Phantasmagoria

Adrienne and her husband Don have bought a beautiful old mansion on a remote island. It is in its original condition, even with original furniture, portraits, secret passages, Demons…

It doesn?t take Adrienne long to discover that there is more to the mansion than meets the eye. Having an explore around, she finds locked doors, windows where no windows should be, portraits of a lady who looks remarkably familiar, and clues to a century old mystery. Meanwhile Don is starting to behave a little oddly; he?s really not himself.

Released in 1995 and inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King, Roberta Williams blended the elements of modern fiction with the best of nineteenth century literature to

Phantasmagoria is a horror story first and foremost, with elements of mystery and romance. Can you, as Adrienne, discover the awful secret of the Carnovecchio estate before it?s too late? (And don?t go; “hohum, of-course she can”; there are some rather gruesome unhappy endings to this one!).

Designed by Roberta Williams, the creator of the Kings Quest series, Phantasmagoria is a fine example of how good the combination of live actors in front of computer generated background can be. Too often games go all out for graphics and forget the gameplay, but Phantasmagoria gets it right.

fair

There are loads of rooms to explore in the mansion, not to mention the large gardens, barns, and the town with its shops and houses. Each scene is perfectly detailed, with awesome computer rendering. The light reflects off the polished floors, off mirrors, and refracts through dust and stained glass. The mansion is suitably foreboding, and the actors look perfectly in place.

Voici un screen encore de PH2

You view the action from a variety of angles, usually watching Adrienne as she walks, looks, talks etc. On the subject of talking, there is full speech throughout the game. Control is via a point and click system, with a pointer that changes colour over any “active” area of the screen. Sometimes this can be a pain, as it means that all you have to do is click whenever the cursor changes colour. In Phantasmagoria, they get around this by making you manipulate objects, pick up loads of items which may or may not be useful etc.

There are numerous cut-scenes throughout the game to keep things moving. These are great, and really help to crank up the tension. All these movies, as well as the full speech and great graphics take up a lot of room, and Sierra have packed this onto seven (!) CD-ROMs. Obviously, Phantasmagoria won?t be coming out on floppies!

There is a fair amount of blood, swearing, death and dying in this one, so they have included a Password feature that will let you lock it into Censored mode. (Of-course, then you miss out on some really gross bits). Another good feature is the Hintkeeper. He can often give you a clue as to your next move, which can prove useful, as Phantasmagoria is so new there isn?t a walkthrough available on the Internet yet.

Phantasmagoria requires a 486 25mhz, 8MB RAM, SVGA graphics, double-speed CD-ROM, and will run with Dos 5, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. It supports a wide range of soundcards.

I really enjoyed this game. It?s got just the right balance of brilliant graphics and excellent gameplay, with good acting and a neat story. Phantasmagoria is probably the best graphical horror/adventure game out at the moment – looks like another hit for Roberta Williams.