What's Your Story? - Ilmari Jauhiainen

As excited as I am to kick on with Zak McKracken, this week is a bit of a killer on the professional front. I've just not been able to get a couple of hours free to write anything, so I thought I would take the opportunity to let one of the readers do the talking instead. This week it's one of the CAP board leaders...Ilmari!

The faceless symptoms seem to be spreading.

My home country is… Finland, the traditionally forgotten land between Sweden and Russia, although reliable sources have told me that it is nowadays remembered as the source of great heavy music.

My age is… I'll be turning 31 in August.

The first adventure game I played was… Space Quest 3, or actually I just first watched my brother and his friends play it. I was probably 9 or 10 at the time. Before that, I had played only shoot'em'ups and platformers, but this experience changed my taste completely.

It won't be long now and you'll get to watch someone else play it all over again

When I’m not playing games I like to… Actually the problem is more that I rarely have time to play games, because other activities take priority. That's probably why I like adventure games so much – I might enjoy CRPGs and strategy games,but you really need to be playing them to make any significant progress, while with adventure games you can do the main work or thinking about the puzzles everywhere. But now I've digressed... Most of my free time I try to spend with my wife and our 1-year old daughter.The time left over from that I will mostly spend on reading, which has been my primary hobby since I was just three and half. I mostly read scifi/fantasy, but if you refer me to a good book with fantastic elements, good humour, absurd plotting or important social commentary (or preferably, all of them), I will probably read it. I also like to study texts on philosophy, science, mathematics, history, cultural studies, linguistics, sociology or something around those areas. Finally, I like complex board games, mostly of German origin, strolling in nature and all sorts of stuff I rarely have time to indulge in.

My favourite adventure game is… You know, I just really hate picking up just one favourite, when there's a load of quality games I could choose from. Usually what I am looking for in an adventure game is an intriguing plot, which I have found at least in LeChuck's Revenge, Gateway, KGB, Trinity, Gabriel Knight and Tierra Entertainment's King's Quest 2 remake. Then again, I still have loads of adventure games to play, so I cannot really choose one over the others.

Gateway is one of those games that's always intrigued me. I'm not even sure I'll get to play it for this blog.

I like my games in (a box, digital format)… Preferably in digital format (takes up less space). But I'd still like a good manual with a lot of backstory!

The thing I miss about old games is / The best thing about moderngames is… I'll answer these two at the same time. I think that what I most miss is not the games as such, but the child's enthusiasm and the capacity to be excited of the simple things – and the time to use for playing. I mean, there were good games, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be gems in the modern games also.

And let's face it, many of the older games would be simply unbearable these days. The very first adventure game, Adventure, was really crude plotwise (collect all the treasures), while the mother of all graphic adventures, Sierra's Mystery House is possibly the worst game I've ever played: a two-year old could draw more convincing stickmen, and what's worse, you have to rely on the awful pictures,because the textual output is quite meagre – I mean, who could have known that a particular square in a bathroom was meant to be a towel?

I'm sure we all feel your pain on this one

There's definitely been progression going on, but it has been in some cases restricted to the improvement of graphics and introduction of better controls etc. King's Quest was in this sense already a progression from the Adventure – graphics, the ability to move the character and so on. In another sense there had been no progress at all, because plotwise both were simple treasure hunts. The most used plot in whole gaming history has probably been ”hero saves the world from an evil guy”, which isn't really imaginative.

Of course, there have been more complex plots also. In adventure games,especially Infocom was an early example of a more creative approach to plots. Take Brian Moriarty's Trinity, for instance. On the onehand, it is a game where you solve more or less ingenious puzzles in a fantasy environment with giant bumblebees, mythical figures like Charon, living origami birds and Klein bottles. On the other hand, itis a social commentary on warfare and especially nuclear weapons, where you'll get to visit places like Hiroshima, Bikini Atoll and the Manhattan project test site in New Mexico. Later non-commercial interactive fiction have taken the complexity of plotting to further levels, but they often feel more like pieces of literature than games.

The ideal would undoubtedly be to combine all the elements – engaging plots, gorgeous graphics, good interface and enough game activity to keep you entertained for hours. Sure wish they'd make more games like that – but it could well be that I just haven't had the time to find these true treasures.

The one TV show I never miss is… I tend to like all things scifi- or fantasy-related, so for instance,Game of Thrones, True Blood and Walking Dead are appreciated. Perhaps I still wait most for Doctor Who, because a) I have a liking for allthings British and b) it's a show that my daughter likes to watch too (it's good to share some hobby with your kids).

Yet another Doctor Who fan! I'm really going to have to give it a try sometime soon.

If I could see any band live it would be… I am not really fanatical music follower – I prefer stories over melodies, so I'd rather read a book, watch a TV show or play a game than listen to music. That said, I have a rather varied music taste. In my youth I was brainwashed by Europop and techno, which I still occasionally listen to. But I also like jazz, classic operas and some rock'n roll. I think I'll stick now to the fantasy/scifi-theme and vote for a live show of Queen with Freddie Mercury – no matter whether it involves time travel, cloning or magic.

My favourite movie is… I actually prefer TV shows to movies, because in a long series the plot has more time to grow and deepen – and if you catch me watching a movie, it's probably something mindless junk that I only use to clear my head off. But if you really want me to pick something, MarxBrothers - movies I never tire of watching. From more recent titles, I've enjoyed e.g. movies by Charlie Kaufmann and Terry Gilliam.

There's been a little complication with my complication!

One interesting thing about me is… This is probably the hardest question, because I feel like an average Joe with no interesting qualities. In real life, I am the shy silent person who mostly listens without anything to say, the oddball who has made a PhD on some really obscure topic (a great way to stop a conversation), the teetotaller who everyone depends on when they get too intoxicated and the dilettante poet whom relatives hire to perform bad poems on anniversaries.

Interested in sending your answers and getting 20 CAPs for you trouble? Email theadventuregamer@gmail.com.

Game 23: Zak McKracken - Introduction

Notice the enhanced edition is still listed as being created in 1988

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is the second game to utilise the SCUMM engine, with the first being Maniac Mansion. It was initially released in October 1988 on both PC and Commodore 64, but was later ported to the Amiga and Atari ST. While Maniac Mansion’s designers, Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, had some involvement in Zak McKracken (Gilbert with design and technical support and Winnick with graphics), the project was predominately led by a guy named David Fox. Fox had been a SCUMM scripter on Maniac Mansion, and given how complicated that task turned out to be (due to multiple characters and puzzle solutions), he’d gained enough skills to design his own game.

Awesome cover that pretty much sums up the genre. A hero holding a loaf of bread and a fishbowl!

The project was co-designed and co-programmed by Matthew Kane, but strangely that name doesn’t appear on any other LucasArts games. Other notable employees involved in the project were Martin Cameron and Mark J. Ferrari (graphics / artwork) and David Hayes and David Warhol (music / sound). All of those four names would be associated with future LucasArts classics such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Loom and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. It’s worth noting that, just like Maniac Mansion, an enhanced version of Zak McKracken for PC was released a few months after the original. The only differences between versions one and two appear to be graphical, with an increased resolution and the use of bitmaps making the enhanced version look significantly better, without changing the gameplay at all.

Zak McKracken Version 1: The Green Wiggle Saves Earth

Also similarly to Maniac Mansion, players of Zak McKracken are required to control multiple characters to achieve their goals. Set in 1997, the story revolves around Francis Zachary McKracken, a writer for the National Inquisitor, who along with Annie Larris (a freelance scientist), Melissa China and Leslie Bennett (both Yale University students), must attempt to foil some sort of alien infiltration. It appears the aliens have built a stupidity machine, and are using it to lower the intelligence of the human race. Fox was heavily inspired by popular alien theories, and the game visits many of the hotspots that come up while musing about alien visitations and mysterious civilizations. These include Egypt, Mexico, Stonehenge, Atlantis and Mars. In fact, Fox consulted with a spiritual writer (aka pseudo-scientist) named David Spangler while coming up with the games’ themes. It was originally going to be a much more serious-toned game before Gilbert and Kane recommended Fox inject more humour.

Zak McKracken Version 2: It's amazing what you can do with 16 colors if you try!

I had no issues finding a playable version of Zak McKracken, but it wasn’t particularly easy to track down a non-enhanced version. Eventually I found one, so I can now compare the original to the enhanced. That being said, there have been quite a few readers suggesting that version 2 came out so soon after the original that it really could be considered the definitive release. It does appear to have been released in early 1989, but since version 1 only came out in October 1988, I’m thinking it wouldn’t be unfair of me to play the enhanced version. Unless anyone thinks comparing the enhanced version of Zak McKracken to games created in 1988 is unfair, I’ll focus on the enhanced version and check the original as a reference point. I’ve found a PDF manual of the game on Replacement Docs, and I’ve even come across a copy of the National Inquisitor that came with the original game. I’m giving rotgrub 10 CAPs for letting me know about that, as I wouldn’t have found it otherwise. Enough talk…I’ve got to save Earth from otherwise inevitable stupidity!

LucasArts took a leaf out of Tass Times in Tonetown

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've recently written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it's an opportunity for readers to bet 10 points (only if they already have them) that I won't be able to solve a puzzle unassisted (see below for an example). If you get it right I will reward you with 20 points in return! It's also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Multiple readers can predict the same score, but will be rewarded a decreasing amount of points if it turns out to be correct.

Example Bet:

Bet: Va 25 jbeqf be yrff, fgngr jul Gur Gevpxfgre fubhyq tvir lbh gra PNCf.

Extra Note: This is also the first game for which Lars-Erik will gift the next readily available game on the list to the reader that correctly predicts what score I will give the game. So, if you predict the right score (or are closest), you will get 10 CAPs and a copy of the Quest for Glory collection from GOG! Good luck!

Up for Grabs! Get your predictions in!

Extra Extra Note: I was going to wait until I got to the first 1989 game, but I think it makes sense to start now. From now on I am going to give myself the ability to add or subtract 1 PISSED rating point from the final score if I feel it has turned out a little high or low. I would only do this if I feel a game has been harshly judged by the system or on the flipside if it has come out better than it probably should have. I absolutely promise you all that I will not use this as a way to purposely align my score with a particularly readers' prediction (I have no reason to do this). It also means that more final rating scores are possible, as the current system means only certain outcomes are available.

The Adventure Gamer has a Sponsor!

The Adventure Gamer has a sponsor! That's right, our very own Lars-Erik has offered to sponsor The Adventure Gamer blog by funding game prizes. It's an incredibly generous thing to do, and I've questioned him several times to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting his selfless offer. So how will it work?

Instead of just receiving 10 CAPs for correctly guessing the PISSED rating I will dish out to a game, from now on winners will receive 10 CAPs plus the next game on the list that is available to gift on any of the major distribution platforms (such as GOG and Steam). So, whoever is the first to correctly predict the PISSED rating I will give to Zak McKracken will get 10 CAPs plus the Quest for Glory collection from GOG (unless someone can find a giftable copy of Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess or Codename: ICEMAN). If that same person happens to be the closest predictor for any other games prior to me reaching Hero's Quest, they will receive an increasing number of CAPs and the game prize will go to the next closest predictor. Taking this further, whoever predicts the PISSED rating of Hero's Quest will get 10 CAPs plus a copy of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade from Steam, and so on.

Quest for Glory 1 to 5 for free! - I think I might even make a prediction myself! ;)

While Lars-Erik has not suggested he wants anything in return for this incredible offer, I'll be giving him 20 CAPs for every game he gifts. We've agreed that this sponsorship will run until I reach the end of 1989, and we'll take a view at that stage as to how we proceed from there. Please join me in thanking Lars-Erik!

Speaking of celebrations, I thought I would share some of the celebratory beverages that were raised when the blog reached 100000 views a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to everyone that participated, and I'm going to keep telling myself that your toasts had more to do with your enjoyment of the blog than the CAPs I offered in return. Cheers!

Alfred n the Fettuc was among the more health conscious drinkers

Andy Panthro joined in with one of the better named beers out there. Hell Beck!

My personal favourite entry was Canageek's laboratory ethonol. I assume you didn't drink that!

My attempt at Finnish translation tells me Ilmari enjoyed a nice glass of "essence of cow"

Lars-Erik displayed true class with a lovely drop of Italian red wine

Ever the professional, MacDuff drank only water while tracking down Jessie Bains

Tk surprised me with Tuatara brew from New Zealand

Zenic Reverie joined in the celebration, but went for a sports drink due to being a bit under the weather

I'll have to think about how we celebrate the next milestone, which I think will be held at the 250,000 view mark. In the meantime, it's time to move on to Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders!

Game 22: Psycho - Final Rating

This should be fun! The whole time I was playing Psycho I was thinking about how much I was going to enjoy applying the PISSED rating to it. The game is far and away the worst game on the list so far and I really hope it sets a record that will never be beaten (mostly because I really don’t want to play through a game even nearly as bad as this one ever again). So...how low can it go?

Puzzles and Solvability
There are really only four puzzles in Psycho. How does the player open the locked doors in the house, where is the curator’s medicine hidden, how does the player defeat the ghost woman in the attic, and what is the combination to Norman’s safe? Three of those puzzles are solved by simple item hunting, while the other is pretty much based on luck. If the game worked the way it was intended, it would be finished on the first attempt by even the most inexperienced adventurer in under an hour.

The few puzzles that are part of the game are obvious and easy to solve

However, with the many inexcusable bugs, most players will be forced to restart their game many, many times to be able to solve those four simple tasks, and I know I’m not alone in wondering whether that was entirely intentional to make the game appear longer. In any case, Psycho can be completed in under five minutes once you know what to do and don’t run into any game ending bugs. That can hardly be called a game, and I have no option but to give a Puzzle and Solvability rating of 0. I wasn’t even sure before playing this game whether I would ever give a 0 for any category, but since I’ve already given 1’s out for this category previously, I’m left with no choice.

Rating: 0

If they intentionally made the medicine's presence random, they should be ashamed of themselves!

Interface and Inventory
Let’s start with the actual interface. In all honesty, the interface is usable. It’s rarely obvious which verb actions should be used, and the game often makes you go around the long way (View, then Dig, then Search, then Take, just to get the key from the vase), but it functionally works. I never once used the Pull/Push verb though (did anyone else?). The save and load functions also work, but I have to wonder why there’s no restart option. I was forced to close my DOSBox session and restart it every time I ran into a bug (which was often). The scoring system is completely laughable, with numerous instances in the game giving the player the opportunity to earn infinite points.

The fact that I can pick up the same clue infinite times is stupid. The fact that the clue is blank is beyond derision!

I find it difficult to describe how shocking the movement is in Psycho. Given the game is all about finding items and applying them (albeit only a few times), the fact that your movement is limited to very strict pathways through each room is ridiculous. There were lots of times where I basically got stuck, and had to move just a tiny bit up or down and then try to go left or right to escape the clutches of the invisible maze. Basically it’s the worst collision detection I’ve ever seen in a game! Finally, there’s the inventory, which admittedly has the best graphics in the whole game (which isn’t saying much). There is only room for eight items and that’s all you’ll ever find. I was unable to select or examine any of them, as they were all controlled by Eat, Fire or Use.
Rating: 1

When even wide open spaces are difficult to navigate, you know you have problems

Story and Setting
Story?! What story? A detective is tasked with entering Norman Bates’ house to find some stolen jewels and free a curator. He finds a skeleton key and a tranquillizer gun to dispatch the unexplained spectral inhabitants, rescues the curator from the basement, and uses the safe combination that the curator has in his possession for some completely unknown reason to get the jewels. End of “story”! Norman Bates doesn’t even show up and nothing else happens at all. Why are there ghosts in the house and why do they do nothing but put the player to sleep? Why does shooting the first ghost woman make her disappear, but shooting the second one without shooting the first not work? Why does the detective need to complete the task prior to 6:00AM? That last one is half answered by the note suggesting someone called Max is coming in the morning to collect the jewels, but that information just creates even more questions. In the end it’s hard to care, as it’s all so stupidly handled.
Rating: 1

Just think of the cool adventure game you could have in this setting with a bit of effort!

Sound and Graphics
Saying there’s no sound at all in Psycho isn’t completely true, as there are some very minor effects such as when the gun is fired, but for 99% of the time the game is completely silent. That may actually be a blessing, as given the quality of the graphics I assume the sound would have been unbearable. Not only does the game revert back to the CGA palette 1 that appeared in games such as Tass Times in Tonetown, Uninvited and Shadowgate, the result is far worse than any of those earlier attempts. The main character looks like a skeleton pirate monkey and the animation is less than adequate. Below the Root was far more impressive in both sound and graphics, and given that game came out four years prior, that’s just not cool.
Rating: 1

Aaarrrggghhh me hearties!!! I've come for me jewelzzz!!!

Environment and Atmosphere
This is probably the toughest category to rate overall. On the one hand, wandering a house filled with ghosts, not to mention one that contains a séance room with satanic symbols, should be atmospheric by default. But the fact the spirits of the house do nothing but put you to sleep temporarily makes their presence far less menacing. The laughable graphics and lack of sound are also highly detrimental factors, so in the end the only reason there’s any atmosphere or suspense at all comes down to the knowledge that a game ending bug could pop up at any moment. That’s hardly a reason for praise! I guess I have to acknowledge that there are some reasonably creepy scenes in Psycho, such as the knife wielding ghost woman in the bathroom and the skeleton of mother in the attic.
Rating: 2

Alright, there are at least a few eerie scenes, but it really feels wrong to say anything nice about this game

Dialogue and Setting
Like everything else in Psycho, dialogue is extremely minimal. Apart from a few useless clues strewn around the house, the only dialogue is made up of one line responses to single action keys. Some of these responses are very misleading, such as the one in the kitchen that describes stairs that the character could have no knowledge of, but the biggest issue is undoubtedly the grammar. Making every room description follow the words “I found” was never going to work, and some of the results are hilariously bad. The opening scene description is “I found it’s dark and spooky out here” and the closing one is “You freed Curator & got Jewels!” I think that sums up the dialogue in the whole game really.
Rating: 1

I'm bored with taking grammatical potshots

Yep, you read that correctly. I’m giving Psycho a 10! I actually think I was lenient on it too! While I look forward to seeing what Dave the Turnip is producing for the blog when it comes to rating range characters, I’m happy that I’ve finally been able to pull out good old LeChuck before the new set comes in. I’m going to have to be careful not to compare the next game, Zak McKracken, to Psycho! It will likely seem a masterpiece in comparison!

Companion Assist Points for Psycho

It’s time to dish out (and perhaps deduct) some points for those that predicted things and assisted me along the way.

25 CAPS for Zenic Reverie

* 20 CAPs for being a true companion and playing the game with me

* 5 CAPs for answering my question regarding caffeine pills

20 CAPs for Lars-Erik

* 20 CAPs for being a true companion and playing the game with me

20 CAPs for TBD

* 10 CAPs for being the closest score predictor

* 10 CAPs for discovering the real difference between difficulty levels

20 CAPs for Tk

* 20 CAPs for celebrating the 100000 hits milestone

10 CAPs for daubeur

* 10 CAPs for solving the cowboy hat riddle

5 CAPs for Charles

* 5 CAPs for half-solving the cowboy hat riddle only to be thwarted by the evil Adventure Gamer parser technology

Game 22: Psycho - Won!

Detective Journal Entry 2: “I did it! I’ve rescued the curator and recovered the missing jewels! It didn’t take me long to find the curator locked away in the basement, but he was in pretty bad shape when I found him. I then searched the rest of the house for his medicine, which was just as well, as he gave me the combination for Norman’s safe as soon as I gave it to him. Then it was just a matter of reaching the safe, which did involve avoiding a horrifying spectral woman in the attic. I’m just grateful Norman didn’t turn up at any stage! I certainly wouldn’t want to confront such a demented criminal, particularly on his home turf. It’s time to leave this place once and for all!”

The Kitchen: Where the nightmare temporarily ended a couple of days ago

Let’s get straight into it! At the end of my last post I’d gotten my hands on a skeleton key and made my way into the kitchen of Norman Bates’ delightfully CGA house. The game was telling me that I really shouldn’t risk taking the stairs that I couldn’t possibly have known were there because I hadn’t actually opened the door that was actually on the other side of the room when I Viewed it (deep breath). While I was walking around the room Viewing objects as closely as I could (which wasn’t very close due to all the invisible barriers), I suddenly found myself in the “butler’s pantry”. This is one of the other things about the game that I found annoying. Doorways on the top, left and right of rooms are visible and need to be opened to enter, but the player has no visibility of doors at the bottom of screens unless they just try walking into it, and there's no need to open those doors.

Out of one kitchen and into the next.

Forgetting about the stairs that “I can’t risk” for a while, I began exploring my new surroundings. I couldn’t find anything of interest in the pantry itself, so I opened and hopped into the trolley-operated lift on the right hand side of the screen. Once in there I could go either up or down using the arrow keys. I went up one screen and found a gun with tranquilizers. Score! I then checked out what was down, and found myself looking into a gardener’s room. Hopping out, I could now see my character was holding a gun instead of a magnifying glass. Whenever any of the pesky ghosts or dogs came on screen, I could now press the F key to shoot them. In response the spirits would disappear, meaning I didn’t have to worry about getting put to sleep from here on in. At least, that’s what I thought!

Just what one needs to defeat ghosts. Tranquilizers!

As usual, there was nothing to pick up in the gardener’s room, so I moved through into the basement. There were two things I could View in the basement. A pile of coal and a locked pair of doors! The skeleton key didn’t open the doors, so I had to start thinking about where I might be able to find another key. In the meantime, I used the Dig command on the coal and found...a key! Just when I thought I was going to have to use my hunting skills, the item I needed for the puzzle was approximately one metre away. I picked up the key and noticed rather oddly that there was still a key on the ground. I picked up the key again...and again...and again...but there was still a key on the floor! Clearly another bug, and once again I could have stood in the one spot picking up infinite keys and gaining infinite points for my trouble.

Rather hilariously, the game is actually aware of the bug and accepts it!

Having much earlier decided that getting a high score was a pointless exercise, I opened the doors with my key(s). Inside was the curator, strapped to a chair! Instead of removing his restraints or actually trying to communicate, I apparently “found a pressing need to find the curator’s heart medicine”. How did I even know that the jacket in the entrance was the curators and therefore that the message about medicine had anything to do with him? So let me get this straight. Norman kidnapped the curator, but stopped to remove his jacket and hang it neatly on the stand by the entrance to his house before locking him in the basement to die! Anyway, there seemed no point questioning the game, and none of the actions seemed to do anything, so I was going to have to Leave the room and go find the medicine. There was one problem though. I couldn’t leave!

Oh thank goodness! I'm saved!!! Hey...where are you going!? At least untie me you bastard!

I pressed the L key, but was told I couldn’t leave here. Not only that, all of a sudden I was faced with an image of someone sitting on the steps of the house, with “Morning! Oh well better luck next time!” in the message console! So...had I got stuck in the basement? If so, why? Or did I run out of time? A quick look at the time showed me that it was 6:01 AM, so I started to wonder whether I had to recover the jewels and rescue the curator before 6:00 to win the game. Rather unsurprisingly, pressing P to play again merely resulted in a C prompt appearing, meaning I had to close down my DOSBox session and start again. Thankfully it took about one minute to get back to the kitchen, where this time I was determined to see what was down the risky stairs.

Is that supposed to be me on the steps? Did I become black overnight? Is this some sort of racial commentary?

It turned out that the stairs led to the rear of the house, where I was unable to do anything at all. Yes, very risky indeed! The obvious thing to do at this point was to hunt down the curator’s medicine before heading down to the basement. I tried to think of places I hadn’t yet checked out. There were the two doors leading off the dining room, but the skeleton key didn’t open either of those. There was the door to the left in the butler’s pantry, but that took me to the dining room. That’s right! The skeleton key can’t open the right side door from within the dining room, but it does let you enter the dining room from the butler’s pantry.

I found here's another bad looking sentence

I began to wonder whether I’d missed something from the lift and it turned out I had. Going up one screen took me to the storage shelf with the gun, but going up one more screen took me to the second floor of the house. The medicine had to be up there somewhere! There were three doors leading off the hallway, along with some stairs leading up to what I assumed would be a third floor. I took the first door on the right and found myself in the game room. I tried Viewing everything while walking around, but found absolutely nothing. To make matters worse, there’s one part of the room where if you enter, you’re never leaving. I got stuck next to the water cooler (I assume that’s what it is) and I even restored and went back there to see whether it would happen every time. It did!

This should have been called the Game Over Room

The second door to the right off the hallway took me to a bathroom. As soon as I entered I was confronted by a woman’s spirit. I somehow pressed the F key in time and it disappeared. In the bathroom I found a medicine cabinet, which seemed an ideal place to find some medicine. Unfortunately there was none in there, although I did get another useless clue. I guess it would have been pretty stupid for the curator’s medicine to be hidden in Norman’s medicine cabinet, but by this stage I wouldn’t have put it past the game. There was nothing else in the bathroom, so I left with the intention of checking out the last door off the second floor hallway.

Not finding the medicine I needed in the cabinet was the only realistic part of Psycho

The last door took me into the master bedroom. I used the View action on everything, but the only thing I could discover was a closet off the bottom of the screen. Inside the closet I found all the curator’s stuff. I have no idea why the curator’s stuff is in Norman’s closet. He seems to have packed his bags in anticipation of being kidnapped! Regardless, I was absolutely one hundred percent positive that using the Search action was going to reveal the curator’s medicine. I was therefore pretty stunned when the game responded with “Nothing’s hidden here”! What? Why let me discover the curator’s stuff hidden in Norman’s closet if there was nothing in there I needed? Oh well, the medicine had to be somewhere on the third floor then!

Go pack your bags Mr Curator! That's right, I'm kidnapping you! Make sure you pack a toothbrush won't you!

I made my way up to the third floor and found there were two doors to check out. I took the door on the left and found myself in a very Uninvited looking séance room. Of course Norman has séances! He’s a serial killer after all! All serial killers hold satanic rituals in preparation for their ghastly deeds! I uncovered yet another worthless clue in the séance room before taking the door at the left hand side of the screen. Now I was in the attic, with another crazy ghost woman coming at me. This time I had plenty of time to shoot her though, and was then able to make my way through to the other end of the attic. It’s there that I found a safe, along with the skeleton of what I assume is Norman’s mother from the movie.

If I stand in this satanic ritual symbol and you stand in that one, maybe we'll be able to communicate with each other!

I tried opening the safe, but it seemed I was going to need a combination. I couldn’t think of anywhere in the house that I’d seen any numbers at all, but after satisfying myself that there was no other way to open the safe, I left to go look. I spent the next fifteen minutes going through every room in the house looking for anything I might have overlooked, but came up with nothing. I started to wonder whether the curator’s medicine was really supposed to be in the master bedroom closet like I'd predicted. Perhaps the game had just screwed up! The more I thought about it, the more I thought that was completely likely, so I restarted.

A boy's best friend is his mother

A few minutes later I was back in the closet, and this time the Search action did actually reveal the medicine. That’s absolutely inexcusable, and I’ll be punishing Psycho severely for such a terrible bug! Imagine if the game had of been ten times as long, and the only way to get passed that section was to start again, with no guarantee the medicine would be there that time either?! This was not the only major bug I found during my play throughs mind you. Probably half of the times I went to the curator in the basement, I was unable to leave the room, and then confronted by a game over screen for no reason. I did absolutely nothing different the other times and was able to leave without any problem at all. Very confusing and irritating!

But...you said there was nothing hidden here! You didn't...lie to me...did you?!

Anyway, I was eager to be done with the game, so I took the medicine down to the curator. I Used the medicine on him and was given the combination. Finally, I could head back up to the safe and see what was inside! I figured it was likely to be the jewels, and was therefore quite intrigued to find out where and when Norman might appear in the game. After all, no game like this would be complete without some sort of climactic confrontation! However, Psycho had one further surprise for me! When I took the combination to the attic, I faced the ghost woman just as I did the first time, but this time shooting her had no effect! I clearly remembered walking into the room and just shooting her the first time around, but now I could shoot at her as many times as I wanted and nothing happened! Unlike all the other spirits in the game, if the woman touched me I would sleep all the way through to 6:00AM, ending my game!

Why won't you die!!!!

I won’t bore you by describing everything I tried to get past the ghost woman. I restarted two or three times before suddenly I was able to shoot her again! Through trial and error I finally figured out why it was that I could or couldn’t defeat her. If I successfully shot her in the bathroom on level two, then I was able to shoot her on level three. If I skipped the bathroom on level two or was touched by the woman there, I was unable to defeat her on level three. No explanation of this is given while playing the game and it took a bit of luck to actually figure out what was going on. Once I did get past her though, with the combination in my possession, I headed straight to the safe and opened it. The jewels were there and...

I've seen enough movies and played enough games to know that Norman is about to appear. Right?

...the game was finished! So unless I’m mistaken, which I could be given how poor the graphics are, Norman Bates does not appear once during the entirety of Psycho. I can now finish the game in well under five minutes, which has to be some sort of record for an adventure game. What about the multiple difficulty settings I hear you ask! Is it possible these add more challenging puzzles or even add extra sections to the game? The answer is no! The only difference from what I can tell is that the spectral inhabitants move faster, giving the game a more reflex based challenge. It’s still piss easy though, and I would have finished it in half the time if it weren’t for the many inexcusable bugs that made an already terrible game indescribably appalling. Rest assured that I’ll give it my best shot in the Final Rating post though.

The fact that pressing P doesn't actually restart the game is one of its most well thought out features!

Session Time: 1 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 00 minutes