Game Review: Frankenstein – The Dismembered Bride (PC, Mastertronic)

When Mastertronic made its return in the shape of the Mastertronic Group it picked up where it left off – releasing a diverse range of budget-priced games across a number of labels, this time focusing on the PC and consoles. This time around, most were re-releases from other publishers to keep costs down, while original titles such as Frankenstein: The Dismembered Bride were targeted at the casual market.

Horror Awaits

Frankenstein: The Dismembered Bride is a hidden object adventure. For those not familiar with the genre, the game is made up of a series of images, and within the artwork are hidden dozens of items, some connected with the scene in question, and others completely random. Each stage will present the player with a random list of  objects and using the mouse you have to find all of these to move on to the next stage.

In Frankenstein, you take on the role of the hero, Brad, who has been searching for his wife who has been missing for several months. His search has lead him to a strange mansion in – of all places – Bavaria. So you make your way inside to try to find our where your wife is. To uncover clues and progress the story, you have to play through a series of object hunting puzzles, with the story progressing after each.

Frankenstein or Frank ‘N Furter?

The packaging, and presentation of the game give you the impression that you’re walking into a horror game. But as soon as you start playing, things change when you look at the character’s names and the situation that evolves around you. As I said before, you take on the role of Brad, his wife is called Janet, it looks like your car has broken down and all you need now is a little rain outside the mansion, and a few songs to get things moving along. Time Warp anyone?

Getting Started

Before you start play you’re given general instructions and a brief introduction to hidden object games if you’re new to the genre. You’re also provided with details on how to use the hint system (something you’ll definitely need to make use of) and advised to adjust the brightness on your monitor to its highest setting so you can see everything as clearly as possible. I’ll be honest and say that I would have prefered an in-game setting to adjust this as it’s not ideal for anyone playing on a laptop as I did so I did find myself struggling a few times to find things without random clicking.

One thing that did impress me however, was that there was no need to install the game at all and it just run straight from the CD. A rarity for the PC.

Hunting For Frankenstein

Unlike other hidden object games, there is a degree of freedom here to the game each time you complete each stage. To progress the story you have a limited ability to explore the mansion, choosing what direction and rooms to explore using on-screen arrows to choose which areas to visit. While it’s not completely free movement around the house, it does give you a greater sense of being in control.

You can visit any adjoining room to the one you are currently in, and as soon as you enter one that will progress the story, a new puzzle will start. These will reveal more clues, hopefully to the whereabouts of Janet or the mansion’s owner Baron Albrecht von Frankenstein.

Getting Strange

Now at this point, the game seems to be pretty standard fare for a hidden object title but it’s after about 5 or 6 rooms where the storyline goes from mild horror (helped by the chilling music and sound effects) to the utterly absurd. After you complete each location, there’s a final extra item you ned to find which is the clue to progress the story. In this case, you’re exploring a dungeon/torture chamber and the object in question is a disembodied brain you find on the floor…

This turns out to be Janet’s brain! In any other horror story, you’d think it would either become a survival horror or a tale of revenge but not here. Instead you now start to have a conversation with Janet and start a new quest around the mansion to recover her missing limbs and put her back together to save her life!

Graphics and Sound

While the bulk of the game is made up of still images, it’s well illustrated and they’re incredibly atmospheric. My only real gripe with the visual side of things is that some of the objects are very difficult to make out against the backgrounds even when you know where they are. This is more down to contrast and brightness than anything else and as I said before, the option to adjust this in game would have been a welcome addition.

Sound is superb though with a haunting soundtrack that plays throughout and a great selection of sound effects to accompany everything. I played through this from start to finish in a single sitting and didn’t find the music grating for one second so it suited the game perfectly.

Overall

Frankenstein: The Dismembered Bride is a fun game and despite the quirky nature of the story once it gets going, it’s a welcome addition to the hidden object genre. It’s quite short overall and it can be completed in under three hours even playing at a casual pace so it’s not too deep. With no other puzzles beyond finding items (some in the genre do offer additional game content to extend the play time) the only replay factor this offers is the random nature of the objects chosen.

It’s still entertaining enough, especially at the original budget price. And as a bonus it’s a dual format release having both the PC and Mac version on the same CD.

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