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I've always been of the mind-set that adventure games are story, puzzles and artwork. The Experiment attempts to break the mold and create a sense of immersion like no other. Can they avoid a stereotypical adventure game and cut out the puzzles and wild stories? Or maybe we should ask, should they?

The Experiment is an adventure game with a very interesting twist. I love twists; who doesn't? All that chocolate and vanilla ... oh, right, right; in just about every ice-cold, creamy adventure game, it is your character who is exploring, solving puzzles, eating the chocolate part first and uncovering the history of whatever the topic just happens to be. The Experiment adds another person into the mix, and you ... well, you only ever witness the events that happen through an extensive camera network. Screw this, I'm going to Dairy Queen.

Lea Nichols wakes up in a cot, confused and weak. She quickly realizes that something terrible has happened to the ship on which she is stationed and that someone is watching her via the cameras. That person is, of course, you; this really is a novel idea, and it creates an incredible sense of immersion into the game.

Think about it for a second — you are playing as a character that is interacting with a computer to help Lea; you have windows, cameras, logins and a windowed computer environment. Her actions are all in real time instead of the typical frame-based motion for adventure games, adding to the immersion factor. The Experiment blurs the lines between a person playing a game and what you are trying to accomplish. This increased my excitement and made me want to continue playing.

Gameplay is quite unique in The Experiment: You interact with a computer, not a character directly. A ship layout screen can be used to access cameras, lights, doors and other electronic equipment. These often are used to signal Lea to an area. There are menus, logins, e-mail and data files you can search through for clues. As you advance and put together the clues, you can uncover varying levels of information secured in the computer. You also have access to detailed camera controls, including lighting, filters and movements to distinguish your surroundings and help Lea in her movements. While Lea can talk to you, you can't do too much to communicate with her, so flicking of lights, computer access and camera gestures is just about all you can do to help guide her. You often need to look around and then flick a light to where Lea should head to and investigate; from there, she'll try to figure out what is going on.

At first the notion of searching — very thoroughly might I add — through e-mails and files and other's logins to find clues was pretty cool. Not only is the information hidden, it is often encrypted and coded and requires you to solve complex and difficult puzzles to get your answers. Fast-forward six or seven hours to a middle stage of the game, and we are still doing the same thing; my ambition to keep playing drops significantly. Now I'm not saying it isn't a fun thing, it is just that sometimes too much of one fun thing becomes not so fun; there is just not enough mixing of activities. It can be kind of like being trapped on an amusement park ride — the first few times rock, then you want to puke in hopes they'll let you off.

With all that computer searching, one thing really suffers, and that is the plot. There are times you are so caught up in finding a piece of information that you completely forget what you were supposed to be doing after that. Normally this shouldn't be a problem, but The Experiment more often than not simply doesn't update your objectives. The further you dive into the game, the less sense most of the game makes. Why are we doing this or going here? Sure, sometimes you know, you understand what is going on because of the access to the computer and files, but Lea is completely oblivious to the information you are uncovering; it doesn't really work. Around the same time, you'll find yourself treating Lea more like your dog, stringing her along on a leash by having her walk long distances light by light; the immersion starts to wear off. My ambition to play dwindles further.

The Experiment is a nightmare on the technical side. Graphically the game is pretty average. There are not many characters and most of the images are just that of a ship overgrown in vegetation. Ambient sounds are decent but sometimes seem a little out of place, and the music unnecessarily bobs up and down in intensity randomly; this makes some points difficult to hear Lea talk. Unfortunately the game does crash occasionally, and tabbing out of the game seems to make this far more likely to happen.

The largest issue, however, is the performance ... wait ... performance? In an adventure game? Unfortunately, yes. Things run in real time, and while the game only runs at a very poor 70 frames per second on my less than 1-year-old computer (with no camera windows open), it only ever gets lower. The moment you open one camera, that figure can drop 40 fps, a second camera will remove another 15 fps and a third can be very, very choppy. There is a very real performance problem, as small sections of video (keep in mind there is only one audio track, which is not dependent on camera) have very serious impact on gameplay. There are a number of other bugs, including looping speech, items staying in Lea's hands forever and more. These are minor, but they are noticeable.

For a game that starts out great, The Experiment feels like it wants to do poorly. I started out really excited to play, but I was turned off by a repetitive style of gameplay and a few nagging bugs, all of which really don't break the game — they each just take a few stabs at it. The biggest sin of The Experiment is the complete lack of respect it gives to the story. We encounter a ship, a disaster, and that strange chemical and biological tests having happened, and it just sort of fizzles away. Your whole mysterious identity is ignored during the plot, and the giant conspiracy always being displayed to you kind of ...well, nothing happens with it. My enjoyment, like the story, just sort of fizzled away as I played on. The Experiment was still enjoyable, however. A couple years ago I wouldn't have even considered this to be a bad game, and it really isn't. But when held up against a recently revived and innovative adventure game genre, it is not the best choice.