By the mid-90s, Sierra had well worked its way up the food chain and became one of the best developers for those little brain benders we like to call adventure games. And for good reason. Lead designer Roberta Williams was well above the rank of what would be considered a good designer. Her and the rest of Sierra's work tells a story of gaming history.

But no other piece of history is quite like the game Phantasmagoria. Sierra's first attempt at horror and started a trend of games that used what would later be called FMV.

At the time, this was a controversial game. For two reasons. One: Phantasmagoria was one of the only games of it's kind. See, this game was Full Motion Video. With live actors in a 3D game enviroment. This had only been done with a few games and really only one of them did it well (7th Guest). But Sierra was hoping to change that. More on that later.

But probably the biggest reason it got the attention it did was its obvious over-the-top graphic nature. Sierra really wanted to do something that would really shock gamers, and by adding disturbing images and story that delt with many things that society deems wrong, they thought they could pull it off. Again, I'll get back to that. First I'd like to get the story out of the way.

The gamers who dare face the horror of Phantasmagoria find themselves controling a writer named Adrienne. She and her photagrapher husband Don move into a very big, strange estate that belonged to a shock illusionist, Carno. It doesn't take long for Adrienne to prowl around the house and find some really strange stuff. She finds props that belonged to the magician that look more like torture devices, and the towns people react to her strange when she tells them she bought the Carnovash estate. As she pokes around some more, things get wierder as illusions seem to be all over the house and her housband has been turning violent and hateful. Tisk tisk.

The game is set up into seven chapters. I guess it's supposed to look like a horror novel. And with each progression of the chapter, things get much darker and much, much more graphic. Though, in all fairness, I didn't find it too graphic. I hear a lot of gamers say they just go too far with it and I don't think that's the case. The murder and torture senes aren't very original and just assume a role as more Multimedia eye-candy. These sequenceses deal with many ways of killing and/or scarring people and are not limited to Satanic sacrifice, man slaughter, impaling, giutine, rape, animal cruilty and making people eat human organs until they die. There is a censore feature that enables you to skip these terrible acts of violence so I guess younger gamers can play it. I, however, am 13 years old and I did not use this feature and was not offended by any of these acts. They don't really scare you because you can just feel them trying too hard, you know?

With that aside, I have to say, though I didn't mind the acting, it could have been a lot better. The parts of Adrienne and the other present-day characters are pretty lack luster. You can't really get behind them much because they just don't have much personality. They just want you to feel sorry and sympethetic for Adrienne, but really the gamer just feels annoyed with her. She doesn't seem to care about all the demonic illusions around the house, and she just lets the fact that her housband is becoming insane be. Everyone else is either in visions of the past or in the town. The towns people are just there to give you objects and nothing else. The visions from the past are about how Carno (or is it Zoltan? They never really clear that up.) eventually becomes insane. These "visions", just like everything else, are just visual aids. Yes, they thick the plot. But when they play, you just feel like it's even more "Look at our beutifull game!" crap.

The story is thin and has been done before. I did find it amusing, but really, it's just there because it's a requirment.

Of course, Phantasmagoria is historic for its technology. Having that 3D in 1995 is quite amazing. But because Sierra spent so much time and energy on making the game look so good, they just really throw together some half ass puzzles, story, and character developement. The game is on 7 CDs because more than half the game is just a bunch of rooms with a lot of hot spots. But when you click on them, Adrienne just interacts with them. I wouldn't be the one to ask if this blew everyone away back in '95. But I'm willing to bet the gamers got bored. Besides that, character movement has an unnatural feel. You can't move Adrienne anywhere but hotspots, and she stands the same way everytime.

Yes, the movie sequences and 3D backgrounds look good, but at what cost? A lot of people would say that FMV was the worst thing to happen to adventure gaming because it costs so much money to make these games that companys went under. I know that this isn't the case with Sierra, but just imagine how much money it took to produce and market this game back then. Phantasmagoria did sell decent, but still Sierra did suffer a loss of money through this game.


Before I forget, let me mention the audio. No matter where Adrienne or any other character is, thier voice has an odd, studio echo to it. A shame they didn't tweak that, no? While I'm at it, the music is repetive. The parts where there is music, it's just a choir speaking a made-up Satanic language. oooooOOOOOOOOooooooooo!

Phantasmagoria was very unique in terms of gameplay than any other Sierra game. First off, the interface is too easy for a Sierra gamer. It's the same as King's Quest VII's interface. Just one cursor. When it turns red, you click it. Rince and repeat. Phantasmagoria also uses the same save system asd KQ7. The problem is, this system sucks. It adds more to the book feel and gives you a bookmark. When you save, you move the book mark to the present location. Too bad there's only one bookmark. When you hit one of Sierra's infamous dead ends, back to start.

The puzzles feel thrown together and are way too easy for a Sierra veteran. They consit of picking up an object, using that object to solve the puzzle, done. When you do that for six chapters, your ready to face the super- repetitive 7th arcade chapter. Yay... And if that isn't easy enough, on your inventory and toolbar, you get this skull that is the self proclaimed "Official Hint Keeper". You can use him frequently, and your home free 'til the end. Really, this feels like a novice adventurer's game or even a kid's game. Too bad the kiddie's can't play it.

All bashing aside, I did find this game entertaining to the extent. I did enjoy seeing what people were talking about and I actually did like the story. But all in all this is a pretty mediocre game. I will be honest and say I din't complete the game. I hit a dead end at the end of the game and just didn't want to play through it again. After this review you may be wondering why it sold well. Well, Sierra marketed it like crazy, and people wanted to see what the buzz was about. Hell, even now I'd say pick up a copy just to expeirince the buzz for yourself. You might even get some quality out of it. My only question is why did Roberta or anyone else think they needed to go so far. A game that did horror well was the Laura Bow series. Why not something like that? Why all this shameless bullshit in this game?
5.2/10

[LeChimp]

Holy crap, I haven't played that in a long time. In fact, I think the last time I played it was when I was ten (and I probably shouldn't have been playing it, but how many people here played LSL when they were 7). I remember enjoying the game, but then again, it was probably because I was young and the gore probably interested me (tons of people in my elementary school were Mortal Kombat fans). If I went back and played it now, which I'll probably do in an hour or so, I'd probably find it unintentionally funny (like most FMV games). That was a great review SamNMax.

What was the dead end that you hit, was it in the last act? I know that you can forget an item in the last act but you can still get it. But even if it was a different dead end, I know that the game lets you start off at any act.

Thanks.

Well, I didn't get the cross at the antique shop, so I just said screw it.

[Stalker]

Originally Posted by SamNMax

Thanks.

Well, I didn't get the cross at the antique shop, so I just said screw it.

Spoiler:

I'm pretty sure you could find a holy item somewhere else during the chase scene in the last act...

Also, you can just start in any chapter you choose, so in the case of KQ7 and Phantasmagoria, the save system wasn't TOO bad in my opinion.