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Im
writing this review of Fox Interactives Sanity: Aikens
Artifact on Election Day, 2000. And, like most reviewers of this title,
I have come to the conclusion that Sanity, like this years
election, is a mediocre affair.* Yes,
Sanity leaves something to be desired. What Sanity has going for it,
though, in contrast to the elections, is a pretty interesting plot, an
occasionally engaging protagonist, and a novel virtual collectible
cards gimmick. Sanity also utilizes Monoliths LithTech Game Engine,
which allows players the popular isometric point of view that makes Diablo
players feel like gods, Dungeon Keepers like demiurges. If only we
couldve adopted this invincible perspective during the campaign. Maybe
someday. Fortuitously, Sanity takes place
in the near future--2028 CE, to be exact. And as all SF fans know, stories
set in the near future usually have something to do with some sort of
catastrophe and its tragic aftereffects for humankind. Sanity gets a few
originality points in respect to this last idea, for the catastrophe
players face in the game is actually the result of an initially positive
event. See, a few years earlier, genius geneticist Dr. Joan Aiken
discovers a strange, possibly other-worldly (!) artifact that bears a
recipe for a mysterious (!) serum that allows human beings to tap into the
legendary unused (!) 10% of their brains. As a result, people administered
the serum develop incredible psionic (!) powers. At
first, the possibilities are astonishingpeople will actually be able to
use their melons in whole new ways (an awesome prospect). As it turns out
though, the human brain--being the delicate aspic of gray proteins that it
is--can not sustain psionic energy the same way it can store more mundane
data like grocery lists, sports statistics, and the last song a person
heard on the radio. Thus, most of Dr. Aikens subjects go Cypress
HillInsane in the Membrane. (This allusion will seem less forced
a few paragraphs from now. Honest.) So Dr. Aiken decides to administer the
serum to two subjects in utero in order to test her hypothesis that human
beings can handle new, improved brains if they have to live with them from
day one. Fittingly, and portentously, these subjects are called Cain and
Abel. The experiment succeeds (with a few risks; the subject have to learn
how to control their psionic powers or theyll go crazy like their
predecessors did), and more fetuses get the serum. When players begin the game in
2028, they discover that Cain and Abel, once
inseparable psionics working for the government, have gone their
separate ways. The other psionics either work as agents for the
government-sponsored Department of National Psionic Control (DNPC) or they
freelance as super villains who try to take over the world. In a tidy
twist to the Old Testament tale, Cain seems to be the do-gooder and
continues to work for the DNPC, while Abel roams the world honing his
psionic powers for evil purposes. But Cain is still a loose cannon, and as
the battle between good and bad psionics heats up, players
learn that Cain is capable of mass destruction. Perhaps
Cains ambivalent nature is what attracted rapper/actor/producer Ice T
to undertake voice acting this character. (Remember forced Cypress Hill
allusion made above.) Whatever Ice Ts motives, it deserves to be
mentioned that most of the voice acting in Sanity is excellent. It helps
that the writing is pretty good. Many of Ice Ts lines, however, consist
of gratuitous and stupid tough guy stuff, and his delivery is too often
stiff and cartoonish. For the most part, though, the voice acting and
writing--just like everything else about this game--is okay. The graphics are arguably better
than those in most isometric games, even Diablo II, but not nearly
as nice as, say, the graphics in Dungeon Keeper II. A significant
detraction to the graphics, by the way, is the cruddy load screens, which
are crude and ugly (sort of like the structure of this sentence). Oh, and
the loads take a long, long time. If you find yourself reloading games a
lot, then make sure you have a crossword puzzle or your checkbook at hand. While
the LithTech isometric view is familiar to many PC gamers, it is tweaked
just enough in Sanity to make it neither innovative or frustrating. See,
the camera in Sanity floats over Cains head and results in a much more
limited view of Cains surroundings. This truncated vision makes the
game challenging because players cant see whats around the next
corner. On the other hand, players cannot manipulate the camerahence
the viewin any way, thus limiting creative and strategic game play.
Making matters even more addling is this unmovable cameras tendency to
pan and follow Cains progress in dramatic sweeps and flips, destroying
any sense of visual coherence and gaming control for players. This feature
might be cool for the dipsomaniac who digs dizzy spells, but I found it
maddening. Along with the negligible camera control, another significant pleasure suck in Sanity is level design. Players will spend a lot of time hanging around the same levels, usually retrieving necessary itemskeys, documents, weaponsand making contact with the locals. The levels are pretty large, usually constructed as mazes with lots of impassable walls and barriers that direct how and where Cain travels, and are typically pretty. However, once players start criss-crossing and backtracking through a level, the environments lose their expansiveness and become boring. And while players can initiate conversations between Cain and plenty of NPCs, the puzzles Cain must solve all fit into the square peg/square hole variety. As for NPCs, only a few populate the world of Sanity; they all look alike, and they are recycled endlessly. This sameness isnt really an obstacle to game play as friendly NPCs can be distinguished from their villainous counterparts by means of colored coronas of light that swirl around their feet. Good and neutral guys get blue swirls, bad red. Pretty ingenious system, really, but come on, a few more NPCs doesnt seem like too much to ask for, especially in a game that otherwise offers responsive (though limited) game play, respectable graphics, and a decent, comic book story. Finally,
the last and most ingenious feature of Sanity: Aikens Artifact is
its incorporation of psionic Talents into the story and game play.
Talents are similar to the X-Mens mutant abilities except that they can
be earned and traded like collectable cards. In the game itself, Talents
are actually represented as trading cards that feature an illustration,
stats and a text description of the Talent. Thats right. Playing
Sanity is sort of like playing Magic and watching the X-Men cartoons
at the same time. The game boasts of at least 80 Talents that Cain can
acquire. And the multiplayer mode allows players to swap Talents with one
another. A cool idea, and while it might sound silly, this trading Talents
feature is really entertaining. If players have ever collected anything
beforeand current GF! research suggests that pc gamers collect a lot of
stuffthen theyll probably find themselves jonesing for that next
Talent like they do any other collectible. All in all, Sanity: Aikens
Artifact is a pretty good game. Much about it could be better,
especially considering how much expense and time went into its story and
play design. The games outstanding element remains its Talent trading
subtext, a feature that deserves thorough exploration in the online
milieu. *As I finish up here, Florida has the last word in this years presidential election, and I have to take back that remark about a mediocre election. Still, the polls on Sanity retain their authority: there are better games out there, and there are worse. Sanity is the less worse choice for some pc gamers. |