''Sensory Overload'' is a

first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...

video game developed and published by Reality Bytes for the

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

Gameplay

''Sensory Overload'' is a game in which the player is a

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

agent who pretends to be a test subject to investigate a facility for medical research.

Development and release

''Sensory Overload'' was developed as the first game from

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

-based studio Reality Bytes. It was co-designed by Jon Chiat, David Chiat, and Jason Davis. The game was released exclusively for Macintosh in August 1994. Reality Bytes would go on to create the polygon-based first-person shooters '' Havoc'' and '' Dark Vengeance''.

Reception

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' reviewed the game, rating it three stars out of five, and called it "definitely worth checking out." Peter Olafson of ''

Electronic Entertainment Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductors * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic c ...

'' summarized it as an "adequate action-adventure" not quite up to the level of

Bungie Bungie, Inc. is an American video game company based in Bellevue, Washington, and a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company was established in May 1991 by Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones (programme ...

's ''

Marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...

''. He enjoyed its clever gadgets but felt they were underutilized and that the game was "slow and mechanical even on a Quadra" despite some acceleration for the Power Mac. Dave Rees of '' Gamers' Republic'' noted ''Sensory Overload'' as the first FPS to push the Mac's 32-bit hardware with a "representational style was far more advanced than anything previously seen" but that its "understated marketing" caused it to fall victim to the "superior effort" ''

'' from

References

{{reflist

External links

''Sensory Overload''
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controlle ...

''Sensory Overload''
at Macintosh Repository 1994 video games Classic Mac OS games Classic Mac OS-only games First-person shooters Reality Bytes games Sprite-based first-person shooters Single-player video games Spy video games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in laboratories