masterpiece. Told and retold again in a multitude of mediums, almost ad nauseam. A mentally unstable scientist pushing the limits of scientific theory to reanimate human flesh in a bizarre experiment high in a tower of the castle in which he dwells. However, if there is one realm where this timeless story about the evils of science induced change has not been utterly exploited it would have to be in the area of computer games. Enter Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster, from MacPlay and Amazing Media.
You are Phillip, a decent member of society wrongly accused of murdering your own daughter Gabriel. While the opening credits run you learn that you (Phillip) were arrested, sentenced to death and hanged until dead. Very dead. Bad day. Despite the obvious finality of the situation consciousness somehow filters back through the vast emptiness of death. From the surroundings emerges a shadowy figure of a man standing above you. “You seem to be doing fine,” he asserts, and then conducts a ‘toast’ (a morphine injection) for both of you. Once again, blackness. When you awake the second time you realize that you have already died, but are still alive. This startling realization combined with the discovery that you have one arm of a man and one of a women shocks you into jumping up from the table to survey the surroundings, and thus the game begins.
Oddly enough, Dr. Frankenstein is hovering around his work area in the castle and pays little attention to your doings. In fact, he encourages you get up an move around, something which the glorious graphics and sound would prompt you to do anyway. From this moment on you must use your powers of deduction to piece together the sequence of bizarre events that landed you in Dr. Frankensteins castle with a piecemeal body and a splitting headache. Careful inspection of Dr. Frankenstein’s notes and theories will help to assemble the information needed to solve the Mystery. A Mystery that although not initially apparent, evolves as the game progresses.
Frankenstein will undoubtedly be compared to Myst. I want to make it clear that this in no way is suggesting the team that created Frankenstein copied from Myst; in fact, these comparisons are necessary to elucidate more clearly what an excellent title Frankenstein is. Unfortunately, the association is absolutely unavoidable for several reasons. Firstly, the point and click interface with hypercardesque transitions immediately screams Myst. Secondly, the quality of the graphics is astounding, superior to Myst. Lastly, Frankenstein’s music is a dead ringer for its predecessor’s. The basic ambience and feel of the background tracks are so reminiscent of Myst that some may even cry copycat. Probably the most accurate description of Frankenstein would be that of a new game which pushes the Myst-type genre to new heights.
And what heights they are! Every scene is photorealistic with breathtaking detail, color, and shading. This really has to be seen to be believed, and I recommend getting your hands on the demo version of Frankenstein, which was on the March ’95 Inside Mac Games CD-ROM. Unfortunately, this demo runs about 100 MB so you won’t be downloading it off an online service in the near future. The scene transitions are blazingly fast and the only real delays in game play will come from your indecision on where to look or move next. The video integration is also sublime. The game characters interact with you smoothly and truly appear to be standing in the room with you. There are even instances when you must perform a task when the video image is not looking at you!
The intense attention to detail and quality in this game can not be overstated. Every brick on the wall and every crate on the floor has the appearance of 24-bit color pouring off of it. Frankenstein is also filled with its fair quota of interesting trinkets such as electrical coils and jars of interesting remains. Many of these objects have little particular pertinence to solving the plot but instead offer up an excellent diversion when the mystery becomes tricky. Tim Curry does an excellent job as Dr. Frankenstein, and you’ll probably find yourself getting a laugh or two out of his somewhat over-the-top portrayal of this legendary figure. He’s kind of a cross between Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein and Kenneth Brannah in the most recent film incarnation.
 
With the CD ROM gaming market becoming increasingly crowded it has become more difficult to sift through the average games and pick out the real winners. Frankenstein leaps out of the bunch and demands to be recognized as one of the best with its stunning scenery and snappy game engine, not to mention the excellent acting and awesome video integration. For those who are tired of hearing of Frankenstein’s monster and would rather not venture down that well worn road again, I would suggest you are making a mistake. Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster will make a believer out of you again.
 
Bartf@eWorld.com
 
  
CyberFlix. Price: $79.95 (street 49.95) US.
Requirements:640x480 display capable of
displaying 256 colors, 8MB RAM, 15MB free
hard drive space, double-speed CD drive or better.
Contact CyberFlix at (615) 546-1157
A few hours earlier you were in an all-or-nothing
poker game with The Kid. An extra ace in the Kid’s
sleeve, a bar room scuffle and a narrow escape later you find yourself making a quick escape with nary a gun in your holster. While you stumble through the Rio Gordo Valley hoping to find a sign of civilization you try to piece together what went wrong as a wisp of bone dry wind mercilessly teases your sweat-beaded brow. As your spirits sink you notice a shimmering hamlet on the distant horizon. It’s Diamondback, a fleabag of a town filled with drifters, criminals and gunslinging opportunists. Despite the spotty resume you know this is all the civilization you’re gonna get in the New Mexico desert in 1882, and with the obligatory ‘thanks’ to the powers that be you plod forward to the town that will be your salvation. Or will it?
This is Dust, the new ground-breaking game from Bill Appleton and the folks at CyberFlix. In the past CyberFlix has been a strong contender in the Mac gaming market with their fast action CD-ROM titles Lunicus and Jump Raven, and they continue to push the envelope with the demanding yet impressive gaming technology exhibited in Dust. The town of Diamondback is an impressive three-dimensional ‘virtual’ environment that you move through in real time. The layout and scenery gives a realistic computer generated portrayal of an 1800s frontier town, and the manner in which you interact with the tumbleweed strewn surroundings is truly remarkable. Before you have finished the game you will have used charisma and booty to improve your position, fought gun battles, and solved more than a few puzzles along the way. There is even the opportunity to spend and evening or two gambling away your savings. Can you spare a buck?
Although Dust is billed as a ‘Tale of the Wired West’ and has all the campy flavor of a Spaghetti Western, it has more than a heaping helping of seductive story line. In fact, there is a complex intertwining of events that reaches out and pulls the gamer into the story line head first. After being treated to a fabulous computer animated opening sequence with you and The Kid haggling over aces in another town, you find yourself on the outskirts of good old Diamondback with $5 in your pocket and a mean looking dog blocking the street. A friendly (and sassy) Chinese man gives you perhaps the most learned advice you could receive. Use your brain first, eye second, and gun last. Not to worry, for those gun slinging Clint Eastwood hopefuls there will be plenty of six gun salutes to cleanse your palate of the taste of plot. Like so many Sergio Leone westerns, the protagonist in Dust has no name. He is just referred to as ‘The Stranger’. Rather fitting, really.
After being treated to an impressive computer animated opening sequence, the game begins on the edge of Diamondback with a goofy drunk and a grumpy dog waiting eagerly for your first moves. Diamondback is fairly representative of a town in this era. There are the usual assortment of structures and indeed, there are 20 separate buildings (each with multiple rooms) to explore. Moving around the town is a breeze and requires only the click of a mouse or the arrow keys, however mouse work is necessary to open the doors and interact with the characters throughout the game. Once in the town and past the first obstacle (which is solved for you if you talk to the right people) you will quickly begin to establish relationships with the townsfolk. Each time you jabber with a Diamonbacker you are given a selection of choices for your responses to the conversation. These responses range from rude to comical and can have a profound effect on the outcome of the interaction. Indeed, the chosen response will affect the relationship you will have with that character.
Dust builds over a period of three days to a point where you must have a showdown with The Kid. Earlier I neglected to mention that you drove a four-sided knife straight through his right hand pining it to a poker table during the original conflict. Poker is a cutthroat game but you really did force his hand! (Pun intended). Suffice to say that this guy would like to wash his hands of you in the most humiliating way possible to you, your family, and anyone who ever met you. The in-between time will prove to be most interesting and entertaining, with several preparatory gun fights of escalating difficulty. The game progresses in what can best be described as chapters or stages, with great freedom in each stage to move around and solve the problems in your own way. There are consequences to all your decisions, and there are usually several ways to accomplish the same thing, adding somewhat to the replay value of Dust. However, the plot twists are fairly linear and this is not a game that has multiple endings. The occasional computer animated cut scenes are excellent but definitely break up some of the action sequences.
Dust was designed using the new Dream Factory multimedia authoring system from CyberFlix. It contains eight easy to use (compared to programming code) modules which were conceived to free up the creative talents of the authors. After all, the business world is going the way of visual programming languages, why shouldn’t the gaming industry? The results of this system bodes very well for the future. An excellent example of this technology is exploited wonderfully in the characters with which you associate. All of the 35 interactive characters are photo realistic composites of real actors. These characters converse with you and display emotion with the aid of the HeadShot system (part of Dream Factory). This system allows the important sections, such as the mouth, eyes and eyebrows of the character to be brought to life with a minimal amount of data storage. The result is an impressive and flexible technology that makes the CyberPuppets used in Lunicus and Jump Raven look like actors in a badly dubbed foreign film.
Other than the obvious technological marvels of Dust, it has great strength in its simplicity of game play. The game is designed to be picked up and played virtually without reading the manual. The key elements of plot and game play are disclosed throughout the game in the various interactions with town folk and general exploration. As a result the highly intuitive interface, simplistic controls, and gradually emerging plot complexity makes for the perfect blend of gaming elements needed for a hit in today’s highly competitive game market.
Although Dust will run on an 030 processor, I would strongly recommend an 040 or PowerPC Mac to handle the immense processing needed. Dust is also one of those games that runs much better with a very trim and slim System and lots of free RAM. The animations are not matted-in QuickTime movies, but rather real computer animation sequences with rendered figures that will tax all but the fastest systems. If you are running on an older Mac, you might want to grab a fist full of dollars and upgrade your machine for this game. On the other hand you might want to grab a few dollars more and buy a whole new machine.
 
Dust proves again that CyberFlix is pushing the hardware and software envelope for adventure gaming. This game has a strong sense of ambience and pulls the player in quickly and effectively. The solid and complex story, built in action sequences, puzzles and cutscenes make for a first rate production which will inspire clone games for years to come. Before you are finished with Dust there will be many a shot fired, many a puzzle solved and many an hour sucked into the gaming vortex. This one’s a hit.
