| Doctor Hauzer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Riverhillsoft |
| Publisher(s) | Panasonic |
| Director(s) | Kenichiro Hayashi |
| Producer(s) | Kazuhiro Okazaki |
| Designer(s) | Toshiaki Kawasaki Kotaro Mitoma |
| Programmer(s) | Akihiro Hino Masahiro Noda |
| Composer(s) | Ken Inaoka (sound effects) |
| Platform(s) | 3DO Interactive Multiplayer |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Adventure, survival horror |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Doctor Hauzer[a] is a 1994 survival horror-adventure video game developed by Riverhillsoft and published in Japan by Panasonic for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. The player takes on the role of Adams Adler, a newspaper reporter investigating a mansion for clues to the whereabouts of the eponymous Hauzer, a famed archeologist who has mysteriously disappeared. The game tasks the player with navigating the large mansion by collecting useful items, solving various puzzles, and avoiding deadly traps.
Doctor Hauzer has stark graphical and gameplay similarities with early titles in the Infogrames survival horror series Alone in the Dark, which feature 3D polygonal characters and objects set against fixed, pre-rendered backgrounds. However, Doctor Hauzer is the first of this genre to include fully 3D environments that the player can explore while freely swapping between third-person, first-person, and top-down perspectives. These characteristics were carried over into Riverhillsoft's next game, OverBlood.
In spite of the game's single region-exclusivity, Doctor Hauzer has been reviewed by several publications outside Japan and has been met with an overall average critical reception. It has enjoyed positive commentary for its sound design and achievement of 3D graphics on a home console. The game garnered mostly favorable opinions regarding its gameplay and the player's ability to change camera views, though reviewers widely disapproved of its short length and slow frame rate. Like Alone in the Dark, Doctor Hauzer has been viewed by some sources as a notable step in the early evolution of the survival horror genre. The game has never been officially released outside Japan, although fan translations exist.
- ^ Famitsu staff (April 29, 1994). "NEW GAMES CROSS REVIEW 新作ゲームクロスレビュー". Weekly Famicom Tsūshin (in Japanese). No. 280. ASCII Corporation. p. 77.
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