The Experiment (www.dreamcatchergames.com, $29.99) (**** out of four) is one of the creepiest mystery-adventure games we’ve run into in a bit. The game got under our skin, yet demanded we kept going. The general story line is not unique--except for some biological twists. It opens with our principle character, Lea, awakening in a dingy room, suffering with partial amnesia. Who am I? Where am I? How did I get here--and, and, and . . . It turns out that Lea is on a rusty old tanker ship that has run aground. The ship is a disguised secret government laboratory in which something very bad has obviously happened. You have to help Lea figure it all out and get her out of there safely.

The fascinating feature of this game is how you proceed from here. "You," the player and apparently part of the game, are able to see Lea by using an extensive series of surveillance system cameras. And she is aware that "You" are watching. She seems aware of some of her past as she gives you help on operating the system and advice as to where to go next, how to get there and what to look for to help her.

Lea has some independent actions, even thought you help direct her. For example, you can click on a door and Lea will walk to the door and open it, unless it’s locked, in which case you may have to send Lea back to Personnel to get the unlocking code of the person whose office door you want opened. As she asks for our help, we felt compelled to help her, and shortly we found ourselves drawn deeply into the game. Lea does get a little impatient and feisty at times, with comments such as "come on, we have to get moving," or "are ‘You’ awake yet?" And then there’s the question of just who are "You?"

The surveillance cameras are your eyes to Lea’s world. You’re able to select views from any of the cameras located in five different areas of the ship/laboratory. The user interface provides you with maps of the areas and locations of the cameras, lights, doors and important objects. You can have views displayed from up to three cameras simultaneously to keep track of Lea and other areas of the ship. The cameras can be controlled to pan manually or automatically (your choice) and eventually you’ll gain access to night vision, zoom and other upgrades for the cameras. The camera view windows can be reposition on the screen to allow better visual access to goings on. Not all the cameras work all the time and not all the lights are powered, so some scrambling may be necessary to get them working.

Once we got used to using the surveillance center cameras, playing the game was reasonably easy and allowed us to focus on enjoying the adventure rather than how to play it. This little twist should make it fun for "You" too.