Long before the advent and action games text adventure games (also called interactive fiction) ruled the pc market. Since horror fiction is a popular genre its only natural that horror interactive fiction would be made. Eventually the graphics would allow for interactive fiction to become adventure games using interfaces like point and click which also developed horror themed settings. Other games like 3D Monster Maze and Sweet Home would experiment with using real time action to create horror through escaping monsters or resource management.
Its with Alone in the Dark that you would see 3D real time combat combined with resource management, however Alone in the Dark also featured heavy adventure game elements (inventory puzzles, instant death traps, and unlimited saves to mitigate such fail states) and platforming that would be stream lined with Resident Evil. Doctor Hauzer in some way serves as the opposite of what resident evil did to alone in the dark rather then simplifying the adventure game elements to focus more on real time combat and resource management Doctor Hauzer entirely cuts out real time combat to focus solely on inventory puzzles and instant kill death traps.
This reduction in scope makes sense when you consider that is one of the first, if not the first, fully 3d rendered game on a console, and it looks pretty good. The rooms are all super simple usually just being a mostly empty squared with rectangle dressers and maybe like a couch and the polygons look pretty pixelated, but the textures are actually pretty nice and the main character has a detailed and expressive face' plus using modern emulator enhancements the graphics clean up nice. These at the time cutting edge graphics come at the cost of the game running at a glacial pace and the game being overall very short (however modern emulator overclocking can render the game fast enough to be semi playable). The ability to change from a fixed camera, to an over head camera, to a first person camera is also a nice touch as each perspective is useful depending on the room. The major issue with the graphics is that most items aren't rendered in the rooms so you end up having to inspect every drawer, table, and shelf to find items.
The adventure game stuff here is very simple and a mostly linear matter of collecting items and solving very easy puzzles. There is also a jump used in a single very low stakes platforming segment. The most interesting thing here is the amount of hidden optional secrets. There are puzzles and items used solely to find lore text or unlock doors which can be unlocked in other ways. For instance you can do a strange puzzle in a room of full of eye paintings to get a key to a room with the ghost of Hauzer. There is a boarded up passage in that room you you cant acess yet. later you will travel through some secret passages get the crow bar and pop out into the ghost room where you can crowbar down the boarded up passage. This makes the eye room key totally useless as you will enter this room regardless if you lock it or not. There is another optional key which has the same weird properties of unlocking a room you can access another way. Really there are many secrets still left to find in this game. I found Hauzer's diary 2-4 meaning there is a 1st diary I missed. There is also a gas can item that does nothing so maybe its also associated with a secret.
The story here is pretty simple and bare bones and based on hauzer finding some hieroglyphics that prove the truth of Genesis and the existence of cherubs and the garden of eden. Why do hieroglyphics prove a hebrew story is beyond me but it does add a bit of religious flavor to an otherwise generic story of a scientist going crazy trying to being his dead wife back. Usually in these stories the villain has some crazy plan that will destroy the world or harm a lot of people but beyond killing his workers before the game starts Hauzer just seems to be chilling now. Which makes the whole story seem pointless.
Looking back on reviews from this game is interesting as when it came out it got heavy coverage (even from western media where the game didn't come out_) for its advanced graphics. In general reviewers seemed split on if the game is a bland alone in the dark rip off or an atmospheric adventure. For my money the game scarcely deserves the survival horror label it gets but its still interesting none the less. One final bit of commentary i saw from a reviewer compared the game to a 3d version of a cinematic platformer like Out of this World. This is an interesting perspective but the animations are too simple and the platforming too lacking to fit in with that genre in my opinion.
Really I can't rate Doctor Hauzer its one of those games which is firmly entrenched in its time. It was a graphical showcase which succeeded in showing that fully 3D games could be rendered on a console even if this came at the cost of making a good game. Really this game is mostly just known as a historical stop gap between the more famous Alone in the Dark and resident evil but there is enough weirdness and secrets to make it worth a playthrough for any gaming history or horror buffs.
Its with Alone in the Dark that you would see 3D real time combat combined with resource management, however Alone in the Dark also featured heavy adventure game elements (inventory puzzles, instant death traps, and unlimited saves to mitigate such fail states) and platforming that would be stream lined with Resident Evil. Doctor Hauzer in some way serves as the opposite of what resident evil did to alone in the dark rather then simplifying the adventure game elements to focus more on real time combat and resource management Doctor Hauzer entirely cuts out real time combat to focus solely on inventory puzzles and instant kill death traps.
This reduction in scope makes sense when you consider that is one of the first, if not the first, fully 3d rendered game on a console, and it looks pretty good. The rooms are all super simple usually just being a mostly empty squared with rectangle dressers and maybe like a couch and the polygons look pretty pixelated, but the textures are actually pretty nice and the main character has a detailed and expressive face' plus using modern emulator enhancements the graphics clean up nice. These at the time cutting edge graphics come at the cost of the game running at a glacial pace and the game being overall very short (however modern emulator overclocking can render the game fast enough to be semi playable). The ability to change from a fixed camera, to an over head camera, to a first person camera is also a nice touch as each perspective is useful depending on the room. The major issue with the graphics is that most items aren't rendered in the rooms so you end up having to inspect every drawer, table, and shelf to find items.
The adventure game stuff here is very simple and a mostly linear matter of collecting items and solving very easy puzzles. There is also a jump used in a single very low stakes platforming segment. The most interesting thing here is the amount of hidden optional secrets. There are puzzles and items used solely to find lore text or unlock doors which can be unlocked in other ways. For instance you can do a strange puzzle in a room of full of eye paintings to get a key to a room with the ghost of Hauzer. There is a boarded up passage in that room you you cant acess yet. later you will travel through some secret passages get the crow bar and pop out into the ghost room where you can crowbar down the boarded up passage. This makes the eye room key totally useless as you will enter this room regardless if you lock it or not. There is another optional key which has the same weird properties of unlocking a room you can access another way. Really there are many secrets still left to find in this game. I found Hauzer's diary 2-4 meaning there is a 1st diary I missed. There is also a gas can item that does nothing so maybe its also associated with a secret.
The story here is pretty simple and bare bones and based on hauzer finding some hieroglyphics that prove the truth of Genesis and the existence of cherubs and the garden of eden. Why do hieroglyphics prove a hebrew story is beyond me but it does add a bit of religious flavor to an otherwise generic story of a scientist going crazy trying to being his dead wife back. Usually in these stories the villain has some crazy plan that will destroy the world or harm a lot of people but beyond killing his workers before the game starts Hauzer just seems to be chilling now. Which makes the whole story seem pointless.
Looking back on reviews from this game is interesting as when it came out it got heavy coverage (even from western media where the game didn't come out_) for its advanced graphics. In general reviewers seemed split on if the game is a bland alone in the dark rip off or an atmospheric adventure. For my money the game scarcely deserves the survival horror label it gets but its still interesting none the less. One final bit of commentary i saw from a reviewer compared the game to a 3d version of a cinematic platformer like Out of this World. This is an interesting perspective but the animations are too simple and the platforming too lacking to fit in with that genre in my opinion.
Really I can't rate Doctor Hauzer its one of those games which is firmly entrenched in its time. It was a graphical showcase which succeeded in showing that fully 3D games could be rendered on a console even if this came at the cost of making a good game. Really this game is mostly just known as a historical stop gap between the more famous Alone in the Dark and resident evil but there is enough weirdness and secrets to make it worth a playthrough for any gaming history or horror buffs.