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| Sanitarium Review (I don't know if it's finished or not) by Bill Dungsroman 07/21/2003, 4:31pm PDT | ||||
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| Sanitarium Review
Boo. I bought Sanitarium when it came out because someone, either Computer Gaming World or maybe just the game’s box, promised that it was scary. It was, once during a cut scene about halfway through the game. However, I don’t think the praise for the game was “Scary – once!†Actually, there is another aspect of this game that frightens me: playing it again for this review without reading a walkthrough that explains the ridiculously difficult puzzles and points out where all the pixel-sized items are. Fuck that. The game itself, played in a third-person isometric perspective, is not too bad. The controls and interface are intuitive enough, and the graphics are really nice. The voice acting isn’t horrible, either, which really makes or breaks an adventure game. And the story, well…uh…? (SS: S001. Caption: “Spooky!â€) Sibling Concerns And Technobabble The game opens with a fairly generic movie about your character and some other dude who doesn’t want you to do something about something, and apparently you’re both scientists. Then your character’s car “mysteriously†crashes, and thus you can immediately figure out who the bad guy is, since only two characters have been introduced by that point. Then you wake up in the game world, in a – you guessed it! – sanitarium. And it’s spoooooky. Oh yeah, and you have amnesia. Need I even tell you that the point of the game is to get your memory (and possibly – moohoohaha! – your sanity) back? Yay, it’s Torment minus all the great dialogue (well, minus mostly everything) and also just like about 500 million other stories in any medium ever. Oh, the story? Some nonsense about your sister and “Molecular Cohesion,†which you really won’t care about except for the few bits when the game tries to force you to. “Yoo hoo, remember the whole deal with the Cohesion of that Which Is Molecular?†it will ask you, not caring that your answer is usually a resounding “Sort of, but I really don’t remember or give a shit.†The bits with your sister are far more interesting, which is as much a compliment to that part of the story as it is an insult to the molecular what-fucking-ever part. (SS: S002. Caption: “Here you are as your sister, in one of the better parts of the game. Ignore the sci-fag horseshit and pay attention to her story.â€) Because Deformed Children Are Edgy, That’s Why After waking up in the eponymous sanitarium, you attempt to effect your escape from it to God knows where. The game unfolds in a series of chapters, and in most of them you appear to be in some fruity dream world. After the sanitarium, you escape to a weird ruined little town populated by deformed children. In an unexpected twist (for this game), you change into other characters during the course of the story, including your sister (when she was younger), a comic book character cyclops named Grimwall, and an Aztec warrior named Olmec. I told you this game was weird. Near the end of the game you can become any of these as you choose to utilize their various abilities, which is actually a pretty cool design choice. It beats being the same generic idiot you’re forced to be in most adventure games. Yeah, a wise-cracking white dude never gets old. As with most adventure games, there are items for you to collect and use elsewhere. Honestly, there’s a friggin’ assload of items, over 60. And there are plenty of characters to talk to as well. And with dozens and dozens of puzzles, this game isn’t fucking around, it’s all the adventure game you’ll need for awhile. I’m not sure if that’s such a good thing, however. (SS: S003. Caption: “Here you are in a maze as Olmec, the Aztec Warrior. I was over mazes back in Zork 1.â€) Zork Meets Myst Meets a Sharp Rap On The Head With a Ball Peen Hammer Actually, the puzzles in this game are pretty challenging, and most of them are relevant to the story. But that’s qualified with the following: the story is so fruity and bizarre nearly anything can be shoehorned into being made relevant, and some of the puzzles transcend merely challenging to outright complex and monitor-punchingly tedious. At least one (usually two) of the puzzles in each of the nine chapters (plus the last part, which is just one annoying timed puzzle – oh, how I do love timed puzzles) is perplexing to the point that you will spend far too much time on it, and then quit the game to either look for the solution in a FAQ or play something dumber where you can shoot and blow up things for awhile. Some of the puzzles, of the always-entertaining button-in-sequence variety, have over 20 individual steps. Have fun trial-and-erroring your way through those. A 21-step water pressure puzzle? Oh, no. One puzzle that appears about halfway through the game has you attempting to mimic sound notes in sequence. Yes, just like the one that made any of us gullible enough to play Myst did in that stupid ship. The one in this game is even harder than that one. I simply can’t think of a puzzle I have come across in an adventure game where the solution was so obvious yet so unbelievably difficult to achieve. I thought I was fucking tone deaf after bunging up the sequence for the millionth time in a row. Every annoying type of adventure game puzzle is present at least once: timed puzzles, sequence puzzles, mazes (one is a maze with timed parts – oh, the pain), they’re all here. Dials, buttons, knobs, alien fucking fly wings, you name it. Keys, oh yes, there are keys, keys and key analogs, all kinds. Plus, be prepared to pixel hunt; there is little indication that something may be picked up and used, including a SMALL FUCKING ROCK AMONG A BUNCH OF OTHER SMALL NONINTERACTIVE ROCKS. The Magic Rock was in the second chapter, and I almost gave up at that point, flopping on my bed and mumbling “Mommy it hurts†over and over as I cradled my pounding head in my hands. Not that head, you faggot. (SS: S004. Caption: “I know, I know: WTF is that? It’s an alien fly wing puzzle, of course. Good luck figuring it out.â€) Is This Game Over Yet? It’s Eleven O’Clock And I Have To Jerk Off Sanitarium will take awhile to get all the way through, especially the first time. Many of the puzzles are quite difficult, and have fairly non-intuitive solutions. The developers made most of them relevant to the story, but like I said, just because you’re supposed to be lost in your own comatose dream world doesn’t excuse the fruity nature of many of the puzzles. There’s a ton of them though, and if you crave adventure games for their puzzles, this one has them in spades. There are probably over a hundred total, in difficulty ranging from not-too-hard to OMFG-where’s-the-FAQ? But hey, even the superlative Grim Fandango had a timed puzzle, what can you do? I really don’t recommend this game unless you really dig adventure games and especially relish puzzle solving. The story is fairly generic unless you make a concerted effort to get into it, as the bits involving the main character’s sister are fairly interesting, but the Secret Formula shit is pretty run-of-the-mill. You really won’t care about it by the end of the game, provided you get to it. |
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