Growing up, back in my demo days, I had the chance to play many game demos that were, shall we say, less than mainstream. Some weren’t even “main creek.”

The Last Bounty Hunter was one such demo. It’s the last of a three-game series called Mad Dog McCree that uses rail-shooter mechanics in an FMV environment. The game has multiple pre-shot scenarios that are—pun intended—“triggered” by the player’s shooting. My distant memory of this game was of playing it on the PC, but it was released for many platforms.

One day I decided to track the game down and give it a fresh view. Searching in the most forbidden and remote reaches of the Internet (Amazon.com), I finally tracked them down. All of them. Together. For cheap. DONE!

Cue awesomeness.

Apparently the game was re-released in 2009 for the Nintendo Wii. It even has multiplayer capability (up to four cowpokes). It’s actually cool to see some of these bizarre games getting a fresh audience. (I’m still waiting for Stonekeep to get the Wii treatment.) I also just discovered that you can now get Mad Dog for iOS. A game that started on the arcade went from PC to Wii to iPhone. Odd, to say the least. But the Mad Dog games have a lot of footage and actual (limited) production value. What else were they going to do with it?

No refunds.

In the PC version, the player uses the mouse to aim and shoot. It’s pretty straightforward. But I found that clicking someone to death with a mouse makes it go by too quickly. You can’t savor all the little emotions… In their last moments, people show you who they really are.

Clumsily regurgitated Dark Knight quotes aside, I turned on my Wii, and begrudgingly ejected Skyward Sword. I started the game. I think using the Wiimote as an aiming method is much more satisfying than using the mouse. It feels pretty natural.

At this point, I am locked and loaded. My target? C-list actors. The setting? A mediocre western town. The reason?

Just fucking because.

I know, I know, I’m back on the live-action videogame kick; but I can’t help but be fascinated by them. I mean, it’s one thing to be responsible for making a poor videogame. But how many people get to say they starred in one? I’m not even talking about voice acting, 3D motion capture, or animated characters based on real people (Paul and Lizo’s testgame shall not be mentioned). These people were actually filmed at close proximity, barking out lines to the camera and shooting at it as if it were an actual person. You can’t help but feel bad for some of those actors. This was supposed to be their big chance. I wonder if any of these “actors” ever made it big.

Probably not.

For me, the entire concept of live actors in a videogame is unsettling. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s because these are real actors who have real families.

Let me explain. Pretend that this is your father:

In the early ’90s, as a struggling actor, he did a few low-budget endeavors. The Last Bounty Hunter was one of them. Years later, the game is used as a conversation piece in your home, and everyone gathers around the Wii and shares a good laugh over it on a regular basis. Over the years, as his health deteriorates, the novelty of interacting with your father’s character (by shooting his punk ass and watching him hilariously fall into the horse trough) slowly becomes less funny. It represents his failed dream as an actor and reminds him how young he once was. When he finally passes away 30 years from now, you will still be able to play the game and murder him, over and over. It stops being funny.

Your mother, on the other hand, who was the victim of your father’s unfaithfulness with the saloon girl from the opening video, still replays it.

Every day.

This game is a trip. It took me hours to figure out the best way to explain it, but I finally figured it out. We’re supposed to think that the game is merely about a bounty hunter killing bad guys. The truth? Three words: Cameraman goes postal. He has simply had enough. He was tired of filming B and C movies like this soon-to-be VHS piece of shit. So he snapped. He goes on a rampage and begins shooting everyone he can on the set. The sick part is that, for some reason, he filmed the whole thing with his free hand. WHY?

The producers find the film amongst the bodies and salvage the project by re-marketing it as a “game.” And while none of the above paragraph is true, I can’t help but feel comforted by that thought.

I’m going to sum up the review by going a bit western on ya. Let’s talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good: The game is fun. I liked all the different characters and settings you get to see along the way. The fallen enemies sometimes die in funny ways (just like in real life, right?), reminding me of the many shitty movies that are so dear to my heart. (I love bad movies.) Explosions, guys falling off of horses, and other western shenanigans are all present and accounted for. The aiming is also surprisingly smooth. In fact, the port is overall well suited for the Wii. Playing a game with this level of novelty is a pretty unique experience. It’s more movie than videogame.

The bad: The biggest gripe I have about this game is the delay between you shooting your opponent, and your opponent getting shot. This is due to the game having to load the correct video of either hitting or missing your opponent. The video freezes at the worst time possible. There’s a second when you don’t know if you shot him or got shot yourself. I might have been able to deal with this quirk by itself, but it also causes the music to stop for that second. This really ruins the flow of the gameplay and almost kills the experience entirely.

There’s also a great deal of trial and error needed to beat the game. Prepare to die, a lot. Replaying the same levels over and over again is annoying, for sure. But the cutscenes you have to endure after you get shot are so damn annoying after seeing them for the 24th time in a row.

The ugly:

The actors.

Bobby plugging the “bung hole.”

I know the budget could only allow for so many “lookers,” but yikes. I didn’t know whether to save some of these women or ride them with a saddle (or both). Also, the video quality looks like old home movies. I completely understand this one. The cameras used for filming it have long been obsolete. But it isn’t the prettiest picture. Finally, the menu layout (on the Wii version) is a bit lackluster and boring.

In all, Mad Dog McCree has “drinking game” written all over it. It has its annoying glitches, but there’s also a lot of fun packed into this game for anyone willing to push past its issues. I had a blast with it. But I am not your average gamer. I find humor and novelty in the awful. This might be a game to check out if you’re a risk taker.

Like this guy.

This classic GameCola article was originally published in March 2006.

If you’re reading this, I’m just a scientist. I’m no goddamn superhero or bulked-up super-soldier. I was just flying over Jurassic Park, looking to do some research after the horrible events of that mediocre movie and its two shitty sequels. Then, my helicopter crashed. I’ll have to go into the mansion outside Raccoon Ci–wait, hold up. Wrong helicopter crash, wrong game.

Anyway, I’m going to finish my mission. No, this isn’t a side-scrolling shoot-’em-up mission like on the Genesis and SNES. This piece of shit game was built from the ground up to utilize the completely useless full-motion video capabilities of the Sega CD. Therefore, it’s a fucking MYST clone. Point-and-click. How will I survive this hell? I’m just going to write it all down and hope someone, somewhere in the future will find this and pray to the gods above—PRAY!—that the dickheads who ran Sega of America during the Sega CD’s time and chose not to import awesome games from Japan but sink all their money into full-motion video shit (digital pictures?!) got their just due.

March 7, 19XX

Not sure about the date. I was out for awhile. My entire crew is dead. Somebody shot down our chopper. InGen? Maybe. I just got back. Here’s what happened: I moved my cursor around and noticed that as it went over the helicopter door, it turned into a giant “hand.” I collected my items from the ‘copter and thought back to what I’d seen flying in. The island was in ruins and had no discernible human life. OK, so I’d crashed between Jurassic Park and The Lost World, then. God, I hated the Lost World.

Anyway, as I looked to my right, the screen scrolled and a cave was revealed. My cursor turned into an arrow. I hit the “A” button and—holy shit! The screen changed into a full-motion video from the camera’s point of view, as it hurtled down the road at approximately 2,000 miles per hour. And suddenly, I was at the Visitor’s Center. You remember the one, with the giant tyrannosaurus skeleton and the banner that says “WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH.” Everything looked so grainy. Must be the Sega CD’s limited 64-color palette.

Anyway, I went up the stairs to what looked like some computer room. I clicked on the monitor and a live feed went up. A lady was there.

“Hello. I’m Dr. Emily Shamara,” the woman said.

“Help!” I screamed. “My helicopter crashed and I’m stuck on this crappy island in this horrible game!”

“Your helicopter has crashed,” she responded.

“I just said that, you bitch! Send in the fucking army or something!”

“We’re going to need you to finish the job you started. We’ll need one egg from each species of dinosaur on Jurassic Park,” she said.

“What? By myself? Fuck that! You come down here and get your own damn eggs! Didn’t you see those movies? Everybody dies!”

“Good luck, professor. I’ll be in touch.” The screen faded to black.

It’s like she hadn’t heard a single word I said. In anger, I went into my inventory and selected the rock I had picked up earlier and used it on the computer, not really expecting anything to happen. All of the sudden, I’m running from the center as warning bells scream and sirens wail. The entire Visitor’s Center comes crashing down, and I’m crushed to death. Game over. That’s poor building design right there, if one rock can bring the whole goddamn thing crashing down.

March 9, 19XX

Thank god I brought an FAQ with me. I’d never get through this piece of garbage otherwise. I was aimlessly wandering earlier when I ran into the sprites of a poorly animated little red dinosaur. Consulting my guide, it told me to equip my stunner (essentially a stun-gun cattle-prod kinda thing that looks like it shoots Cocoa Puffs). Feeling sorry for the dinosaur’s lack of frames, I shot it square in the ass. The thing jumped straight up in the air and then booked it away from me. Feeling triumphant, I followed.

The screen changed as I plowed forward, and when my vision focused again I was facing new dinosaurs. You remember: the ones that killed the fat guy from Seinfeld in the first movie.

I shot it with my Cocoa Puff gun, and it whipped out a bowl of milk and a spoon and made a delicious breakfast out of my bullets. It ate a complete and balanced breakfast and then laughed at me. Then it spat acid, killing me instantly.

March 10, 19XX

I decided to try a new tactic. See, all around Jurassic Park were these little video monitors with silhouettes of dinosaurs on them. Earlier today, I decided to click on one. Instantly, a fat, bearded Harry Knowles-looking guy popped up.

“Help!” I screamed. “I’m stuck on this island and that bitch Emily Shamara won’t help me!”

“The velociraptor is a vicious dinosaur! It can shred meat in–”

“Fuck, don’t tell me how scary the dinosaurs are! I already know that!” But as he rambled on, I saw that there would be no help there. I didn’t know whether to be more afraid of the dinosaurs on this island or this fat, pompous, dino fact-spewing condescending asshole. I’ll tell you this: I was mightily bothered by the fact that nobody seemed to give a rat shit that I was stuck on this island. For people who wanted me to collect all their precious eggs, it seemed like a bit of a tactical error on their part.

March 13, 19XX

Lots of things have happened in the last few days. I found a working tram. I got my ass kicked by thirteen different species of dinosaur. I died 634 times because my Cocoa Puff gun is a piece of shit. I distracted a tyrannosaurus in her nest with a bear horn and stole her babies. I made endless trips back to the Visitor’s Center to deposit my eggs into incubators and try to end the misery of this game.

It’s cold and lonely here in Jurassic Park. While I wait for a rescue that will never come, I think of things. Like how cool Jurassic Park was in 1993, and how badly it sucks now. How I can’t believe people spent $300 on the Sega CD (coincidentally enough, right around 1993), and how pissed they must have been a few months later, when all they had to chose from was garbage like this and Corpse Killer. How nobody has been able to make a good Jurassic Park game, even with such an awesome and solid premise already in place. How I seem to have an ass-load of crappy point-and-click games in my Sega CD library, and how I don’t remember buying them.

I can hear the distant honks and roars of several different dinosaurs. It does not make for a pleasant and sound sleep at night.

My deadline is up tomorrow; I have to have this journal completed. I swear I’m getting off this island, somehow. And when I do, I’m going to find that fat paleontologist Robert Bakker and that stupid whore Emily Shamara and stick their asses in the T-rex nest covered in a tasty marinade.

Wait, what’s that noise? As I’m writing this there’s some kind of disturbance in the bushes across from me. Maybe it’s a kitty, or a better game. I’m going to investigate. I’ll just be a–AIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!

Imagine if there was a game that had all the basic elements of a decent adventure game, but with none of the cues, hints, or logic of any ordinary game of the genre. It almost feels as though someone dumped the contents of a model airplane onto the floor with no instructions, said “good luck” and “happy eleventh birthday,” and then spat on you. (Thanks, Dad.)

I would definitely place this game into the category of “simulator.” Yes—Police Quest 4: Open Season is a crime investigation simulator that adds a level of realism that I never asked for or wanted in a game…ever.

Can too much realism be a bad thing?

The only way to describe this game is that it has the look and feel of a Seinfeld episode and the running themes of a Dexter episode. But wait! That sounds totally awesome, right? Great observation. I would love to agree. However, as the game gives you overly-realistic responsibilities and little clue as to how to complete them on your own, it discourages you from ever wanting to be a 90s cop again.

Like many other games that are point-and-click driven, you are witness to a character that you have no direct control over. Instead, you click on items, people, and other story-driving areas of the screen to solve the puzzles and proceed. The bottom HUD is equipped with several tools, like “walk,” “speak to,” and “touch.” As a side note, the main character looks like a douche.

He is the most valuable tool.

The first thing I noticed about the game is that all of the characters (at least in the close-up scenes) are real-life actors. WOW. And I thought Stonekeep had a dedication to detail. Between that and the impressively fluid character movements, the entire game has a movie-like quality to it.

The second thing I noticed is the racism. Yikes. I will gingerly step into this aspect of the game because it was pretty distracting and surprising. For the entire first act of this game, the gangs and other characters you need to interrogate are all of African American descent. The dialogue they have is all “ghetto.” Even the amazing motion capture is used to give the African Americans’ movements and gestures a sense of “jive flava” that is straight out of the French Prince of Bel-Air intro. I think I even saw someone rolling dice on the street. (I really wish I were joking.) The game feels like an old Cops episode. I discovered that the game’s developers actually recruited an old police officer for accuracy and fact-based stories.

Enforcing the law, and enforcing stereotypes. Awww yea.

Aside from providing a totally one-sided view of the criminals, the police officer who helped with the game’s development also took the liberty of ensuring that every aspect of your character’s daily activity was accurate. Now it may sound crazy, but I don’t think the player really wants to go into the inventory and put on his badge every time he enters headquarters. Also, finding and filling out the correct paperwork to practice on the gun range is straight up anti-fun. The unbearable monotony is blatantly a message from the policeman: “See kids, being a police officer isn’t all fun and games; it’s a lot of hard work!” No shit. Why not spend the entire first half of the game in the police academy, and the rest of the game getting donuts and playing solitaire in a parked police car?

It was this aspect of the game that really killed it for me. Honestly, I can’t see how anyone would want to complete Level 2, which consists of the following (in order): talking to your boss, properly navigating through the office to your desk, finding the correct paperwork in your desk, filing the correct paperwork with the correct crime scene picture, giving it to the correct co-worker, going on the company computer and reading an article, and wandering the halls of the police station until you find the god-forsaken exit. Oh, and then you have to punch a female reporter in order to move on. Now that is just offensive! I mean, nobody wants to fill out paperwork in real life, let alone in a videogame! Scandalous. Honestly, this “over-realism” leaves me wondering why anyone would want to leave their 9-5 job and come home for a chance to play this…

I just left this hell.

But let’s give the “would be” adult male player the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this person wants to escape the bonds of his normal life and play the exciting role of a detective hot on the trail of a murderer. This scenario would unfortunately also be hindered by the game’s absurdly boring and aimless wandering. The player has to do things in a specific order in order to progress. If you miss an item or step, you may not be able to get to that area again, and the game is ruined, unbeknownst to you.

I apparently forgot to buy glue at this point and had to start over.

So who exactly was this game made for?

Children? Nope. I’m just going to shoot that one down right now. I already mentioned the stubborn precision required to progress through the game. Most kids don’t even have the patience to read this article. Philistines. The Police Quest series is clearly not for children. Too much realistic, disturbing, and awesome violence. These sadistic images are pretty staggering. At one point early on in the game, you open a dumpster and see this:

“You find nothing unusual”- racist game

Seriously disturbing violence. So let me talk about kids for a second. Funny thing about children: they act all weird when seeing other children’s lifeless corpses in dumpsters. I have no idea why. Violence and videogames have been a match made in heaven for years now. But this game is different. Maybe the realism is again the culprit. It feels…wrong. I know children are murdered in real life. I just don’t want to play a game that makes me witness it firsthand with such realism. I can’t imagine anyone who would.

Oh.

I look at videogaming as a form of escapism designed to get people’s minds off their jobs and maybe even forget for just one moment how horrible the world is. How exactly does this game do that? The game is filled to the brim with a strange mixture of realistic chores and realistic gore that makes me question why I wouldn’t just put more effort into my real life.

Horrifying. No milk.

So can too much realism in a videogame be a bad thing? The answer is “yes, easily.” While the game’s graphics are way above average, the aforementioned deficits may be too much for some people. With the ballsy violence and interesting story, the game is definitely noteworthy. But in the end, the monotony is what ruins Police Quest 4. It’s simply not very fun to play.

The “making of” video.

When Stonekeep was first released, it was more bug-ridden and difficult to beat than a homeless man who won’t hold still. Reception was underwhelming for this reason. Although Interplay was quick to fix many of the issues, it was too late. Stonekeep was stepped over by the mainstream. It lives on today as a semi-obscure oddity that may be in the “cult classic” category. A Wiiware re-imagining is purportedly in the works, as well.

But what is Stonekeep? It’s a first-person RPG dungeon crawler developed by Interplay. The game utilizes both CGI and live-action effects to create an engaging experience. I own the original DOS CD-ROM, so I was ready to just pop it in and play—except that the computer I needed to run it had been dead longer than Pauly Shore’s career. (OK, I’m exaggerating. Pauly Shore never had a career.) So I did the next best thing to play it: I used DOSBox (a program that emulates the specifications of vintage DOS). With a few simple steps, I was playing the original game in its perfect native display. Translation: “CD\games\awesomeness”.

After the game was loaded, I suffered through an abysmally dated Star Trek video and almost called it quits right there. (I don’t want to talk about it.) Luckily, the trailer is only set up to play once. After the trailer is over, the Interplay logo appears and the game begins. Or does it?

Oh boy… Here we go. No words, please. Just watch this.

Behold! Stonekeep’s cinematic introduction:

…wow. Just wow.

Did you know that that cost about one-million dollars to make? Was it worth it? I could argue no. But there is a lot in there! What a quaint little castle town…that gets destroyed. And that dog’s transformation to a pile of poorly CGI’ed bones. Emotional. It looks like the people are running from the prospect of being turned into George Lucas’ special effects. But the CGI is not that bad for its time, I guess.

When the game really starts, it’s pretty straightforward to play. The cursor changes depending on what you need to do. For example, when you hover the cursor over a lever that you need to pull, it becomes a hand. Attacking the enemies is point-and-click. By the way, the first weapon I found was a crappy dagger, which is peculiar because I recall a perfectly good sword being left on the ground in the opening segment.

As the game really gets going, it becomes an exploratory crusade to find new weapons, items, and obviously new areas to progress in. One of the first real enemies encountered are the Shargas. These are quaint little creatures that want to kill you something fierce. Gollum comes to mind when I see them. In fact, much of this game borrows from the Lord of the Rings universe. Strangely, the styles are not dissimilar from Peter Jackson’s vision.

The live-action characters steal the show! They have multiple fluid movements and realistic features. (Think the Mortal Kombat style of model capture, but with a lot more detail.) I almost wish they’d pursued this rendering style further throughout the years. I’d prefer it over the early polygon styles any day. Then again, the sprites are technically 2D, so they have no real depth. It is a dead-end method that was superseded by the motion capture they use today.

But honestly, they put a lot of effort into these characters. The special effects used on the actors are Hollywood-quality. Sure, the same enemy models are re-used multiple times. But even these “clones” vary in color, size, and strength. There’s a large variety of enemies that the developers have titivated nicely. The Ice Queen, however, relies on good old-fashioned sex appeal:

Thankfully, the game can be played one-handed.

To add to the already impressive level of detail, many of the enemies have voiced dialog. Surprisingly, this can lead to a few ethical dilemmas. For example, early in the game the player encounters a Sharga that says: “This my home! Monster you leave!”

In order to defend his home (and possibly his pregnant wife), he attacks you. You have to kill him (and take his stuff) in order to progress through the game. There is no way around it. His “home” is a room that happens to lead to the rest of the castle. That is a home invasion and homicide that the developers force the player to commit. His house even has a table, fireplace, bed, and food you can steal. You just end his entire existence. One small dialog throws the game into a moral nightmare. It’s almost as if the developers are training you to accept the fact that you are a malefactor right out of the gate.

Embrace all…of…this!

Certain Shargas simply give up after you engage in battle with them. Seriously—they drop their weapon and actually whine and grovel in an indiscernible tongue, begging you for mercy. If you take the weapon they dropped and walk away with it, they’ll resign with head-in-hands in defeat and humiliation. If you return to the pitiable creature and drop his weapon at his feet, the little shit will actually pick it up and start attacking you again! That is a serious commitment to detail! When enemies are killed in Stonekeep, their bodies stay there for the remainder of the game as a horrifying reminder that you ended their reality.

As is the staple of many RPGs, you meet a few friends along the way. Just like the enemies, they are all unique and creatively conceived. The allies really help to stave off the sense of loneliness that could ensue from meandering alone in the underground labyrinths. Except for the elf, Enigma. Enigma’s appearance and demeanor is what Legolas and Edward from Twilight’s love child would look like. Having him on my team actually made me feel MORE lonely somehow.

My tears have frozen from the coldness in my soul. Also, I cut myself.

Other party members include dwarves, a fairy, a Sharga, and some others I won’t spoil. Drake will encounter others that can be talked to and are seen once or twice throughout the game, most notable being the one and only Wahooka! I loved this guy.

The journal is one of the items you are forced to pillage from the home invasion I mentioned earlier. It’s the key to the rest of the game. It contains stats, item and rune information, and maps.

In the journal, the maps can be marked and written on to serve as a means of not getting lost and taking notes. What a novel idea! This game would be nerve-meltingly frustrating without it. Seriously, why don’t more games do this today? If you’re anything like me, this is a question you’ll be asking yourself quite a bit during this game. Many of Stonekeep’s seemingly simple features have been neglected by almost every game since.

The magic system is quite unique, as well. Runes are Stonekeep’s spell system. After you learn them, you can etch them into the slots on a runecaster. As with many of the other aspects of the game, it’s up to the player to write a description of the rune next to the symbol. Several runecasters with various power levels can be found.

Complaints about this game are few and far between. The sound effects are very good and offer several variations of the same action. The music, however, is the first point of contention. Or is it? The MIDI tracks are OK. Just OK. Although there are different tracks for every new area, and a battle theme, they sound a bit dated now. But who knows—maybe they sounded like John Williams back then. Needless to say, the music has not aged well.

Composing The Dwarf-killing Theme

This game can also be permanently ruined by a single poor decision by the player. And I’m not talking about putting the CD in the toaster to “burn” it for a friend, either (shazam!). An example of this would be pissing off the dwarves. The dwarves are a benevolent race, unless you steal from or attack them. If you attack one of them (even as a onetime tasteful warning they deserve), the entire clan goes apeshit and players must kill ALL OF THEM to survive. And that is not easy to do. The dwarves will hack at you with axes and THROW FRIGGIN’ GRENADES AT YOU.

Steal from me, and I will wear your stomach like a hat.

True, the game does not technically end after your “accidental” genocide. However, the prospect of trudging through the remainder of the game is grim, because a few of your teammates happen to be dwarves, and they won’t join your party after you’ve pillaged their home. (I’m sorry, Domber.)

Other blunders are less obvious at the time, but have dire consequences. For example, the nine planet “receptacles” needed to complete the game appear as normal objects that can be thrown away or dropped just like skulls, rocks, Sharga feces, and other worthless items. (Wait, did he say feces? Yes, you really can collect Sharga excrement.) You don’t get any warning if you forget or drop a planet at any time. However, when you’re at the final boss of the game and ALL of the orbs are needed in order to defeat him, you may find yourself wishing you hadn’t dropped it. But at least you have plenty of Sharga poop.

Even the praise-worthy detail of the game is a double-edged sword. Enemies of the same kind will always drop the same type of weapon every time. So although you have the ability to collect the same items over and over, it’s worthless and repetitive.

All I see are three sets of swords and shields I already own. So who is the real monster here?

The “self-serve” nature of the game (such as having to write your own spell descriptions and map directions, keeping your inventory clean of items you don’t need while hanging onto those you do, and not killing the innocent) may also be a negative to many people. I get it. Developers have since been catering to children in the gaming process by making almost everything automated. I happen to like doing it myself for a change. It adds a level of, dare I say, responsibility.

The bottom line is that for the small amount that this game gets wrong, I say it gets 90% right. From the items and settings to the incredible character designs, this game really impressed me. I am actually withholding some details on purpose because I think many people might love this game too.

I highly implore everyone who is intrigued by my review to simply get it. Amazon: $4. Abandonware sites: $Free. Or, if you have a Wii, give that version a shot when it comes out.

And now, I leave you with a few more screenshots that didn’t fit with the article.

I dare you not to think about hentai right now.

Quentin Tarantino’s face was used for this model design

…How did this get in here? NEXT SLIDE!

I didn’t “planet” to end this way.

Goodbye!

In a recent conversation with ‘Cola Editor-in-Chief Paul Franzen on a popular social networking site, Paul told me about a game he thought I might like. It went something like this:

Paul: Hey, I know you like FMV games, so I thought you’d be interested in this game Darkstar for the PC.

Me: Never heard of it. Hold on… ::does some quick Google research:: Oh man, you’re right! I love FMV games, and it stars the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I’m a huge MST3K fan! I’ll have to check eBay to see if I can find an old copy of the game for sale; hope it isn’t too rare and expensive.

Paul: Old copy? No, the game is brand new—it was just released last month.

Me: Hahahaha, good one, because they still sell Quicktime VR adventure games in 2010—oh wait, you’re serious? Oh.

Note: This conversation is largely a figment of my imagination. Paul doesn’t really exist.

Yes, it turns out that Paul was deadly serious—Darkstar: The Interactive Movie was released November 5th, 2010. It is a point-and-click-style adventure game for the PC that requires Quicktime VR technology, which was used for a handful of games in the mid-to-late 90s but has since become known as the technology that allows you to look around somebody’s kitchen before you buy their home, like this one (requires Quicktime, naturally).

Because it is a PC game, my first challenge was to get the goddamn thing running. So, I installed it along with Quicktime (ugh) and was immediately greeted with “iShell has stopped working.” Great. So I consult the company’s website, and their advice is to reinstall Quicktime. I do that and get the same error. Their advice from there is to ”try another computer,” because everybody in the world is Richie McTenComputers. After trying a few more things to no avail I give up on installing this on my media center, dismiss it as yet another problem with Vista and another reason I need to upgrade the stupid thing, and install it on my Win7 laptop.

Same error message again. “Nooo, damn it!! I want to play Darkstar! I WANT TO PRETEND I AM A CREWMEMBER ON THE SATELLITE OF LOVE AND DIE HAPPY!” Thankfully, I was able to get things up and running after screwing around a little more, right after Quicktime asked me six times if I would like to update it and, while I’m at it, install iTunes. No thanks, Quicktime.

The first thing I noticed upon booting up the game is that Darkstar is terrified of the edges of your monitor and does everything it can to keep from touching them. Observe:

C’mon, little guy, don’t be scared. Feel free to sprawl out; the monitor is all yours.

15 years ago there was an excuse for this: graphical limitations. It’s 2010 (or it was at the time of release), and even the worst computers can handle displaying this game fullscreen—there’s no rendered-on-the-fly 3D effects and the videos don’t even appear to be HD.

Now we start the game and—oh wait, Quicktime wants to know if I want to update and install iTunes and Safari. Go away, Quicktime. 

Beards that look like ant pincers = cool.

So, the game starts up and I’m looking for these stunning movie-quality graphics the game boasts. None to be found. In fact, the game seems completely ignorant of the fact that everything about it has been out of date since 1996, yet it struts around with complete confidence in itself. Wait a second…humorously outdated and brimming with undeserved confidence? This is the Guy Fieri of videogames!

There’s some graphical weirdness throughout the game, even outside of the overall obsolescence. For example, every time you see the main character (Clive Anderson), it looks like he was ripped out of a muddy VHS recording and pasted over the 3D rendered backgrounds (you can even see it a bit in the top banner for this article). The 3D models also tend to be very blocky and oddly colored. For example, the first room you start in has bright red banisters lit by purple overhead lights. I wasn’t sure if I was in a spaceship or if I was playing a glow bowling sim.

Now, as much as I enjoy cheap jabs, I want to be fair here. The 3D modeling, graphic art, and pretty much the whole damn game were created from the ground up by one guy, so comparing it to huge blockbuster games may not be reasonable. If you consider that the game is, at the end of the day, just a very ambitious indie game, then you become a lot more willing to look past its graphical flaws and judge it more based on its gameplay.

It’s also got some interface problems, presumably due to the limitations of the Quicktime VR interface. Clicking things doesn’t always do what you’d think it would, and your cursor only really has two states: a circle, which denotes that there is nothing to click on, and an arrow, which means something will happen if you click. What will happen? Who knows! You might take a closer look at something, use an object, or do something that results in your untimely death. Interface problems can be overlooked in some game genres, but in adventures like this, the interface IS the game, and it’s a hard flaw to overlook. When you aren’t struggling with the interface though, the gameplay isn’t bad.

It starts up, and after listening to Peter Graves spout off what sounds like a particularly heavy bit of William Shatner-style beat poetry, you find yourself waking from a several-hundred-year suspended animation session in a spaceship called the Westwick. Initially, we don’t know anything more than this because—get this—the main character has amnesia, a concept used only slightly less than Xbox Live Arcade games with zombies and Reginald Veljohnson films in which he plays a cop. Click on just about anything, and your screen becomes a whirling dervish of dizzying angles and prog rock until you get to your destination about two feet away. Sometimes you’ll even watch a cutscene of your character walking around the ship, depending on where you go. If you miss it the first time, don’t worry; you’ll see it again next time you go to that area of the ship. In fact, you’ll see it any time you go to that area of the ship for any reason, and a few other parts of the ship, too. Oh, and did I mention it’s unskippable? It is.

Since this is an “interactive movie,” the focus is much less on puzzles and more on advancing the plotline. You’ll run into a few anagrams and jigsaw-style puzzles, but don’t expect anything that’s going to tax your brain. Thankfully, as it’s such a central part of the game, the story isn’t bad, either. It’s no Blade Runner or even Mass Effect, but it’s an entertaining piece of sci-fi no less. Watching the story unfold as you start with no knowledge and explore the ship for bits and pieces that reveal new information about what the hell is going on is a rewarding motivator. A problem that occasionally comes up though is that it’s easy to get lost sometimes, with the ship being so large. (This could just be my own poor sense of direction at work.) Backstory videos can be unlocked every time you open a handprint-scanning lock in the game called a BioLok: a disappointment, because I would rather play through a story in a videogame than watch it. However, I can overlook it in this game, since it does state right in the title that it’s not purely a videogame anyway.

The acting in Darkstar is a mixed bag. Some actors give a very convincing performance; for others, it seems like watching all the campy B-movies from their MST3K days rubbed off on their acting styles. Some performances you don’t know if they’re trying to be funny or serious, and others are so deadpan you don’t know what they’re trying to convey at all.

Since I’m the only person in the world who for the past 10 years has been saying “Man, I wish they still made FMV adventure games,” I feel like I made a wish on a monkey’s paw. I got my wish, but not quite as I had intended or hoped.

At the end of the day, I can’t give the game a cut-and-dry recommendation. If an FMV adventure game with goofy acting, a poor, out-of-date interface, and sub-par graphics doesn’t appeal to you, then you’re simply not going to be into this, and I can’t say I blame you. But you’re a GameCola reader, so graphics probably don’t matter to you, and it’s entirely possible that you happen to like the idea of working to allow a B-movie space opera to unfold before you, despite simple and few puzzles. Or, you could just be a die-hard MST3K or Cinematic Titanic fan (no, Mike Nelson and the guys from Rifftrax aren’t in this one). If either of those are the case, this game is worth a shot.

There, this review is done. Now I can uninstall Quicktime. No, I said “uninstall,” not “associate Quicktime with all movies and music on my computer.” DAMN IT, QUICKTIME!

Topics in gaming news debated by GameCola writers and industry professionals.

In this edition of “Versus Mode” we have:

ROBERT BOYD VS. CHRISTIAN PORTER

Robert Boyd is the lead designer, programmer, and writer at Zeboyd Games, makers of the Xbox Live Indie Games Breath of Death VII: The Beginning and Cthulhu Saves the World. He’s also the organizer of the Indie Games Winter Uprising, an event taking place during the first week of December that hopes to combat the extreme surplus of bad XBLI games by releasing a whole bunch of good ones all at the same time. This is his first appearance in “Versus Mode.”

Christian Porter is a current GameCola staff member who writes reviews, casts pods, writes news and blog posts, and writes two columns: “Poor Player’s Paradise,” which highlights ways for people to play games on the cheap, and “Top of the Heap,” which seeks to find the top videogame in obscure genres like “sports games in which you kill people” or “games starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.” He’s also the creator of the GameCola video series “Speak American,” in which he looks at videogames that “have the poor taste to speak some kind of gibberish that isn’t even American.” This is Christian’s eighth appearance in “Versus Mode,” having written previously with Eric Regan,  Rick Cressen, Britney Brimhall, Paul Franzen, Michael Gray, Danielle Symonds-Yemm, and in NewbieMania II.

Robert Boyd: I can’t speak for everybody else, but I know that I don’t particularly want a brand new console at the moment. I’m still looking forward to picking up a cheap PS3 (thus completing this generation’s set) and some of the great games I’ve missed there, like Siren and Demon’s Souls—I don’t need a brand new system when there are still so many games in the current generation that I want to play. Same thing with the portables—the 3DS sounds cool and all, but the PSP and DS are more than enough for me at the moment.

As a developer of retro-style games, I obviously don’t need a more powerful system to develop on, so if it’s fine with everybody else, I’d rather just keep the current generation of consoles rather than start all over with a new install base.

Christian Porter: Well, I can’t say I’m very keen on spending another $300+ on a new console, but I suppose it depends on what’s on the table. As it stands right now, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are all putting themselves behind motion controls of some kind or another, and, as keen as I am on flailing around to simulate feeling up fictional animals, arranging non-existent flowers, or cutting up virtual eggplant, I’d prefer playing videogames made for people who enjoy videogames, rather than videogames made for the grandparents of people who like videogames.

This is why I think it would be a key time for a new console manufacturer, or perhaps an older one like Sega, to drop a new console into the mix. High-end specs, nice controller, and none of that motion control bullshit. You’d have neckbeards with a vendetta against exercise like myself lined up around the block to get themselves one.

Robert: I completely agree. Even if you make less money in the short run, I think it’s beneficial to sell your games at a lower price to help build up your fanbase. That’s exactly what we did with our first RPG, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning—many people told us that they would have paid much more than the $1 we asked, but by pricing it at such a low price, we drew a lot of attention, and we now have a nice fanbase that should help us greatly with the sales of our future games.

As a consumer, I’ll probably only have ended up purchasing two games at $60 by the end of this year —Final Fantasy XIII and Civilization V Special Edition. I tend to stick with cheap download titles and sales unless it’s a must-have game for me. If more games came out at the $30 and $40 price tags, I would probably buy a lot more games at retail than I do now.

Christian: Hey, I like paying less for stuff as much as the next guy, if not more-so, but let’s face it—have you seen THQ’s games? Most recently we’ve got the videogame adaptation of Megamind, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and Drake and Josh: Talent Showdown.

Charging any more than $40 for these pieces of garbage should be a crime.

Also, if that $40 price point only exists so that they can bleed me dry via DLC, then no thanks, not interested.

Robert: I was a big fan of Dragon’s Lair back in the day, but that day has passed. I have no desire to see any new FMV games; however, FMV can be used to enhance a game if used for comedic value—just look at ‘Splosion Man and Comic Jumper.

Christian: It’s no secret but, God help me, I love FMV games. Probably because it represents my love of videogames and bad movies combined into one medium. 

Hell, the game that has probably seen the most play on my Wii would be Mad Dog McCree.  So I’d be psyched if I could play some crap like Double Switch or the excellent Tex Murphy Adventures on my phone or even PSN or Xbox Live.

Robert: I don’t know if it needs a Virtual Boy store, but if they put the VB Wario Land game on the 3DS, I’d buy it. A great platformer, and no permanent damage to your eyesight? Sign me up!

Christian: Sure. Virtual Boy games may not be the brightest page in the Nintendo history books, but there’s a whole lot of collectors who would be happy to throw Nintendo a few bucks to play their old garbage. And, really, hasn’t that been Nintendo’s entire business model for the past five years or so?

Robert: I disagree. One of the greatest strengths of the Xbox Live Indie Games service is that just about anyone can make and publish just about anything. If you start putting serious restrictions on that, where do you draw the line?

Rather than keeping the garbage off of the service, I think Microsoft should focus on trying to bring the best of XBLIG to the forefront. We’re trying to do just that with our Indie Games Winter Uprising—a developer-led promotion showcasing over a dozen great games that are coming out on the service at the beginning of December—but I would love to see some more help from Microsoft in promoting the good. That’s not to say that they haven’t done anything—occasionally, they’ll include Xbox Live Indie Games in general promotions, and they have their yearly Dream.Build.Play competition—but it would be nice to see more regular promotions of good indie games. A once-a-month dashboard ad just advertising great XBLIGs that came out that month would be a great step in the right direction.

Should Microsoft do something about this?

Christian: It’s a tough call. On one hand, it’d be nice to be able to scan through the indie games section and not see Zombie Prostate Massager 2: With Avatars for every other game. On the other hand, if people keep making these things, then, sadly, people must be buying them. Also, part of the charm of the indie games service is that anybody can make just about anything they want to, and if other people like their game as much as they do, they can make a good amount of cash and a name for themselves in the industry.

Perhaps what needs to be done is that tighter control needs to be exercised, not on what can be made and released, but on what makes it to the featured menus.  Perhaps “New Releases” should be replaced with “New Releases That Were Determined By A Committee of Peers To Not Completely Suck Ass”.

Dear Readers,

Hello, and welcome to GameCola.net: the number one website on the entire Inter–HEY, wait a second.

I’m sorry about that. Old habits die hard, as they say. “Dear Readers” was the column I wrote as a sort of introduction to every issue of GameCola back when we published in a monthly newsletter format. I guess it’s been so long since I’ve written anything else that I’ve apparently forgotten how to do it. (Actually, that makes some sense, and it would explain why a recent personnel report I wrote for work talked about how a job candidate had “terrible replay value.”)

Let’s try this again.

Hello, and welcome to “Minus the Pudding”: the column about how we have a great issue lined up for you this month, folks! Zach Rich wrote a review for an N64 Rareware game, Meteo Xavier wrote about a fantasy version of himself, and Michael Gray wrote everything else. It’s easily one of the best–dammit! I’m really sorry about this. I swear, this has never happened to me before. Give me one more chance, OK?

Dear Rea–OK, you know what? This is just a bad idea. Let’s just forget this whole “introduction” thing, and move on to the part where I tell you about the four Xbox Live Indie Games that were released last month that are actually worth the dollar that they cost.

Maybe this was a bad game to start with.

For all you boys out there who want the girl of your dreams to think you’re an asshole, there’s Don’t Be Nervous Talking to Girls—the latest game by the developers of Don’t Be Rude Talking to Cops and Don’t Be Sexy Talking to Pedophiles. This is a game where you advance by—and this is taken directly from Don’t Be’s main menu—telling a girl what she wants to hear. The game makes anachronistic use of FMV; a real-life hottie hot hot girl says something to you, and you have to select, from two options, what you want to say back. Sometimes she’ll ask you a random trivia question, such as “How many beats does a human heart beat in one day?” and if you don’t answer correctly, then she don’t wanna be your lover. Whatever happened to “you gotta get with my friends” as the basis for a relationship?

My favorite part of the game was when she told me she was having trouble with a math problem. I offered to help, and she pushed me away like she was Quest 64, and I was good gameplay. So, instead, I went back and bragged to her about how godly I am at math; then she got slightly aroused and asked for my help.

Nice guys—or, I should say, guys without dates—always talk about how girls only really ever go for jerks. Is Don’t Be Nervous Talking to Girls conclusive evidence that this is true?

Also—and forgive me for not finding a more natural way to work this in—but since this is kind of an edutainment title, and since it’s clearly meant for high schoolers…does that make it eduteenment? Thank you.

This is a Choose Your Own Adventure book in cheaply-made videogame form. It’s entirely text-based, and after every few screens of text, you’re given a chance to choose which way you want the story to go. The plot is a jokey science-fiction story about a kid who’s just about to graduate space school and captain his own starship. If sci-fi’s not your thing, the guy who made this game also made one about a young girl and the way she deals with death. It’s called  Molly the Were-Zompire.

Now, this is the part of my column where I should say something like “there’s no reason to get this game when you can just get the same thing in a book, for much cheaper.” That’s usually what reviewers say when they’re reviewing things like Where’s Waldo? videogames, or those “hidden object” games that are exactly the same thing as an I-Spy book. I’m not going to say that, though, for two reasons:

1) It’s easier to just buy this game over Xbox Live than it is to find and purchase a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and

2) At a total cost of $1, this videogame is actually cheaper than almost every book ever made. Even Everyone Poops.

So, hey! If you like Choose Your Own Adventure books, check this game out. Videogames: What’s the Point of Books Anymore?

In this game that I think was made for children, you have to blow up buildings that are made out of gerbils. You’re given a set number of bombs (and, later, ropes), and you have to knock all the gerbils over using only these objects and your wits. If you’re unsuccessful, the words “abject failure” crash down onto the screen, representative of the self-esteem you can feel crashing down in your own head when you realize that this is how you’re spending your Friday night.

I particularly liked the looks of fear on the gerbils’ faces, and the scared little noises they made, as I placed bombs  right next to their heads.

In this game, you have to—again, this is a direct quote from the game’s main menu—“help Kissy Poo fill the rainbow and enjoy a fun, dancy time with all the animal friends.” It may just be the greatest game I have ever played in my entire life. Take a look:

Do a little dance. Because it’s dancin’ time. Do a little dance. Because it’s dancin’ time. I know you’ve already started, but don’t bother looking for an mp3 of this, the finest song ever written. I’ve already searched the entire Internet, and it doesn’t exist.

If you don’t give this man a dollar in exchange for this game, you are doing a disservice to videogames.

OK, that’s about all I have for you now. I also recently played an Indie Game called Johnny Platform Saves Christmas!, but since the extent of the holiday joy in this game was a little snow and a Santa hat on the main character, I am now fighting with this game, and don’t really want to talk about it.

Ah well. Enjoy the newest issue of GameCola, everyone!

…dammit.