Cheap Inherent Evil The Haunted Hotel (Software) (Windows NT, Macintosh, Linux, Unix, Windows 98, Windows 2000) Price

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Customer Reviews of Inherent Evil The Haunted Hotel

I'm not sure what to give this game...
I downloaded this game from another site for $10, so my version has a few differences, namely the bug in part 7 or 8 is fixed, and although you still can't save the game, you aren't booted out to windows, just to the chapter screen. <
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>This game is old, I believe it first came out in 98. In any case, it was updated for Windows ME, and now fixed to work in XP. I say this because you need to take the age into account, and what was available to work with, both voice acting and music. Which is why I'm not sure what to rate it. I'd give it 3 stars for the effort and the fact that it was a fairly enjoyable game overall. However, it's many flaws given today's standard would rate this a 1 (or none). <
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>The game play is straight forward, point and click adventure type game. The premise is 30 odd years ago your parents were running the hotel, and something happened that made everyone but you and your brother disappear. The hotel has been abandoned since then, and now your brother is fixing the hotel to reopen, when he disappears. You go to investigate. The beginning is rather well done, the voice acting of the brothers fairly good, and the synthesized soundtrack (remember how old the game is) lent itself to a creepy atmosphere - until I hit the elevator. I can only imagine it's some kind of joke on elevator music, but the tune was so garish and happy that it completely broke the ominous mood and set the tone for the rest of the game - one of jarring disappointment. The next shocker came almost immediately during a supernatural happenstance, where a mother is giving desperate instructions to her sons to run away while blood is oozing around a door with ominous musical tones. It was delivered in such bored and dead tones that for a moment I was confused as to what I was supposed to be feeling. It's such an outrageous piece of garbage that it's almost worth buying the game to experience it. <
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>The game puzzles are well thought out and are very well integrated into the story. Pixel hunting is a problem in this game, but not a gigantic one. There are about 4 instances of pixel hunting, where I could barely see what I was looking for, even though I knew it was there and where to look and 2 instances of psychic problems. You know, the kind of problem that you need to be psychic to know what you are supposed to do. I found these annoying, but typical in adventure games, especially the older ones. Somehow, if a game made sense and had sensible problems, it was labeled the dreaded "Simple and Boring". How Stupid and Annoying became equated with being a great game is beyond me. <
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>The interface was a bit confusing. You have an eyeball, which means you can either look at the object or interact with it, and then you have a hand cursor, which means you can pick up or interact with it. This would be confusing at times because there would be objects that you would comment on, and then later be able to interact with, but the cursor would not change to let you know this had happened. You just have to click and hear the same thing over and over again. Also, the bottom part of the screen is your menu, item inventory, etc. But some of the hot spots are so close to the border, that they were hard to click. <
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>Now, for the lack of a save game feature. This was a gimmick dreamed up by an idiot for a contest. The idea being if you died, you were kicked out of the contest. Well, the contest never happened and the distributors decided to punish us for their short sightedness. I think once you get to part 3, there is at least one chance to die in each part (of which there are 8). Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. You don't even get a chance to figure out what to do or move around to see what exactly is going on. My advice, don't take a step. You can turn around in place, but if you step forward or backward, you're liable to die. By my third accidental death, where I was just looking at something, I decided to use a hint based system to get me through the game. Every time I thought for a second that I might be put in danger, I referenced the hints. This really ruined the game for me, as it brought me out of the environment & the mood (if there was one), it stopped me from thinking about the game, and I couldn't help but see references to other things I hadn't done yet. Of all the flaws in this game, this is the one that is most unforgivable and truly ruins this game. <
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>With all these flaws considered, I have to admit that I'm glad I played this game. I do like this game and I was interested in finishing it, which is more than I can say for some others that I attempted to play. But given all of the obvious flaws, I can't recommend this unless you can get it for $5 and are a true die-hard adventure gamer. This game is neither creepy nor scary, thanks to the flaws in the music and lighting department. It might help to consider this a desktop game that you play when you're bored at work, rather than a complete adventure game. The parts are short enough that you could do that, and playing it sporadically could negate some of the negative aspects. <
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>Overall, I think the developer has made their money from this game, and given its many flaws, they should just distribute this as freeware to showcase some of their early work and build up a little customer relations. Right now, I feel like I've gotten a half-baked product that's been re-packaged twice it's so old, and I'm the sucker who's out $10.

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Glitchy but worth it
I really had a great time playing this game; however there are problems. You can't save a game and if you die you have to start the chapter all over again. Often tedous. All in all, however, it was great fun despite the problems. But then I'm a freak for this kind of mystery game. I like a story line and this at least has one.

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An Electronic Eye Chart
Is there a point to this game? No, not really. It seems that Activision wants to test our vision and ruin our hearing at a stroke. Inherent Evil contains no puzzles that involve logic, you simply must be able to spot the tiny, little clue in a tiny, little corner of the screen at a place in the game you thought you had thoroughly searched before. Also, while optically straining, the game manages to be auditorily cruel. The music and dialogue are at incompatable levels; the former engulfing the latter and rendering it indecipherable. In order to hear the dialogue, so that you may follow the story, you must allow yourself to be punished with music that is vaugely tolerable when it is not insanely off key.

So do yourself a favor, if you buy this game and for the holy love of Mary, shut off your volume whenever you enter the elevator; this is the true Evil inherent in the game: The Elevator Music.