Customer Reviews

The 11th Hour

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Oh Stauf, you rascal. I came to rescue a dicey damsel and you threw your worst at me. Granted, I'm no Eistein. Yet, I won. I beat you through mazes and puzzles and mockery and sarcasm. Come back. I'll be waiting! Terrific 3D-game with many progressive challenges to taunt you, goad you, and lure you into finding a way out of the Stauf Mansion. You don't have to blow your thumb trying to shoot someone, no where to do that. This game is scary and contagious. Enjoy! We did and still do. The challenging puzzles are capable of being revisited after you finish with the demonic toymaker Stauf. This game is not for young children.

Lots of cool FMV (with mostly good acting, even!) makes the story really unfold as you progress. The two levels of problems to solve (solving the riddles, and solving the puzzles) keep the player from getting fed up with one or the other--most times, if you're tired of riddles, there's a puzzle you can work on, or vice-versa. Plus, this time around, you get the feeling that Stauf is really out to get you--his taunts seem to have just a little more barb to them that makes you nervous....

I greatly enjoyed the 7th Guest. Its sequel, The 11th Hour, is not bad, but it's not very good either. On the plus side, the graphics and the music are just as creepy and cool. On the minus side, the plot is just too stupid, and the extra puzzle elements make the game too convoluted. In the 7th guest, the plot (although not the greatest) was creepy and entertaining, and held the game together. In the 11th hour, there are some elements that are so unbelievable even horror, mystery and intrigue can't account for them (example: somebody gets raped by a house: THAT'S JUST DUMB).
The actual gameplay is also unecessarily convoluted. In the 7th Guest, you solved the puzzles to open more doors, where you could solve more, and open more, until you've been able to solve the puzzle that will take you to the end of the game. The plot elements emerged around the house as a natural part of this process. In the 11th Hour, there are actually two different goals: you have to play the word-clue puzzles to unravel the plot, but you have to play Stauf's puzzles in the House to open doors and get to where you need to go. Perhaps this was an attempt to make sure the plot was revealed "sequentially." In any case, it makes the game less enjoyable, with the word-clues seeming kind of like nagging errands which distract you from the meat of the game.
Final verdict? Play it if you have the chance to borrow it from af friend, or if you have a buddy you can play it with. But don't pay money for it.

Well if you read my 7th Guest review, you would know the story about when my sister got the game and how it was cool but scary. Well a year or two later (dont remember when THIS game came out), my sister picked up this game since she loved the original game "7th Guest". Well since I was scared of 7th Guest when I was little I was thinking "Great another game that's going to make me crap myself" (I was around 6-7 at the time when this game came out). Well I saw her play it and it's not a freaky and it's not as cool. My sis let me borrow it and the patch over the summer and I beat it, here's the review.

Story: Well the story for 7th Guest was about how 6 guests went into Henry Stauf's mansion and never came out. Well this one isn't as cool. You play as Carl Denning who one day receives this "gamebook" and finds out his girlfriend who is a reporter has been locked into the Stauf Mansion. So you go in there and figure out what's going on. (7/10)

Gameplay: Exactly the same as 7th Guest, go around solve puzzles, except there's one or two twists. You also have to go around and solve these riddles which are EXTREMELY hard and don't make sense. Also I'd like to add that this game is harder than 7th Guest, this game makes 7th Guest look like a Mathblaster game, no offense. (8/10)

Sound: Well the music is somewhat the same as 7th Guest, they have an eerie feeling and they freak you out. Some have upbeat tempos and some are just freaky. Some of the music is the same so you have to give props to that. Again the music sets the scene. (10/10)

Graphics: This is my favorite part of the review for this game...the Graphics. The thing I really like about this game is that it's the same graphics, nothing has changed. The really cool thing about this game is that your in the same EXACT mansion, everything looks the same except older. The only thing I didn't like about this game compared to 7th Guest was that the real actors in this game weren't actually in the mansion when shown like 7th Guest, it shows them as in a movie where they are in a real place and not a cartoony mansion. But a couple times they are like at the end of the game. (9/10)

Outro: This game is cool and anyone who loved the 7th Guest should get this game. It's definately not as cool as 7th Guest but it's still worthy of a play. My sister let me borror with the patch a while ago and i'm probably going to buy it sometime soon so I can beat it again. I would say pick this game up if it's $20 or less new or used, you might also want to buy a strategy guide for this one cause it's harder but that's up to you, I personally had no problem. I would also like to add that this game isn't as freaky as 7th Guest but still fun to play.

Let me start off by saying that the 7th Guest was a great game. Anyone who likes puzzle games should play it. The sequel, on the other hand is kind of fun but has some really annoying features. Most involving the "cryptic clues" you have to solve in order to find a certain object in the house. Still, if you can get past that there's some fun to be had.

I had memories of how much my wife had enjoyed playing 7th Guest and 1th Hour. I thought that I would buy this for her to install on her computer but, alas, found that I could not install it on her machine running Windows XP; not even in compatability mode. Seems that the game ties itself to specific sound and video cards. Oh well, it was a nice thought.

I loved the 7th Guest. I played the 11th Hour a few years later, and while not as good as part one, it was entertaining and carried the story further (granted the story wasn't great to begin with, and the 11th Hour brought the story into the "terrible" category). Years later my computer upgraded, and it was harder to play these games. I stumbled upon a version of the 7th Guest that said it was upgraded for Windows 95/98 (in a WalMart, surprisingly) so I snatched it up, and it ran great(still does run perfectly, even on Windows 7). My copy of the 11th Hour was DOS only, so I said goodbye to hopes of playing it without hassle until I found a listing for a Windows 95/98 version. It was a jewel case only release, so it lacked the neat photo album CD case as the original DOS release, but that was fine.
The problem is that the content of the discs is no different. There is no Windows launcher or installation - it is still only the DOS version on these discs. I ended up selling it because I didn't need 2 copies of the same thing. If this were a version that actually was upgraded to run on Windows I'd gladly buy it and be happy - but it's not. Be careful.
Now that they are releasing The 7th Guest for iPhones, hopefully the games will get a bit more attention and maybe this one will get a Windows centered release via a downloadable service. Until then - if you've got a beefy old DOS computer somewhere, go ahead and buy from this listing. Until then - wait.

I would have liked to know this game didn't play on win 98 or vista without having to download anything else.

I played this game when it first came out and loved it. However, on replay, I found it tedious. The movie is good, although too repetitive, and some of the puzzles are too hard to be fun. There is also a lot of wandering around aimlessly, revisiting the same places over and over. Maybe I have just lost patience as I have gotten older. The prequel, the 7th Guest, is still playable, but I would skip the 11th hour.

I could not play it as it did not want to be downloaded on either a 98 windows or an ME windows so beware as you could be out of pocket money and not be able to use it. the saving grace I didn't pay much for it.