I remember seeing Sanitarium at Best Buy when I was about 10 years old, thinking that people are into some weird things, and dismissing it out of hand. In the last few years, several horror point and click games made their way on to my all time favorites list -- Strangeland and Stasis: Bone Totem in particular. While looking for similar games, I read that both were inspired by Sanitarium, that weird game with the guy in full facial bandages I'd seen so many years before. I picked it up on Steam last year, and finally got around to playing it this week.

So how did it hold up?

It was as weird as child me thought, and a bit painful to play. It was also fascinating and worth the time.

You play as a patient in a sanitarium, who, of course, is questionably sane and suffers from amnesia. This isn't just any sanitarium, though. It's a gothic cathedral, castle of a sanitarium. As you regain memories, you alternate exploring the sanitarium and other worlds, each of which feels like it's own little B-movie horror flick, but all of which tie into the rather satisfying overarching narrative. The environments are consistently unsettling, and the subject matter always a bit gruesome, with some fairly heavy themes (e.g. child abuse). Saying much more about the story would be spoilers, so I'll just say I felt it had a strong conclusion.

The point and click puzzles weren't as bad as I was worried about, with most of the logic being fairly intuitive and even enjoyable. There were a few places where the pixel hunting really hurt the flow of the game. The biggest issue with the gameplay is the movement, though. Sanitarium's protagonist is one of the slowest beings ever to grace a video game. To make matters worse, there is a click and hold control scheme, in which he moves toward the cursor when you right click -- but only along the 8 cardinal directions and diagonals. I ended up resorting to a walkthrough for a couple of the pixel hunt situations since I simply could not work up the willpower to make another clunky lap around the current area.

Still, the game is absolutely worth a play for a modern audience. The story holds up well, the environments are still quite interesting, and the puzzles are enjoyable or easily bypassed with walkthrough. It's worth playing on its own merits, not just for the impact that its had on the horror adventure genre.

It's over...

☆

As one can tell by a quick visit to my profile, I am extremely picky about my games and their ratings. I have about 3 or 4 games that I have given a five-star rating, and this is another one that just takes the cake. Sanitarium was a ride from start to finish with various twists and turns unfolding through each chapter as you slowly piece together the story of what's going on and how you came to be in the locations you end up experiencing. It's your average point-and-click style game in which the gameplay isn't really anything riveting, the story being what makes it. The true horror of this game doesn't come from monsters or jump scares, but the idea that the enemy may be closer than you'd think. Although some of the puzzles proved to be slightly difficult and definitely required some brainpower, I feel like it was all worth it in the end since I very much enjoyed my experience. There was never a dull moment while going through this game, and never did I ever find it to be slow. This is yet another one of those games where you feel like you just can't say too much without completely spoiling the entire point of it, so all I can really say is JUST PLAY IT!!! It's so worth it!