The steps creak beneath my trembling feet as I brush the sticky cobwebs away from my face. The dim, unsheltered bulb hanging limply from the ceiling provides little illumination as I search for the key hole in the decrepit yet sturdy attic door. I shield my eyes as I blow away layers of accumulated dust. There is a muffled click as I insert and then turn the rusty skeleton key I found buried deep within the Dungeon of Shame. The door slowly, agonizingly swings open in front of me. A bloodcurdling screech emits from its hinges, rusted from years of neglect. I brace myself as I step across the threshold and there, outlined in the shadows, I see it. The stench emanating from the box leaves me no doubt that I have found that which I least wanted to find. A game that truly bites. A game that would suck dry the blood of any true adventurer. A game about vampires in the old west. A game called ... Silverload.

I found Silverload, about two years ago, at a local computer show--sans box and instructions--for a measly $13. My initial excitement at finding an unknown, unheard-of computer game quickly subsided after I loaded the game on my hard drive. The graphics were horrendous, and the washed-out colors in the game reminded me of a drug-induced impressionistic painting. Surely I had purchased a beta version! A search of the Internet confirmed my worst fears. This was no beta. Silverload had been released for the computer market in Europe by Vic Tokai. Apparently, the two or three copies that sold did not justify marketing the game in the United States. There was, though, a Playstation version foisted upon unsuspecting youngsters across the world. If you have ever wondered why teenagers prefer Doom-style games over adventures, you will wonder no longer after playing Silverload.

Vic Tokai was without a doubt the unparalleled master of cheesy adventure games. Reviewers who complain about Myst destroying the genre have obviously never played a Vic Tokai release. In both The Scroll and Silverload, mouths and facial expressions are totally out of sync with the voices. And those voices! Egads. Cowboys with exaggerated Clint Eastwood western twangs, somber funeral directors that sound like a poor man's Boris Karloff and comely barmaids attempting to seem seductive all sound equally inauthentic and ludicrous. The inventory system from hell, so unpopular in The Scroll, has returned with a vengeance. Hot spots are often near-impossible to find, and attempting to combine two inventory items into one is an exercise in frustration. In fact, everything about this game, with the exception of the western setting, is exactly the same as The Scroll, and as you know, The Scroll was, not incidentally, our first entry into the Dungeon of Shame.

If there is one redeeming factor to this game, it would be the plot. The game begins promisingly enough as you stumble across a wagon train that has been savaged by vampires. As you are a dedicated lone gunslinger fighting for truth, justice and the American way, you promise to rescue the kidnaped son of one of the wagon train's occupants. The nearest civilized area is a mining town named Silverload. The town's citizens are a strange lot, though. They deny all knowledge of a kidnaped child and make you feel as welcome as an American in Iran. Though the town is small, there are numerous locations to search and search and search for many areas and inventory items are impossible to spot. Three times I have attempted to finish Silverload, with a walkthrough at my side, and I have yet to suffer through the conclusion of this game. The music and the sound effects are a mixed lot. Sometimes they are there, and other times scenes that had music earlier are now silent. This is apparently a subtle attempt to test your auditory abilities. An old-west town populated by ghouls, werewolves and vampires could have been a lot of fun where it not off put by the jerky animation, incoherent puzzles, bad interface and horrendous lip-synching. It is these few minor details that separate Silverload from the gaming classics.

It is indeed unfortunate that Vic Tokai is no longer with us. Their idea of what constituted an adventure game could have added many more plaques to the walls of the Dungeon of Shame. But rest assured, somewhere out there, at this very moment, there is a devoted programmer being led astray by his marketing department, unknowingly creating a future entry for the Dungeon of Shame. Time will be the final judge.

What's up next for the "Dungeon of Shame"? How about a game that numerous readers have nominated as the worse of all-time. A game that lets you travel from the farthest reaches of space to the perimeter of a black hole in your wallet that has just been suckered out of 40 bucks. For in space no one can hear you scream ... at your computer as you suffer through more mind-numbing dialogue. We'll save the name of this classic for the next column. In the meantime, if you have any games you would like to nominate, drop me an e-mail and if enough readers designate the same game, I'll give it a consideration.

As always, happy gaming.