SANITARIUM

                 Reviewed by Stefan Herber

Well, you've got to be grateful for small mercies these days if
you're an adventure fan. I suppose we have Simon 3 and Monkey
Island 4 to look forward to but very few companies are even
pretending to have much in the pipeline. Why is this genre so
unfashionable currently? I can appreciate the feelings of the in-
crowd who decided that RPG players were all "saddos" with dirty
fingernails who never went out; but no such criticism has ever
been labelled at adventure players. So why are they rare as
intelligent computer game journalists?

"Sanitarium" must be a year old now and is discounted in most
shops. It has a lot going for it but ultimately just doesn't work,
in my opinion. We're back to the now familiar plot of waking up
somewhere with no idea who you are and things gradually being
revealed. In "Sanitarium" nothing is ever fully revealed although
one conversation gave some idea of psychoanalysis of the plot.
Anyway, as you may have guessed your job is to discover your
identity and make sense of what's happening. The game is divided
into self-contained chapters of varying length and difficulty and
apart from the title character you also get to play as a Cyclops,
an Aztec God, the hero's deceased sister and a few other
surprises. It's visually attractive, quite well acted and very
intriguing even if it doesn't quite gel in the end.

The downside? Endless conversations where much of the vital clue
gathering takes place; a control system that could easily have
been simplified; poor "cut sequences"; and a villain that is quite
beyond belief. Even if it doesn't work entirely please try it - I
don't want to have to spend the rest of my life playing "Tomb
Raider" for my kicks.





                              - o -