Sanitarium

The Good
There's a lot to like about Sanitarium, it's creepy, it's got a simple and easy interface, it's got fairly decent graphics and sounds but most importantly it's got a remarkably grim and deranged world in which to play in.

The horror in the game is displayed not by gore or massive killing sprees, but with unsettling and disturbing imagery that brings a breath of fresh air (actually decaying, stale air ;D) to the computer monitor. Most of it is really wild, with deformed children, bottled babies, some disturbing examples of how the insane people can get, etc. etc. and it's all very original stuff, with some "homages" paid to several horror movies and novels (I recognized the "Children of the Corn" pretty early on, which is devoted an almost entire sequence) It's all pretty hardcore though, so don't expect to see Freddy Krueger references, try some Lovecraft or stuff like that.

In essence the horror of the game happens more on a psychological level, with the use of suggestive imagery that reaaally puts you in a somber mood. It's no coincidence for instance the recurring theme of children: caged children, mutilated babies, kids having their blood sucked out, deformed kids, etc. As you know, children are the future, the pure representations of hopes and illusions so... well, I'll let you connect the dots yourself while I applaud the designers for making something so utterly disturbing. Oh yeah, and the plot also revolves around dying children... that tell you something??

Speaking of the story itself, the game casts you as a patient in an asylum who can't remember nothing about himself, yet several hints point out that he may not belong there, on the other hand he does suffer from some reaaally twisted delusions and traumas that make up for the bulk of the game. As you move along the story, you'll move between the "real" world where Max tries to come to terms with what's happening to him and a series of weird realities product of Max's insanity... or not?? A lot of these illusions spring from the traumatic mind of Max, but there seems to be some other supernatural events afoot too... This element is really the star of the show the way I see it, the constant ping pong between what seems to be a clear illusion which turns out to be firmly rooted in reality, which can only be explained via some supernatural implications... Is Max really mad?? Is reality (if you'll pardon the pun) really real? This stuff is great!!!

Unfortunately....

The Bad
...Unfortunately the designers chose not to run with said premise and you can actually see the game abandoning that idea around mid-game, and focusing on a sort of "whodunnit" plotline where you become a victim of corporate interest... This effectively "yanks down to earth" the whole game and is a big mistake, since you effectively kill the element that brings most intrigue and power to the game! It is not enough to just throw some freaky images your way to scare you, you have to get involved in them, and you have to have a reason to "want" to see them, as the game started the reason was that what you really didn't knew for sure that all the freaky stuff that happened was part of Max's imagination, after a few chapters that is all abandoned for the sake of giving your character a motive, and making some sort of "possible" plotline... Screw possible! Go with the supernatural!! Go with the unexplainable!! There's where the horror really lurks!!! Ah.... what a waste...

This quite literally killed the "fright factor" for me, and also the immersion with the game, which was already paper-thin. You see, the game uses an isometric perspective from which everything is seen faaaaar, faaaaar away. Things don't happen to you in this game, they happen to a little guy that's a mile away in the computer screen, always in the same angle... Most 2D adventures at least use changes of perspective every now and then to give a more cinematic experience but you get squat here. Add to that the extremely bare-bones way in which dialogues are handled (a small text box which pops up from below with still faces of whoever is speaking on either side), a complete inability to run which forces you to play an adventuresque version of Diablo (except you can't whack monsters around for fun in here) and you've got yourself a game that can't be pretty exhausting if played for a long while.

Other problems come in the form of inconsistent voice-acting. Sometimes it's great, sometimes you skip it as soon as you read it. For instance the kid actors in the game make a remarkable job and come off very natural and realistic, but your character sounds like he overacts each line! He must have attended the William Shatner school of voice acting or something... And I challenge anyone to tell me that Grimwall or Olmec (especially Olmec) sound TOO much like Buzz Lightyear on steroids.

Aside from that there's the fact that the game is pretty simple and straightforward, which I haven't really decided if it's good or bad... maybe it's both.

The Bottom Line
Well, Sanitarium is unique, Sanitarium plays good, Sanitarium works without major problems... Is Sanitarium the best horror adventure ever made?? Nope, neither horror-wise nor adventure-wise. But it is a wild ride, and required playing for lovers of the weird and unique.

The Good
DreamForge, certainly an underrated developer, mainly focused on role-playing games (Ravenloft series and others), with only an occasional adventure - such as the interesting Chronomaster - sticking out. Sanitarium is undoubtedly their best-known adventure, and probably their most famous game in general.

Sanitarium begins as a psychological thriller. You have lost your memory and can't even remember your name; all you know is that you are in a very bizarre place, surrounded by equally bizarre people. Piece by piece you must unravel the mystery, but at first it seems that it would become even more complicated as you advance in through the fittingly disjointed, nightmarish plot.

Right in the beginning there's so much suspense that it took me several attempts to actually start playing the game. You have no idea about what to do next or even who you are supposed to be. The beginning Sanitarium manages to be scary and very unsettling without resorting to cheap effects. There are very few standard horror elements in the game: minimum of violence, almost no gory scenes at all, and only a few creepy monsters making well-timed appearances. What is truly frightening is the psychological suspense and the madness surrounding the hero and torturing him from within. What is scary is the inability to tell dreams and hallucinations from reality.

The first real chapter of the game is also by far the strongest one. Everything is very quiet in a seemingly peaceful little village. But then you start talking to those children... and those deformed children were probably the single scariest thing I have ever seen on my monitor. I remember feeling physically ill just from playing that chapter. I couldn't put the game down afterwards simply because of some sort of a morbid curiosity that kept urging me to continue. But the game does much more than shock you with disturbing images: it makes you identify yourself with the hero who, in spite of surrounding madness, tries to control himself and act as normal as possible.

Not everything Sanitarium does is brilliant or even appropriate, but one can hardly deny that it tries very hard to keep us in the loop of perpetual psychotic ravings. And that is no small task - after all, there is only so much pressure human brain withstand when bombarded with mutated faces of innocent kids. It seems that the developers understood that and eventually went for color and variety at the expense of horror atmosphere. This is precisely what the game was berated for: it promises unbearable mental horror and ends with a horse-faced deity chatting with decent-looking Mexican spirits. But while it is true that, in a way, Sanitarium doesn't sustain its atmosphere well enough, it attempts to compensate it with diversity. Many of us lambasted the comic book or the Mesoamerican chapter post factum - but during the first playthrough, the change of scenery was certainly perceived as interesting and even strangely invigorating.

The Bad
Despite my defense of the later chapters, I won't try to deny that they cannot compare to the opening ones and even come close to ruining the game. In its aspiration to cram as much material as possible into the game in order to reflect the richness of human imagination (or whatever other reason, really), Sanitarium ends up choosing the path of gradual reduction of the horror aspect and its eventual replacement by mild and rather harmless fantasy adventuring. The dark and twisted images of the earlier chapters give way to nearly cheerful superhero adventures, culminating in the Mesoamerican chapter, rightfully regarded as the weakest one.

There is quite a bit of discrepancy between the atmosphere and the puzzles in Sanitarium. The few mechanical puzzles actually work well, and - unlike some other reviewers - I also didn't mind the primitive action sequences. In contrast, traditional inventory-based puzzles are rather weak and almost feel like an afterthought. I do not see anything remotely poignant or symbolic in riding a toy pig in order to proceed to a mysterious pumpkin patch controlled by a horrifying alien. It doesn't really get better as the game advances. You'll be forced to endure stretches of schematic gameplay with obsolete devices and a lot of backtracking, which clashes with the game's horror aspirations and renders the later chapters positively dull.

The conversations are, unfortunately, not better. You'll have to exhaust one dialogue tree after another to obtain vital information time after time; but these dialogues are not particularly interesting or well-written, lacking wit or any sort of extravagant element to match the game's original premise. There is something thoroughly mild and mundane in the entire gameplay system of Sanitarium, which feels very much out of place in a game with such strong imagery.

Finally, though the graphics are certainly good, I find the isometric perspective woefully unsuitable. The rooms are just way too small. This wouldn't be a problem in a RPG, where you have to overlook a large world with less importance assigned to each area. But here, every item is needed to solve some puzzle, so expect a good deal of the so-called "pixel-hunting". And the isometric perspective generally doesn't fit a game that emphasizes the protagonist's psychological suffering rather than world exploration. First-person view, for example, would have been much more appropriate. The control scheme is needlessly weird - why do I have to hold down a mouse button to move? The protagonist's walking speed is too slow, and he would often get caught in unskippable animations going up and down the stairs.

The Bottom Line
Sanitarium is unique and engrossing, and the first two or so chapters are truly well done. Unfortunately, it loses a lot of its atmosphere along the way, and its gameplay system is steadily a few notches below its captivating premise.

The Good
I liked the complex way that such a small story is told in such a complicated way. The cinematics are most impressive.

The Bad
The graphics, but I think the game, generally, makes the player forget about it. And the end of the game made me kind of disappointed.

The Bottom Line
Addictive puzzle-adventure game, with such a complex story that you forget the bugs and the quality of gameplay. Just don't play it with the lights off...