Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh

The Good
Puzzle of Flesh is Sierra's second foray into the world of mature-themed horror, following the controversial Phantasmagoria. It has a markedly different tone and somewhat ramped-up gameplay, but its overall intention is the same: shock the player with macabre mature themes within the frames of simplified, yet functional adventure mechanics.

The gameplay in Puzzle of Flesh is, in fact, better than in the original Phantasmagoria. It is more varied and dynamic, and it offers more interactivity. You'll encounter realistic computer-based tasks (such as getting a password, responding to an e-mail, etc.), and the last section of the game shines with tricky inventory-based puzzles. There are simpler tasks that follow common logic - using tools, having appointments, etc. There are many ways to interact with the characters as well: for example, conversation trees based solely on using an inventory object on a character pop out frequently. In general, Puzzle of Flesh lets you play more than the first game, where you basically roam about, hoping to encounter something of interest.

The game scores points for trying to be as realistic as possible in the way it treats its ordinary modern-day setting. The characters are surprisingly interesting, and Puzzle of Flesh should be commended for depicting all sorts of social and sexual behavior that are considered "taboo" in most games. In what other game will you find such a subtly and ambiguously presented relationship between two male friends, one of which is gay? What other game has its protagonist cheat on his girlfriend and then have a rather insane, psychologically suspicious relationship with a kinky colleague? The four main characters of the game are all convincingly portrayed and resemble real people more than average video game characters, and not only because they are acted by real people. Compared to the socially isolated and psychologically murky protagonist from the first Phantasmagoria, Curtis is shown in a real society, surrounded by real people, and having problems he reacts to adequately.

There are bright moments in the storytelling. The plot does rely too much on cheap thrills, can get tiresome after the murders begin to pile up, and the ultimate explanation is cheesy and hardly satisfying. However, the initial impact is strong, and what keeps the plot moving are details: you are curious to know how Curtis is going to deal with his troublesome love life, which character will be threatened next by the mysterious murderer, how exactly the protagonist's past has affected his current predicament, and so on. The story is anything but intellectual and mostly feels like a rather awkward amalgam of a horror B-movie and a television drama - but it rarely gets dull.

The Bad
In terms of atmosphere and horror content, the game appears to be inferior to its gameplay-impaired, but genuinely scary and disturbing predecessor. It's not that the sequel is less horrifying than the first game; the problem is, rather, the amount of horror and the way it is distributed throughout the plot. In the first Phantasmagoria, the initial chapters were basically a preparation for the frightening scenes that would come relatively late. Suspense was growing slowly, gradually, breaking only during the dramatic last sequence. Here, the game practically starts with a horror scene, and they keep coming steadily. Each time you look at your mirror you might encounter another FMV showing something creepy. After a while these surprises begin to lose their emotional impact, and you start perceiving them with inappropriate nonchalance.

This is exacerbated by the direction the story eventually adopts. The first game was a stylistically coherent, traditional haunted mansion tale. The more ambitious plot of the sequel takes a strange, unnecessary turn into rather banal science fiction during its later stages, losing much of the credibility and tension it has accumulated up to that point. The disappointing ending sequence does little to alleviate this problem, despite the choice it offers to the player.

While many of the game's puzzles are perfectly intuitive and natural actions, some of them are extremely illogical and feel totally out of place in this horror mystery. This includes the ridiculous wallet-retrieving task early in the game, as well as the overly obscure puzzle in the alien world in the last chapter, among others.

The locations in Puzzle of Flesh are still photographs, and exploring them can be a painful experience. You'll be spending way too much time scanning the screen with your mouse cursor, hoping for it to magically light up when something of interest comes up; more often than not it's just a path to another area or a crucial, awkwardly obfuscated close-up you've missed before. It is also needless to say that the lack of precise interaction instructions ("look", "take") is a hard blow to adventure gameplay.

The game's biggest problem is its pacing. It is much too fond of an infuriating gameplay element seemingly taken out of a Japanese adventure: you must frequently perform certain actions to trigger completely unrelated events. Puzzle of Flesh can thus easily become frustrating without being challenging; you'll find yourself wandering from location to location, trying to make someone appear or something occur. This turns a sizable portion of the game into aimless and tedious walking and clicking on everything you can notice.

The Bottom Line
Puzzle of Flesh offers more gameplay than its noisy and overblown predecessor, but not enough to satisfy serious fans of pre-FMV Sierra quality. It is an interesting product, but an average adventure game.

The Good
A Puzzle of Flesh surpassed my expectations. Sierra delivers an enticing sci-fi/horror concept with intense and gritty scenes, some fun moments, and at times Hollywood-esque slasher suspense.

Stepping in for Roberta Williams, writer Lorelei Shannon approaches the Phantasmagoria concept with unprecedented (and arguably unsurpassed) maturity. The game's subplots and secondary subject matter are nary seen in today's grittiest movies. Unlike the first game, Shannon doesn't approach the "Mature" rating like a novelty or a crude standard to be pushed for pushing's sake, but rather uses it as license to create dynamic characters who face real problems.

The characters are portrayed in a remarkably lifelike fashion for the FMV subgenre, a style typically plagued by painful F-list performances and zero interactivity. The characters themselves are people you know in real life, not video game caricatures. The interface and puzzles are, by and large, simple and logical, and the game focuses more on main character Curtis Craig's internal problems rather than on exploration and puzzle solving.

The Bad
That said, the puzzles are either brain-numbingly simple or absurdly illogical. The TRUE puzzles, as opposed to other random clicking that results in a cinematic, are few and far between, and about half of them are guessing computer passwords.

For a movie-based game, the locales are visually uninteresting and markedly unatmospheric. While the game's environment is a huge step up from the cheesy computer generated backdrops of the first entry, it doesn't make up for the fact that most of the scenery is recognizable as the hallways and storage closets of a cheap motel. Moreover, there are only about a half dozen locations in the game. This means virtually no exploration and lots of backtracking.

While the characters are pretty intricate, the plot doesn't really unfold; rather, it's revealed through lots of reading of password-protected emails, which really takes the bite out of cinematic reveal.

Just as well, the plot itself is pretty weak. You assume the role of an Average Joe with a troubled past working for a omnitechnoconglomerate that's, surprise surprise, covering up secret and illegal experimentation. A couple people get murdered, and just when a legitimate twist pops up involving the character's self-doubt about his own involvement, he unveils a half-baked paranormal plotline that's not worthy of the 2:00 PM Sci Fi Channel timeslot. Sufficed to say, without spoiling anything, it gets incredibly ludicrous toward the end (or ends, in this case -- you get a choice between two equally unsatisfying story conclusions).

The Bottom Line
A Puzzle of Flesh is a great concept delivered with above-par acting for the genre and gritty maturity. If the main plot were more intricate, the puzzles more involved, and the scenery more visually interesting, Phantasmagoria 2 could have had a place in gaming history as the one that broke the mold and pushed the envelope for content maturity. As it is, it remains a playable made-for-TV movie. Hopefully someone will try to do this again with greater success, but for now A Puzzle of Flesh is a decent adventure game worth a playthrough for fans of the genre. Just don't expect too much.

The Good
Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh is a FMV (Full-Motion Video) adventure game that puts the "graphic" in the graphic adventure game genre.

Much like the first Phantasmagoria game, this game is set in the same universe but is not a direct sequel, the player bears witness to a mid-1990s environment awash in a digital sea of mature content.

The player takes control of a 30-something office nerd, who works for the same shadowy corporation as his late father, as his average workday becomes tainted with graphic violence, blood & gore, multiple murders, mental illness, romance, bisexuality, kinky S&M sex and even a bit of gender identity confusion tossed in for good measure. Suffice it to say, this game earns its "Mature" (17+) classification rating.

Progress in the game requires the player to travel to various locations, interact with various people and collect numerous items needed to solve an assortment of point and click, puzzles.

Fans of say, the Kings Quest franchise (a much more family friendly adventure game series by Roberta Williams) will quickly pick up the game play mechanics and the quality of the FMV was quite impressive for a video game at that time.

The story smoothly combines science fiction and horror elements that fans of of the genre will be familiar with. If you watched the X-Files and read Stephen King novels in the 1990s, then this game's story should hit many familiar notes.

The Bad
Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle Of The Flesh can take awhile to get going, storywise. Much of the initial game play involves you doing office work and chatting with coworkers (in person and on the phone). Gamers without patience may have a hard time getting to the more adult sci-fi/horror elements in the game.

The quality of the game's puzzles is also very uneven. Either the puzzles you encounter are too easy, or (near the game's end) so incredibly difficult that you will probably have to read a playthrough to get past.

Last, but not least, the technology used to create the FMV and 3D inventory images has not aged well. It looks better then the first Phantasmagoria game, and again, was quite ambitious for the mid-1990s, but some of the impact of the game may be lost to gamers used to the next generation gaming hardware capabilities.

The Bottom Line
Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh is an ambitious point and click, graphic adventure game from the fine folks of Sierra On-Line. Think King's Quest, if the quest involved used FMV and featured a serial killer and an actual S&M nightclub. Does the ambition pay off? Well, mostly.

If you can accept that the game's storyline starts off slow, the game's puzzles have no middle ground when it comes to difficulty and yes, the FMV and 3D graphics are a product of their time, then Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle Of The Flesh will be worth your time.

If nothing else, playthrough the game just to enjoy the B-minus acting, the gory details, the frank sexuality, the water cooler conversations and a talking pet rat name, "Blob".

The Good
As a common practice, when game companies like Sierra and LucasArts create sequels to their popular titles, those titles would feature the same protagonist from the previous games. You would think the same rule applies when Sierra developed a sequel to Phantasmagoria. Nope. A Puzzle of Flesh was spearheaded by Lorelei Shannon, who also was in charge of Pepper’s Adventures in Time and helped co-wrote King’s Quest VII with Roberta Williams. In addition, the protagonist is male; and the making of this game involved filming on location near the company’s headquarters, and not actors being plonked in front of a blue screen, along with some props. However, A Puzzle of Flesh shares one thing in common with its predecessor – its themes.

After spending some time in a mental institution, 26-year-old Curtis Craig returns to work where he gets to associate with his interesting co-workers. While working at WynTech, he has hallucinations, flashes of gore, or receives odd e-mails. His co-workers are found brutally murdered, and he finds out this may be connected to the “Threshold” project, a top-secret project that his father was also involved in. During the game’s five chapters, you will do some other interesting things like going to daily sessions with a therapist, discussing life growing up, work, and the Threshold; snoop through your superior’s office; deal with an aggressive cop; and experience the joys of S&M.

Curtis's co-workers are likeable, and I was sad to see what happened to them. I could tell that Trevor was gay through his behavior, dialogue, and fondness of Curtis. Jocilyn has an on-again-off-again relationship with Curtis, and this ends on a sour note as soon as she finds out that he is cheating on her. Bob is a classic example of the one guy at work that gets on your nerves, but what happens to him afterwards you don't wish that on your enemies. Therese is your wild co-worker who doesn't care if Curtis is taken, and she is prepared to let him share her fetishes. The actors who portrayed their characters did an amazing job, and I could see that the actor who played Therese enjoyed herself filming her scenes.

The game utilizes Sierra’s Creative Interpreter version 3, the final revision of Sierra’s SCI engine before they got into trouble later, and people who have already played KQ7 and Phantasmagoria should be familiar with it. The game is presented in a letterbox format, and you have the one cursor which can be used to interact with objects and move to different areas. Dragging the mouse to the bottom of the screen allows you to access the inventory, and the icon next to your items allows you to examine one of them. In A Puzzle of Flesh, the interface also allows you to review video clips spread over the individual chapters, access the “all-in-one” control panel, and the map (which is useful if you don’t feel like walking all the way to the exit).

In A Puzzle of Flesh, there are a lot of minor video clips of Curtis doing something that range from opening and closing drawers, walking from room to room, opening and closing doors, and sitting down to work. The major ones are reserved in the beginning, middle, and end of each chapter. The clips are stored as DuckMotion (DUK) files, which can be played in VLC media player. (I’m not kidding. Go try it!). Since the clips feature 16-bit colors, but the SCI engine only had 8-bit colors, Sierra programmed the game to have the engine shut down every time the player triggers a clip. This is why you don’t see the interface when a clip is played.

A Puzzle of Flesh is right up there with the first game when it comes to violence. Four chapters in the game ends with a gruesome murder taking place, and there are occasional flashes of gore present in some movie clips. There are quite a few sex scenes added as well, with the first in chapter one. In addition, one of the characters you meet near the final stages of the game – the Hecatomb – is enough to give anyone nightmares. All of this is why some countries have a problem with games that are controversial. The Australian version of the game had the censored mode permanently turned on.

Wes Plate was responsible for the editing, which was done on a Macintosh Quadra 950. This is because the program Sierra wanted him to use was only available on a Mac. It is ironic, then, that the final game did not see a release on the machine. I find it amusing that there are slight pauses at the end, but I don’t know whether this has anything to do with the engine starting back up. I feel a bit sorry for Plate, having to make special cuts for countries that believed in game censorship.

The music in A Puzzle of Flesh is brilliant, and Gary Spinrad did a wonderful job making sure that it blends well with the game’s theme. The early clips, showing Curtis’s hallucinations, have that beat to them, while the music when Curtis is making love to his girlfriend has an easy-listening feel to it. Other pieces I like include the creepy music you hear as you walk around WynTech, as well as those near the end of the game. Spinrad also did the vocals for the ending theme music, which happens to be just as bad as the one in the first game!

The Bad
I found some of the controversial scenes uncomfortable. There is one scene in which Curtis and Therese are having passionate sex in the Borderline’s bathroom after Curtis volunteers to have his navel pierced. I thought that this was a bit extreme. As for the murders, I didn’t have a problem with most of them, but Bob’s murder was too much.

I have to agree with some reviewers that some of the puzzles are illogical. Within the first five minutes into the game, you have to retrieve your wallet from underneath the couch, and you would think to move the couch to get it, right? Wrong. You must involve your pet rat, Blob. Another one is at the end of the game. You are offered no clues as to how to solve it, and it is a matter of clicking everywhere until something happens.

It would have been useful if you could easily play the FMV clips that are not located on the CD that is in the drive, and that a CD request screen appears. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to do anything and all I ended up getting was a “Blue Screen of Death”.

The Bottom Line
A Puzzle of Flesh is a horror game in the same vein as its predecessor, and explores themes that were considered taboo at the time of its release. It is not for the faint-hearted and certainly not one for kids; it has its fair share of violence and sex. This led to some countries either banning or censoring it. It is an interesting game and definitely worth a playthrough.

The Good
While the original Phantasmagoria was a horrible game, its somewhat dubiously titled "seqeul", A Puzzle of Flesh, is a surprisingly good game:

• The acting in Phantasmagoria II is surprisingly good - far better than that of the original Phantasmagoria and better than The 7th Guest without a doubt, although the actors occasionally tend to overact and spoil the overall atmosphere of the game.
• A surprisingly good plot; while it is not the most original story, I still appreciate Sierra for managing to come up with several original ideas. The plot is either way implemented with excellence, and the game has amongst the most enveloping atmospheres experienced in a computer game to date. Regardless of gameplay, the atmosphere is so heavy that I find it comparable to that of the amazing Amiga game Alien Breed.
• Good video sequences and reasonable degree of CGI. The videos are professionally directed and are actually of very high quality.
• Great background music and sound -- 'nuff said.
• Some plot elements add more to the game than can be possibly imagined - especially the computer workstation and without a doubt the coolest element is the changing file and directory names, which become more obvious as the game progresses.

In short, Phantasmagoria II is a really great game, but not without its flaws:

The Bad
Three points really annoyed me about Phantasmagoria II:

• The plot takes a turn for the cheezy at some point. While you can hardly expect a masterpiece of a plot from a computer game, still I would have expected Sierra to come up with a better plot element than "a portal to Dimension-X"... however, I must stress that up until the fifth CD, the game is surprisingly good and deep.
• The video engine could've been much better - with the programming genius of The 11th Hour only a couple of years earlier I would have expected Sierra to upgrade their engine properly. The window cannot be scaled - only maximized so that the background doesn't annoy you, and the 8 bit engine (which I was at one time forced to use) is terribly slow and hideously ugly.
• A really terrible ending. No excuses, Sierra did a really crappy job with this one.

The Bottom Line
A great game which has nothing to do with its so-called prequel. Too bad that due to the fact that it's an adventure game, it has almost null replay value.

The Good
Phantamsagoria 2 is a sequel to one of Sierra's most popular game Phantasmagoria. In several places it is better, well, in others it is far less fun. Comparing to its prequel, Phantasmagoria 2 looks better. No more artificial 3d rooms, no more poor graphics. The quality of videos here is higher (which doesn't actually mean that it is good).

Storyline has never been the strongest part in horror games such as Phantasmagoria or Harvester, exactly the same as here. But at least we can find some advanced plot, not really of quality compared to Deus Ex but at some point you could get lost.

In horror games (especially in FMVs) have to make the player be afraid. But there are at least two ways to do that. One is through hectoliters of blood and violence, another is through detailed plot and mysterious atmosphere. Phantasmagoria 2 has neither of them but uses some things from both. In uncensored mode some violent scenes appear but for me, even though I'm definitely not a fan of poor horror films, they can be accepted. They are ugly, yes, but they are not sick. I wouldn't recommend it to players below 16 years old, but if you are above that, you can play without that much stress (just don't forget that doesn't mean that all scenes aren't violent, on some of them you will really want to turn your head and look at people walking outside). Music in some part (for example on map of the city) makes the atmosphere even better and not every scene is violent, some will of course scare you without showing anything red on the screen.

The Bad
Phantasmagoria 2 will always be compared to the first part. And in some cases the latter definitely wins. Adrianne in Phantasmagoria 1 was a normal girl, nothing strange. The game consisted of 7 chapters and the atmosphere was heavier every day. The first day is just a "talk to everyone, see everything, do anything" part (maybe apart form the end). Adrianne's husband, possessed by the demon becomes more and more mean and dangerous but real violence is shown in fourth chapter. In Phantasmagoria 2 real violence (and one of the most violent scene in the whole game to say the truth) is shown in the beginning of second chapter out of five. So here you're just thrown into the game and ugly scenes begin very soon.

Also, Phantasmagoria 1 had, to me at least, better storyline. Curtis Craig is living in a big city, working with computers, vising clubs of doubtful reputation etc etc. Adrianne was living in a haunted villa, sometimes visiting a small city close to her residence. More classical to me.

The Bottom Line
Both parts of Phantasmagoria are quite difficult to get today (at least in some parts of the world), you should choose the second part if you like more technical and futuristic story (not that it is a science fiction game). But be aware that, although better than in the first part, the graphics is still quite bad.

The Good
Sierra was one of the major players for graphic adventure games and as computer games slowly moved over to a CD-ROM format, companies became to toy around with game environments that featured full motion video, digitial sound and images and a cast of real actors, some of which were more famous then others. For its day, this game has an impressive budget, a high degree of interactivity, an impressive storyline, decent acting and a willingness to dive into some taboo subject matter; i.e. mental illness, child abuse, kinky S&M sex, gender identity issues and, yes, even some bisexuality.

The Bad
The use of full motion video meant lots of CDs and that the programmers had to limit what you could interact with. Puzzles range from the mundane (talking to people over and over) to the incredibly and unjustly hard or illogical (trying to open mail or a tool box or one of the last puzzles in the game). The acting is, even at its best, average (providing some unintentional humor). At times the horror-science fiction storyline does not always seem to make sense and much of the 'adult' content is actually pretty tame.

The Bottom Line
Graphic adventure games are not as popular as they once were, and this game -- while groundbreaking in so many ways -- is not without its flaws and spoof-worthy jabs. It will probably be difficult to run on a modern pc and even then, it might be best to simply enjoy the walkthrough spoof on youtube.