A creative and ambitious horror project from the mid 90's, designed by Roberta Williams, who is the co-founder of Sierra Entertainment. Phantasmagoria is another memory as a young kid which used to haunt me.
Combining 3D graphics with live action, similar to The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, the caliber regarding the overall quality however is better in my opinion. This point and click adventure might look dated today, but back in the day, it was a controversial entry.
Sex, gore and general spookiness made it a memorably video game, especially when one looks at plenty of the dead scenes involved, plus there's enough foreboding, cat scares and mystery to keep you company.
Granted, it's a short playthrough, especially when you know what to do, and the easy puzzles plus the really helphul red skeleton in the corner who can examine items and spell out hints for you makes this a casual invitation from a gameplay experience, but I liked this.
It oozes a 90's feeling with the silly acting, the presentation and the silly music, plus there are several ways to deal with puzzles and the climax towards the ending can vary too. The story is basically about stopping an evil curse and the demon it emits inside possessed bodies.
It's also easy to go unnoticed of various scary events including more death scenes and supernatural stuff, so it's advisable to explore and backtrack to rooms as you go through the chapters, they are worth seeing.
Phantasmagoria is effective, uncommon and nowadays both goofy and gory to experience. It certainly is a well known title of the 90's, at it stands out as both a comedy and a horror, depending on the player.
Rating: 7.0
It's especially a special case to me, as my brother used to scare me as a kid while showing off some scary and bloody scenes. Your playable character this time is Curtis, a technical writer at a conspiracy company who happens to be bisexual and many people like him.
The story unfolds as Curtis starts experiencing strange hallucination scenes and other oddities while performing his daily routine of work, home and several romances. Meanwhile, mysterious murders start happening, and 1 co-worker has the tendency to go completely wild.
The scares are many, varied and better in my opinion, ranging from hallucinations and evil voices, to supernatural alien activity and gory deaths. The climax is neat as it features 5 scenes where you will have to act quickly, or else you will die.
That final scene is the one I remember the most as a kid, as a young Curtis tells his insane mom that he loves her, and starts hugging. Other than that, the story went too crazy with it's alien elements, but I liked the rest of the plot.
A Puzzle of Flesh might actually surprise you with the amount of content, secrets and easter eggs it provides during the short stay you will be at WynTech. It's an FMV horror game that isn't shy with showing off with more sexual and gory content than it's predecessor.
Rating: 7.2
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