X-Files does look great; it has excellent video quality; it's crisp, like watching television. The audio was done really well too. Background music and ambient sound effects are truly top notch. And how can you go wrong with an X-Files theme? But this is where the good stuff ends.

In other reviews you may read that this game has a great plot. Forget it. While intriguing, the plot was predictable. You know who the bad guy is right from the very start. And when he does betray you, the reason he gives is, well, non-sequitar.

The video was really high quality, but this just means that it sucked up an unreasonable amount of disk space. We're talking 7 CD's for only a couple of hours of video! The game is *remarkably* small for 7 disks!

Not to mention the fact that the fact that the game obviously has memory leaks. Badly. After about an hour of play, computer starts thrashing uncontrollably. The video playback, of course, suffers since the computer is now putting every bit of scratch space it needs onto the hard drive for virtual memory. The game needs to be restarted about every 60 - 90 minutes.

Throughout the game, it flashes subliminal messages at you. I'm not kidding. They go by so quickly that you really don't notice them while you play. But if you sit, stare at the screen, and do nothing but look for for them, you'll see them. It's almost constant, and very, very subtle. The messages are rather harmless; not like "Buy Our Games!" or "Send Us Money", but rather X-Files themed like "Trust No One" or "Paranoia". Still, isn't that sort of thing illegal? It's unsettling that a game would seriously try to send subliminal messages to a player.

Gameplay ranges from decent to awful. For example, you need to search a tremendous, dark warehouse for a tiny, dark and hidden bullet lodged in a post. Anyone who can find this bullet without using the game's "intuition" feature should get an award. However, this is about as bad as it gets. Most of the time, I'd label gameplay as being "so-so" or "ok".

1. Simply interact with a character by exhausting every single possible conversation piece.
2. At some point, they'll tell you to go somewhere.
3. Go to the next place.
4. Go to step 1

The puzzles are sparse. The opening one is figuring out your password. Dull. There are times where you need to figure out exactly which rooms to walk to, in which order and the proper time to walk; otherwise you die. These kinds of "puzzles" are obnoxious, boring and make me go to the nearest walkthrough.

Craig Willmore bothered me; he always had a belligerant look to him. He looks like a stupid fraternity guy who should be watching sports instead of being a detective for the FBI. The game made some effort to develop his character, but it never went anywhere with it. His development was really non-sequitar to the game. I wish they found a way to integrate it more fully. Mulder and Skully appear on the last two discs and only for a half hour or so of action. The Lone Gunmen had only a 90 second cameo.

The game isn't quite as bad as I made it out to be. The graphics, sound and X-Files theme carry the game. You'll enjoy the game, to be sure. Overall it's a very easy game to play, frustrating at parts, and the end is nearly impossible to finish without either alot of trial and error or a read through a walkthrough. It sure wasn't worth $50 that I paid. If you could find this game for $15 or $20, it would be well worth that price, as well as your time in playing it.