria, but it's probably not a must-play.
Phantamasgoria would possibly make decent fodder for an MST3K-style hazing, but little more than that. If the graphics ever looked good, they certainly haven't aged well. The interactivity is minimal and mostly confined to the ability to move from empty room to empty room, receiving occasional awful FMV scenes (the acting is amazingly terrible). There's some mild thrills to be gotten from the gory death scenes, but you can simply watch those on Youtube if you care to.
Shiny is a company that I've long had a soft spot for. Their off-the-wall sense of humor has tended to make for games that are quite memorable, if not always as playable as one might hope. But Sacrifice isn't just quirky and funny, although it very much is those things. It's also a brilliant piece of game design. Every trip through the singleplayer mode can get you an different mix of units and spells to work with to solve the unique conundrums presented. Every unit has its own personality and role. There are no simple palette swaps here. And the focus on your wizard makes for a uniquely personal RTS. It's not without its flaws. The game doesn't play much like others on the market and it doesn't do all that much to ease the new player in. The soul resource system is clever but can result in either quick formation of an insurmountable lead, or incessant inconclusive skirmishes with no real gain or loss to either side since lost souls are simply recouped rather than switching hands. And I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the levels are genuinely a little too hard. But it's still one of my all-time favorites, and I really wish Shiny had continued to show this level of creativity rather than being tapped to make Matrix games. (The less said about -those-, the better.)
There's a lot to like about Hostile Waters. It's an innovative and unique blending of strategy and action, with a decidedly original storyline penned by one of the best writers working in comics today, Warren Ellis. The basic premise is this: global peace has finally been managed. The war machines, weaponry, and soldiers of the bad old days are decommissioned or destroyed. Only....not everyone was looking for peace. And a few of the hardliners have come out of hiding and launched a terrorist campaign to which the world is now defenseless. Or almost.... there's one of the old school nanowarfare carriers left, a mobile weapons factory known as Antaeus. It's been submerged and abandoned for some time, and the first few missions of the game deal with collecting the resources necessary to restore full operations. The Antaeus, when given the blueprint and enough fuel, can synthesize any vehicle or weapon necessary for the conflict. You are in charge of the Antaeus. You get a wide array of vehicles to throw at your foes, and while you can pilot them yourself directly (thus the action part of the game), you will usually want to load them up with a personality chip taken from one of the soldiers that fought in the last war so that they can move about autonomously (under your orders, of course). Each soldier has a different personality and skillset, and as you find them you learn more about their history in cutscenes. The enemies themselves constantly regenerate until you can find and destroy the factories producing them, and there are often other story-related goals. All this makes for a game that I for one have found extremely compelling, and paying $6 for it almost feels like stealing. Note that the boxed copy has a bug which fails to recognize the retail CD, requiring a no-CD patch to play the game at all. So even if you have a chance at the box, I'd still recommend this version. Saves hassle.
I will give the makers of Runaway a certain level of props for trying. They didn't go the clickable slideshow route of the umpteen thousand Myst-clones that pass for the majority of the modern adventure game market. (These are not universally awful, of course, but they tend to lack a certain something.) And it's certainly a good looking game, with smooth, cartoony visuals that bring back memories of the good old days...except with modern rendering power. Unfortunately, they flub the single most important aspect of the genre, to my tastes - the writing. If the writing isn't good - oneliners, plot, dialogue, whatever else - I really feel you may as well not bother. It's not that I dislike puzzles, but there are many pure puzzlers out there that tend to scratch that particular itch better than the adventure genre. It's the bundling of puzzling and engaging storytelling that make adventure games magic to me. And Runaway has incredibly terrible writing, across the board. The "humor" is forced and moronic. The plot is a mishmash of cliches and boredom. The characters are extremely grating and obnoxious. And if I recall correctly, it's translated from French and poorly. (Maybe it's better in French, but I doubt it.) So right there, Runaway drops off the "worth playing" list to my mind. It then compounds that sin by having dumb and unintuitive "puzzling" barely worthy of the name. Trust me. Go buy the Broken Sword games instead. -They- offer the sort of adventure gaming experience that made the genre great.
This is the most important thing to keep in mind. As I didn't work on the project, it's impossible for me to say without a doubt how much Black Isle contributed to the development of the game, but the primary work was done by Reflexive Entertainment, probably best known today for their independent game distribution site. At first glance one could be fooled into thinking that it is in fact a genuine Black Isle game. It has a promising alternate historical setting with a fantasy twist, and adapts the wonderful SPECIAL character development system from Fallout to its milieu (and unfortunately real-time combat). Furthermore, the opening city has lots of interesting quests to do, historical figures to meet, and so on. Sadly, after the plot takes you outside that city's walls, the game falls apart and becomes little more than a rather limp Diablo clone. Shame, really.
