John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles

                 Reviewed by Julian Gregory

I found this game in a computer shop very recently and was
surprised that I had not heard about it before. The author has his
own website and on it, it says that this game was voted the best
game of 1998.

The Blackstone Chronicles is a psychological thriller. You are
Oliver Metcalf, the son of the now deceased director of the old
Asylum which is now being restored as a museum.

Your father was upset that you did not follow him into his
profession and kidnaps your son Joshua so that you have to enter
the museum to solve various puzzles and thereby learn how the
asylum operated.

The first thing which strikes you on starting the game is the
quality of the pictures. You move between still images via a
video-like sequence. It is advisable to watch the sequence at
least once, although they can be cut short if you so wish.

A nice touch is that the game comes with two disks, one with high
resolution graphics and one with lesser resolution graphics. You
can use either disk, depending upon the specification of your
computer.

Once the game has been installed you do not need to swap disks,
the different graphics are the only difference.

The other stunning point of the game is the sound. There is little
in the way of text to read, but a large amount of listening to do
as you work your way through. The different voices and the ways
the voices change to express their emotions are the best I have
heard on a computer by some way. There are many conversations in
the game and this may put some people off playing it. This would
be a shame as much of the atmosphere comes from talking to other
people.

The music also complements the game and heightens expectations
when each door is opened.

Basically in the game you have to explore the various rooms and
floors of the building to find out what went on there all not so
very long ago. You will quickly find a key ring with numerous keys
on it.  As you would not have enough time to try each key in each
lock (you only have one night to succeed), you must talk to the
various disembodied voices you come across. They will describe the
shape of the next key to be used.

You can also talk to your father and he keeps pushing you on to
find out more. The sense of urgency is very well portrayed.  As
you explore more you find out both sides of the story and you
begin to doubt which tale is correct.  The stories of the various
treatments, I think, are actual de- scriptions of those actually
carried out in such places in the 1950s. The techniques are where
most of the horror in the game is contained. I found that I had to
carry on playing just to find out the next horror story.

The game plays just any other such game. You can travel between
different locations by use of the cursor. The cursor changes if it
passes over anything interesting.

In addition there are a number of puzzles where you only have a
limited time to solve them. However you can only get into these
situations when you are carrying all the objects you need to have
to be able to escape. If you fail you are given the choice of re-
loading, going back to just before the puzzle was triggered or
having the solution supplied to you.

The range of puzzles is very fair, some quite easy and some not
so.

Overall I have not enjoyed a game so much for some time. It is
well recommended



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