Video game testers wanted urgently

Written by Joe Pranevich

James Bonds Mission Log #2: "Santa Paragua is beautiful but deadly. I made contact with our agent in the city, but it seems that the authorities are on to us: he was gunned down and I was nearly accused of his murder. Before he died, he was able to give me a clue and it looks like my exploration of the city is not over yet."

In my last post, I realized that I was playing the European (“John Glames”) version of the game, rather than the “James Bond” version-- even though the copy of the manual I had was for the latter. Thanks to some fancy internetting by Ilmari, I have the correct manual to go with the game and while almost everything is the same, I learned a few things about our new friend, John. Mr. Glames is, like myself, a New Englander. He was born and raised in Vermont, attended a “famous university” in Boston for his undergrad, then went to Westpoint, and finally studied Chemistry at MIT. His hobbies include skiing, skin diving, and being a master at Ninjitsu. Yes, John is a ninja-- it says so right in the manual. Like James Bond, John has a weakness for attractive women, but he has to flirt while working for the boring CIA rather than the sexy MI6.



Master of Ninjitsu and loves to swim? Well, have I got a game for you...

One more difference between John and James? John is two centimeters taller than James Bond. Do you think they are compensating?

Where we left off, I had just been given a telegram about a Mr. Martinez and I was getting ready to leave the airport. The next screen was more airport, except this time there was a local guard and a customs agent blocking off another arrivals section. I hand the guard, dressed in a paramilitary outfit, my passport and search the new section. Nothing in the ashtray. Nothing in the couch. Another bathroom, identical to the one from earlier. There are two signs marked “5” and “7” off on the left, but I cannot find anything to do with them. Nothing to do, so I keep walking.

Pay attention to this screen. Hint: I missed something!

The final screen of the airport shows the outside with a family waiting (for a bus) and a taxi stand. Inside the airport, almost impossible to find except by mousing around, is a travel agent. I cannot find anything to do here either, but let me pause for a second and talk about some difficulty that I am having with the interface:



The CIA’s travel policy does not permit the use of rental cars while on assignment.

Every minute or so, a taxi will pull up, stop for a moment, then keep moving. There is no other exit from the screen and so it is clear that I need to use the taxi, but it is less intuitive than it should be. When the car pulls up, I try to “Operate” it. No luck, just an error message. I try to speak to the cab driver. I try to hand the driver money. None of those options work and none of them provide a reasonable error message. The cab pulls away so quickly that I can generally try only one idea per pass, then I have to wait for it to come again. Eventually, I realize that the trick is just that you have to walk close enough to the cab and you will enter it automatically. This seems obvious in retrospect, but it took a while for me to get it. I am getting used to the interface, but it is things like this that still trip me up.

The taxi has only one destination, “downtown”, and the cab driver drops me off next to a florist shop up against the water. A stairway makes me think that would be an excellent place to park a speedboat, but alas no speedboat is present. I chat up the florist and find that she sells tulips, daisies, and red carnations-- but not to me because she does not make change. My guess is that this is a translation error and that she simply does not exchange currency. I also find a bicycle and a suspicious window shutter, but I cannot seem to do anything with either right now. I resolve to explore the city.



There is also a useless door to one side, but at least the developers admit that it is useless.

The city consists of around a dozen screens so rather than describe them all as I get to them, let me highlight what I have found:

To the west of the florist is a bank, a telephone booth (out of order), and a sleeping man in a sombrero.

Inside the bank is a nervous-looking teller, a set of stairs down to a vault and some safe-deposit boxes, and a door marked “private” that I cannot get through yet. (The game calls it a “stained glass” door, but I think they just mean that it is “frosted” so you cannot see through it.) The manual talks about a safe-cracking system, so I have a feeling I’ll be spending time in this vault later.

To the northwest of the bank is a garden with a “no dogs allowed” sign and a park bench.

Just past the garden is the entrance to General Manigua’s palace. Bullet-holes line the walls and there is a tank parked in the driveway. This does not look inviting at all.

My other car is a tank.

Past the palace is just jungle, so that is a dead end.

Southwest of the bank is a beach with a long driveway leading to a hotel. There does not appear to be anything you can do on the beach yet.

The hotel itself has no vacancies, but it does have a porter and a receptionist you can try to talk to, an elevator, and a stairwell. You can explore all four floors, but all I have been able to find so far is a lot of identical screens and locked doors. Yes, it’s another Leisure Suit Larry flashback!

Outside the hotel is a taxi stand that you can use to return to the airport.

As I explored each screen, I tried to do a thorough job using the “Examine” command and moving the mouse to find pixels to click on. I might have missed something, but in the end the city was pretty useless: no items to pick up, no obvious puzzles, and not much of a lead on what I am supposed to do here. Since I did not want to give up already, I resolved to re-explore every area and try to find something that I missed.

This is what you get when you examine the sleeping guy by the bank. I guess making this game was pretty tiring.

Other than my “Mr. Martinez” telegram, the only other clue I have is the florist refusing to give me change and let me buy flowers. Realizing that maybe the game really meant that I needed to change money, I went to the bank and tried offering money to a teller. It worked! He was happy to take one of my bills and give me a handful of coins. So maybe it really meant “change” after all? I have no idea.

I went back to the florist and then had a choice: which type of flower to buy? I haven’t received any clues about flowers yet. Just to check, I bought the first one and it used all my change. I headed back to the bank, exchanged more money, bought a second type of flower. I headed back the bank again and realized that I was all out of money! There was no way for me to buy all three types of flowers. Rather than get the wrong one, I restored back and resolved that I would need to keep re-exploring. But think about this: the CIA sent me into a hostile territory with just enough money for cab fare and two flowers? I know that the first President Bush era was a difficult one, but I had no idea it was that difficult.

Since I found a taxi back to the airport, I guessed that I must have missed something there. The women and children were gone now, but they did not drop anything useful. I tried showing the telegram to everyone, but that did not do me any good either. I stumbled on the answer by accident: there were two exits from the second room, the one that I thought was useless earlier. The second exit led to the baggage claim!



Baggage claim technology has not improved in the last twenty-five years.

The baggage claim consisted of the never-ending selection of bags. I examined them in turn and eventually found one with the name “Mr. Martinez” on it! I pulled it off the conveyor and opened it, revealing more of my spy equipment from the manual: my watch (with the hidden cable) and an electric razor containing recording equipment. Still no safe-cracking gear, so I imagine I will get that later. I examined the razor and it had a plug that could be plugged in… and I know that the bathrooms have an electrical socket. I head there to plug in the razor and a message starts to play: I will meet my contact in the garden and I should wear a red carnation. Perfect!

Because wearing carnations in a park is not at all suspicious.

I head back to the city, exchange my money, buy the flower, put it on, and head toward the garden. The most difficult part in that sequence was figuring out that I needed to sit on the bench (with the obvious command, “operate”, doing nothing-- you just have to stand in the right spot and you will sit down). A moment or two later my contact walks across the park to join me.

*blam* *blam* A limo pulls up and fires at my contact. As he lay dying in the grass he hands me a key and tells me that the “documents” are safe. The key has a number on it, so I guess I will be heading back to the bank very soon! Before I can even move, a group of paramilitary types haul me away for murder. Game over. I swear and reload. It takes me four tries to walk out of the park fast enough that the paramilitary police do not catch me, but eventually I make it out. Shaken, but not stirred.



“Rosebud…”

This seems like a great place to pause. I know where to go next, and I know to be more careful with the interface. Missing places to go seems like it could become a major problem, but thus far the puzzles are pretty straight-forward. Wish me luck!

Session time: 2 hours
Total time: 3 hours

Note regarding spoilers and Companion Assist Points: Theres a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please... try not to spoil any part of the game for me... unless I really obviously need the help... or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, Ive not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!


Sidebar: Pixel Smoothing

In my last post, I took some flack for using a pixel shader for my screenshots. I am using Boxer for the Mac (essentially, a nice wrapper around DosBox) for this playthrough and it supports a few styles of shading. The default is “Fancy Smoothing”, otherwise known as HQx.



At least I got the aspect ratio right!

This post, as well as post #3 and part of post #4 will use the “Fancy Smoothing” option, but after that I have switched to “Original”. I do not plan on replaying the previous portions of the game to correct the screenshots-- this game is annoying enough as it is!

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two modes using a scene from this post:



In the interests of historical accuracy however, I agree that we should not be using any fancy smoothing options and will use “Original” as I continue through the “Stealth Affair”.


New Contest - James Bond References & Trivia

As I indicated in my review post, I am not a James Bond expert - but you might be. As I play through the game each week, please post comments with all of the James Bond trivia and references that I am missing for the portion of the game that I have played. At the end of the postings on "Operation Stealth", I will tally up the unique comments and the contributor that finds the most references will receive a "Dr. No" DVD provided by me (or an Amazon gift card equivalent if shipping or region locking is prohibitive.)
Joe Pranevich blogs about random geekiness at Kniggit.net and about religion at Coat of Many Colors.

Manhunter Journal Entry 1: “I have no idea why the Orbs have chosen me as a manhunter, but today was my first day on the job. I was awoken by an Orb staring me right in the face, and it was communicated to me that there was an explosion at Bellevue Hospital that I needed to investigate. My tracker suggested that the perpetrator placed an explosive on the side wall of the hospital to gain entrance for a short period, before visiting Trinity Church, Flatbush Bar and then finally Prospect Park after leaving. I spent the day visiting each site, with varying results. At the hospital I discovered the body of Reno Davis, riddled with baby Orbs. I have no idea whether he was dead prior to the explosion, but in all likelihood he was the target of the perpetrator. My time at the church was fruitless, but as soon as I entered Flatbush Bar I was set upon by locals. They forced me to play a knife game which I thankfully passed without injury. The leader then made a symbol with his body, which later made sense once I reached the restrooms at the park. Flushing the toilet three times, I was transported underground where I made my way through a maze, collecting keycards and a medallion on the way. My day ended when I retrieved a data stick from a man at Coney Island, which he gave to me after witnessing my medallion. Now I just need to figure out what the data on the stick means!”


Manhunter sure is an interesting game! Whether or not it’s a good game is yet to be determined, but it sure is unlike anything else I’ve played before. I’ve gone through many emotional phases during my first two and a half hours of play, including confusion, intrigue, excitement, frustration and satisfaction. In the end I’ve managed to get through day one of the game unscathed, although I don’t yet know whether the game holds any dead ends or accumulating nasties. Before I get into what exactly occurred and how I dealt with it, I have to mention the most striking thing when playing the game for the first time...the visuals!


My first response was something close to disgust, which certainly wasn’t helped by an opening scene with a ridiculous looking giant floating eyeball “talking” to me in a room with bright fluorescent pink floor and green ceiling. My feelings have shifted over time however, mostly due to the strange tone of the game (being both violent and comical) actually fitting the unusually slipshod graphical style, but also due to the sheer number of graphical displays and animated flourishes that are used. Little details are included everywhere and multiple angles and viewpoints are given when only one might have sufficed. It may for once actually be a case of quantity over quality!


So what’s Manhunter all about? As mentioned in the intro, I awoke to receive instructions from an Orb, telling me to investigate an incident at the local hospital. I have no idea how the Orb actually communicated this to me and can only assume some form of telepathy was involved, but I guess it doesn’t make any difference. I was then shown a recording of the events leading up to and following the explosion on my laptop (called a Manhunter Assignment Device or MAD for short). This was all handled from a top down perspective, and I was able to watch the perpetrator move from location to location, spending time at inanimate objects before moving on. I’d already read the manual at this point, so I was aware that the most efficient way to be a Manhunter was to close the MAD each time the perpetrator leaves a location, then visit that location to investigate before opening up again and continuing until the connection is lost. With that in mind, the hospital would be my first place of interest.


As soon as I closed the MAD I was shown a map containing a flashing marker for my apartment and a cursor I could move around with the keys (sadly, no mouse control is available for the game). I moved the cursor around until I found another highlighted location, which was the hospital. I won’t bang on about it every time I go to a new location, but it was nice to see firstly a full picture of the hospital, then closer shot of the side of the building where the explosion took place, before finally the scene settled on a close-up of the hole in the wall where control was handed over to me. This is how all locations are handled, giving you a really good sense of where you are and what you’re looking at. Anyway, the only thing I was able to do from this screen was enter the hospital through the hole, so that’s what I did.


I was then faced with what I assumed was a dead body in a hospital bed and a robot guard stopping me from gaining entrance to any other parts of the hospital. Moving my cursor over the body displayed two separate sections that I could investigate (the cursor turns into a magnifying glass).  I chose the upper part of the body first, and it’s here that I received my first game over screen. Rather oddly, what first appeared to be the victims own eyes turned out to be baby Orbs that flew out of his skull. These were followed by hundreds of others that came out of the open torso and apparently ate me. I don’t really know exactly how eyeballs eat things when they have no mouths, but the Murry siblings popped up onscreen to inform me of the outcome before taking me back a few minutes before I made my fatal mistake. Well, the game might be brutal, but at least it gives you infinite chances to get things right without having to restore.


While looking at the upper torso resulted in my death, somehow looking at the lower torso had no such effect. Attached to the toe of the victim was a name card with the words Reno Davis written on it. I immediately remembered from the manual that I was able to look up names in my MAD, so I navigated to the INFO section and typed in Reno Davis to see what it had to say about the poor sod. All I found out was that Reno was a 38 year old manhunter that had previously been transferred to Chicago. I still have no idea why a manhunter from Chicago was in New York in the first place, nor how he came to be in the hospital. I don’t even know whether he was already dead when the perpetrator entered the hospital or whether he was murdered at that time. Blowing up a wall and then setting hungry baby Orbs on a hospital patient seems a rather overcomplicated way of offing someone, but who knows what we’re dealing with here. There was nothing else to see at the hospital so I opened the MAD to see where the suspect went next.


After leaving the hospital the dot on the screen made its way to the Trinity Church, stood in front of a particular section for a while, and then left. I closed the MAD once again and followed the same path on the overhead map that he or she took to the church. Once inside, it became apparent that the perpetrator stood in front of the alcove on the left and lit some candles before leaving, perhaps asking for the sins of their recent crimes to be forgiven. I was able to light the match and light any or all of the fifteen candles, but nothing happened. I can only assume that I need to light very particular candles to achieve something, but since I’ve not come across anything to tell me what that order might be, I decided to move on. There was nothing else of interest in the church, so I left it behind for now and made my way to the next location of interest...the Flatbush Bar.


This part of the game was at first a bit confusing to be honest.  I could see, after comparing the recording on the MAD display to the bar layout on arrival, that whoever blew a hole the wall of the hospital took time out from their escape to play an arcade game. They didn’t seem to talk to anyone in the bar during their visit, so I felt no need to tag any of the customers that I could see on the MAD. This is an ability that I know from reading the manual, but haven’t needed at this stage. Tagging people means you can then follow their movements as well. I decided the only thing to do was to play the arcade game, but as soon as I tried, the locals at the bar grabbed me and forced me to join them in a bout of knife throwing. They first held my hand down while one of them threw knives between my spread fingers before handing me a bunch of knives and demanding I return the favour. It was here that I faced my first action sub-game, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.


While it wasn’t very difficult to successfully pass the test by throwing the knives at just the right times, I did get it wrong a few times, causing the knife to lodge in the man’s finger and blood to ooze out onto the table. Obviously that little accident wouldn’t please the guy, but I was pretty shocked when he picked me up by the head and squeezed until my skull exploded and my brain stuck to the ceiling, then threw my headless torso into the street. Brutal! The game really only gets away with this sort of stuff because the graphics are so low in quality the whole thing looks comical. The intended humour was made abundantly clear when the Murry family once again appeared on screen to mock my failure before giving me another opportunity to succeed. Succeed I did on about the fourth try, but reward for victory was a little unusual to say the least.


The leader stood in front of me and enacted what appeared to be a very bad clothes-hanger break-dancing move. I say “very bad” because he was only using one arm while wobbling his head from side to side.  I should point out at this point that I missed this signal entirely on my first play through this section because I was trying to get screenshots of what was going on. In fact, capturing all the little nuances that occur during Manhunter has been much more difficult than during the slow-paced stop and proceed nature of most adventure games. It makes me realise how difficult it must be for Chet to capture appropriate screenshots while playing RPGs without restoring a billion times. Getting back on track, since I’d not actually witnessed the failed attempt at street dancing at this point, I just figured passing the knife test was simply a way of being able to play the arcade game, so that’s what I did next.


The arcade game was called Halls, Walls, Balls & Dolls, and involves moving a character through a maze of passages, collecting kewpie dolls on the way. I figured the goal of the game was not merely to get through the maze to the exit, but to collect all the dolls on the way, so I set about achieving that goal. It wasn’t difficult, particularly as I could save and restore as many times as I wanted to, meaning it was only a matter of time. Winning the game resulted in a “You Won” screen with fireworks, but nothing else came from the victory, making me wonder what the whole bar scene had been about. I’d gained no information, nor had I picked up any items. Oh well...there was still another location to visit, so I hoped the bar’s purpose might become obvious at a later time.


The next location was Prospect Park, and more specifically, the restrooms at Prospect Park. The tracker on the MAD implied that the perpetrator entered the female restroom and used the toilet before disappearing off the radar for good. I made my way into the restrooms, went straight to the cubicle in question, and tried to find something that might hint as to where they went or what they did next. The only thing that I could do was sit down on the toilet, which apart from looking really very funny in a monk outfit, achieved nothing. While sitting down I was able to flush the toilet by pushing the lever down, but that didn’t seem to add anything of value to proceedings. I was a bit perplexed to be honest, wondering why Ilmari and the like had suggested Manhunter was unlikely to offer up too much of a challenge. Was I losing my mojo??!!


After exploring all the other cubicles in both the male and female restrooms, I decided the only thing to do was to start over and pay more attention at each location. My initial expectation was that the missing link was likely to be at the church, since I’d not achieved anything at all there, but I still couldn’t find anything that suggested what the candles were for. It was only when I reached the bar and passed the knife throwing test for a second time that I witnessed the leader’s signal, and had a eureka moment! He was making a toilet flushing motion, and not only that, he was doing it three times! I restored back to the restroom, flushed the toilet three times, and watched with great satisfaction and relief (feelings that are often associated with toilets) as my character was lowered down into an underground tunnel system.


The arcade game may have offered up the most basic of maze systems, but the underground section certainly didn’t! It soon became apparent that I was going to have to revert to my trusty Excel map-making skills learnt during years of playing old school RPGs like Might & Magic. I spent about half an hour mapping the underground tunnels, collecting keycards on the way, and was surprised to find a 12 x 13 grid (give or take a couple of cells) once done. I really hope no kids out there tried to find their way through this section without mapping it out, particularly if you need all twelve keycards, which is yet to be seen. When I eventually found the exit into a cave opening, I was rewarded for my trouble with a medallion with a crossed out Orb on it. Its message surely couldn’t be more obvious, but its use was at the time a mystery to me. I wondered what I was going to do next, given that I’d now followed all the leads given to me, but the answer came as soon as left the cave.


Another location was lit up on the map right near the cave exit, entitled Coney Island. Happy to have some path to follow, I quickly made my way there to find it was the fun park that appeared when I won the arcade game in the bar. The fun park contained three skill-testing games that I could take part in, all of which involved throwing items at other items. I could pop balloons with darts, throw rings onto bottles, or knock over dolls with baseballs. Successfully hitting three items on any of them resulted in me winning a replica orb toy, but I figured there was surely something else I was supposed to do here. The kewpie doll game sure seemed suspicious, particularly given the connection the scene already had to the arcade game. It suddenly dawned on me that the hint for the fun park must come from the arcade game, so I went back to play it again.


Long story short (and it did take me a while for some reason), I eventually figured out that if I followed the most direct path through the maze on the video game, I collected only three baseballs and knocked over three very specific kewpie dolls (the third one in the first row, the second one in the second row, and the fourth one in the third row). Replicating this exact combination in the kewpie doll skill-testing game at the fun park resulted in the man giving me a very strange look. The meaning of this look, which was that he was waiting for me to give him something, may very well have avoided me if the Murry’s hadn’t popped up to say “I wonder what that odd look was for?” and then a more direct “He wants to see something you have!” when I won a second time. I gave him the medallion I’d found at the end of the maze and was rewarded with a data stick!


This is pretty much where this first session ended (which is just as well as you guys are probably bored by now). After placing the stick in the MAD I received a riddle before the Orbs overrode the message. “The end is near, the way is clear, destroy the lady, before they are ready. Phil is trouble, he’s a double, he’s an eye, that’s no lie!” Besides being one of the worst examples of poetry I’ve ever come across, this message didn’t really make anything that was happening any clearer, and I was more confused when the Orbs suddenly told me that I’d had enough time and demanded “a name”. The only name I’d come across so far was Reno Davis, so that’s the one I typed in. The orbs demanded that I go back to my apartment and await further instructions, and I have no idea whether this answer was “correct” or not. Since they seem to be demanding the name of the perpetrator and not the victim, it’s likely that I haven’t given them what they were after, but there doesn’t appear to have been any consequences. Oh well...day two awaits, so I’m off to find out whether there are any repercussions to my failure.

Written by Aperama

This is the first game officially played since the revival of the blog, so I dont mind saying that the hardest post to write is most certainly this one. Trying to use the even-handed approach that I definitely feel Trickster always managed to offer out is sure to be a challenge and a half – and it doesnt help that I find this game to have been one that had a small gem that, were I not playing this game for the sake of the blog, I feel I would have given up on or just followed a walkthrough to beat. The game was challenging only ever in the points that I dont appreciate a game in being challenging – giving a largely artificial time limit that would take being rather daft to not manage to complete the game by, but leaving that incessant clock in the corner of your screen making you all the more cognisant of the looming possibility of a deadline – being the perfect example. Oh, and the timing-based walking puzzles were just insipid. On the other hand, I did like the story, as it managed to be plausible yet out there enough to keep my interests piqued. The end results? Lets see..


Puzzles and Solvability

Countdown is a game that, were only a few things changed, I might not even consider an adventure game. It most certainly is – but if you, for instance, removed the inventory system, the game would almost certainly have fallen more upon the creeping around sections that were quite simply silly. It wouldnt have been hard to enhance them, either – all that would have needed to be added would be the ability to look into the next room whilst in Sanctuary and the death screens would have been much less prevalent. Still, I dont feel I can really deduct points for this – however, having a game that has no inventory interaction (which existed, after all, in Kings Quest 1) is a big no-no for me, and the puzzles themselves were almost farcical every time they popped up. On the plus side, there was never a point where I was stuck staring at my screen wondering what had just happened – everything was clear and made sense, even if it wasnt particularly difficult. The real shining jewel could have been the conversation system – but instead of feeling organic, the puzzles that arose from that were largely the result of trial and error. So, to check – it had puzzles, and they were solvable – but they just werent very good. Well, except for the parrot dropping the key to Masons drawer – I still dont get how that happened. Ill also note here that Trickster similarly found that the puzzles were almost universally too easy within Mean Streets – so this really tells me that they didnt even learn from their mistakes! I feel thoroughly vindicated giving this a low score.

Rating: 3

The clues were there to let me know to give him wine – he wouldnt stop drinking! But the getting there never felt right.

Interface and Inventory

Ive already mentioned the inventory – its rather woeful. Theres a single, shining light in this once more, being the CAD system – it makes sense for a spy-styled person to have an advanced tool to fingerprint and do other such analysis. Unfortunately, it didnt let me continue to examine items, which is where the CAD system falls apart and youre left with a non-interactive inventory that largely depends on memory. Not being able to check the amount of cash I had on hand in my inventory (and only learning at either the video blackjack game or during travel) is a perfect example of the failure here! The conversation system was definitely also a positive at least in idea.. I wasnt a fan of the implementation, but the idea was quite good. They also tried to tell me in the manual that itd work by using mixtures of conversation trees, so I can only blame myself for not realising that one. In practice, it really came down to click all of the buttons in every order until things progress. The other main interface was the Look, Open, Move, Get, Use, GOTO, Talk, Taste and Travel one.. while not quite as egregious as some of the early Lucasarts games, the taste and travel buttons felt fairly useless (there were about five objects that taste even reacted to, and the travel function was largely unusable except in instances where there was an alternative in just walking through a door to leave), and the goto function only ever really came into play when attempting to scale things. Id almost be willing to call it passable in this regard (though the either ESP or Reed Richards-like powers that Mason sometimes uses to open doors from across the hall and walk into them past a guard has to be considered impressive) – but even in this one, theres just too many damned flaws! You can walk up the sides of walls, the goto function is almost unusable.. and all of the overhead sections were simply dreadful. Some might note that this was essentially the first game under a new engine, and that hiccups are bound to be made – to this, I say that these people havent played Countdown.

Rating: 2

Also, pixel hunting. I wont go on about it, but its there. If you see a key on the screen.. well, youre a clairvoyant

Story and Setting

If it werent for the story that Countdown threw out, Id be almost worried that this game would be wandering into the Psycho/Emmanuelle category. The game starts out hazy, and Im almost entirely sure that a lot of people never got to learn more about the main thing that makes this game worth playing. Theres a rich and well-thought story with an atypical twist or two that after wading through the horror that is the Sanctuary really makes the game more enticing. Its quite unfortunate that the game takes the amount of time it does to get to this point, yes – but Id feel remiss saying bad things about a story that simply takes a while to come into its own. You can learn a lot of whats on offer over and over again, but everyone has at least a slightly different opinion, leaving you sifting through a lot of familiar information with little tidbits that can easily draw you down the wrong path (and did for me, several times!)

The game takes you to all sorts of locales, and is definitely adept at making one place seem different from the next

I almost find the story a touch hard to summarise, yet I fully understand it – this gives a decent idea, I think, of the way in which the game manages to both draw you in with intrigue and keep itself coherent and rich. Ill try to sum the story up quickly – theres a conspiracy going on in the CIA, with a fake terrorist organisation operating from within the Company. This is entirely a scheme to get a hardline President elected. You happen to be one of the fall guys to throw those who are investigating off the trail – but through a mixture of luck and cunning, you manage to escape your captors. In an attempt to stop a world-shattering terrorist event, you end up inadvertently exposing the nature of the Black December group. The game ties off many of its loose ends quite well.. the only real negative I can give it here is that by keeping the entire game within the settings of the Middle East and Europe, the opportunity to explore some of the wider world was lost. Looking over Tricksters posts, though, I realise that he typically notes the NPCs for a richness of feel – and that was definitely a flaw. A couple of caricatures could very easily have stood out (a la Buzz Brezhnev, the jolly KGB agent) but youre simply never around anyone for long enough to really get to know them outside of a simple question and answer session with each portrait given character. Also, the fake terrorist group idea came from Die Hard.

Rating: 6

Come to think of it, Lisa and Hans Gruber die in the same way.. coincidence? Perhaps not!

Sound and Graphics

Im definitely of the thought that these two categories can be split perfectly down the middle. Unfortunately, that would mean that it only has a score of one in sound. Why? Theres one musical track (the one that plays during the introductory sequence) and some of the most grating audio effects that can be imagined. Theres a gunshot (that breaks the game when played), a few pieces of heavily grainy digitised speech (which is where the single point comes from for at least offering that rarity in this era), a brain-shatteringly annoying shriek that occurs dozens of times.. and then nothing. On the plus side, this means that the gunshot which breaks the game is largely missable.. but the fact that the game doesnt even introduce music where it would be a natural fit is quite jarring.

Ever been to a strip club/cabaret without music? I mean, of course, theoretically, if youd ever been to one..

The graphics, on the other hand, are fairly impressive for the rich detail that has clearly been poured over them. Theres small amounts of animation – just good enough to not look ridiculous – the walking looks natural without feeling forced. Theres also a technical pallet swap near the end with Mason donning the vestige of a priest.. taken from the body of an unconscious person who had previously taken it from a dead body. (He wouldnt take any of his dirty laundry in his apartment, though – thatd just be gross!) The backgrounds never left me guessing as to what something was (with the exception of certain pixel-hunting objects), and while some things perhaps could have been slightly clearer, the graphics are definitely quite good for their era. Theres one thing that I have to take a step back on here and mention – the portraits. They were all universally ridiculous, and felt entirely out of place. They essentially turned what I definitely felt was supposed to be a serious spy thriller into a game where everything looked as though it was tongue in cheek. Theyre unique, most certainly – but unique also means nobody was silly enough to go this exact route beforehand. Theyre cringeworthy for the most part, and probably have to be considered a negative, even if the game otherwise looks crisp.

Rating: 4

Fontaine is written as a hard-nosed, ruthless assassin. He is drawn as Alfred Hitchcock dressed as Dr. Who.

Environment and Atmosphere

The game has good and bad points in this category. I think it goes without saying that the vast majority of people who have played or will play this game probably only experience the opening area – it does work, in spite of how much I do loathe it. The Sanctuary is largely infeasible, but it does give you the legitimate feel that youre in an unforgiving place where there are terrible things happening. Access Software proved in Tex Murphy that they were more than happy to make ridiculous things happen in spite of a serious setting, and I definitely think that this detracts from the overall experience. If theyd committed more to either a humorous setting or knocked off all of the goofiness, theres every chance that the game would feel a lot firmer in one boot or the other – but instead, it consistently struggles to decide whether its all a self-referential joke or a serious spy thriller.

The notion of finding a skeleton in the observation room of a hospital could be horrifying. This? This is not.

If you have the patience to traverse the catacombs and escape the Sanctuary, there is definitely one strong point that simply begs to be addressed. The entire game takes place around Mason not remembering exactly who he is. He regains enough of his memory to know people from one another, sure – but the game is more about remembering the exact details of the incident that led to him being thrown into Sanctuary in the first place. Consistently littering the game with triggers – broken glass, blood, his name – and assuring that the entire cutscene when played has a decent amount of digitised voice all are points in its favour. The fact that they didnt actually put many more locations after the fact also has to be a sticking point – you can visit three places in Turkey, one place in Greece, two places in Italy and then the endgame takes place on a train and in Paris. You also visit a few other places – but theyre just explained in a short, textual blurb as opposed to giving much real interaction. Im also shaking my fist at the game for its treatment of both the Jackal and Fontaine – theyre supposed to be these scary individuals, you drug them, leaving them prone to whatever you would do to a mass murdering criminal hitman (as they both are)? And you.. leave them where they are. It just reeks of incompletion. Im not even suggesting that they need to be killed – but you dont tie them up, call the authorities on them – you just leave them where they are! Still, I cant be too harsh on the game for what is otherwise one of its strong points.

Rating: 6

Really? Sounds interesting! Wish I couldve seen it for myself..

Dialogue and Acting

This game is probably one of the first that I feel the acting term could be used against.. but I wont be that cruel. (The portraits giving the short animations to show what happens between neutral and angry, for instance, would be a great instance of some of the earliest acting in video games. Well, they could be. As I say, Im not that mean.)

And the Academy Award goes to.. Buzz Brezhnev, for actually having multiple faces to cycle throughout

The dialogue is, for the most part, wooden. Its not hard at all to find an example of rushed writing that simply doesnt feel realistic. The doctor in the first act seems entirely too calm for someone who is being threatened with a scalp(a)l to the neck the entire time, for instance. There are a couple of good instances slipped down in the interim – the three dialogues that occur in Venice are actually quite noteworthy. Golden Desire, for her utterly ridiculous name, actually manages to give an impassioned speech over the way her boyfriend was being treated. Brezhnevs speech isnt too forced – it actually could be English spoken as a second language as opposed to Yakov Smirnoff levels, yet still makes him sound like a clever man. Scorpio also gives a few good diatribes. Unfortunately, theyre the bar set, and much of the rest of the dialogue feels either forced or simply bad. Ive also got to address the writing, here – the entire game is absolutely littered with spelling mistakes, which for a game that has far more text than it does graphics or sound is definitely a huge minus. The occasional typo is almost guaranteed – but theyre prevalent enough that you cant go an entire conversation without seeing at least one mistake that would make an English teacher shudder.

Rating: 4

Probably because they try to insist that they spell it psychiatrist, eh Jackal?

Adding up my scores, 3+2+6+4+6+4 = 25, which divided by 60 equals .4166 recurring – so 42 rounded up. However, Im going to insist and give my discretionary point of deduction for the litany of death screens that utterly flood Countdown – not to mention the fact that the game simply feels unpolished. Just a few tiny changes would have hugely made for a better game – unfortunately, it was released in the state it was. It can probably be noted that the game was released between Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum – its possible they were just using the game to try and polish up their ideas for the coming sequel to Tex Murphy. As it stands? I feel that this game thoroughly deserves its position as the largely forgotten game by Access Software between two far better games.

And the closest guess to 41 is... Fry with 43. Frys cunning plan to guess a rating based on the ratings of Mean Streets, Deja Vu and Deja Vu 2 has paid off. 10 CAPs coming your way. Andy Panthro also generously offered a Tex Murphy game to the winner so if thats still the case theres also a Tex Murphy game in your future.