[Bastich]

Sanitarium (1998)

It's a crazy world we live in, and I'm leaving it today.
For another institution, we crazy people play ---RJD

Story: 92%

As usual, no description from me on what it is about. Some things are just better left unsaid. Even though it wasn't hard to see where the game was going rather early on, and the basic plot wasn't anything innovative, the WAY in which it was told amply made up for any deficiencies in that regard. It must of been very fun for the developers to write this game. I give the the story an enthusiastic thumbs up for the way it was pulled off. The faults just couldn't pull it down, at least for me.

Graphics: 89%

Adjusted for the year of release, I have to say the graphics were pretty good in this game. The art was well drawn, and even on a 22" monitor, the low resolution (640x480) didn't make it overly grainy for the most part. Because of the many diverse graphical elements in the game due to the story, the artists got to really strut their stuff with a wide variety of drawings. The animation was nothing to write home about, but then again, no other game at the time was really any better as far as I can recall. Cut-scenes were horribly compressed, like every other game from that era (someone please explain this to me someday) and the quality was a bit inconsistent on that end IMO. Ultimately, it is the backgrounds that you spend all your time looking at though, so I give them the most weight here.

Sound: 73%

The atmospheric sounds were really very good, and the music was decent. I had no complaints there. The problem here was the voice acting. It wasn't ALL bad, but the majority were at best, average. Some voices were so bad that I hurriedly read the text and bypassed the speech at quickly as possible though. Sometimes, the same voice actor would use the EXACT same voice for a completely different character. You would think he/she would change it at least a little bit, wouldn't you?

Gameplay: 66%

Why does it seem that I like the way the recent adventure games I have played have been presented to me, but not the games themselves??? Am I really that picky or am I just unlucky? I almost gave this game a zero in this category, but I took a few deep breaths, took a step back, and decided to be fair about it. You see, the game has action sequences. BAD action sequences. Most importantly, the game ENDS with a bad timed action sequence. That left quite the sour taste in my mouth to say the least, despite the fact that they weren't really all that hard. Now, I actually play action games, so I am not adverse to action in the slightest. However, I have very low tolerance for poor controls. If the game would of dropped me into an online Quake 3 death-match, I wouldn't have had a problem. Unfortunately, the game was burdened with a piss-poor control scheme that I hated from the very first chapter. And it seems that the only reason at all to have the scheme was for the action sequences. To be fair, there are only 4 action sequences, if I remember correctly, so they are actually a small part of the game, but a painful part. They should have removed the action and made it point and click. It would have been MUCH better. Basically you have to hold down the right mouse button to move, which basically means you are holding down that button almost the entire game. You get stuck on objects all the time, and when you are near stairs you automatically walk up/down them. This wouldn't be a problem, if it wasn't for the poor controls. There is nothing like repeatedly walking up and down stairs that you weren't even trying to traverse. Perhaps they were just too lazy to implement pathing. To make things worse, your character walks slow as molasses. You would think that they would have implemented running or something. That is the one thing I hate about ALL game genres. I should never have to spend large portions of game time just walking around needlessly. Why can't adventure characters all be part Ben Johnson or something? That is the one thing I definitely DON'T want to be realistically simulated. I don't play games to watch characters walk around. Just another reason for point and click being the way they should have gone for this game. It is far less painful if you don't have to directly control such tedious things like just walking from point A to B. The menus were easy to navigate though, and using items was easy too, although if you were near the edge of the screen, your inventory would disappear off the edge, forcing you to move your character.

Now that I have finished ranting about the interface, I suppose I should address the puzzles. This is quite simply, the easiest adventure game I have ever played. Everything was mind-numbingly obvious as far as item usage was concerned. There was no item combining, and I don't recall ever having more than 5 items at a time, and usually only 2-3. I also had no problem finding any items, so those who hate pixel-hunting should rejoice. And you are never at doubt as to which item to use where. You can leave your "illogic" circuits turned off for this entire game. The one good thing about Sanitarium's puzzles, even though they were so easy, was that they had a variety. There were sound-based puzzles, word scrambles, operating strange machines, and more. If you aren't interested in a challenge, or are new to adventure gaming, this game would probably be good for you.

The game only locked up on me one time, at the start of chapter 3. I think there was a patch for this, but it worked fine after reloading so I didn't bother. One benefit is that you can alt-tab in and out of the game no problem, which is a bonus for multi-taskers like myself. Also, the game wouldn't work for me on Windows 2000, but the box doesn't say it should, so not a big deal.

Total: 80%

Considering this game is available at Best Buys, Walmarts, Targets, etc., right now for only $9.99, I can't help but recommend this game to everyone. Even if you are disappointed by some of the things I was, it is still definitely worth that price just for the story. I've certainly paid a lot more for a lot less before.

Review System Specs:
P4 2.8Ghz (E7205 chipset)
1Gb ECC Ram
Adaptec 19160 SCSI Controller
2 Cheetah 15k SCSI HDs
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Cat 3.8)
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (latest EAX4 drivers)
Iiyama Vision Master Pro 510 22" Monitor (CRT)
Windows ME (Direct X 9)