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Review
Note: This review is for the 1998 version of the game.
Anchorhead is somewhat well written and has an interesting story, but the puzzles are often unfairly difficult and their solutions are usually rather out of character. Near the start of the game, for example, (Spoiler - click to show)you need to get the keys to your new house from the real estate office. The solution to this puzzle is to climb on top of a trash can in a nearby alley and break in through a window. Who jumps to breaking and entering as the first response to this situation? Even after exhausting other avenues such as talking to Michael, why would your character decide to break in through the window? The tone of the writing, especially at the start, is realistic, with subtle hints that something isn't quite right in the town. The solutions to puzzles often feel like they don't match this tone, which breaks immersion.
Often, the parser wouldn't accept common variants of names for objects (Spoiler - click to show)(e.g. Michael's ID card), or gave misleading responses. One puzzle that was particularly frustrating mechanically:(Spoiler - click to show)
When attempting to open the rusty hatch, if you try to use the tin of fish oil without opening it first, you will get feedback saying that putting the fish oil on the hatch is unlikely to be useful. The solution to the puzzle is to put fish oil on the hatch after opening the tin, but the feedback makes it sound like you don't need the fish oil at all.
The map feels large just for the sake of being large, and individual locations are often sparsely described except for the one item you can get from them or the one puzzle you can solve there. Walking between locations trying to find items and use them on other puzzles in different locations was very tedious.
Overall, this game has an interesting story but is frustrating to play and doesn't use the format of IF very well.
Assorted complaints about puzzles:
(Spoiler - click to show)- There's no way to see which holes on the flute are covered that I can find- Examining the wine bottles doesn't yield anything until Michael uses the passage
- It's unclear which directions are available to you when running from the monster in the forest
- The maze in the workshop seems to be solvable only through trial and error
- The hand system isn't implemented very well: you can get things out of your pockets with handcuffs on, you can lose timed puzzles because you put items away in the wrong order, and there isn't really anywhere in the game where the ability to only hold several items is used in a puzzle effectively
