Sweet visuals save 'Hood'

Although claymation is not widely used in TV or in video games, it always seems to yield a successful product. I can name numerous popular claymation shows, commercials and video games, but I can't think of a single, real failure in claymation. Maybe the time-consuming procedure involved in animating clay on camera negates any frivolous or poor use of this medium. Because even the smallest gesture involves many painstaking steps, it had better be worthwhile to make it. Maybe the audience can see that meticulous technique in the finished product.

Or maybe it's just cool to watch clay move.

Whatever claymation's formula for success, it proves itself again in "The Neverhood," the new Dreamworks SKG game. In the game, you're Klaymen, a resident of the Neverhood, and that's all you know in the beginning. The game is in the spirit of "Myst" - you move through a virtual landscape and solve puzzles and riddles in order to progress further in the game. Unlike "Myst," this game offers wildly bizarre and humorous settings, and making a mistake can be more fun to watch than solving the puzzles.

For instance, the second room you visit in the game has five rings hanging from the ceiling with an oversized Venus flytrap waiting to swallow Klaymen. There's nothing you really can do to avoid this fate, but Klaymen can't be killed except in one, clearly marked place. After the flytrap spits Klaymen out like a chewed piece of gum, you have to figure out how to get him out of the room. There is a door with a big red button on it. Push the button, and for being such a sucker, Klaymen receives a flattening punch from a boxing glove affixed to an extending, metal arm.

Claymation makes these antics into candy for the eye. Inside the buildings, Klaymen moves across the screen in traditional video game format, but the claymation creates near complete three-dimensional depth and volume. Klaymen can also walk into doorways, moving further back into the screen. When outside in the Neverhood, you're given Klaymen's perspective, so it's like you are walking through the clay landscape.

The sound effects complement the wacky look and feel of the game. Outside of Klaymen's neighborhood, there's a fruit tree, and if you go up to it, Klaymen will eat a piece of fruit. Then after some crunching and a gulp, he'll emit a pretty impressive burp. The more fruit he eats successively after that, the longer and more obnoxious each burp gets. I stopped him at three or four because the burps started lasting more than a minute.

Although the burping is intrusive, the music is not. It has this cool jazz feel, laid back and somewhat ridiculous, but that's how everything looks in this game.

In most video games, it's best turn the music off and perhaps supply your own, but anything fast paced and serious would detract from this game. "The Neverhood" is meant to be ridiculous and in no rush whatsoever, which exactly describes how Klaymen walks.There's the only flaw with the game. It's not a thrill a minute, and as the "ages 17 and up" on the outside of the box indicates, it's challenging. Still, this is how all "Myst" clones are, and "The Neverhood" is a fine addition to this genre of video game.

- Michael Galloway

02-10-98