Anchorhead

Anchorhead
by Michael Gentry profile

Horror
1998

Web Site

Go to the game's main page

Member Reviews

Number of Reviews: 30
Write a review

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

One of the best text adventures of all time, even better in Steam version., July 6, 2019

by MathBrush
Related reviews: 2-10 hours

Review for Steam Edition:

Anchorhead is a masterpiece of interactive fiction. In this well-illustrated Lovecraftian game, you have to piece together the history of your husband's family as you move to a new town with a dark history.

This edition fixes a lot of the worst puzzles from the first edition, especially the very difficult mill section. It adds some new puzzles, too, some of which I found quite difficult (such as the dinghy), and others less so (the new opening sequence).

The illustrations are very well done, and go a long way to making this worth the purchase price. I love this game, and I'm glad to see it in such good form. I also appreciated the change in the orderly's magazine, which made me laugh. Some of the older texts in the game contain echoes of Lovecraft's racism, and they seem to be written new for the game, not old texts quoted, so I thought I'd mention that.

Earlier Review:

Anchorhead can completely draw you into its world. The writing and atmosphere are classic Lovecraftian horror, beginning as merely dismal and developing slowly into madness. Early scenes take on far different meanings on a second playthrough.

That said, this is a very hard game. I'm not sure how anyone could solve the (Spoiler - click to show)telescope lens puzzle on their own.

However, the depth of the game and the quality of the writing is such that it is still enjoyable even if you have to resort to hints from time to time. Many of the best moments are also the easiest puzzles.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote

More Options

| Add a comment

Comments on this review

Previous | << 1 >> | Next

chairbender, November 30, 2015 - Reply
I don't know, playing through a game and using a walkthrough really hurts the immersion for me. I always feel like I"m missing out on a core aspect of the game's experience. I think that a game that requires this sort of approach isn't worthy of five stars.

The game world certainly is fleshed out, with the geneaologies of the families and all the documents and stuff like that, but as far as being a story, it's only a decent Lovecraftian horror storror. If you want to read Lovecraftiatn horror, there's lots of books by H. P. Lovecraft and there's even works by other authors set in the same universe. I think reading a book would be a more enjoyable experience than experiencing the story of this game by mechanically stepping through a guide.

Previous | << 1 >> | Next