NOTE: Screen shots and information presented in this article are based on a pre-release version of Frankenstein and are subject to change before final release. This article is not a review.
It was a dark and stormy night. . .Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron gather near the shores of a dark lake one night in 1818 and decide to hold a writing contest. From this dark partnership is formed the chilling tale of a medical experiment gone awry: Frankenstein, or Prometheus Unbound. The story touches on themes of creation, scientific ethics, and reincarnation, with all the hallmarks of a classic horror story. Frankenstein is very well-received by the Victorian public, and becomes Mary Shelley’s best known work.
In Interplay’s new interactive game Frankenstein: Through The Eyes of the Monster, you see the world through the eyes of a monster assembled from reanimated human parts. You can wander freely about Frankenstein’s lab, admonished from time to time by the maniacal Dr. Frankenstein (played to its campy hilt by veteran actor Tim Curry). The finished game will consist of hundreds of individually rendered photorealistic scenes, blended with live-action video. The interactive demo allows you to explore three levels of Frankenstein’s lab, which is filled with all kinds of cool stuff to explore, including a Tesla coil, spooky portraits on the walls, and formaldehyde-filled jars with preserved remains. In many ways, Frankenstein: Through The Eyes of the Monster owes as much to Boris Karloff and the black-and-white horror films of the 1930’s as it does to Mary Shelley’s original.
 
As the game begins, you awake in the middle of Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, a darkly gothic laboratory in the center of a great stone tower. The laboratory is filled with bottles, levers, and strange equipment of all sorts. Each of the scenes in Frankenstein is lavishly detailed and rendered extremely smoothly. As you click the cursor on the side of the screen, you can turn around and see a different view. One image “slides” across the other, or dissolves in depending on how you are moving. The interface and transitions invite comparisons to Myst or The 7th Guest. Frankenstein’s interface is very simple: all you do is click the cursor on areas that interest you (in the finished version the cursor will change shape when you over a “hot spot”.) The scene transitions that we saw were not as smooth as The 7th Guest—you don’t “fly” over to a certain spot—but certainly give the feeling of motion. When you click on something you can pick up, such as the crystal on the bookshelf, it will “follow” the cursor until you place it on something else. This simplifies the interface somewhat, the better to enjoy the full screen graphics and surroundings.
One appealing feature of Frankenstein is the way it promises to reveal more and more of the plot to you as you explore the lab. Just as the Frankenstein monster had to learn about his surroundings in the original, you learn more about your birth in bits and pieces through scraps of your creator’s notes, his scientific scrawl on the backboard, and Tim Curry’s hilarious, over-the-top portrayal of Dr. Frankenstein. In fact, once you are in the laboratory, spend some time poring through Dr. Frankenstein’s notes. The more you understand about yourself, the more you will know about what you need to do to solve the game.
 
The integration of video into Frankenstein makes this game far more than a static series of rendered scenes. There are some moments of interaction with video characters: at one point, you must steal a crystal right from under the nose of Dr. Frankenstein himself! Each time he looks in your direction, you must quickly pull your hand away, or risk a scolding from a stern-looking Tim Curry. (Try getting caught a few times!) The video clips really make this game come alive, and their seamless integration into the various scenes give the game a spooky, lifelike sense of gothic drama (check out the preserved heads in the jars on the second floor!)
Overall, Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster promises to be an exciting new game along the same lines of Myst and The 7th Guest. It integrates adventure game puzzles with state-of-the-art photorealistic graphics and seamless video, and uses an elegant interface that is functional and unobtrusive. Tim Curry is the perfect choice for the “mad scientist” (remember the Rocky Horror Picture Show?) and infuses the game with a freshness and sense of humor that makes it very enjoyable to play. All of these features help create a spooky, dark mood that is well-suited to the original Frankenstein story. The full game should be out in sometime in March and looks like it will be to die for. Until then, be sure to check out the demo below.
Demo Instructions: Click on the buttom below and install the Frankenstein files to your hard drive. Then run the Frankenstein demo from your hard drive. Make sure the IMG Mar/95 CD-ROM is mounted.
