Sanitarium

by American Softworks Corporation

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00001X5CG
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: October 21, 1998
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,898 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Divided into a set of chapters, Sanitarium is an adult game of psychological complexity. You play the role of an amnesia patent, a girl named Sarah, a comic book hero, and an Aztec warrior. The plot is not obvious, and the game provides scattered hints that reveal their importance later. Sanitarium is best described as a horror story, not suitable for young children, with adult graphics and puzzles.

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Old Adventure, October 27, 2003

By 

wysewomon "wysewomon" (Paonia, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sanitarium (CD-ROM)

_Sanitarium_ opens with a movie: a man on his way home from work calls his wife with the news that he has "the answer." Next thing you know, his car flies off the road. He wakes up in an institution, his face swathed in bandages, with no idea who he is, where he is or how he got there. Of course, this is exactly what he -- and you as the player -- must now find out.

_Sanitarium_ is a really great, old-style, 3rd person adventure game that combines an intriguing story with interesting puzzles, a spooky atmosphere and pretty decent graphics for its time. In its nine levels you visit various parts of the asylum, a huge insect hive, a scary circus and other places, all steeped in the main character's personal mythology. Each level not only has its own internal continuity, but is connected to the larger story by threads of symbol and dream logic. I found this fascinating and extremely well done. It was one of the things that kept me wanting to play even when it was late at night and my eyes couldn't focus any more--something I haven't experienced with a game in a while.

The puzzles are a pretty good variety: some inventory, some conversation, some mechanical. Most are pretty easy once you find what you're looking for, but there are a couple of frustrating pixel hunts where it's possible to miss the one thing you need to move on. Also, sometimes the inventory, which flashes when it can be used, has to be positioned in exactly the right place. There are also a few action sequences and you can die. Usually I really object to this in adventure games, but _Sanitarium_ handles the action the way it should be handled: the sequences are pretty straightforward, if you die you get to start again at the beginning of the sequence without going through a tedious "You failed" ending sequence or reloading from page one, you have infinite lives, and the pieces of the puzzle you have managed to solve STAY solved, so you don't have to repeat what you've already done over and over. Take a tip from this, game designers!

Navigation is a little awkward to start -- you interact using the left mouse button and move using the right -- but you get used to that quickly enough. The main problem is that the character can get sucked into things like stairs, so you spend a lot of time going back and forth (or I did, anyway). Another problem is that sometimes you have to have your character in exactly the right spot before he'll do what he's supposed to. If he's not close enough he'll say "I can't do that (or some variation thereof)." Except for sometimes, when he'll walk over and complete the action on his own. I found no rhyme or reason to this and it got a bit annoying in places.

The graphics are mid-nineties graphics: 3rd person, 2-D. So if you can't appreciate a game that doesn't have all the latest bells and whistles, you won't appreciate this one. There are some really gruesome scenes, not for the faint of heart or stomach. The voice acting is mostly pretty good but in some places character voices were hard to understand. There are subtitles, though, so that wasn't a problem. Other sound f/x were well-done, being suited to the various environments yet not too repetetive or demanding of attention.

I completed _Sanitarium_ in about 30 hours. If I had a complaint it was that the ending was a little rushed and I felt that all the gaps in the story hadn't been filled in. Still, compared to the bulk of games that are being released today, this is a great find and a worthwhile buy! If you like older adventures, _Sanitarium_ is a must.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very straight-forward and engrossing game, April 10, 2001

By 

Bret Sage (Monterey, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sanitarium (CD-ROM)

Tired of complicated controls that require you to remember 10 keyboard buttons and 5 function controls? If so, then this is the game for you. Previous games I have purchased have included: Longest Journey (too long, too many dialogs), Myst (too slow), and several of the Dreamcatcher series (Dracula and Messenger; definitely require walkthroughs). My most recent game was Black and White. Though exceptional in it graphics and permeabilites for story, the controls were IMPOSSIBLY difficult to manage. Not my cup of tea. Santitarium, on the other hand, was wonderfully simple to use. Don't get me wrong, the game is not simple in either graphics, gaming or story line; all were excellent. The game begins with a cutscene of you (the main character) driving and crashing on a wet and windy road. The game opens with the main character stuck in an old insane asylum, hence the name. The main reason that I LOVED this game is that the interface is simple; with the left and right click mouse controls giving you access to all vital components of the puzzles and characters. If you interact (talk with) another character, previous converstations are easily available to review without consulting a separate menu. Also, you are encouraged to revisit characters after you have continued on to other places in order to gain more information about the puzzles and the mystery that you are trying to solve. This game is excellent partly because of the simple, intuitive interface, but also because of the great story and cut-scenes that are woven into the game. There are also several fight/challenge sequences that are puzzles in themselves, albeit simple to overcome with some determination. True, the acting is somewhat amateurish, but it also gives the game an intimate feeling, since you will hear the same person acting the roles of several characters. Overall, a great, fun, and simple game that engrossed my son and I for over 5 days. We were not bored for a minute. Buy this game. You will not be dissatisfied.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nothing short of genius, November 15, 2004

By 

Sarah (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Sanitarium (CD-ROM)

First of all, I only gave it three stars for being fun because it's not SUPPOSED to be fun . . . it's supposed to be creepy, frightening, and thought-provoking. And believe me, it is all of those things. People don't seem to like it because it's third person, but personally I greatly prefer third person to first person -- I like to be able to SEE my character. But that's just me. They're also saying it doesn't run on XP -- well, it runs on MY XP. So I have no big complaints.

Sanitarium is one of those tragically rare games that contains neither pure mindless violence nor emotionless gameplay with no sense of connection to the characters. It is chock-full of character development and at the end you find yourself surprisingly attached to the main character and a few supporting characters as well (including one that has been dead for several years). One of my favorite parts of this game is that it keeps you guessing. Rather than a straightforward start-here, end-there storyline, it keeps flashing back to events before the game began and slowly fills in plot holes as it goes, so you have to play to the very end to know the entire story.

As you probably know by now, you start out as an amnesiac who finds himself in a very unorthodox asylum (though it quickly moves on to other locations), and have to find out who the guy is and what he's doing there. Unfortunately, you can't find that out without finding out some things best left forgotton -- i.e. his poor little sister who died at age eight when he was only a few years older, and this crazy guy he worked with in med school who, rest assured, comes back to haunt him as the main antagonist. As the main character slowly gets his memory back you eventually find out how all the seemingly random aspects of the game tie together, although it does require you to turn into three other characters (I didn't quite get how the Aztec guy tied into his previous life as much as the other two). A good portion of the game (Maybe all of it -- was the sanitarium even real?) takes place in the character's own head rather than the real world, so this is not a realistic game; it's very sci-fi/fantasy.

The only reason I gave this game four stars instead of five is because there were a few cinematics that I thought were missing in dialogue, and thus the storyline seemed rushed and confusing at parts (especially the cut from the hive to the graveyard and from the lost village to the chimney incident). It did take me a little while to figure out WHY he had to pull that tube out of his wrist at the very end. Other than that, though, this is a superior game that transcends most of the others I've had experience with, and I highly recommend it.

One final note: I liked the little inside joke in the lost village where you can pick up the ruby fish even though you don't need it for anything -- it's a "red herring". :)