Sanitarium

Rating:
Summary: Great game for moms with little time to play!
Review: As a new gamer and one with little time to play, I really appreciated this game. It's puzzles don't take endless hours to solve, and when you die or leave the game, you return right where you were without all the tedious making up to do. The graphics were pretty good though I would have liked more of a first person view. I would recommend this to those who like to play, but cannot devote their life to a game.

Rating:
Summary: A good beginners game
Review: I loved the subject and the way the transformations were handled. I loved playing the Aztec god.

The puzzles aren't as hard as some games but you won't be banging your head against the wall either because the puzzles don't make sense. If you just sit back and enjoy it the game will embrace you into its world.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant concept - terrible execution
Review: The subject matter of Sanitarium is eerily dark, surreal, and occasionally disturbing (wait until you see the town of deformed children) and starts with a bang. From the 3rd chapter on it all rapidly goes downhill. I got the feeling that the first two chapters were the only ones that were really thought out, and the rest were just sort of tacked on to fill space. The levels where you morph into a four-armed cyclopean comic book character and an aztec stone god seem to belong in a different game entirely. The mood is broken so many times in the course of the story that it's irrecoverable by the end. Speaking of the mood the AWFUL voice acting nearly kills it all on its own. You'll want to play this one with the sound off. Biggest problem - NO challenge! Its a puzzle-style game, and I've played a lot of them granted. But I beat this game in approximately 6 hours with no looking on the web for clues. Not a good return on my investment. Bottom line, find a demo and play the first two levels. You won't be missing anything after that.

Rating:
Summary: Gave me funny feelings...Long after the magic was gone
Review: Sanitarium, what can I say? Creepy, very good graphics, runs on almost any system. I bought it long ago, and for the price, I wasn't disappointed, except that the game was somewhat short and the puzzles (the few that they had ) weren't very complicated. You play as several characters, like the sister of the main player who died of a disease, a comic book charater that the main character read as a child and, of course, the main character, a man injured in an automobile wreck on his way home only to wake up in a bizarre castle-like sanitarium. Along the way, you'll meet strange people that either help you along the way or hinder you, like Mother, and a Hydra looking thing. Some things in this game are trully disturbing (like the village with the weird kids and the pumpkin patch) but not on the scale of The Suffering or Manhunt, but still this game has a way of staying with you after its over. It is an interesting little game, and worth a try,especially since the price has dropped so much.

Rating:
Summary: Creative and Inventive Story
Review: I just got done with the game and though it is an older game, I quite enjoyed it. The game is plot driven and kept my interest. There were plenty of cut scenes that brought the story along and being that I bought it for 2.50 in the clearance section, I can't complain. One problem though - a technical one - if you have a ATI Raedeon card, you'll have a hard time running the game in Win XP. I tried and it kept crashing, but when I installed the game on another computer with a Nivida Card, it ran perfect with no problems. So if you have an Nivida Card and like adventure games, this is a good one.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing short of genius
Review: First of all, I only gave it three stars for being fun because it's not SUPPOSED to be fun . . . it's supposed to be creepy, frightening, and thought-provoking. And believe me, it is all of those things. People don't seem to like it because it's third person, but personally I greatly prefer third person to first person -- I like to be able to SEE my character. But that's just me. They're also saying it doesn't run on XP -- well, it runs on MY XP. So I have no big complaints.

Sanitarium is one of those tragically rare games that contains neither pure mindless violence nor emotionless gameplay with no sense of connection to the characters. It is chock-full of character development and at the end you find yourself surprisingly attached to the main character and a few supporting characters as well (including one that has been dead for several years). One of my favorite parts of this game is that it keeps you guessing. Rather than a straightforward start-here, end-there storyline, it keeps flashing back to events before the game began and slowly fills in plot holes as it goes, so you have to play to the very end to know the entire story.

As you probably know by now, you start out as an amnesiac who finds himself in a very unorthodox asylum (though it quickly moves on to other locations), and have to find out who the guy is and what he's doing there. Unfortunately, you can't find that out without finding out some things best left forgotton -- i.e. his poor little sister who died at age eight when he was only a few years older, and this crazy guy he worked with in med school who, rest assured, comes back to haunt him as the main antagonist. As the main character slowly gets his memory back you eventually find out how all the seemingly random aspects of the game tie together, although it does require you to turn into three other characters (I didn't quite get how the Aztec guy tied into his previous life as much as the other two). A good portion of the game (Maybe all of it -- was the sanitarium even real?) takes place in the character's own head rather than the real world, so this is not a realistic game; it's very sci-fi/fantasy.

The only reason I gave this game four stars instead of five is because there were a few cinematics that I thought were missing in dialogue, and thus the storyline seemed rushed and confusing at parts (especially the cut from the hive to the graveyard and from the lost village to the chimney incident). It did take me a little while to figure out WHY he had to pull that tube out of his wrist at the very end. Other than that, though, this is a superior game that transcends most of the others I've had experience with, and I highly recommend it.

One final note: I liked the little inside joke in the lost village where you can pick up the ruby fish even though you don't need it for anything -- it's a "red herring". :)


Rating:
Summary: Very Different Indeed
Review: I loved this game and was constantly impressed by the bizarre storyline. The puzzles were also very fun, but not so hard that I found myself banging my head against the wall trying to figure them out. I highly recomend this game if your looking for an adventure game without constant mind boggling puzzles.

Rating:
Summary: Sanitarium is the wierdest game ever
Review: Sanitarium is the wierdest game ever. It have moved my mind and played with it like no game ever. It is the best game beside Diablo series and Fallout. I played the game very long time ago and I havent forgot it yet. The story, the graphic for that time, the way of interpretion is absolutely fantastic. while playing player is facing his own demons. the story is absolutely fantastic- the masterpiece combination of triler, psychic and horror. I reccomend that you buy the game, 'couse if you don't you could regret. BuY(...) it!!!!!!! And if you don't want to play it any more, send it to me :))

Rating:
Summary: Thought-Provoking and Genuinely Creepy!
Review: This is probably one of the best adventure games of all time! It's one of the few that have made the third-person perspective work well. Your character wakes up in a Sanitarium, with a total memory loss. He has bandages on his face, and he has no idea what happened or why he's there. You can talk to the inmates, which some are humorous, others not-so-much. Once you escape the Sanitarium (this is sort of an introductory level), you will be out in the surrealistic, bizarre world, ready to look for answers.

There are puzzles to solve, however they fit in nicely with the plot, and don't just seem thrown in for the sake of making a puzzle adventure. There are 13 levels in which to get passed, each stranger than the one before. These levels are eerie and alot of fun to explore. Pick up objects along the way, and don't be surprised if you find yourself in a situation where you have to do a bit of fighting to proceed. This game is very unique, with a creative plot, fantastical worlds, and weird characters. The plot is what really kept me playing, moreso than even the horror aspects of the game. Though many adventure games (especially horror ones) rely on the basic plot of "the main character has amnesia...play to find out why", they are not nearly as well executed as Sanitarium is. The main charcater is very likeable, and when he gets flashes of memories, they are very beautifully done and fascinating to watch. You really do want to find out this guy's story, why he's here, and what happened to him. And instead of everything coming back to him at once, you get little hints as you get farther and farther into the game. It's almost like a jigsaw puzzle of his mind. There are moments in the plot that are quite touching, and the first time I played I even cried a couple of times. Though the game has many freaky scenes and horrific characters, overall I found the story rather moving.

This is sort of a funny way to put it, but this game really made me think. Instead of the same old hum drum plots, this one has a lot of depth, and it's almost like an exploration of your own sanity as well as the character's. What I liked about Sanitarium, as opposed to some other institution-based games, is that it didn't get too technical. They sort of made light of the situations, rather than cramming disturbing, medical references down your throat. This was a game I could really sink my teeth into, and one that I wanted to play again and again. There weren't alot of long, boring cut-scenes, that make you wonder if you're watching a movie or playing a game. You really feel a part of everything in the game, instead of an outsider looking in. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer games to be fun and there should be alot of interaction between the player and the game itself. The player should be in control...it shouldn't feel like the game is playing itself. Sanitarium passed every test that I could think of, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a sincere and enjoyable adventure game.


Rating:
Summary: Gave me funny feelings...Long after the magic was gone
Review: This is basically a point-and-click game with various puzzles to figure out; even the plotting itself is a puzzle to be put together to progress. That is where my primary complaint with the game comes into full bloom. The character(s) you control always move at a slow walk(there really isn't anything to run away from) and this is so annoying, especially if you have to walk from one side of an area(town, village, etc.) to another just to exchange information or gather an item only to return to the previous location. One area made me laugh at one point because I had to once more "walk!" through an entire Aztec village just to gather the lineage information for six fallen warriors. I broke out my pen and paper and subsequently got my virtual excercise. But that is not the only moment in this game that I threw my hands in the air. Another is in a small town. The character(s) are able to pick up and use items they find in rooms, along the way, etc. I am going to ruin this part of the game because it was utterly ridiculous. I was "walking!" all over town clicking in vain, trying desperately to find any sort of an answer to the state of limbo I was in, when I suddenly picked up a rock. A rock! There are rocks all over that bloody town! However, there is a lot here worth mentioning in glowing terms. The places are all interesting and filled with unnerving characters. There are many blood-filled chambers with defiled remains and maniacal behavior from the gruesome denizens that inhabit this game. There are multiple characters to be controlled, even if, in the end, they are essentially one character battling with his dementia. That plot-line is revealed at the start of the game, so don't be mad at me for unveiling it now. The mechanisms that have to be deciphered or puzzled over are all excellent as far as graphics and level of difficulty. They are not so hard as to cause violent head-shaking, yet not so easy as to allow any random clicking to unravel them. Overall, for a decent price, I can see many enjoying this game and "walking!" through the various areas patiently looking for clues...and "rocks!" If you have a lot of time to burn then this is your game. The fact that you can save the game at any point is also a large plus. Take it easy.