[Dale Baldwin]

Originally Posted by nikolas

My guess is sanitarium must be free as well, since it's on the list.

As far as I'm aware, it isn't.

[Melanie68]

I've seen Sanitarium in the $9.99 bin at Fry's Electronics on occasion.

[Kazmajik]

I bought the Sanitarium jewel case for like $10 from Amazon two or three years ago, so I don't think it's public domain yet.

[Davies]

Check eBay for second-hand copies of Sanitarium.

It's the only one on the list that I've played all the way through, and I can recommend it very highly.

The movement and inventory systems are strange and not exactly intuitive, but not difficult to pick up. The game has one of the best examples I've ever seen of a first level designed to be a "live" tutorial. By the end of the first level, you will have had some practice with all the essential game commands.

Sanitarium can be a bit confusing to begin with, as you are trying to unravel two or three interwoven storylines, and can't be sure (at the beginning) what's going on or what is real. This is intentional. I suppose it would be classified as a horror adventure, since there's nasty stuff going on and several gory background scenes. Not one for young children, but I wouldn't go so far as calling it "mature content".

There is a lot of conversation, but not exactly what I would call "conversational puzzles". Most of the talk is to get clues to open up new lines of investigation, and it's all pretty much to the point. The conversation system is based on keywords, is easy to use, and allows you to repeat conversations as often as necessary.

Most of Sanitarium is typical manipulation, inventory, and conversation, but about once a level there's a (fairly easy) physical challenge to liven things up a bit. You can't be killed; if you get beaten in a physical combat you just start the challenge over again with no penalties.

Recommended especially for deaf and hard-of-hearing gamers, as there is not only a subtitle option but you can also adjust the music, important sound effects, and atmospheric sounds separately. The physical challenges are not very difficult once you've twigged what you have to do in each one, so dexterity is not a very big issue either.