Sanitarium

T thought I should publish my views on this game, since I just finished
reviewing Gabriel Knight 3.  The theme of violence occurs in both
reviews, so perhaps this juxtaposition will tell people something about
either myself or the games.


Sanitarium is a game which I will describe as compelling; I have never
before played a game which was so adept at pulling me into its world and
keeping me there, sometimes almost against my will.

The basic setup is this: You see a short movie involving a car crash,
and wake up with your head in bandages.  The problem is, you wake up in
some sort of insane asylum from hell.  After that start, the game starts
to get strange.  I have previously described the game Obsidian as
"Myst-meets-Dali", but this game is best described as
"Dali-meets-Stephen King".  The word surreal is put to very hard use in
this game.


Graphics:
	Excellent.  Fully supported the game's mood at all times.
	The only disconcerting effect was how the tops of buildings
	would fade away as your character walked inside.  Very unique,
	and worked for the most part.
Music/Sound:
	Suitable for the game at all places, and supported the mood
	very well.
Character animation:
	Very well done in all cases.  The background animation of
	various items (water dripping, things blowing in the wind)
	supports the game and boosts the mood of the area tremendously.
Plot/story:
	The plot and the story circle each other in an insane dance
	throughout the game.  The tight integration of plot and story
	is done better in this game than any other I have ever played.
	I would call it a masterpiece of writing.
Voices:
	Good.  The characters voices supported the game in all cases,
	and never seemed to create a jarring note.
Characters:
	You play many characters throughout this game, and interact
	with a lot more.  They all worked well towards supporting the
	game, but some were certainly more accessible than others.
Puzzles:
	The game designers found a good integration between
	inventory-based puzzles and dialog-tree puzzles.  It all
	worked fairly well.  Even better, they were well integrated
	with the story, without any "warts" tacked on to simply
	extend the game playing time.
Ugly puzzles:
	Several timed action sequences that seemed rather out of place.
	The only good thing about them is that you can get through them
	even if your action skills are non-existent.  In one sequence,
	everything you kill stays dead, even after you are killed and
	the sequence restarts.  In the other sequence, there are safe
	spots at intermediate points where you can save and then restore
	the game for multiple attempts at the next segment.
Puzzle Difficulty:
	Not too difficult.  They were challenging enough to keep me
	interested, so I will give them a personal "just right".
Controls:
	Left mouse button to do things, right mouse button to move the
	character.  In almost all cases, it worked very well.  However,
	in some places I had a very difficult time of controlling the
	character.  There were locations where an automated motion
	sequence would be triggered (like climbing some stairs).  The
	problem came when your character was at the edge of one of these
	locations; you sometimes triggered a whole sequence when all you
	wanted to do was move a few steps.  This could get really
	frustrating in a few areas.
Bugs:
	One sequence in the lab where I had to restore from an earlier
	save to make any progress.  I don't know what I did to cause
	the game to start acting weird, but I eventually got by it.
	If you play this game, save often.  You may need to replay
	something differently to get by a bug.
Pros:
	Extremely compelling and well integrated game, where story,
	plot, puzzles, sound, and graphics all seemed to meld
	seamlessly.
Cons:
	Several timed action sequences.
	Corpses, blood and gore all over the place.
Conclusion:
	Sanitarium is pretty close to being a masterpiece of writing,
	even though I am not sure I want to meet the authors who can
	dream up a game like this.  I found it to be completely, utterly
	compelling; I couldn't stop playing it even if I wanted to.
	This one goes into my top ten list.


Final note about violence:

Given my stated squeamishness about violence and gore, I find it strange
to be strongly recommending a game where manipulation of bloody, impaled
corpses is an integral part of the game.  Readers of this review will
have to decide for themselves if this reflects a double standard on my
part, or if it is an indication of the game's quality being able
to override my prejudices.  My vote is for quality, but hey, I might
just have a sanity problem :-)