Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster

Trying to escape from Tim Curry’s dungeon.

10

Here’s a view of Tim’s laboratory. You’ll want to get away from his crazy antics soon.

Interplay’s updated version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein only loosely follows the age-old literary classic, being more of a remake geared towards a nineties audience. You wake up as Dr. Frankenstein’s newly resurrected monster, trapped in the mad doctor’s odd world of dangerous scientific experimentation. Frank is overjoyed that you’re alive — and because he can’t wait to do more experiments on you. Soon you discover that his castle is one huge house of horrors — decapitated body parts, dead cats, and strange-looking medical instruments are all over the place. What has the good doctor planned for you?

I’m Alive! Well… sort of

Other than one’s infatuation with point and click adventures, the second best reason to pick this up is esteemed crazy person Tim Curry playing mad scientist, which is thoroughly entertaining. It’s only unfortunate that you don’t get to see or interact with him all that much. That same acting quality doesn’t extend to your own persona, however – you talk to yourself in a voice that sounds like something straight out of a B movie. Muttering things like “I must escape this place thick with evil!” and other such sentences provide the occasional clue, but most adventure gaming fans already know the drill – explore everywhere, take everything, and use everything on everything when all else fails.

The puzzles and experiments range from the simple (plugging a wire into a switch to complete an electrical circuit) to the very complex (find the mines, gather some ore, crush it, refine it, transport it … you get the idea). The easier puzzles are a welcome break after all the aimless wandering you have to do, but the tough ones will stump even the most experienced gamers.

Overall one can’t call Frankenstein a bad game, but it is lacking purpose despite the oddball approach in which Shelley’s work is treated. Those who revere the literary classic might detest this approach, but if you take it for what it’s worth… well, it does beat a pulse.

System Requirements: 486/33 CPU, 8 MB RAM, 8 MB HDD, Windows 3.1

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