Ah, this little gem has been lovingly pickup up from the Abandonware heap and polished. This game is a hybrid of wacky adventures games, plus JRPG combat elements. You assemble your bottom-tier superhero wannabes and rejects, and adventure into the bizarre wastes of New York. As the story progresses, you unlock additional characters, some of which have unique talents that you'll rely on to overcome certain obstacles. At times, the combat can be brutal, if you're ill-prepared, and you'll have to contend with radiation spikes and high water levels. Most of the puzzles in the game are easily solved with minimal pixel-hunting (but I do remember missing one required item I needed at the end of the game, that I could have found in the intro area. Can't believe I had to use a walkthrough for that!) I'm torn between giving this a game between a 4 and a 5. For metric's sake, I'll give it a five, but I have a critical bit of advice for those who HAVE NOT played the game. There are a finite amount of enemy encounters, meaning, when you clear an area of goons, they will not respawn. The game employs a "Danger-o-meter" that shows the deadliness of your enemies, as well as when the area is cleared. This is important as, when the baddies are gone, so is your ability to get more money and buy items. So think ahead about what items you truly want, and to give permanent power-ups to characters you intend to stay in the party. But, otherwise, enjoy the weird sense of humor (such as defusing a seriously inconveniencing limburger cheese- dirty bomb to finding the frozen remains of Walt Disney in his secret vault) and save the world from those who want to watch it burn!
Ah, one of my favorite Sierra titles of all time. Panaias has a solid review and is right on track. This game builds wonderful and creepy atmosphere. You play as a young adult dared to spend the night in an abandoned museum built by Profession "Windle-nut" as he is called, a crazy anthroplogist obsessed with providing evidence for his conspiracy and alt-earth theories. Well, the museum does indeed become haunted, as you will discover, and you must capture the creatures to survive the night. This game still has wonderful graphics and brooding music. The monster animations are laughably bad (especially on modern computers, they are animated too quickly), but the idea and the theme music of the creatures (when you get too close) are very creepy. There are some randomly-generated jump scares thrown in (very tame), but I love the insinuations of what happened to the unfortunate souls who traversed the museum before you did. PRO-GAME PLAYERS: how many of you caught the clue about Beth in the logo of the game? Look closely at that eye and you'll see what I mean... Lots of "facts" in the game (real facts thrown in with bizarre theories people actually believe) and interesting things to discover. The puzzles are smart (except for the dreaded "solitaire-style" puzzle that Sierra overuses; and the terrible pinball-puzzle) and are challenging enough to have replay value. I've been asking for this game on GOG for a decade and I'm excited it's here. Keep your eyes out for the sequel which is also a heap of fun, but completely unrelated to this title. Turn the lights off, the music way off, and prepare for some creepy atmosphere!
I wanted to give this game two stars, but not out of spite. This game looks and seems amazing at first- the level of detail and meticulous care the designers put in every scene really shows. The gameplay is decent and not too clunky or awkward (although I have the game on old Xbox) and doesn't have many bugs (as a caveat, there are two 'stealth' gameplay areas that drove me up the walls due to poor camera angling). My main complaint is the story. The game has a great opener and all the game literature, trailers, and reviews make it seem like this game has some great sandbox or, at least, multiple-choice elements to it. The sad truth is, however, the game is extremely linear. None of your choices make a true difference EXCEPT in the literal last five minutes of the game (WARNING: Turn off auto save once you're at the finale and save before going into the last area. This will let you explore the "multiple endings."). I don't want to share too much about the story because I don't want to ruin it- but my beef is that the plot grows increasingly, increasingly more absurd to the point of frustration. The main antagonists are never fully explained ("purple" anyone?) but could have had some great potential. Now, this game is worth playing through at least once. You can really appreciate the potential of this game, but there's just a bitter aftertaste when you see how the end of the game falls apart. If you play the game through a second time, you'll feel cheated since the story still progresses the same regardless of how hard you looked or how many clues you hunted for (hence my desire for a 2-star rating). There's no additional explanation for the cool things going on (eg: weather, 'orange'). Basically, this is a like a crappy M Night Shyamalan film that could have been mind-blowingly awesome. This game has some awesome action sequences and special effects. If you can accept your choices are meaningless and the story was written by squealing sixth-grades high on pixie-stix, then this game will be an exciting couple of hours. Get it when it's on sale.
I'm an avid fan of adventure games and this one is definitely a winner. It's free from pixel-hunting and illogical puzzles (despite the context). The storyline is gripping, with a bizarre en-media-res style. The opening cinema has you revealing a dark secret, then plummeting off a cliff in your car, only to wake in an asylum on fire. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. This game is heavily dialog focused with many of the puzzles solved through talking. Each NPC has great voice acting, which alone makes it a treat to open up more dialog options. The gameplay is intuitive, using only the mouse, which is nice. Your inventory is limited and never gets in the way, which is also nice since there's almost no pixel-hunting; with that said, you DO, however, have to click on every surface. Sometimes I had the correct solution to a puzzle but wasn't clicking in the right spot, so just be aware of that. The only downside to this game, besides seemingly short to me, is that your character walks incredibly slowly, which is a pain when you have to go across several screens just to talk to someone. Other than that, the graphics are great- I was impressed that there are randomly moving sprite, just to add an effect. Balloons float aimlessly around, cans roll on the ground to an invisible breeze, just making the game seem more real. This game is definitely worth your time. Reserve a dark night to be alone when playing with this.
I bought this last year from Half-Price Books since my father and I love to solve adventure games together. I had high hopes for this to be a truly horror adventure game, but I found there were few 'scary' moments to be had. The scary moments were more of a loud sound in a tense moment kind-of scary. The storyline, however, was creepy, which added more to it than just the game play. So, the plus: there are some interesting moments and a few decent puzzles. There's a part involving a storm and a rope- I'll say no more. Another review said the atmosphere was good- I enjoyed the layout of the mansion and its mouldering, creepy interior. The most satisfying parts of the game were revealing bits and pieces about the storyline. The storyline was decently compelling, but I didn't think the ending lived up to the build-up. The Bad: A decent amount of Pixel-hunting, some illogical puzzles (but it wouldn't be an adventure game without it), and I still wanted more from the horror and the ending. The most annoying part of the game is having to constantly call your partner; the game won't advance unless you constantly call and harass your partner like a lost sheep. So, if you're playing the game, you know what to do but the game won't let you? Call your partner, then go back. I will add as a caveat, however, that the director's cut adds an extra chapter that I think really could have added something. My CD version had a fatal glitch that would shut down the game every time I tried going into the basement. If you'd like a good adventure-horror game, I'd recommend either Shivers 1 or Shivers 2 from Sierra games. I'm hoping GOG will put them out. Otherwise wait for this to be half-off. I wouldn't pay $10USD for this- $5 seems about right.
