the dark eye
Bit of a halting experience, playing the 12 year old cd-rom adventure game 'The Dark Eye', but still great for its haunting atmosphere. Based on three Edgar Alan Poe stories ('The Cask of Amantillado', 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'Berenice'), it is an inspired attempt to bring to life his gothic horror stories in a creepy first person experience.
'The Dark Eye' is really more of an interactive story, much like 'Myst' (though without the puzzles), where you move / click around to advance the narrative. An interesting device is that each story can be experienced from two perspectives, of the victim and the murderer. Unfortunately, each narrative strand must be followed strictly and linearly, which makes the game play become quite tedious after a while.
Visually, however, it still works very well, with beautiful claymation characters and much attention to detail in the various nightmarish environments. The sound design deserves mention too, with appropriately moody music and eerie whispers coming from the walls. The game also features the voice of William S. Burroughs, doing one of the characters and reading 'Annabel Lee' and 'The Masque of the Red Death'.
'The Dark Eye' can be downloaded here (it should still work on modern computers, though be warned it might have some hiccups). The Burroughs readings can also be found separately here.