Here we come with the next title from Dreamcatcher Interactive and Lexis Numerique. We do like these guys, they put out some of our favorite adventure games, and we do adore them for it. 

The Experiment is no Johnny-come-lately when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of the presentation of adventure; instead it offers up a totally different take on the atmosphere of point-and-click by presenting instead a strange surveillance guided storyline. We walk into the middle of a devastated laboratory aboard a US Navy sea vessel, overrun by foliage, and are thrust immediately into the strange life of one scientist.

Lea Nickols.

The new perspective is interesting in that it plays directly with the forth-wall aspect of controlling a character in game—instead of immersing the player in the game itself by putting us in the shoes of the main character, we actually get to be the uncommunicative main character watching from behind the lenses of various cameras and tele-operating other things in the environment.

We have passed one level and so far this has done the game some good service.

The graphics are reasonably good—although the rusted-out insides of the ship aren’t much to look at. The mechanisms by which we interact with Lea, and thus her world, are plausible. And, should we really get so bored, there are numerous sources of data presented to us as we explore the vessel and discover more computer files.

At this point in the game things look grim and mysterious, and the interpersonal relations between Lea and her co-workers are more than enough to keep the storyline interesting. It needs not just run on the strange fuel of the mystery.