Sanatarium

                  Reviewed by Peter Clark

The video scene that starts this game seems to indicate that you,
a scientist of some sort, have made a breakthrough discovery. You
set off in terrible weather at night, rushing along mountain roads
in your car to break the news. However, as you might expect,
things don't go according to plan and you crash through a barrier
and down the mountainside. As you regain consciousness, you find
yourself in some sort of hospital. Or is it? A quick inspection
leads you to think that your surroundings resemble an asylum more
than a hospital.  What is more, your memory has gone and the past
is no more than a dream. As you progress through the game visiting
different places and times, flashbacks will reveal more and more
of your past history. At first I thought, Oh No! Not another
Frankenstein monster look-alike. Luckily it was not to be.
Although your memory returns as you progress through the game,
this is not the main plot as there are many twists and turns
through various times and places before the game can be completed.

The game is divided into nine chapters each of which takes place
in a different location. Chapter One begins with you as yourself
in the sanatarium after your car crash. This section is quite
simple, your objective being to escape from the place.  There
appears to be no staff around and talking to the other inmates
only serves to prove to you that you are the only sane one in the
place. If you can find a way across to the central tower, and this
is quite an easy matter, you will be able to use the closed
circuit cameras and find your way to escape.  However, you now
find yourself in a village populated only by children who all seem
to talk about "Mom", their only provider.  A great deal of
interrogation is needed here before you can find your way to
"Mom", who turns out to be an alien. The village must be rid of
said alien and only when you have accomplished that, can you
proceed to the next chapter.

You now take the part of a small girl and you seem to be marooned
on an island with a shipwrecked circus of freaks. Off in the
distance across the water you see another island on which is a
large, derelict mansion. There are various tasks to be performed
including learning the art of fire breathing before you can take
on the monster in the cave, find your way under the water to the
mansion and return a doll to another small girl.  Completing this
task takes you into the next chapter. Here you are your old self
again and have the task of finding a way into a locked laboratory.
When inside, there are a couple of quite devious word puzzles to
solve before being transported to the next part of the game.

From the Laboratory you travel to a Hive occupied by a strange
kind of insect and here you take the part of Grimwall, a Cyclops.
Your aim in this part of the game is to find and active a portal
into the next part of the game. You need to interact with several
characters here before your task can be completed and you find
yourself back trapped in the morgue at the sanitarium as yourself.
Escape from the morgue is your first task and then, after finding
a way to restore heat to the place, you may explore the grounds.
Here you discover a temple in the cemetery. There is a way from
here to the next chapter but the temple is locked and a way in
must first be discovered. If you are successful in entering the
temple and solving the puzzle that you find inside, you will be
transported to the Lost Aztec Village that forms the next chapter.
A lot of talking to the inhabitants here is called for before you
can defeat Quetzalcoatl the evil god.

The end part of this chapter involves negotiating a maze. This had
me tearing my hair out as, if you make a mistake, you are returned
to the very start of the maze. The save function really comes in
useful here. Along the way in this maze are sections of ground
that fall as you get close to them and spurts of electrical energy
which you have to negotiate. When you finish the maze, you reach
the end of the chapter and start the final section where all three
of the characters that you have been during the previous part of
the game must be used at the right times to complete the section.
The times that a change was needed seemed to be fairly obvious
such as needing to be the small girl rather than the Aztec Warrior
or the Cyclops when you have to crawl across a spider's web. At
the end of this section you find the final portal that takes you
to a confrontation with the evil Doctor Morgan. Again, this puzzle
is time consuming rather than difficult and with careful use of
the save game facility you should be able to defeat the Doctor
quite easily. All that then remains is to sit back and watch the
closing video sequence.

I have not made mention of the complex interaction needed between
the many characters in the game or the many and various puzzles
that need to be solved to finish the game. Most of the puzzles
were of the type seen in many other adventure games such as
diverting water streams through pipes to start the fountain and
taking letters from writing on blackboards to make other words.
There is one puzzle in the lost village that I found to be quite
original in that several warrior spirits must be interrogated in
order to find out their names and pecking order in life. You will
be asked to put all the spirits in the correct order later in that
section before you will be given the spell that you need.

I enjoyed the game and found that it played very well. The
computer I used was well ahead of the minimum specification needed
and the control interface, as usual through the mouse, operated
smoothly and naturally. The use of the right mouse button to
control the direction of the character was quite useful.  The only
area that let the game down in any way was the dialogue that, in
some parts, I found to be quite stilted.  However, this is not
enough to stop you enjoying the game.

The game is couple of years old but might still be available if
you search around. It was published by Dreamscape, Mindforce and
the minimum specifications are as follows below: - Windows 95 or
above, Pentium 133 or higher, 6xCD Drive, 32 Meg Ram, mouse and
Direct X.









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