User Reviews (11 - 21 of 65)

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AWESOME GAME!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: March 13, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Sanitarium is possibly the greatest game ever created. It has an in-depth, unpredictable storyline with lots of interesting (and usually bizarre) characters. Switching identities inside your mind can give a feeling of insight and makes the game interaction much easier. All in all, this game is as close to perfection as they come.

Fantastic symbolic journey through nostalgia and nightmare

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: December 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Sanitarium is a fantastic, unique, unmissable game. For emotional depth and symbolic resonance, it's light-years ahead of mechanical, linear shoot-em-ups. Sanitarium raises computer roleplaying several rungs on the ladder and creates one of the few truly human and genuinely likeable protagonists in the genre. The plot is beautifully developed through a series of dream-within-dream convolutions that leave the player guessing while building a credible and deeply interesting bond with the main character. Puzzles are not only interesting but generally relevant to plot development. To say more would be to say too much, but don't miss this one!

Excellent game, highly recommended, but before you buy it...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 22, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Sanitarium was an extremelly involving game, and I devoted myself to it, greatly anticipating the ending, where all of the unusual scenarios come together to form a picture...while the ending was not as bad as many say, the final puzzle definitely is truly wretched. While not as difficult (sadly) as most adventure games that I have played, it IS one of the most involving.

As I said, this game is not very difficult...to some of you that may be a good thing, and may enhance the experience, while for other experienced adventure gamers this will be a definite downside. I was only stuck at a few points, and then not for long. I was never really frustrated - a good thing of course - but then I never had the awesome sense of accomplishment that comes from solving a truly difficult puzzle, ala Rama or The Last Express (though I believe this to be a much better game than both of those)

If you're looking to be frightened by this game, it may happen, but only at a couple of points, and then more grossed out than scared - can you say Silence of the Lambs? ICK! (though I love that movie, own the DVD)

One last thing - if you have a lower speed CD drive, you may want to hold off on Sanitarium until you've upgraded it. The designers sadly made the installation size only 70 mb (I think, maybe a bit more) which is much too little for a 3 cd game in my opinion. I had rather long load times (up to a minute) with my 40x drive. Of course, you could just copy the cds to your hard drive and hack the game registry...if you know what you're doing of course, though its not too hard to find a web site that'll tell you how I'm sure.

Haunting, amazing and funny all in one!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: September 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

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.

This game gave me nightmares!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Well ok, only chapter 2 really gave me nightmares. The rest of it was more sci-fi than horror. But it's been a long time since any book, movie, even Stephen King, really scared me. The feeling of participating in the horror is what got me, and i appreciate it a lot. Parts of this game are really freaky.

The voice-overs were pretty sad for the characters in chapter 1 and so i turned the voices really quiet to get away from the bad acting, which was taking awy from the gothic/surreal effect. And there is a bug in chapter 2 that didn't affect me, but you may have to download a patch. installation instructions can be found on uhs-hints.com.

This isn't really a puzzle-game. Usually this would be a bad thing, but thinking too much about puzzles would have taken away from this game. There are just enough puzzles for you to really get to know a world/plot.
There is puzzle where this bug is clamped down and it's chomping on something wet and you have to mess with it. That was the sickest puzzle ever! I was tempted to turn the sound down so i didn't have to hear it.
Yes it's an old game. They don't seem to make this sort of game anymore. Of course, nothing is as good as Fallout. This game is to horror what Monkey Island or Grim Fandago is to humor.

Highly Recommended

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: June 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I purchased this game recently through Amazon by a 3rd party seller. It is the "original" game, not the re-released jewel case XS version. It worked flawlessly on my XP. The game is great if you enjoy puzzles (most weren't too difficult to solve)and a good story line. The graphics are old compared to more recent games, but who cares? It was good fun, & I will play it again (unlike other games). I definately recommend it!

Freaky, But terrific!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is about a man named Max who gets in a accident, and can't remember anything when he wakes up. As he goes through the game, he starts to remember his past, which is both sad and creepy. Also, some of the levels in the game include some weird stuff. Like mutant children, and even an old man in a tutu, where whenever he hears a certain song, he stands up and does some ballet. The graphics and sound are excelent, and the acting is fabulous! Although, the storyline is a little hard to follow, and you may need to play it more than once to understand it.The puzzles aren't too hard or easy. They're just right. It has some humor in it ,too. (Like the old man in the tutu!) If you like adventure and don't mind that it's a little complicated, then you will, with no doubt, treasure this game. I highly recommend it!!!

Great game for moms with little time to play!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 24, 1999
Author: Amazon User

As a new gamer and one with little time to play, I really appreciated this game. It's puzzles don't take endless hours to solve, and when you die or leave the game, you return right where you were without all the tedious making up to do. The graphics were pretty good though I would have liked more of a first person view. I would recommend this to those who like to play, but cannot devote their life to a game.

Excellent game! Cool graphics and challenging puzzles!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game several years ago and I'm still getting asked to borrow it! Everyone who plays it loves it, even though they sometimes have to call and ask me for help, hehe! The puzzles are just hard enough to keep you thinking, and the characters and scenes are great as well. If you like this game or games like this one, try "Out of Order". It's free over the net. There's even a cheatsheet on the web if you get stuck. I think both of these games are great!

A nervy game of intrigue and frightening wonder

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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...;)

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