"One of the spookiest games ever"

Phantasmagoria is one of the best interactive "movie" games ever, whether that is good or bad can be discussed, but its quality, presentation, story, music and rather brutal special effects cannot be denied.

Story
Adrienne and her husband Don moves into the Carnovasch Mansion, a place with a really freaky background. Adrienne is often plagued by grotesque and horrible nightmares after she moved in, and she starts exploring the mansion. At first, everything seems to be okay, but eventually things start happening that turns the place into a living nightmare...from which she might never wake up from.

The story is excellent. Its presented through heavy usage of cutscenes, and there are no boring parts where you are forced to read page up and page down to learn more about the story, because it is all nicely presented and it steadily descends into spooky madness.
Score: 9/10

Gameplay
Phantasmagoria is at heart, a very typical point and click Adventure game. You move from picture to picture, looking for clues and objects to interact with. You can then combine items, investigate them and use them on other things. So, to sum it up, the gameplay is simple, yet effective. A game focusing so heavily on the story that Phantasmagoria does, needs to have a simple and fast interface that doesnt get in the way for the presentation, and in that sense, Phantasmagoria succeeds.

The game comes on 7 CD`s, each CD being one Chapter, filled to the max with heavy cutscenes using live actors put in a prerendered environment. Whenever you get stuck, you can request help by a mysterious skull, but one should not play with the Supernatural for long, so its not recommended that you overdo it. Besides, the game is a bit too short to be looking at hints and guides, which is one of the less good parts of the game. Some chapters can last a long, long time, while others seems to end very quickly and just contain movies, which is a bit of letdown, even if the movies are very exciting.

There is actually very little to say about the gameplay. Simple but effective is the key word, and just like 7th Guest and 11th Hour, the interface allows the focus to be put on the cinematics, story and presentation, something these games usually does expertly.
Score: 8/10

Graphics
Lets be honest. Yes, the graphics does not look good anymore, so if you are the type who complains about anything looking worse than Half Life 2, you should let this game be. However, I`m not thinking about comparing Phantasmagoria to Half Life 2, because not only are they from completely different time periods of gaming, but it would simply be wrong to judge Phantasmagoria based on how it looks today, instead of how it looked.

The graphics in Phantasmagoria are partly pre-rendered graphics, and partly live actors. The Live Actors are "pasted" into to the pre-rendered backgrounds by filming them against Blue Screens, and while it doesnt look too good all the time(Outdoors look a little druggy, with strange colors and light), it usually comes out on top. Even back in the days the game was released, the outdoor scenes looked a little awkward, but it didnt really reduce the mood.
The indoors fares a whole lot better, and a lot more detail has been given the mansion. Pictures of the previous inhabitants are placed on the wall and many of the rooms are nicely decorated and detailed, making for a believable environment.

The Cutscenes that are shown in Full Motion Videos, suffers a bit from low quality, but its fully watchable, and they suffer a lot less from the prerendered backgrounds than the actual playing. It might have something to do with that both the Live Actors and the Background becomes a bit blurry and seems to melt together much better in the FMV than when having a contrast between the pre-renedered backgrounds and the playing character. Again, its not a big deal, but its worth noticing.

One thing that this game has, is gore. It has quite a lot of it, and is definitely not for the squeamish type. Its visual and right in your face, and some scenes are rather sickening. What is good, is that the game never tries to hide it, and it never tries to hide the fact that it is a horror game. The gore is done with the Live Actors, and you`ll see some extremely brutal scenes. There are also scenes of rape and sexuality, and while they are not as visual as the gore part, they were enough to create a ruckus in many countries, causing the game to get censored and banned everywhere.

Even better if you ask me.
Score: 6/10

Sound
Even the most amazing visual movies and games, is nothing without sound. Luckily, Roberta Williams(The creator of Phantasmagoria) knew this, and hired Mark Seibert to make the music. She really did get the right man. The Music is both haunting and beautiful, like the song in the Intro, a powerful piece with choir and latin choruses sung out, and later on during a tender moment, a beautiful piano piece. There are mostly real life instruments used during cutscenes, while Midi Music(High quality however) is used for the normal gameplay music. Yes, go ahead and make a grim, but know this, the normal music is VERY good and it only makes the game more spooky.

The voice acting could be a bit better. Its absolutely acceptable, especially Adrienne, but the voiceactor behind Don could have blown some more life into his role, and sounds a bit bored. Again, its nothing too bad, but those are small things that detracts.
Score: 8/10

Summary
If you have a strong stomach, a tolerance for aged pre-rendered graphics, love the use of live actors in games, AND love horror, then you must play Phantasmagoria. There`s no guarantee you`ll love it, but its visual impact and powerful story and presentation is far superior to the so-called horror movies released today. I`d take Phantasmagoria over anything released lately. Its a good old horror story that manages to both scare and entertain you for a whole night, and you just might find yourself replaying it to take one more trip back to the wicked mansion.
Score: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/05