Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster

The Good
This is a creative, moody and even at times truly creepy first person perspective graphic adventure game where you are the recent reanimated creation of one Doctor Frankenstein (played wonderfully by Tim Curry).

In order to regain your memories and stop the mad doctor, you must wander through the creepy castle, with its fair share of mazes, collecting items, solving Myst-inspired puzzles and unlocking a few deep dark secrets.

The game's graphics, sound effects and music are all above average, with some nice mid-1990's full motion video. The game's interface is use-friendly and the atmosphere manages to produce an appropriately creepy vibe.

The story manages to offers plenty of mystery, even some thrills and chills, without warranting a "Mature" or "Adults Only" content rating.

While the difficult level is probably beyond the skills of most intermediate gamers, more experienced, 13+ gamers, should enjoy the overall tone and level of difficulty.

The Bad
Tim Curry is a terrific actor and is probably one of the best actors to star in a graphic adventure-interactive movie game. The other voice talents [of which they are surprisingly few] are strictly B-movie talent.

Most of the puzzles in the game are more the, '7th Guest' and 'Myst' and much less 'Secret of Monkey Island'. If close up views of switches and mechanical puzzles are not your preferred form of adventure, then this game may grow tedious.

For only being on one CD, the game has a tremendous amount of ground to explore, with several large rooms. While this is normally a good thing, especially for an interactive movie-adventure game, it may cause a certain level of frustration.

The heavy reliance on mazes, with the hedge maze and the maze inside the mine being especially annoying, does sometimes seem like a bit of laziness on the part of the developers. You will need to either take great notes, including drawing maps, or use an online guide.

It would have been nice if you could get some sort of description of the items you collect. The music and sound effects do the job, but a bit more variety would have been nice.

The Bottom Line
This is one of the better interactive movie-graphic adventure games to be released. Tim Curry is a real treat to watch and the game's atmosphere, puzzles, setting and overall story manage to keep the player engaged, even curious.

The Good
Tim Curry provides an amusing Dr. Frankenstein. Beautiful location designs provide constant visual stimulation.

The Bad
While the game really is about discovering who your character is, there are too few clues along the way to make a gamer want to continue playing. As a result, one feels less like they are searching for the answer of their identity, but merely wandering around various locales.

The puzzles in this game are extremely difficult and frustrating.

The Bottom Line
Following on the heals of Myst, Frankenstein used a first person style for this adventure game. With the addition of animation, the backgrounds really came to life.

A game of exploration while under pursuit (by Dr. Frankenstein) always made me think of this game as brethern to King's Quest III.