Realms of the Haunting

The Good
This game does a great job with blending genres. It plays like a first person shooter, but also enters the adventure realm, blending survival horror with some devilish puzzles. The inclusion of difficulty settings allows the player to enter at the novice gamer's or expert gamer's level. Most puzzles are logical and most enemies are challenging. Also, although this game uses FMV, it has converation options so it remains interactive.

The Bad
After the third maze I encountered, I was sure that the designers were just adding hours to the length of gameplay. Graphics are dated, although it is still scary to have a pixelated skeleton jump at you. Acting in the FMV starts off good, but by the end deterioriates. (Note to Villains: Resist the urge to scream "No!" when you are defeated.) Finally, maps and letters are normally useful, but are far too small (and numerous) to be useful.

The Bottom Line
This game begins as a first person shooter in a haunted house, but then you realize that the house is just a portal to other realms and the struggle is much larger than a few skeletons. By the time, you unravel the cosmic conspiracy, and travel from earth to heaven to hell, you'll realize that the developers really had a grand idea. Unfortunately, repetitous gameplay and poor acting weaken a pretty good storyline. Great for the budget gamer and it would be wonderful to see an updated version for today's machines.