Customer Reviews

Sanitarium

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

_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.

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.

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". :)

Sanitarium is the idyllic horror/comic-book/mystery game. Each level is different from the next, and you never know what to expect. One moment your character is a lonely amnesiac suffering from frightening flashbacks, the next, you're a little girl wandering around a freakish circus, the next, you're a monstrous cyclops in a slimy hive, trying to escape from a Fuhrer-like leader. The graphics are wonderful and the story is choppy but fascinating. Some of the puzzles can be frustrating - But this game is definitely worth your money. It's very intense and absolutely enraptured me. I haven't been able to find any other games like it, and I wish I could... Ah well.

Most adventure games do not lure you in to such a haunting story with such detail and innovativeness as this one. Others I've played, while good are more light-hearted such as the King's Quest series. Others go for laughs like Day of the Tentacle or Sam And Max Hit The Road. But this game not only skillfully delivers a chilling psychological horror, it sprinkles in gimmicks that I have not seen before in this type of game.

The story literally begins in an insane asylum. You wake up, your head wrapped in bandages with no knowledge as to your identity nor why you are there. Your only clues are the inmates that gibber and bang their head against the wall and sometimes cluck like a chicken. You slowly begin to unravel the strands of a plot, but then are catapulted into an entirely new story altogether it seems.

Sanitarium throughout brings you in and out of "consciousness", traveling to different landscapes , sometimes in different bodies, and yet th ewhole thing flows very cohesively. I must admit the ending was a little disappointing and predictable but it did not spoil the fun.

Some of the new features include the direct-X like feel where you see a building, you enter it, and the side of the wall disappears to reveal the room you step into beyond. THis trick is very ingeneous in packing in all the areas and objects to investigate although on one of the chapters, I had a little trouble with it at one point.

As with all good adventures, it made me want to rush home from work to spend another evening figuring out difficult puzzles, wading through the compelling story, and guessing just what suprise would come next...despite my reluctance to discover just where this strange little story would take me next.

This is the first adventure game I have played, and I think I picked a really good one. The narrative is often up there with the best of Stephen King fiction. I liked that the mystery slowly unfolds with enough subtlety that I couldn't predict it. The writing is very intelligent for the most part. You get very emotionally involved with the story. The graphics are very well done and the animated movies are very stylish. The puzzles range from easy to difficult (I had to visit the walkthrough web site several times). This game mostly involves collecting objects and using them appropriately, and talking to the characters to receive information. There are 3 or 4 Myst-type puzzles and 3 or 4 action sequences (attacking bad guys or negotiating a maze--this is where it can be annoying to control the movement of the character by holding down the right mouse button). You have to do several gross things in order to solve the mystery, but I wouldn't say it is overly violent. It is much more psychological horror and mystery.
I found some of the voices annoying so I did most of it with the sound turned off.
Note to deaf/hearing impaired: you can do almost all of this game with the use of subtitles. However, there is a puzzle that requires you to hear a tune and replicate it. In addition, there is a radio broadcast during the closing credits that wraps everything up and tells you what happened to the main characters, but it isn't subtitled so ask a friend to tell you what they say.

I won't add much information in my review, as the most relevant has already been said.

Though I want to say that I have Windows XP, and Sanitarium runs fine on my computer.

It surely is an intrigueing and interesting game to play. I've been wanting to play this game for years now, and finally, a few days ago I got my hands on it. In a way I'm glad that I didn't play this game five years ago, because the game can be rather freaky at times. So as the description says, it's not really a game for kids, at least not young ones.

The game took me about 2,5 days of normal playing to finish, perhaps a little less. I started on saturday, and finished it after school on monday (that is today). But I wouldn't say that it's a small game. I got totally emersed in it, and it is certainly worth buying. It's a nice experience to play, with stimulating problems that make you twist in your chair, but yet come back for more. The plot is also very interesting, and you're always driven by it to go further, and further in the game.

Perhaps the game could have been a little longer, but all in all it isn't a small game, and besides, isn't it the way with most great games - you want them to be longer, so you can play more..? That said, I would really want to see a sequeal to this great game. Alas, I don't see that ever happening since what I've heard - American Softworks is no longer. (correct me if I'm wrong.)

...and btw, this game isn't easy to get your mittons on, at least that's my experience, so buy it when you have the chance, if you feel like trying it...;)

What a weird game this is. It had been gathering dust in my closet for at least a year untill I sort of felt in the mood for playing it. This was because the content seemed a bit bloody, but most of all because the controls seemed annoying. You have to move your character by holding the right mousebutton all the time, and that doesn't relieve you of any slumbering RSI.
But what a challenging and hauntingly beautiful game this turned out to be! The puzzles are very well integrated into the story, but it is foremost the story itself that earns the five stars. You have to wander through several worlds that are so very, very weird they will stretch your imagination to the limit. The plot unfolds itself nicely, and will keep surprising you.
Some of the worlds (or dreams, or visions, or whatever) took getting used to, but how rewarding it all was. The story will keep you awake, and follow you in months to come after you've finished Sanitarium.
On the graphics side, well, they are a bit outdated, but they are still eyecandy. An amazing colourpalette is used, it just looks great. The cutscenes are black and white, just in keep with the atmosphere of the game.
And there's the humour. This game had me laughing out loud many times, quite a feat sonsidering the gory content of the game. Although gory, well, it's not for the fainthearted. Imagine having to push a corpse in an oven to be able to solve a puzzle... But is is always done with wit.
Sanitarium is a masterpiece, both in concept and in content. It ranks right up there with my other alltime favourits like Myst, Riven, Journeyman Project 3 and Beyond Atlantis.

Looking for a new PC game to play, I got Sanitarium based in part on the reviews here on Amazon. Unfortunately, I'm getting stuck on the second level because of whatever bug produces lock-up on that level. I've tried downloading the patch for this, and while I got further along the second time, it still locked up. ASC is out of biz for over a year, and I've written to DreamForge, but for now, this game is essentially a set of 3 silver drink coasters. Aaarrrrgggghhhh....

This is a great game. I would classify it as a puzzle game with a story that is a cross between Horror and Fantasy (Those kids on level 2 are so creepy!). Normally I do not have much patience with games that just involve talking to people and collecting objects, but in this game I found that I liked the levels so much that it did not seem at all boring.

The levels are very diverse. You play as a mental patient walking through a hospital who turns into a little girl visiting the circus, who then changes back to himself only to turn into a comic book hero in an insect colony on the next level. It all may sound a little confusing, but it is all part of the same story.

The graphics, sound, and story all feel like a psychotic psychedelic dream. (One of the creators even thanks his dealer in the end credits.)

The game is not perfect however. Before you begin playing you must get a patch for the game. Even though the defect is only on level 2 it feels incredibly frustrating to know that you have to start the entire game over. So make sure you fix it before you begin.

Second, the controls very often feel less than precise. It feels like half the game is spent running up and down stairs when all you want to do is walk past a staircase. And the handful of action sequences make it clear just how precarious the controls are.

Lastly, I thought that the puzzles were either a little too easy or way too hard. I broke down and cheated by looking at one of the online walkthroughs when I was hopelessly stuck. When I looked at the solution I felt that I would never have solved it on my own (case in point: that bug control panel to the furnace in "The Hive").

The drawbacks of the game, however, are dwarfed by all of the things that are done well.