Obsidian Lives Up to the Hype--Almost : The interactive adventure has challenging puzzles, awesome scenery and a rather thin plot.

When the eye-catching TV ads for Obsidian started to pop up on “The X-Files,” people who rarely play adventure games took notice. Even hard-core computer gamers were intrigued by seeing a CD-ROM title get the media blitz usually reserved for flashy video games. But could the game deliver on the promise of artistic landscapes, challenging puzzles and intelligent story line? Yes, yes and not really. The story is a bit muddy, but the game does combine gorgeous environments with mind-boggling puzzles.

I have to admit something up front: I’m tired of this genre. Ever since the twin groundbreakers, Myst and 7th Guest, everything that has come out since has taken a pinch of either one and claimed to be the Next Big Thing. Most involve a thin futuristic plot, adolescent jokes and puzzles that are either too easy or too difficult, requiring a hint book. You play from a first-person perspective, walking through rooms and picking up items. An irrelevant puzzle usually blocks your progress. The biggest breakthroughs have come with more realistic scenery and movement--more in the techie realm than in plot or puzzles.

Obsidian starts out with a potentially interesting plot. Yes, it is set in the future--the year 2066--but you play in the perspective of a scientist named Lilah who is helping to restore the ozone layer with nanotechnology. To make a long story short, Lilah and her partner, Max, developed tiny molecular robots that will disperse in the atmosphere. As with all great technological breakthroughs, this one has gone awry, creating a huge monster rock formation called Obsidian (don’t ask how).

One cool thing about the game is how you learn the characters’ backgrounds: by digging through Lilah’s futuristic computer and seeing her drawings spring to life. As you enter the alien Obsidian world (and start to play from Lilah’s perspective), the story loses focus, taking a back seat to imaginative worlds with upended logic and breathtaking graphics.

These “dream realms” include the dizzying Bureau, where you walk on all four walls, the ceiling and the floor. You speak with dimwitted and saucy vidbots, video images of mouths that speak, while pushing big “Yes” or “No” buttons. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare a la “Brazil,” and its lunacy includes an Animal Name game and even an old-style Breakout mini-video game. The puzzles can get tedious, even though they look so good, and it’s a relief to find some hints in the manual. (For later levels, you need to get the dreaded $20 hint book.)

Electronic soundmeister Thomas Dolby provides the aural effects, and puzzler Scott Kim stretches the mind with mazes and even a 3-D puzzle in motion. But despite all the pizazz, Obsidian sometimes feels hollow at its center--especially for a game targeted at an intellectual audience. When logic is stripped away, it leaves a flimsy plot that meanders from saving Max to destroying the machine. And just getting to the plot can be challenging: The game requires 16MB of RAM and a Pentium 90 or a Power Mac 7100.

Still, if you can make it there, you’ll be in for an aesthetic treat--surreal sights, percolating sounds and frustratingly good puzzles.

* Obsidian. $59.99 SegaSoft PC or Macintosh, five discs. 16MB of RAM required, Windows 95 or System 7.0, 4X CD-ROM player.