The Neverhood

The Neverhood is one of the most challenging single player games I have ever played, and it hurts me to admit that I never did manage to finish it by myself. Perhaps this is because it is so different to any kind of game I have ever played and it takes a great deal of logic to unlock its many puzzles and mysteries if you expect to get anywhere in the game. Nevertheless, this is a fantastic wacky achievement by Dreamworks Studios, featuring childlike claymation and interface but adult-level difficulties in game-play, all interwoven with quirky elements.

No one can successfully capture the mood or style of The Neverhood in a few sentences, but think Wallace and Gromit claymation meets Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a touch of Salvador Dali surrealism. In other words, this is a wacky, colourfully creative mess. We follow Klaymen as our first-person player on his quest to explore Neverhood (a neighbourhood) and the more puzzles and tasks he completes, the more we get to know about the plot of the game in the form of his mission. Klaymen collects stone-chips which he can insert in TVs which will then play for a bit to give more history of Neverhood. Very soon it is evident that the world of Neverhood is an unusual one and the people (creatures) he encounters may not be what they appear to be.

Aside from featuring an involving and puzzling plot, The Neverhood is the funniest game ever to hit PC platform. A game sequence that has stuck with me is when Klayman finds and rewinds a musical box and it shifts to cinematic mode. A happy jingle starts playing, and Klaymen continues to wind it and suddenly it awakens this huge spider-like monster who comes barging through the wall OUT OF NOWHERE and starts chasing Klay and it is just the ugliest creature I have ever seen in a video game. This cinematic is absolutely hysterical. No description will ever do it justice. You need to play this game now.

Although it may appear to be, I don't think that this game is for children. I say this because it genuinely freaked the hell out of me at several points and there is just an eerie, almost horror-like feeling shadowing the mood of the game-play. To emphasize this, there is also a weird out-of-place musical score by Terry Scott Taylor that sounds like it either belongs in a fun-house at a carnival, or it simply sounds like nothing you've ever heard. Sure, you can laugh at most of the sequences -- but this is best enjoyed by adults or teens, especially since it is so damn difficult.

The Neverhood is a gloriously entertaining, freaky PC platform game that I highly recommend.

9/10

No one does zany, abnormally creative artwork quite like Doug Tenapel and his crew, and this piece is living proof. If you can find this amazing PC game anywhere (like eBay, seeing as it is so rare) you really should buy it. I've never seen claymation taken to such a great extent before! It's not a big-budget production and it doesn't have a very common look and feel to it like most other games might (seeing as how it takes you through the adventure in a first-person, puzzle-solving perspective format) but it is fun, intelligent, hilarious and insanely innovative like no video game has ever been before (not forgetting the awesomely offbeat soundtrack by musical genius Terry Taylor.) The only reason I even chose to stop and give this title a comment on this site in the first place is because it's so much more like a movie than a game anyway...

I'm a proud owner of an original CD-ROM of the Neverhood, and I have to say, it is one of the best games I have played to date. I first found the game when I was scuttling through an old demo CD, packed with boring games like pinball, and Ace Ventura, when I came across a game with a man made of clay. After playing ten minutes through, I set out to get a copy for myself, and ended up scoring one on eBay for 80 bucks (from Israel). This game is VERY HARD. So much so that I got to a point in the game where I thought you could go no further. So I left it for a few days and went back to playing. I was not even 1/4 of the way though the game. This game is full of adventure, fun, and humor that'll keep you glued to the computer screen for days on end. It does more than break the mould. It shatters it.

10/10

Only two words can describe this fantastic frenzy of a fun and frisky form of gaming: "Wow" and "Excellent".

I can't describe it to its full extent. The creators of this game put so much time, effort, and ability into creating Klaymen's world that, although I have played through the game literally five or more times over, I am still amazed. While the game lacks a solid story when you start, it builds up as if the storyline stretches out to the past and the future. Klaymen learns of the past as he continues ahead (on to his and the Neverhood's fate).

When Klaymen's ultimate journey begins, there is no plot. There is no story. There is no big bad guy. There is exploration and there are puzzles, and plenty of them. These puzzles are not extremely hard, as in a similar game, Riven. They are challenging but not beyond total confusion. One puzzle links to something elsewhere within the world, and when Klaymen figures it out, everything fits together.

The plot is excellent (once it quickens), the characters are deep and intriguing, and the gameplay is excellent. Not to mention the cinematic sequences every so often. In all, the Neverhood is a must.

The Neverhood is, in my humble opinion, the best puzzle game for the IBM PC platform ever developed. It was developed by Doug TenNapel and company and took years to produce. There is mischief but very little violence. It is most definitely not a shoot-em-up, nor is it tame. The music, which reminds one of Leon Redbone on Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, is worth the effort of finding a used copy of this long out-of-print title from 1996.