Just finished this game for the first time (Dec. 2012). I thought the atmosphere was fantastic. You find yourself wandering around in a dark and deserted old Victorian mansion. There is an undeniable feeling of tension around every twist and turn, and the subtle use of music really adds to the whole feeling. Not since Silent Hill 2 have I been this tense just walking around the game's environment. Also, much like Silent Hill 2, the ratio of actual scares to the anticipation of being scared is staggering. This was a bit of a letdown, honestly. The few times something scary does happen, the graphics are so dated that it's just laughably bad. Darn near every single time something big would happen, I'd dread it and fight myself from looking away, only to see what it was and have to laugh (and believe me, that was not the reaction they were going for). The other disappointment with this game was the plot. So many loose ends are left. You spend the whole game hunting down this mysterious evil which you read about in books and notes littered throughout the game only to have a completely unfulfilling resolution to that part of the story. I suppose my last gripe is that the game often feels confusing. Even with the hits turned on, there were some puzzles that were so obtuse there would have been no way to solve them without a walkthrough. Half the time you're just aimlessly wandering through the house with no direction and no sense of where you need to be or what you're doing. There were plenty of times I'd solve a puzzle, and find an item just to have it lead to a dead end. Then I'd be absolutely stuck for ideas. Checking a walkthrough would reveal some completely unrelated (and ridiculously obtuse) thing needed to be done next. The other half of the time, you'll have a vague idea of what it is that needs to be done, but won't have any idea what parts of the environment need to be (or can be) interacted with in order to solve the puzzle. So ultimately, I'd say the game is aces for atmosphere and music. The story is even pretty interesting up until the last few hours. But the lack of actual scary content (seriously, you can count the number of times things will happen on your two hands), the lack of any direction for the puzzles, and the dated graphics (combined with a "realistic" art style) make this a game I wouldn't recommend to anyone but the hardest of the hardcore point-and-click adventure gamers.
