Reviews ******* By Quentin.D.Thompson, Infamous Author Of Interactive Fiction, Using the Adventure Game Toolkit To Conceal his Congenital Inability to Write A Decent Parser by Himself. Author of the stirring tale of medical malpraxis, "A Bloody Life". :-) (The opinions below are purely my own, and are inclined to be - as Mike Marqusee said about Rowland Bowen's cricket books - cranky, obsessive, and pedantic in turn. This said and done, they are meant mostly for fun, and as a guide to some of the text games I have been lucky or unlucky enough to take a bash at.) Disclaimers: =========== 1. I am fully aware that, to some people, my games may be as irritating, annoying or bad as some of those I latched on to in this file. Well, opinions differ. So, don't be too bugged if I've taken a crack at your fave game, or praised your personal bugbear. 2. Not being a 'classical' adventure player, I tend to prefer detective adventures, etc..over the classic twisty-little-maze games. This, again is not to belittle the latter, but merely my own warped taste. Rating Systems: ============== My rating system is rather funny. Each game gets a primary rating which can be one of the following: BOMB - A total washout. Worth playing only to make fun of. WUSS - A weak game. Might appeal to certain people, but not me. ** - An average game *** - A good game **** - Wow, I really enjoyed this! X - Tough, and not much fun. X**X - Good game, but damned tough/tricky to crack. Besides which, gameplay, conversation and descriptions all get ratings out of 10. (I'm rather big on conversation, as some of you who've played my games - A Bloody Life and Time Traveller - might know.) When a game does not feature conversation, the rating is CX, not C0. There are separate 'Grouse', 'Nitpick' and 'Notable' headings for further details. A separate heading - QDT4 - deals with what I call the Quentin.D.Thompson 4-Letter Word trap. In other words, how does the game respond to four-letter words? The best response, so far, was from Graham Nelson's "Curses". And now, on to the fun...... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. DUCK SOUP (AGT) (*** G8 C5 D8) Genre : Detective/Humorous This very funny AGT adventure has you as a two-bit private eye attempting to recover a glamorous client's rubber ducky. Notable : This game has an irreverent sense of humour that really tore me up (what other games have you scooping doggie-doo, or hunting in refuse cans, or razzing guys by using their nicknames?) The ending - a great, big anti-climax - also deserves mention. Grouses : Some guess-the-verb situations (STAY AT LINE 2, CHEER AT POPCORN DUCK, POUR GLOB ON POPCORN), some way-out puzzles (calling a guy Lollypop instead of Poplolly is one example), and conversation is rather low. Nitpick : Full use wasn't made of some of AGT's features. For example: What Now? GIVE DUCK TO KID The charming KID refuses your offer. (Using $noun$, KID could easily have been made lowercase.) QDT4 : Not available - "I don't recognize as a verb." Final Verdict : Recommended for almost all text-adventure buffs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. GUMSHOE, An Interactive Investigation (Inform) (**** G8/9 C7 D8) Genre : Detective A pure detective adventure, sort of similar to the much bigger "The Hollywood Murders", but with your old Aunt Marge as secretary. Snoop on the oh-so-macho John McBride and find out whether or not he's cheating on his wife. Notable : A good game, nice puzzles, nice dialogue, and some cute realism. For example, when John's wife comes to you about the case at first, you can't get started unless you 1. offer her a seat and 2. give her your handkerchief. Nice situations, too, sometimes. Some joke commands (try swearing or praying in front of Marge) do work. There is an AMUSING command, like in The Wedding, when you finish the game. Grouses : I found the time-frame jarring. And the tires on Boggs' car - vital to stalling him - aren't mentioned in the object description. (This explains why I needed to cheat with "infocom -r gumshoe.z5" before I finished it.) And having to repeat giving $100 five times is a little annoying. Nitpick : One of your twenty points is not connected to the investigation (scoring a bullseye on the dartboard.) And, in my opinion, "KISS SANDRA" deserved a funnier reply than that available in the standard Inform library. QTD4 : Standard ("Real adventurers do not use such language.") Final Verdict : Get this one! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. MERCY (Inform) (WUSS G0 C6 D0) Genre : Just plain irritating. Dreary, boring, pessimistic stuff. An epidemic of smallpox has broken out, and your sole object is to make out with a nurse at your hospital before you die (I think.) Its author plans to write another game about right-wing politics and euthanasia. God, spare us. Notable : It's very easy to finish. Grouses : too numerous to mention. Weak characters, silly dialogue (though there's a lot of it), poor gameplay (there's very little freedom to do what you want), and annoying multiple endings. Did I mention "boring" or "overblown"? Perhaps I'm being too harsh - this is meant to be an 'interactive short story', not a TA per se. Nitpicks : This game has no little faults, only big ones. QTD4 : Standard ("Real adventurers...") Final Verdict : If you enjoyed my game "A Bloody Life", you can thank this game in part, for compelling me to write a decent hospital game. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. THE WEDDING (Inform) (**** G9 C7 D9) Genre : Humorous This amusing and interesting game by Neil James Brown puts you in the role of an ordinary Joe trying to discover why his best friend's gone missing at his own wedding. Game solutions include a seedy watchman, a grumpy cook, a VCR, a water detector, and a snobbish mum-in-law. Can one ask for more? Notable : Good conversation, online hints, and some objects (like the TV) are there partly for fun. Ever tried ordering Peruvian folk songs by phone? And the puzzles (such as dealing with sulky old Uncle William) are amusing. Grouses : None in particular, except that the VCR puzzle was a little hard to crack. Nitpicks : None that I can think of right now. QTD4 : Standard ("Real adventurers....") Final Verdict : Definitely worth adding to any TA collection. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. MOP AND MURDER (AGT) (**** G9 CX D9) Genre : Detective This was Brad Friedman's very first game, and a damned good one too. As Peter Green, janitor in a CIA office, you stumble upon the assasination of a secret agent, Andrew Shannon, and have to clear it up. All your clues are in one room. Notable : The telephone, the safe, the books, and the pophints! The AGT parser was definitely taken to the limit here, with very good results, and some new commands, such as UNDER for looking under objects. Many objects are 'hidden' in descriptions, as in Inform games. (I still haven't yet figured out how he did that; my games still look like this: You are in a prison cell. There is a wooden stool here. (in the cell.) There is a saw here. (in the cell.) Corny, ain't it?) Lots of puzzles and codes to crack, and some good investigation. Grouses : None in particular, but there's no conversation. Nitpicks : I wasn't able to READ Officer Harvey's badge (essential to understanding the crime) and had to hack the code to do so. If you don't want to spoil your fun, I'll just tell you that his full name is James Joyce Harvey, and his security code is green. QTD4 : A metacommand message (Well, you could the , but it won't help you solving this case.) Final Verdict : An adventure without exploration? Without mazes? Yes, it can be done, and very well indeed. By the way, this was the game that introduced me to pop-up hints. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. NEW ENGLAND GOTHIC (AGT) (** G6 C1 D4) Promising start, interesting middle, and a finish that shoots the whole game in the foot. That's the sad story of Simba's "New England Gothic", in which you inherit your Great-Aunt Eliza's mansion, and start finding out things about it. There's nothing particularly gothic about it, though a ghost does materialize every now and then. And, as interesting as some of the puzzles were (I never got the full score of 265 points), some of the characters (the Portuguese woman, for example) did nothing, John Ryder is strangely conversationless, and anyway what do you say about a game whose winning command is KISS JOHN? If I hadn't had the bad luck to play MUSE (see the next entry), this game would be rated WUSS instead of **. Notable : The atmosphere is pretty good at times. Animal lovers might enjoy the cat and the horse, and you can interact quite a bit with all of the objects - unlike some AGT games. There is a sort of mystery to be solved, but it's lamer than "Oliver Twist", so forget it. Grouses : Several. For one, you can't enter the church or the underground unless big, manly John is with you. How sexist! Worse, how unadventursome! Several locations kill you without warning (such as the sea, the terrace and the staircase). There are too many loose ends. And the whole story is unconvincing. Nitpicks : Conversation - so essential if you're trying to tell a story - is at a minimum. QTD4 : Not available. Final Verdict : Lovers of Mills and Boon, or Harlequin Romances, might like the ending; TA buffs may enjoy some of the problem solving, but will be turned off by the ending. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. MUSE, An Autumn Romance (Inform) (BOMB G2 C7 D3) Romantic novels, traditionally, earn their popularity because you can be a passive observer - and, if you're the slushy type - get your kicks out of what's happening in the novel. It's the same factor that drove thousands of middle-aged women to watch "Titanic" over and over again........the kick of seeing a hunky, twenty-something male and a beautiful, twenty-something female living (un)happily ever after. That's why, I always thought, romantic novels couldn't be made into TAs unless you were the hero or the heroine - could they? Wrong. In this putrid, irritating, slushy, sentimental, preachy and weakly written game, Christopher Huang shows us the way. Since I hate suspense, I'll give you the story. Sixty-something pastor from England falls in love at first sight with thirty-something German girl, in France of all places. I'll continue in the next headings. Notable : Like "Mercy", I guess I may be going a bit too hard on this game, which is clearly not a true TA but a sort of experiment. And there is quite a lot of conversation, and a few novel commands (SUPPORT, INTRODUCE TO , etc.) Grouses : Shall I count the ways? 1. Cliched, sickening plot. Women falling for struggling artists is so deja vu that you can't stifle a "yeah, right" when Mister John Austin appears on scene. 2. Cliched, sickening characters. The choleric and uncommunicative Viktor van Goethe, his colourless daughter, and your own unappealing persona as a reticent Englishman are, I'm sure, taken from second-hand copies of a Silhouette Desire or Danielle Steele novel. Yaagh. 3. Irritating puzzles. I'll give you a walkthrough: Check in to the hotel. Save Viktor. Go make small talk with his daughter. Encourage John. Make the bugger paint her. Talk to old Vik again. Leave the island. Live dreamily ever after. Or, even shorter: Forget your mid-life crisis. Act as go-between between Konstanza and John. Go home. 4. When you finish the game, you don't get that old, familiar, comforting message that goes *** Congratulations. You have won the game. *** Instead, you get crap like *** I was reconciled to myself and my station in life. *** And, after all is said and done, you get a hymn by St. Francis of Assisi printed on-screen. I have nothing against St. Francis, but using his hymn in that situation pissed me off so much that I had to play all my old favourites about 3 times before recovering. Nitpicks : 1. When you're writing a game with a lot of conversation, give your characters short names! You don't know how bugging it is to key in "Konstanza" every damn time you want to say something. (I did something like this in my first game, when I had a character called Henrietta. Since then, I've always given them short names: Edwin, Alice, Ivan, Jeb, etc.....Yes, I DID include Marie-Antoinette in Time Traveller, but you can simply refer to her as Marie, or the Queen, and besides you don't have to talk to her!) 2. There is a big bug in the TALK code! When Viktor is hanging from the ceiling and about to die, try this command: >talk to victor We chatted for a while, but soon digressed. As if a dying man could carry on a conversation. 3. Try asking for a score: >score "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" - John Milton, "On His Blindness." I mean, that is so damn annoying. QTD4 : Original ("What would the Bishop say!" or "What would the parish think?") Final Verdict : This is surely one of the worst games of all times. It won two IF awards, but so what? After all, "Titanic" won 12 Oscars. "The God Of Small Things" won a Booker prize. Indian people keep on winning Miss World contests. If you ask me, all awards are scams. On the other hand, it's great to parody. Guess who's going to write a game called "AMUSE : A Summer Romance"? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. THE HOLLYWOOD MURDERS (No platform) (*** G9 C6 D7) Nice little text-adventure where you play a struggling private eye who gets the chance of his life when a glamorous woman called Thea Harbou glides into his office. (Corny start, isn't it?). Very much in the style of "Gumshoe". There are two versions of this game, both available at ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/pc : one with PCX graphics (Hollydemo.zip) and a text-only version (Hollytext.zip) Notable : Good descriptions and characters. Some very nice puzzles (for example, wearing the suit and fake moustache to trick Peterson's secretary, or drugging the dog, or tripping Sam Cranston by pulling his bum leg.) and a rather coherent storyline. Not much conversation, but ASK x ABOUT y does often work. One good joke in the secretary's office (where there is a bust of Louis Mayer): >examine bust You look down at the secretary and admire her bosom. (Sorry, if you meant the picture of Louis.B.Mayer.) Ha, ha, ha. Grouses : There aren't too many places to explore, and most of your moving around is DRIVE TO . But then, you can't have everything. Nitpicks : Just a few little things that seem to have slipped my mind right now. QDT4 : Not available. Final Verdict : Who needs graphics? This is a fine - if rather easy - text game. Enjoy it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. PICK UP THE PHONE BOOTH AND DIE (Inform) (BOMB G0 C0 D0) You are stuck in front of a phone booth. If you pick it up, you die. What's a guy to do? So small and irritating that it's funny. And it's definitely better than MUSE, even though it has no gameplay, descriptions or conversation worth noting. Notable : It's short, and (if you like cheap humour) sweet. Nitpicks : Too small to find any, really. Grouses : Is a one-puzzle game really worth playing? QDT4 : Cute ("Not on your birthday", "I'm not interested in your diet"). Final Verdict : Mildly amusing, but in the end, simply not worth it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Mystery Science Theater presents DETECTIVE (AGT) (*** G3 C9 D8) This is the first of the Mystery Science Theater parodies, which ruthlessly takes apart Matt Barringer's rookie game, "Detective". Notable : The heckling after each move. I don't know how he does it, but Tom, Crow and the rest make this game a lot of fun. Grouses : Gameplay is lame, but - hey - that's how the original was. The descriptions are so bad they're funny. Nitpicks : The parser is a little weak, but since this game has no puzzles, that doesn't really matter QDT4 : N/A Final Verdict : If you liked my games, or the PORK saga, you'll scream your head off with this one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11. MST presents "The Incredible Erotic Adventures Of Stiffy Makane!" (Inform) (*** G0 C10 D0) If you're one of the many IF players who feel like murdering Mark Ryan for his disgusting blot on the history of Text Adventures, this very ribald parody game is the one for you. From Crow's new invention, the Suck-O-Matic, to Gypsy's new game, "Richard Baseheart Adventure 69", to the final confrontation with Frankie that is sheer Standard AGT pastiche, this is a funny, irreverent and risque game that is definitely worth playing if you're badly in need of belly-laughs. Notable : Well, check this out: Frankie, Pamela's husband, is here. > examine frankie He's Pam's husband. Lucky guy, isn't he? The frankie seems to be getting angrier! > kill frankie What frankie? I see no frankie here. Even the TITLE is funny: IEASM, version release 69069, coded by the Drunken Bastard and the Dastardly Coward. Grouses : Not everyone might enjoy the actual gameplay, which REALLY is cheap. To get the full impact of the game, you can try downloading the walkthrough of the original IEAOSM to help you out. (I'll give you an example of how foul Mark Ryan's original game was : 69 is a legal verb.) Nitpicks : Unless you've scored the full hundred points, you can't see the (very funny) ending. QDT4 : Well, in this game, 4-letter words are legal verbs(!), so the test can't apply. Final Verdict : Good (but not very clean) fun. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------