Sanity: Aiken's Artifact review (PC)

Sanity includes 20 long single-player levels. The tasks you're presented with are split between combat and puzzle solving. Some of the puzzles, such as the level in which you participate in a game show, are enjoyable. But the game also includes a few too many puzzles that merely require you to find an object and return it to the proper location. Thankfully, Sanity also contains lots of fighting, which is generally kept fresh by the constant introduction of new talents.

As in most isometric action-oriented games, you move around by pointing and clicking the mouse in the direction you'd like to travel. It works well for the majority of the game, but some of the puzzles involve navigating environmental hazards such as laser gates - and the control scheme isn't responsive enough to make these challenges anything more than burdensome.

Sanity's worst flaw is its unusually long loading times. Even on a powerful PC, restoring your progress using the rather deceptively named "quick load" feature generally takes 25 to 30 seconds. During the many portions of the game where you can expect to die repeatedly, these waiting periods can become unbearable. Often, you'll play for five seconds, get killed, and then wait half a minute to start playing again - over and over.

It appears that Sanity was meant to have more than just a perfunctory multiplayer option. Monolith announced plans to sell talent "booster packs" in an attempt to give the game some of the appeal of a collectible-card trading game. It's not a bad idea, but the multiplayer game in Sanity isn't interesting enough to warrant playing it for very long, much less purchasing ancillary products for it. The only mode of play available is plain-vanilla deathmatch, and the included maps are all simple and rather small. While Sanity's overhead perspective and talent system are somewhat unique, they don't create a multiplayer experience that can match the tactical nuances and varied modes of play of its many competitors.

Even though Sanity's multiplayer game is forgettable, the single-player experience is polished and contains enough unique ideas, surprises, and solid gameplay to warrant a recommendation - assuming you can stand dealing with long loading times.