Reviews by Benjamin Sokal
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Avoid this one, December 7, 2007 This early graphic/text adventure based on the classic television show boasts a twist ending. I know this not because I finished the game but because it says so right on the box. Aren't twist endings supposed to be a surprise? Anyway, from what I played this game showed promise. Throw in some bizarrely inventive scenarios, not so terrible EGA graphics, a hint of nostalgia, and you could have a winner.
Could, if more thought had gone into the parser. I could rarely tell if I was phrasing something wrong or if the action I was getting at was not implemented. Combine that with the fact that the theme song from the show starts playing half the time the parser doesn't understand you, and you see how irritating that could be. Plus, the gameplay is just poor. There's a ridiculous inventory limit and innumerable useless items that you don't know are useless. The game can easily be made unwinnable by dropping what you think is a useless item before realizing too late that you need it.
After finishing the game, I downgraded it further. It turns out not to be very interesting at all. The only value this game has is as an illustration of "guess the verb" problems. Blegh.
A Game for the Ages, December 7, 2007TimeQuest is a journey through history in search of a madman who aims to alter it. You can explore 49 different timeplaces ranging from 1361 BC to 1940 AD, as well as your headquarters in 2090. The amount of areas available to explore makes the game somewhat imposing at first, and many puzzles require items from different time periods. Half the fun of this game is exploring all the different times and places, and realizing how your actions in one time period will affect another.
There are two main parts to this game: The puzzles that require fixing what the madman Vettenmyer has altered, and the meta-puzzle of stopping him once and for all. He has left you clues scattered throughout time which seem to point to his whereabouts and a method to reach him. In uncovering this meta-puzzle, the story takes a few twists and turns that make you re-examine everything you thought you knew. It's a delightful twist that makes the game even better.
One of my favorites, November 22, 2007One of my favorite games, Blue Chairs is surreal at its best. It's not surreal for its own sake, but to underpin the emotional state of the protagonist. You are Dante Hicks (no, not the one from Clerks), and you begin the game by drinking a bottle of unknown liquid from a strange man. From there you drift from reality to dream to nightmare to who-knows-what state you're in and back again, but it is all amazingly cohesive.
Dancing in the Dance
You can go anywhere you want. You can see anything you want. Where are you? There are five hundred people crammed into this room -- it's a miracle of genetic instinct and secular humanism that no one's bumping into anyone else, except when they want to, which is always... Why don't you touch people more? You never hug people except when they hug you first. Your grandmother leaving for a trip to New Orleans, to see where her body will reside once she's gone up to wherever it is that grandmothers belong after they die...
Like an interactive fiction version of a David Lynch movie, Blue Chairs manages to be confusing, provocative, beautiful, and in the end packs a surprising emotional punch.
Childhood Favorite, November 17, 2007One of my earliest memories is playing Transylvania late into the night (er, early evening, since I was probably 7 at the time). The game is ludicrous (goblins, aliens, vampires, werewolves, etc) but somehow remarkably enjoyable. This is one of those games whose philosophy is "story? continuity? what's that?", with the end result being that you never know what surprise is coming next (okay, so you're supposed to rescue the princess Sabrina - I guess that is story, but most of the game has nothing to do with that). And what can beat the graphics drawn right in front of you as if a hyperactive child sits inside your monitor with a pen?
Note: I much prefer the Apple II version of this game to the ugly MS-DOS version, so I recommend that you search for that if you are interested in this game.
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