Introduction: I read through Rick36's review, and I wanted to post another view instead of users being left with only Rick36's opinion of Blackstone Chronicles.
The Blackstone Hospital for the Mentally Ill was originally the palatial home of tycoon Charles Connally. Constructed on the same massive scale as the 'American Castles' of Vanderbilt and Rockefeller, the mansion was converted to an asylum in 1925, three years before Connally's death.
For the next thirty-four years, the property was operated as a hospital for the insane. At its peak, more than 500 inmates and staff lived on the grounds.
After the hospital's Board of Trustees voted to close it in 1959, the building stood empty for nearly forty years, until it was purchased by the Blackstone Historical Society for use as a museum of psychiatric history.
Blackstone Chronicles, released by Mindscape back in 1998, takes place 39 years after the Blackstone Asylum closed its doors. You play the role of Oliver Metcalf who is the son of the former asylum superintendent Dr. Malcolm Metcalf. Inside the asylum, now museum, you learn that your father, who is deceased yet communicates to you as just a voice, has kidnapped your son Joshua. You were trained (beaten) by your father to play a murderous role. Because you chose to lead your own life as an adult, Malcolm is left with no other option but to use Joshua in your place. You have returned to the asylum to rescue Joshua. The day is April 23rd; the day before your birthday. If Joshua isn't rescued by dawn, Malcolm will use Joshua instead of you.
Through interacting with items located throughout the mansion, we learn a great deal about the Metcalf family (including members not mentioned previously) and the patients, now ghosts, that inhabited the asylum (and the ordeals they encountered while living there). The ghosts are there because cherished items they once loved, while living, were left behind. The ghosts, including Malcolm, will remain in the game as long as their items are not destroyed. Ultimately, we do not know how the majority of the patients met their fate until the end of the game. Along the way, however, we discover many truths; truths that are not only horrific, but informative to us of the evil Dr. Malcolm Metcalf and those that aided him.
Bit by bit, we learn just how gruesome Malcolm was to his patients. For me, the most disturbing death was that of patient Abraham Wagner who was a 6
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