In what feels like a series finale–and thankfully isn’t–Black Museum tries to be all things and winds up being contrived and bloated.
Black Mirror, Episode 4×02: Arkangel
Arkangel is the first episode of Black Mirror to be directed by a woman (Jodie Foster) and focuses more on family than most. The set up is right in this show’s wheelhouse too. Unfortunately, the execution is lacking, focusing on the wrong themes.
Black Mirror, Episode 2×03: The Waldo Moment
A fifteen minute bit stretched out into a full episode, The Waldo Moment predicts Trump’s rise to power if Trump had a modicum of talent and was occasionally funny.
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Black Mirror, Episode 3×05: Men Against Fire
Set in a post-apocalyptic world, we follow Stripe (pictured), a military grunt whose job is to hunt down mutant humans and exterminate them while arresting anyone harboring these dangerous beings. The new technology here are neural implants the soldiers use that not only enhance their senses (making them better killing machines) but also gives them incredibly realistic sex dreams. The sex dreams, of course, were added just in case the viewer wasn’t tipped off already (by the whole killing machine part) that this technology might not be altruistic. Or maybe Netflix just wanted to show some boobs.
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Black Mirror, Episode 4×03: Crocodile
Possibly the bleakest of all the Black Mirror episodes, Crocodile takes a suspect premise, forces it down our throats, then cuts open our stomachs to remove it and force it down our throats some more.
Black Mirror Countdown
A fifth season is in the works, so over the next few weeks I’ll be counting down every episode of Black Mirror from worst to best. For those who haven’t seen Black Mirror, it’s basically a darker, more in-your-face Twilight Zone that relies on technology gone amok rather than the supernatural.
Spoilers abound, naturally.
Space Quest 1: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter
Developer: Sierra
Publisher: Sierra
Year: 1991
Platform: DOS, Mac, Amiga
Part of the wave of Sierra early 90’s remakes of the first games in all their popular series, Space Quest fared little better than the rest. Though receiving an “upgrade” in interface, sound, and graphics, I found this to be much less charming and enjoyable than the game it was supposed to be improving.
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Castle Adventure
Developer: Kevin Bales
Publisher: Kevin Bales
Year: 1984
Platform: DOS
One of the first graphical adventures I played, Castle Adventure was literally written by a 14 year-old in his mother’s basement using nothing but BASIC for the game and ASCII characters for the graphics. Given the tools used and the year it was made, it was quite an impressive achievement.
King’s Quest III: To Heir Is Human
Developer: Infamous Adventures
Publisher: Infamous Adventures
Year: 2006
Platform: Windows
AGDInteractive wasn’t the only group working on a remake of King’s Quest III. Four years earlier, Infamous Adventures took a stab at it. While it doesn’t have the production values of the former (or would that be the latter?), it’s a faithful adaptation of the original game and sure to please those who liked the original just fine.
3 Cards to Deadtime
Developer: Big Finish
Publisher: Big Finish
Year: 2010
Platform: Windows
The follow-up to 3 Cards to Midnight, Dead Time improves things a bit by making the game simpler for non-native English speakers. Rather than creating compound words to find hidden objects on each screen, the goal is to now just find everything related to a category.
Death By Troggles 
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