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Phantasmagoria (DOS/WIN3.x)By: The J Man
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Phantasmagoria. The game that made us all wonder if sweet King's Quest/Mixed Up Mother Goose designer Roberta Williams had secret "daddy issues." The game spoken of in mostly hushed tones and shocked awe - "Did you SEE that part where that girl got killed?" "Did you SEE that rape scene!?" And the game that did or did not revolutionize the "interactive movie," depending on who you talk to. Does it deserve all of this ruckus it has stirred up over the years? Yes. Is it the scariest game ever made? Sadly, no. I read a book once about various histories of ghosts and illusions, so I was lucky enough to recognize the meaning behind the fairly obscure title. A "phantasmagoria" was a term for an old Vaudville-era show using an early, crude form of a slide projector (called a magic lantern) and some silk screens positioned just to the sides of the stage, to project the images of spirits and ghosts "floating" in the theatre. The term makes for a fitting title. The game is about an old Vaudville magician named Carno, famous for his horrific stage acts and gruesome ghost shows, and the couple who inherit his twisted estate. It also is unintentionally a fitting description for the game itself - a lot of magic lanterns and silk screens that produce great-looking effects, but distract you from the story and terror that aren't there.
You play as mystery novelist Adrienne Delaney (Victoria Morsell). Her husband Don (David Homb) is a magazine photographer who happens across the old island and mansion estate of Zoltan "Carno" Carnovasch while on one of his shoots. Apparently it is for sale, and game opens in your first day in the new home. This gives an excuse for you to have not fully explored the place yet, and you being a mystery writer and all, set out to poke around the strange mansion. Along the way, you'll discover a bit of the history of Carno and the house, meet some new friends, find the expected bevy of hidden secrets, and unintentionally release a demon that inhabits the body of your husband and turns him into a raging asshole. The game takes the digital actor idea Sierra used in creating its characters for later versions of Police Quest, and applies it to video. The actors are shot in front of a bluescreen, and composited into an elaborate digital background. In theory, this is meant to create the feeling of watching a movie and directing its outcome, while being cost-effective by using real actors without building any actual sets. Roberta Williams also stated in many interviews that she believed having real people as the characters was crucial to creating horror and empathy for them, and I suppose I see her point. Yet in practice, the execution isn't a great deal different than any other adventure game, and the human actor isn't treated or handled differently than an animated character.
As this is an interactive movie, there must be equal balance between the interacting and the movie. I must give credit to Williams; she mostly avoids getting enamoured with the idea of making a movie, and keeps the intent of making a game at the forefront. Non-interactive sequences are thankfully brief, and mostly relegated to a opening and closing movie for each chapter, and dialogue or object examination scenes within. The other sections, as Adrienne navigates the digital environment, are frequently edited down to the start of her walk and a new shot of the end of her arrival at her destination. I don't think it ever took more than a second to move from place to place, and a "fast forward" button has been included to jump ahead to the end of any movement cycle. I originally shied away from this, worried that I would miss an intentional scare if something was supposed to happen during a walking scene. This does not occur, and if you accidentally skip a description or observation, you can usually just click the item again and the scene will repeat. Any key plot scenes are shown in a separate movie format that use the escape key to skip instead of the button. Another brilliant move is to divide the game appropriately across seven chapters, and seven discs. This limits your disc-swapping to the start of a new chapter, and you can explore the entire mansion grounds without having to switch discs for certain rooms or unique events. There's only one section where you must retreat to a previous disc, but this is for the longest "plot revelation" movie sequence in the game. This system works quite well, and is very appreciated. The most important thing that can be said about the graphics is that they match video and prerendered graphics pretty well. The video characters exhibit some pixelation not present in the backgrounds, but this is light and not anywhere near Sega CD level. Otherwise, spill from the bluescreen is negligible or simply not there, lighting on the characters match the lighting of the virtual space, and the scale is appropriate and believable. The non-interactive movie sequences can be seen in a full-frame (a little more than half of the available screen) format, or a quarter-screen with scanlines option for slower computers. The smaller screen is serviceable, but the full screen option offers a complete image, is the same size as the rest of the game and thus more seamless, and is the obvious choice if you are able to use it. The game can be run in either DOS or Windows (DOS for this review) and either one seems to function and look identical. Your choice should then be based on which OS gives you the best performance.
The characters are a varied group, all performed well by a collection of TV and B-movie actors. There's a full range from you and your husband, to the antique store owner who has a lot of convenient information on Carno. There's an even more convenient hundred-year-old man (Douglas Seale) who lived with Carno back in the day, and has a voice like the Emperor from Star Wars. He interestingly gives one of the best performances, and I found myself really trying to listen to what he had to say through his (hopefully played-up) frail, frightened voice. Adrienne is portrayed well by Morsell and makes for a suitable heroine. She is not the ditzy "lock the front door and run upstairs when the killer is in the house" kind of woman popular in these kinds of stories, and the mystery writer profession is presumably a license to be inquisitive and clever. She spends an excessive amount of time preening in various mirrors while unobservantly missing paranormal activities behind her, but otherwise, I suppose the nicest thing that can be said is that you don't want her to die. I can't say the same for the other major characters. There's a silly bag lady and her oafish son who feature into the plot, who elicit more eyebrow-raising than laughs. Their purpose in the story is unclear, though they do help solve a few puzzles from time to time. I suppose they are meant to be the comic relief, which these stories are encouraged to include to lighten the tension. This story has little to no tension to begin with, making them simply silly and overly hammy. Your husband is portrayed well, even as the demons take him over and he starts to become more crass and violent. Unfortunately, his final stage is a real groaner. It's not a fault of the actor, it's a fault of the direction he was given to "be a madman." He runs around, cackling with evil glee, in one of those tired "look at how EVIL I am!" performances, like a psychotic child trying to get Mommy's attention. Carno (Robert Miano), who you will see in the expected visions of the past, does a much better job at being methodical, reserved of word, and scary.
The deaths are a different story, probably more graphic and imaginative that you have heard or would expect, and are certainly above a typical mainstream Jason/Freddy picture. No one just gets stabbed in the chest with a knife. I don't want to give these away any more than that, as they are pretty much the most fun of the show, but they are not for the squeamish. Part of what makes them so gory, I think, is that they're almost always brightly lit, while film usually puts such results in shadow. This is offset by keeping them to movie sequences. You can never click on a corpse and view a close-up still, like a typical adventure item, or allow the gory scene to be up on your screen for more than a second. A password-locked censorship option exists, but if you're too squeamish or too young, you don't need to be playing this game anyway. I was originally disappointed with the speed at which I was blazing through the discs. Indeed, the crucial plot-elements of a chapter will only take about thirty minutes per disc to drive through. However, this is still a Sierra adventure, and exploration is rewarded. Instead of points, you will usually find extra backstory, or visions and corpses tucked in out-of-the-way areas. If you get particularly stuck on what to do next, an in-game hint system exists in the form of a talking skull on your interface bar. Clicking the skull will give a direct clue (i.e. "Someone waits inside the house") without apparent penalty. The skull will not lead you to these extra scenes, however, and it's almost worth going through every room in each chapter to avoid missing anything. It at least helps to colour the motives and emotional state of Adrienne, if you assume these are all scenes you're "meant" to have seen by the end. In most cases, it will be quite obvious when something in a room has changed, or when a new discovery is available, so it's worth popping your head in the door as you pass by.
This game, according to Sierra's own marketing, cost four million dollars to make. To get that kind of money as a game designer, you'd have to be sleeping with the CEO of the company! [drum fill] I suppose the real question is if this shows with the final product, and if all that money spent translates in some meaningful way to the player. I was impressed with the graphics, and the skillful marriage between a pre-rendered background and a full-video actor. 7th Guest toyed with the idea, but to sustain it through an entire game, and sustain it believably, is no small accomplishment. I was legitimately surprised, I'll even bump that up to "shocked," at the level of gore and graphic violence they were able to get away with for the time. I suppose this was possible by billing it as an "interactive movie" and not a "game" in the Mario sense. It's also not over-the-top or pathetically inappropriate, like Christina Ricci in The Opposite of Sex trying to say "Look, FUCK Casper, I'm a real, grown-up actress now and I'm going to prove it by chain-smoking and showing my tits." It is, however, surprisingly rank stuff for a game. But I was incredibly disappointed with the familiar plot, and lack of real story innovation outside of the macabre carnival-kills. The game does a fair job of pacing out its story and holding its cards, but there's also a lot of building up to nothing, such as the ol' "what's behind THAT room that's been locked through all these chapters?" and then, surprise, it's just another room. The haunted house/possessed lover line been done before, and better, in previous films and some games. I can't see this being an "homage" either, or an attempt to turn classic B-movies from the 50s into an interactive medium. That is, admittedly, a lot what it feels like. It's a plot trying too hard to scare you in the same ways people have tried to scare you before. It also makes little use of the interactive medium to bring the horror to a personal level or have you make decisions. Instead, you simply guide the protagonist around and observe the results. It's an impressive technical achievement, and a decent try at an "interactive movie," but certainly your avatar on the screen is more scared than you will be. -reviewed 10/20/06 - game copyright 1995 Sierra On-Line
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Boogey boogey boogey.
"No honey, not tonight. You smell like demons."
