Playing through Necronomicon nearly killed me. Not of fright mind you, but of shear monotonous gameplay. You play as William Stanton a young soft-spoken gentleman who looks to be about sixteen years old. Picture the voice of iron Mike Tyson, and the build of Mr. Burns. William’s childhood friend Edgar Witcherly has been acting very peculiar as of late. William doesn’t think too much of his friend’s behavior until Edgar’s father and a mutual colleague decide that perhaps good old Edgar should be institutionalized. When William confronts his old childhood playmate, it appears that Edgar has lost his ever loving mind because he has been possessed by an old dead ancestor named Gregor Hershel who was evil and enjoyed talking to dead people through the power of the Necronomicon. Did you get all that?

Necronomicon uses the same interface as other Dreamcatcher titles such as Dracula Resurrection, The Messenger, and Dracula The Last Sanctuary. While I happen to be a huge fan of Dracula Resurrection, these other games fail to impress much. Necronomicon is no exception. Resurrection had some of the most detail-animated graphics I have ever seen to date in a game. Although the graphics engine in Necro-appear to be one and the same, it just pales in comparison. For those who have yet to experience one of these gems, the environment is basically a still image that you can spin around and investigate by using the mouse. Traveling throughout the game is handled by a series of predetermined paths that can be found by searching for hotspots located on the edges of the screen. This does not allow much interactivity or replay value. An incredible story would have made the monotony a little less irritating, however Necro- only delivers a mediocre atmosphere with an incomprehensible story line.

The box art is incredibly cool, depicting a haunted eerie mansion with a set of cold empty dead eyes staring at you from the sky. The first game to be inspired by the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. The game only took about a day and a half to beat, and I am very disappointed to say it was very unscary. I solved puzzles without really knowing why, and found one particular scene excruciating. You must make your way down through an underground pathway. Of course there are torches on the wall so you can see. However you must find the torches first so you can light them. You must find them in almost pitch-blackness! This translates to frustrating pixel hunting. There are two end sequences, the right one and the wrong one. Both made no sense, and were hardly worth the effort to struggle through the puzzles and pixels for.

I am a huge adventure game fan and a big Dreamcatcher supporter, and it pains me to give this title a low score. It seems they are single handedly keeping the adventure genre alive for the PC these days. Dracula Resurrection was a huge step in the right direction. Necronomicon was just grossly disappointing. The positive side to all this is the 20-dollar price tag, but even that can’t help this title from its one main flaw. It just wasn’t fun to play.  

Install: Easy
A very fast install, with limited drive consumption.

Gameplay: 5
Gameplay consisted of dragging the mouse around the screen until hotspots lit up. This was extra fun when in pitch-black corridors.

Graphics: 7.5 
While they looked excellent in Dracula Resurrection, and were decent in The Messenger, this interface/engine/style needs a facelift to keep it fresh.

Sound: 6
Overall the ambient sound was lacking and not very apparent throughout.

Difficulty: 7
I just couldn’t get the logic behind some of the puzzles and the clues were just hard to follow or too boring for the effort.

Concept: 8
Dead things, an evil looking box, with inspiration from the master H. P. Lovecraft. I was onboard to check this game out a long time ago. It just didn’t live up to my expectations.

Multiplayer: N/A

Overall: 6
Despite the cool nightmarish premise, the evil looking box, and the cheap price tag this game just isn’t fun to play. I would like to express my continuing support for the company however at continually offering adventure games at a reasonable price. To be honest though I would gladly shell out another twenty bucks for a game that would scare the bee-geesis out of me.