Publisher: 7th Level
Developer: 7th Level
Year: 1996
Platform: Windows, Macintosh

When I received this game as an unexpected Christmas gift, I was excited. I found the movie incredibly funny and had read many positive reviews on multiple sites. But after playing Holy Grail, the only opinion I can justify is that this is absolutely the most irritatingly brain-chafing game I have ever played.

Continue reading Monty Python & The Quest For The Holy Grail →

Publisher: Erbe Software
Developer: Delphine Software
Year: 1991
Platform: DOS, Amiga, Atari ST

A decent mystery wrapped up in sloppy game design, the only corpse to be cruised for is the shell of a game that’s been left rotting on the promenade. On board a cruise, invited by the wealthy owner, you’re soon knocked out cold after coming upon the dead owner’s body. When you wake up you have the rest of the day to interview all of the suspects (read: everyone on board) and pin the murderer.

Because there are so few positives, let’s start with those. Delphine Software introduced their vector graphic engine that became popular in the Alone In The Dark series. While it is impressive, it is unnecessary (especially in an adventure), and the more polished sprite-based artwork of the time would have been sufficient. Some cut scenes add good flavor to the story. The dialogue is fairly banal, but it is translated from French so I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt. The plot itself is also fairly deep, with each suspect having a motive. At the end of the game, you have to accuse the perp, with the ending changing based on who you pick (with one ideal ending, of course).

The game itself has a Gabriel Knight time system, with the clock advancing every time you do something important.  This is fine, and actually a system that I prefer, as I become frustrated when I miss a clue because I didn’t happen to be in the right place at the right time. However, the logic the game uses to advance the clock is ridiculous beyond compare. For example, you can ask a lady about a topic at 2:00 in the afternoon and nothing happens.  But talk to her about the exact same thing a half hour later and the clock advances. Perhaps even worse, every time the clock advances, characters and items get distributed seemingly at random throughout the ship. Check that drawer and 10:00 and there’s nothing in it.  Go back to that drawer at 12:30 and you’ll find a key item you need.  Why is that item now in the drawer when it wasn’t before?  That’s an even greater mystery than the whodunit.

What these failures in logic amount to is tedious and aimless wandering throughout the ship, ruining continuity and interest in the story.  Thankfully, you can bring up a map of the ship to warp to any (unlocked) place you like, but that’s little consolation. Even playing with a walkthrough did little to relieve the boredom of this meandering investigation. Unless you have completely run out of games to play, don’t touch this corpse with a ten foot pole.

Publisher: Dinamic Multimedia
Developer: Pendulo Studios
Year: 2001
Platform: Windows, iOS

I think I am going to write a review now of the game Runaway: A Road Adventure. Yes! That is what I am going to do. I’ll put my fingers on the keys and type out words that describe my feelings about this game! For starters, I will tell you about the plot. Runaway was originally developed in Spain, by guys who obviously like Tim Schafer’s work on Full Throttle. I also liked Tim Schafer’s work on Full Throttle. This game emulates that one in style and graphics. However, what this game has is a stripper! Yes, a real live one, who escapes from the mob after watching her father get killed. However, during her escape, she gets hit by a car driven by Brian, a college student on his way to Berkeley. After helping her escape the hospital, she convinces him to let her tag along and solve a mystery as to why her father was killed. Sounds like fun, don’t ya think?

I really liked the concept of this game to begin with. And I’ll tell you why I liked the concept. There’s a nerdy college student, a stripper, and the mob. Though, I probably already told you that, how could this game not be great with that formula? You control Brian (that’s the main character played by you), and you get to pick up lots of random items and use them to solve puzzles! However, I didn’t like the puzzles. I’ll tell you why I didn’t like the puzzles. There are many objects very hard to find, so you spend a lot of time searching pixels instead of solving anything. Also, sometimes Brian will (realistically) not pick up an item until he has a use for it. But then sometimes, he will just pick up a random item (like a poker) hoping he can use it sometime later. I will tell you one more reason why I didn’t like the puzzles. Brian will often have an item that would easily solve a particular problem he is having, but when he tries to use that item, he is not able to. Not only that, a reason isn’t given! So Brian must find the really bizarre solution to the problem that involves tricks MacGyver wouldn’t even try. Wow, who would think one could write so much about puzzles!

The stripper–by the way her name is Gina–is cute and nice, but unfortunately, I didn’t like the way she is used in the game. I bet you want to know why, too. I didn’t like the way she is used in the game because she never actually does anything except get in trouble or get injured. So what I am trying to say is that she was just eye candy, a plot device to make the game more appealing. And, if I’m being perfectly honest, she didn’t really have that great of a personality. So that is what I think about Gina.

I will tell you one thing I did like about the game, and that is the cut scenes. I really liked the cut scenes because the graphics were nice and the underlying plot was kind of fun. But that’s all I have to say about the cut scenes.

Finally, I should summarize my feelings about Runaway. So, to summarize, I will tell you that an interesting plot is made boring by uneven and mostly uninteresting puzzles along with uneven and mostly poor acting. Those are the feelings I have about this game, so you can probably guess that I will not be rushing out to play the sequel any time soon! Well, that was fun writing that review. I sure hope you enjoyed it too!

Disclaimer: The entire review was written exactly the way Brian talks, which may be the primary reason I loathe this game. Unfortunately, I don’t know whether to blame the original script writers or the translators. Amazingly, I seem to be one of the few people who feels this way, as this game is generally held in high regard.