AtmosfearNightmare for PCNostalgia Nerd

I'm sure you're well aware of the board game
known as Atmosfear in regions such as Europe, or Nightmare in North America & it's birth
place of Australia. After all, we already had a Nightmare at the
time, and it was goood. Upon release in 1991, it was a huge novelty,
because we got to not only play a creepy board game, but interact with the wonderful Gatekeeper
through the medium of VHS. Of course, being VHS meant that the Gatekeeper's
taunts and demands were the same on every play through, with the only difference being
who's turn it was at the time or the luck of the dice roll.

So with multimedia on the rise, and the home
computer capable of... Oooooh... Wonderful things, ramming the board game into the CD-ROM
format seemed a superlative suggestion. Not only could you all pack around a Windows
PC and join in the fun, but the Gatekeepers quips could be mixed up, no longer bound by
the linear fashion of video tape.

And so it was that Atmosfear: The Third Dimension
would appear for Windows based PCs in 1995, the same year that Atmosfear's lineage of
board game sequels was revitalised by the release of "The Harbingers"; a game with six
interchangeable "Provinces", fitting together to form a hexagon of the "other side" with
Wenanty Nosul making a welcome return as The Gatekeeper. It's actually this format that Atmosfear:;
The Third Dimension is based around. So let's begin with the box. Developed by A Couple 'A Cowboys Pty Limited
- the company behind the original board games - and published by EMG Publishing, we have
the familiar Gatekeeper's eyes to lure us into this multimedia delight.

We're told of Eye-popping 3D SVGA graphics,
multiple drop dead dazzling environments and non stop monitor-melting replayability. Each game experience is diabolically different. Yeah, they've tried to cram some appropriate
adjectives in there, but it's not really working chaps. The back greets us with a WARNING: The Host
of This Game is Not User Friendly! Although I've always found him incredibly
amicable.

There's a blurb caught between pictures of
each Harbinger of doom. Inside is a double CD-ROM. One containing the game, and the other an
audio CD you're supposed to play on a standard CD player to add atmosphere. It's also the backing music to this very video.

Obviously you can't use your computer's CD
drive whilst playing as that's tied up streaming data. This makes it feel like one of those old ZX
Spectrum titles where the music was provided on a separate tape... Mainly so you didn't
have to hear the Spectrum beeper ruin those sweet, sweet arcade tunes. Each Harbinger has a card, with a map, and
key of errr...

Keys... And of course, there's a diabolically illustrated manual... Diabolically
good, of course. We obviously need a suitable PC to run this,
but the specifications are reasonably undemanding.

A simple 486DX/33Mhz, with 4MB of RAM, 256
colour 640x480 graphics and Windows 3.1 Or higher should do the trick. So after a brief installation, here's out
the game plays out for a single player game. After setting the game time in minutes and
the maximum time for each move in seconds, you then need to pick a box to receive a character. Then you pick your greatest fear and you're
thrust into your randomly chosen character's province.

Your job then is to find a key, move onto
the next province, find another key and so on. If you choose to start with an easy difficulty
level, you get no opponents and you also have all the keys already. In this case, you simply have to wander into
the centre of the board to face a fear. If the fear is the one you picked, you lose,
if it isn't you win.

I mean, that's pretty much it. Of course, if you choose a harder difficulty,
then you have to collect the other keys from the other provinces, and occasionally have
a scuffle with an AI opponent along the way. You can't see any the moves of these players,
which is a little boring, but they can challenge you to a duel at any time. Here it pays to have collected Power Points
(which you can do by landing on certain spaces), because the more you have, the more potent
your attack bar is.

If you've got 50 power points then a full
attack on your bar will take out a full attack on a player with 25 Power Points. You lose the points you attack with, so measurement
and strategy is required here. Then you can go back to collecting keys, and
getting the hell outta here. But of course, this is a game which is far
more fun played with friends, even if you do have to huddle around a desk and share
the mouse.

Thankfully Octav1us Kitten - of the superb
Youtube channel Octav1us Kitten - dropped by for a game, and we had a... How can I put
this? A NIGHTMARE of a time. Even with more players, it's no way as good
as the board game. To start with, the game says it needs at least
a double speed CD-ROM...I'm using a 24X speed one here, but even so, the loading is pretty
slow.

The game utilises pre-rendered FMV sequences
to simulate game play, and each part is streamed from the CD. Sometimes turning around is painfully slow,
or sometimes you just can't turn around, depending on possibly where you're standing. You remember we specified a timer for your
turn at the start of the game. Yeah, apparently that doesn't matter anymore.

You can take as long as you want... It won't
be the next players turn until you whack that space bar. Kinda making that selection just a little
bit redundant. All in all, it makes for a somewhat frustrating
and boring experience.

The only thing good out of this is the Gatekeeper
himself, but I can see how even he could become grating after a few games. I won't burden you with our full playthrough,
but if you're absolutely convinced you'd like to see it, then head over to my Extra channel
for 15 minutes of pure unrelenting horror. Anyway, thanks for watching. Have a great evening..