Point-and-Click Adventure Mega Review: Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders was an early adventure game by Lucasfilm Games, later known as LucasArts.  As such, it has a game design that were used in many of the adventure games of the time, which are now considered dated.  However, if you enjoy quirky stories and fun characters, and don't mind dead ends and mazes, it's still worth playing.

The game takes place in 1997, which was 9 years into the future at the time of release.  Travel to Mars is possible in this time period, and news headlines were all abuzz about two college students who traveled there themselves in a modified van.  The game's titular character, Zak McKracken, will have to team up with these students in order to travel across Earth and on the face of Mars to try to stop an alien plot that threatens the inhabitants of Earth.

The gameplay is very similar to Maniac Mansion, which was released at around the same time, and used the same engine.  When Zak meets the friend of the college students, you will be able to switch between the characters.  You can switch between Zak and Annie on Earth, and between Melissa and Leslie on Mars.  Each character has a different personality that will make them the right person to solve certain puzzles, which are all quirky and fun, and fit into the game world well.  Zak and Annie travel around the Earth using their cash cards, which leads to one of the main drawbacks of the game.  It is possible to go broke, which makes it impossible to buy new flight tickets, which means that you're stranded with no way to go further.  There are ways to get more money, but it's not implicitly stated by the game how to do so, so many will find themselves stuck without a walkthrough.  There are also many mazes in the game, which were common in older adventures.  They were used mostly to artificially extend game play, and usually weren't fun to get through.  This is certainly true here, as they are completed by mere chance, as there are no maps available in the game to help you through them.The game does have some neat features that are unique, however.  At one point, Zak finds an alien crystal that allows him to merge with the spirit of animals and use their unique abilities to get places that he could not.  This is an interesting, memorable game mechanic that is used well.

The art style is also very reminiscent of Maniac Mansion.  Unlike Maniac Mansion, however, there is a hard to find higher resolution version available for the Japanese FM-Towns computer, which has improved VGA artwork and a soundtrack that streamed from the CD.  This version is also supported by the fan interpreter ScummVM, which will let you play this game on modern computers, phones, tablets, and consoles.  The other versions only have the title song, which is quite memorable on its own. However, the CD soundtrack of the FM-Towns version is an excellent addition, as the music is well done and really adds to the atmosphere of the game.

Other than the pre-SCUMM adventure Labyrinth, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is the one game that has not fared as well over the course of time as the other games in the LucasArts adventure game library.  There are a lot of dated gameplay mechanics that are not fun to play.  It's  possible to spend all of your money.  Since the game doesn't explain how to get more, it's very possible to hit a dead end.  There are also many mazes in the game that are completed solely by chance.  There are many good things about the game, however.  The multiple character aspect is used well here, as it was earlier in Maniac Mansion.  The puzzles are all quirky but fun, and the ability to become animals is a unique game mechanic that still works well today.  The FM-Towns version is hard to find, but if you want to give this game a play despite it's flaws, that's the version to play.  The updated VGA graphics are well done, and the CD soundtrack adds a lot to the game's atmosphere.

Update 3/21/15: Since I posted this, the FM-Towns version is no longer hard to find.  It is now available digitally from GOG.com for only $5.99.  I highly recommend playing this version if you want to play this game, as it adds so much to the experience that I have now bumped my review score up half a point since the FM-Towns version is now among the most common and is definitely the definitive version of this game.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Choices and Consequences Game Review: The Wolf Among Us - Faith

The Wolf Among Us takes place in the world of the Fables comics, and uses the same choice based gameplay that Telltale employed in The Walking Dead.  Like that series, the characters react to you based on your choices.  Luckily, the first episode of The Wolf Among Us also follows The Walking Dead in creating a fantastic story that uses the choice based mechanics well.

The game takes place in New York city in the 1980's and follows Bigby Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf of legend, who has now reformed and is working as sheriff in a hidden community for fables known as Fabletown.  None of the fables truly trust him because of his sordid past, so when a murder happens at the Fabletown office, he has to investigate the crime while trying to win over the Fable community.  This game employs the game mechanics Telltale initiated with the final episode of The Walking Dead season one and continued in 400 Days.  There are no real puzzles here, and all action sequences are handled by quick time event sequences.  The main gameplay here is choice based, and the characters opinions of Bigby change based on the choices that you make.  While it would have been nice to have some more meat to the investigation mechanic, the choice based gameplay works quite well with this story.  Bigby isn't much of a people person, so the fables really don't know what to think of him.  Because of this, the characters really do respond quite differently based on how you choose to have Bigby act.  This game also adds the ability to choose between two locations, with the action in both locations still happening in real time.  This adds a lot to the choice based gameplay, as Bigby has to deal with the aftermath of his choice once he goes to the other location.  Hopefully Telltale continues to use this mechanic in their future games, as it really does add a lot to the experience.

The voice work shines as usual.  Each character is voiced superbly, from the characters from the comics, to the fables that were adapted just for Telltale's story.  And, it's a fantastic story so far.  The game is a murder mystery, made all the more menacing as the entire community that Bigby has to investigate is made up of superhuman beings.  The art style is also excellent, as the game looks just like a comic book in motion.  Never before has a Telltale game looked this good.  The game is topped off with an excellent soundtrack, which fits the atmosphere of the game well.  Long time fans of Telltale will be pleased to hear a tune from another Telltale game that is put to good use here.

The first episode of The Wolf Among Us is a great start to the season.  While it continues on the path that Telltale has been setting lately of gameplay based solely on choices and character reactions with some quick time events, it manages to use these mechanics well.  The story is excellent, the characters are all interesting and superbly voiced, the music fits the atmosphere well, and the art style is gorgeous.  This episode stands right up there with the best episodes of The Walking Dead as shining examples of Telltale's style of cinematic story games.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5

Episode Two Review

Grim Fandango Remastered Demoed At Indiecade

Double Fine's remastered version of Tim Schafer's magnum opus of his LucasArts years, Grim Fandango, was demoed at Indiecade. Game journalists have played that demo and shared their thoughts.

IGN describes the new version as follows:

You have the ability to toggle back and forth between how the game originally looked, and how it looks now, and holy moly the difference is night and day. Thanks to the new lighting, shaders, and other technical enhancements that flew way over my head, Manny and company now look incredible. Their in-game models appear to be nearly identical to their cut-scene counterparts, which is great. The game is still presented in 4:3, but you have the ability to stretch it to widescreen (for the love of everything good, please don’t do this). The borders are black right now, but I was told that the developers are toying with some ideas for what could stand on the two sides of the screen.

In addition, Double Fine has also added some bonus features to the game:

The final big change I stumbled across was the awesome inclusion of nodes scattered throughout the world that contain small snippets of commentary from Tim Schafer, Peter Chan, Peter McConnell, and a ton of other folks who helped make the game so special back in 1998.

Polygon has also shared their thoughts on the demo, and have confirmed that the original's tank controls will be an option for the purists who prefer to play the game that way.

It looks like Grim Fandango Remastered is shaping up to be great. The rest of us will get a chance to play it for ourselves once it's released in early 2015.

Direct-Controlled Adventure Review: Escape from Monkey Island

The last original Monkey Island game that was developed by LucasArts broke from tradition in many ways.  Some of these changes worked, while others did not, making this chapter the weakest of the lot. 

This game takes place several months after the end of The Curse of Monkey Island, as Elaine and Guybrush come back to Melee Island to find that Elaine has been declared dead due to her being gone for so long, and an election is being held to elect a new governor.  The two must work to get her deemed legally alive again and to have her win the election.  Of course, this means Elaine works the political angle, while Guybrush sails around the Caribbean to find those who can set things right.  In the midst of it all, Guybrush meets a greedy Australian land developer who wants to replace the pirate atmosphere of the Caribbean with family friendly tourist locations.

The Monkey Island series has always had connections with Disneyland since the first game, but here those connections are more obvious than ever before.  The game was made at a time when Disney was changing all of their theme parks so that businesses could plant themselves in the park without having to keep with the theme of the park in which they are located.  It is an obvious satire of the situation, which goes beyond the other games which have been more subtle in their Disneyland homages.

In fact, this game is a lot less subtle in just about every area than the other games in the series.  There are a lot more references to modern popular culture, and the humor is much more low brow here than previous games.  Guybrush is also portrayed as an even bigger loser than usual, with a lot of the humor being directed towards him.  It is a funny game, though, if you don't mind that style of humor.

The art style tries to replicate The Curse of Monkey Island in a three dimensional environment, and doesn't do too good of a job of it.  The technology just wasn't ready for that kind of art in 2000.  While the pre-rendered backgrounds do look quite nice in places, the character models are jagged and in the realm of uncanny valley with their expressionless eyes.  It runs on an updated version of the engine that ran Grim Fandango.  While that game worked well within the limitations of the time, making it's characters papier-mâché skeletons, Escape from Monkey Island tries to go beyond the limitations and doesn't really succeed.  What looked so nice with skeletal characters, really doesn't work as well with humans.

The game does have quite a few good sides to it, though.  The characters are all interesting, and are voiced excellently, from the returning characters to the new.  One minor change from the last game is that Elaine has received a new voice actress with an American accent.  It's an abrupt change when you're used to hearing Alexandra Boyd, but Charity James does a fine job with the character.  This game also introduces a main primary villain, in the Australian Ozzie Mandrill.  This is one change that did well for the series.  LeChuck is a fun villain, but it's always nice to see something new.  Ozzie was portrayed quite well, with the right amount of arrogance and pomposity, so he fit in this role perfectly.  The game's music, once again performed by Michael Land, is one of the game's high points.  The Monkey Island score has always been excellent, and it doesn't disappoint here.

Most of the game's puzzles are quite good as well.  They are firmly in the classic mold, with the difficulty ramping up as the game goes on.  They are all pretty well done though, and are all able to be worked out if you think within the logic of the game's world.  The one thing that doesn't work well, however is Monkey Kombat.  This is a play on the insult sword-fighting from the first and third games.  Here, however, instead of learning insults, Guybrush has to learn monkey noises.  Then he has to learn which monkey noises to say to win in duels against other monkey noises.  The only way to do this is to tediously go through countless pointless monkey kombat matches and write the combinations down on a chart.  It's a silly idea that isn't executed well at all.  It drags the last part of the game down, and makes completing the game feel like a chore.

Escape from Monkey Island is the one game in the series that departed from the others the most.  Unfortunately, it didn't always do so in a good way.  The story is fine, the characters are interesting, the puzzles are good, and the voices and music are fantastic.  However, it went for a three dimensional art style that tried to mimic The Curse of Monkey Island, which didn't work out so well as the technology to do so wasn't available in 2000.  The biggest problem with the game, and the one that hurts it the most, is the tedious Monkey Kombat portions.  They aren't fun at all, and they make it hard to want to keep playing to finish the last part of the game.  It's a shame, as I liked most of the game.  If there ever is a remake that improves the character models and simplifies the Monkey Kombat portions, I might recommend this game higher.  As it stands, this game is probably only going to be fun to the very patient and those who are huge Monkey Island fans who wish to experience the complete story.

Final Verdict:

3 out of 5

Puzzle Adventure DLC Review: Stacking - The Lost Hobo King

The Lost Hobo King is downloadable content for Stacking that tells a short little story that is set after the events of the main game. It doesn't add anything to the main storyline, but it's funny and it has much of the charm of the main game, in a much smaller portion.

In Stacking, Charlie was aided in his adventure by a helpful hobo.  This time around, Charlie will be helping his Hobo friend by traveling to his hobo village to try to find the artifacts that will bring about the fabled hobo king.  It's a simple story, but it's full of the charm and humor you've come to expect from Stacking.  The story is still told in a silent film era presentation, the scenery is once again presented in a charming paper and cardboard style to match the Russian nesting doll characters, and the music still fits the presentation perfectly.

This being Stacking, the best thing about this little story is that you will meet a lot of new dolls, from rabbits to gypsies, and even zombies.  Since you can stack into most of them, that means that there will be a lot of new skills that Charlie can use to solve new puzzles.  The puzzles in this side quest are just as silly and entertaining as those in the main game, and are definitely the main draw of the game.

The real only drawback to The Lost Hobo King is that it's quite short.  However, the charming art style, the humorous storyline and animations, and the silly, entertaining puzzles make this worth playing.  Plus, the price is right for what you get.  It's five dollars on consoles, but if you play it on PC, Mac, or Linux, it comes bundled with the main game at no extra charge.  If you enjoyed Stacking, it's certainly worth playing The Lost Hobo King, no matter which system you play it on.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

A Golden Wake Is Out Now

A Golden Wake, the first commercial adventure game by Grundislav Games, the creators of the popular freeware Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator adventure series, is now available for PC, Linux, and Mac for $14.99.  The game follows a real estate salesman who hopes to strike it rich in Florida during the roaring 20's.  It is based on actual events, and features real life locations and historical figures.

There is also a demo available at the game's website for all three platforms if you'd prefer to try before you buy.

Choices-and-Consequences DLC Review: The Walking Dead: 400 Days

400 Days is downloadable content for The Walking Dead: Season One that tells the story of five different protagonists who survived the first 400 days of the zombie apocalypse in a single episode. It is an ambitious story experiment by Telltale Games and one that mostly manages to work, with a few hiccups.

The story takes place during the first 400 days of the zombie apocalypse, from the early days of the outbreak to a time period taking place after the five episodes of the first season. The stories interconnect with each other and at times even reference events and characters from season one. Unlike Telltale's previous games, you can choose your protagonist from the start. You will have to play as all five protagonists, but which order you choose determines at what point in the timeline the story will be told. This means that you can either play the story linearly from day 1 to day 400, or jump around as you wish. This choice is nice, as it gives the player a freedom of choice that they hadn't had before, but it's also one of the episode's major drawbacks, as ultimately the order doesn't really matter, as the purpose of the story is simply to tell five stories about how five people with five very different personalities had come to survive the apocalypse. This is mostly remedied by the fact that the stories told are all quite interesting, and they surprisingly manage to flesh out the characters quite a bit in the very short playtime that each character is given in each of their single chapters.

As usual for this series, the voice acting and music are excellent. Each actor portrays their role with a truly genuine feeling, from the main characters to the side characters, and the music manages to hit all the right notes to fit the mood perfectly. The art style continues to shine, with each location and character having a comic-style look to them, as in the series proper. As far as gameplay is concerned, this episode continues on the course started by the finale of The Walking Dead, by no longer having true inventory puzzles or direct-controlled action sequences, with gameplay only consisting of player choice and quick time events. Unfortunately, as each chapter is very short, the limitations of this style show more than usual, as the choices don't immediately affect the way characters treat you in the story as much as they did in the main series.

400 Days is an experiment in storytelling that manages to work quite well as a story, but leaves a little to be desired in the choices-and-consequences department. The choice-based gameplay worked fine when you had a whole season, or even a whole episode focusing on choices made and how characters react to those choices. With each chapter being quite small due to the limited time allotted to each character, this style of gameplay doesn't quite work as well. However, the five stories told are all quite interesting, and the voice actors portray the characters (as well as the characters met by the protagonists) quite well. The music and art style, always a high point for this series, also continues to shine here. So, it might still be worth playing if a strong story and presentation are enough of a pull for your tastes. If you prefer a little more substance to your gaming, you might want to sit this one out.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5