The Psychotron

The Psychotron is a classic example of a game that has fallen victim to the early era of Multimedia PC in which the immature technology has prevented the game from delivering the interactive experience it promises. On the other hand, if you can temporarily suspend your high expectation of such technology and play the game at face value, The Psychotron can be a surprisingly fun distraction with its campy acting, character stereotypes, and retro looking graphics. Ultimately, The Pyschotron is a failed experiment by the developer to deliver a novel interactive gaming experience in a new medium that has yet matured in the early 1990s.

The Psychotron is a classic example of a game that has fallen victim to the early era of Multimedia PC in which the immature technology has prevented the game from delivering the interactive experience it promises. On the other hand, if you can temporarily suspend your high expectation of such technology and play the game at face value, The Psychotron can be a surprisingly fun distraction with its campy acting, character stereotypes, and retro looking graphics. Ultimately, The Pyschotron is a failed experiment by the developer to deliver a novel interactive gaming experience in a new medium that has yet matured in the early 1990s.

The Psychotron is an adventure game developed in an era when the Multimedia PC standard has just begun to emerge as a marketable gaming platform. Full Motion Video (FMV) is all the rage, taking full advantage of the massive storage provided by the then new CD-ROM technology. Unfortunately, the eventual demise of FMV in games leaves in its wakes many titles that ultimately fail to deliver the enhanced interactivity promised with this technology. The Psychotron is such a title in this failed experiment.

The quality of the video is fairly good, as is the acting. Veterans will find little challenge in this very linear adventure. The save-game routine is clumsy. Another stab at "interactive movies" falls short of the hype.

This is one of the shortest games I've ever played, but it was fun while it lasted. Except for the FBI Director, the acting is uniformly terrible. The brevity and the bad acting are a shame, because if the creators had taken their format a bit more seriously they might have ended up with a really good game. I'd like to see a more ambitious game done in this format. As it is, however, Psychotron is an amusing bauble for a slow evening.

Lieblosigkeit im Detail und grafische Langeweile sorgen dafür, daß die Faszination nicht auf Touren kommt. Vom häßlichen Zeichensatz bis zur Animations-Müdigkeit bei den Nahaufnahmen fehlt es dem Programm an Atmosphäre. Videos annehmbar, Story lachhaft, Darsteller und Dialoge wenig fesselnd.

Bis die Spieledesigner herausgefunden haben, was einen interaktiven Spielfilm eigentlich ausmacht, werden wir vermutlich noch jede Menge Videovorführungen über uns ergehen lassen müssen. Auch The Psychotron, laut Hersteller wieder einmal ein Meilenstein des Genres, ist nur wenig mehr als eine moderne Version einer Diashow.

Isolera det - få det att känna sig som den värdelösa lilla patetiska imitation av datorunderhållning som det egentligen är. Undvik det som lungpesten.