The story of "Shivers" starts with you playing the role of a teenager, who accepted the challenge to spend a night inside the Museum of the Strange and Unusual at Mt. Pleasant. Built by an eccentric archeologist named Professor Windlenot, the mysterious Museum never opened to the public, although it had the most intriguing archeological pieces collected by the Professor throughout the world. Since two teenagers disappeared fifteen years ago, rumors were circulating at the school where the Professor taught just before he started building his museum. According to rumors, the Professor went insane and is responsible for the two murders. The rumors also say he hid the two bodies in the basement of the museum which would explain why the police never found the bodies. Were the rumors founded or were they just imagined by a few kids?
As soon as your friends lock you up behind the gate of the Museum, you can feel there is something unusual with this place. Looking behind you, you notice the museum built on a huge rock with stairs leading towards, but you will quickly find out that the entrance is somewhere else than at the end of the stairs.
"Shivers" is made up of two parts. In the first, you will have to find the hidden entrance to the museum while in the second, you will be free to explore what the museum reveals. To locate the hidden passage, you must solve two puzzles located in the property around the museum building, but you won't discover the second before you solved the first puzzle. The linearity in the adventure fortunately stops as soon as you enter the museum, and the gameplay could be compared to the one from "The 7th Guest". You will explore the numerous rooms, solve puzzles and learn what really happened in the Museum.
If the exploration and puzzle part can be compared to "The 7th Guest", the way you move inside the game is directly inspired by "Myst". There will be no animations when you move around. The main advantage is a gain for loading times, and a gain of space for a greater number of rooms to visit. To move in the game, you use the cursor to the left or to the right until it becomes an arrow, then you click on the mouse. It is the same when you want to move forward or backward. These movements, however, won't always be available. You must move your cursor on the screen to see what are the directions you can head to. Some might regret the beautiful animations of "The 7th Guest", but it will only be temporary until you take a look at Shivers's graphics.
The attention brought to the graphics is truly exceptional with a plethora of details that make the rooms stunningly realistic. The museum is divided into several departments, each related to legendary controversial subjects such as Atlantis, Subterranean World, Life after Death, etc. Each department is completely different in size or in form, with many artifacts and unusual things. The puzzles you discover throughout the Museum will unveil secret passages, and even locations where you might discover important clues that could help you to solve puzzles in other rooms.
Finding objects and puzzles in the Museum is not as easy as it is in other adventure games. In "The Dig" for example, you just had to pass your icon over the screen to find useful objects or elements you could interact with. In "Shivers", this is not the case and all the difficulty rests in choosing rightly among the collection of objects. As your goal is to capture the evil spirits that haunt the Museum, you must avoid the Ixupi, this is their name, who steal your life's essence. Every time you discover one of these entities you will lose a small part of your life's essence symbolized on the screen by a green stripe, that turns red when you are close to death. The Ixupi represent elements such as ash and water, which should give you strong indications as to where you can expect to find them. Be sure not to click everywhere if you want to stay alive. If you are fortunate enough to capture an Ixupi, you will regain some of your life's essence.
If you die, the location of the items and puzzles will change, making one game different than another. Although it is an interesting feature, I can't imagine myself playing "Shivers" again. Not that the game is boring, but it takes some time to complete the game.
The sound effects and soundtracks of "Shivers" won't, I'm afraid, succeed in frightening you, although the box claims the contrary. However, it goes nicely with the creepy ambience that surrounds the entire museum and contributes in giving the game a 'horror' atmosphere.
16-bit Windows compatible sound card supported.
Windows 95, Windows 3.11 or 3.1
Technical Support: 206-644-4343
Fax: 206-644-7697
BBS Support: 206-644-0112
Hint Line: 1-900-370-5583 $.75 per minute
Canadian Hint Line: 1-900-451-3356 $1.25 per minute
Web site: www.sierra.com
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In Europe:
In UK:
Sierra On-Line UK.,
4 Brewery Court, Theale,
Reading, Berkshire RG7 5AJ.
Technical Support: +44-(0)1734-303171
Fax: +44-(0)1734-303362
BBS: +44-(0)1734-304-227
Hintlines:
Coktel Vision,
Parc Tertiaire de Meudon,
Immeuble Le Newton,
25, rue Jeanne Braconnier,
92366 Meudon La Foret.
Technical Support: +33-1-46014650
Fax Support: +33-1-46317172
BBS: +33-1-46324290
Hintline - France only: 3668-4650 2.19FF per minute
In Germany:
Sierra-Coktel Deutschland,
Robert-Bosch. 32,
63303 Dreieich.
Technical Support: +49-6103-994040
Fax Support: +49-6103-994035
Hintline - Germany only: 0190-515616 0.23DM per 12 seconds.
In Spain:
Sierra-Coktel Espana,
Calle Tomas Redondo 11F,
Edificio Indo Building, Luarca,
28033 Madrid.
| Graphics: | 91% |
| Sound: | 89% |
| Music: | 90% |
| Gameplay: | 87% |
| Interest: | 88% |
| Overall: | 89% |
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