Universe (Amiga CD32) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm still playing 90s point-and-click adventure Universe, because I want to be done with it. I played the demo years ago, when I was young enough for it to be imprinted into my brain and stick there. But I never played through the full game so I have no idea how the story ends and I'm just as clueless about the middle.

I mentioned in PART ONE that I wasn't going to spoil the ending, but I've changed my mind. Because we all deserve closure on this. That means I should give you a SPOILER WARNING. Oh, you should also know that despite what it says in the title, most of these screenshots are from the MS-DOS version of the game, as I switched systems. Not that it makes much difference.

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Previously, in Universe:

Boris Verne was dumb enough to accidentally teleport himself above an asteroid in the ass end of an alien galaxy and he's damn lucky it had an atmosphere. Now he's in a stolen space-car on the run from agents of an oppressive empire who believe he's a key figure in the Healers' prophecy. He knows this as he got psychic powers after being electrocuted by a sewage system terminal due to his shoddy repair job.

He did find one person who would help him, a woman called Silphinaa, who told him to head to Wheelworld and search for her friend Malinaa. First though, he needs to find Wheelworld. A freighter captain called Snorglat knows where it is, but he wants Boris to give him something of value before he'll share the location. So now I'm flying between barren planets looking for treasure. Starfield stole all its ideas from this game.

And now, the conclusion:

No sign of intelligent life on planet #1, just a bunch of jerks who think it's funny to wreck my car just for the hell of it. I need that car to travel to other worlds and stuff! I'm getting a Bubba 'n' Stix vibe from these aliens. Hey, that was by Core Design too now that I think about it.

I found some other stuff here as well. Like a droid lying in the wreckage of a crashed ship, and a random canister of pest repellent. My walkthrough suggested combining the two and then sending it after these pests, even though the canister has "Kills all known pests, DEAD! DO NOT INGEST" written on it. Fortunately, it didn't actually kill them... I think. One of them did evaporate leaving only their eyes, which then bounced away, but that could just be natural for their species.

It seems like each world only has around 9 screens, so they're like that asteroid at the start of the game. I'm done with this one though so now it's time for me to take off and set a course for the next one.

Step 1: click "Ascend from planet".

Step 2: do all the rest of it.

Each planet has four quadrants and I have to click all of them just in case there's anything there. Funnily enough 3 out of 4 quadrants are usually unsuitable for landing. They're just there to waste my time.

You're not an early 90s video game magazine Universe, you don't get to do (snarky comment - ed) interjections.

This world definitely is kind of featureless and rocky, but it's not entirely deserted, as I found an alien sitting next to a hole, eating the blob creatures coming out of it. I tried a bunch of things in an effort to interact with him or the hole and then gave up and went back to the walkthrough. It says I should 'Throw' a rock at him.

Why am I throwing a rock at this innocent alien? I don't want to hurt the poor thing! It's just minding its own business, completely ignoring me. But it's got to be done to move the plot along.

Oh, the rock didn't hit the alien, it just landed in front of him! Then he ate it and died.

I'm starting to think that Boris is somewhere near the bloke from Deponia on the 'sociopathic adventure game protagonist' scale.

At least now I can grab the blue things popping up from the hole and trade them to Yoda for precious crystals to give to Snorglat so he can get me to Wheelworld so that I can meet Silphinaa's friend Malinaa.

I'm starting to feel like my main job during conversations is to keep Boris from 'Insert'ing his foot into his mouth.

Anyway, it's Snorglat time!

Snorglat's offering me a ride to Wheelworld, but first I need to dock my car with his ship. It... might take a while.

At least I've finally learned that I have to hold the left mouse button down to activate the car's mouse control and get it moving at all. Steering is a bit of an effort though with this momentum.

With docking finally complete, the trading vessel Darfugh comes in to dock with Wheelworld. I mentioned Mass Effect earlier in part 1. Well, I think I just found the Citadel.

Man, I love all this space colony stuff. It's a shame it's not in a better game so I could actually care about anything that's going on. I also love this art. It's an interesting colour scheme they've used here, with the purple, yellow and cyan lights. It makes it look very comic book.

Oh no, Snorglat betrayed Boris the moment they landed, shooting him with a stun gun and taking the stuff he was going to give him anyway. Seems kind of pointless, seeing as it changes absolutely nothing except my respect for Snorglat. I'll never give him anything precious again.

Alright, now I need to go find someone called Malinaa on this giant space station. Maybe they've got phone books.

Of course, it couldn't be as simple as just looking her name up. I could try to find her house on this map, but that'll take forever.

I'm going to plan B: check the walkthrough. Ah, it says I need to head to a specific landing pad. So I only have to click on every 'L' in turn then. I'm looking at that big empty monitor on the right thinking of all the things they could've put on it. Like a list of locations for instance!

The game doesn't scroll its backgrounds, sadly, but I wanted to see if they could be stitched together and the answer here is a definite 'yes'. So here's a unique image you won't find anywhere else. Unless someone nicks it.

This place is exactly what it should be: neon-lit sci-fi city streets curving around the inner edge of the ring, covered in aliens and alien text. In fact, it's so bizarre and alien that the arcade's still in business. It's just a shame that everything is so tiny on screen, like the vending machine I need to interact with. It doesn't help that there are like 3 million other tiny flickering screens here, so finding it could take a bit.

The walkthrough sent me into a bar next, to drug this guy's drink and steal his badge. I guess Boris will need some of that Alpha Class respectability at some point. I also met a dude in the street and traded a bottle of some liquid I found for an I.D. card, for no reason in particular. I feel like I've skipped a line of dialogue somewhere which explains what Boris is trying to achieve here. All I know is that I need to find Silphinaa's friend Malinaa.

Alright walkthrough, what do I do next? Oh, it suggests I could play the Space Invaders machine just for the hell of it. So I guess I'll go do that.

Here I am playing Space Invaders then. It seems like they've pixelled some caricatures to use as the enemies. They're probably the developers, but who knows?

I beat the first wave without losing a life and then failed in my attempt to quit. Fortunately slamming into five missiles did the trick and was back into my graphic adventure. There's apparently a Breakout game here as well, but I need to get back to my graphic adventure.

Hey, getting the Alpha Class badge and the I.D. card has triggered the next bit of the plot!

When I returned to the street I found an old man on the ground who told me that jet-packers have stolen his hand. He looks like the type who'll give me critical exposition once I've done his quest, maybe even point me in the direction of the story, but there's no time to talk! I need to give chase.

Damn, I didn't know my car had energy weapons. This thing's amazing, I hope Silphinaa's still alive after that security robot shoved her to the ground so I can give it back to her at some point. This surprise action sequence is pretty fast and flashy, but it's also boring the crap out of me. I thought there were just three of these jet-packers, so why do they keep coming?

In fact, the sequence is so repetitive that I was able to make a nearly seamless looping GIF out of it! It helped that the background is really just cycling through the same seven frames.

Damn, I guess Boris really is the chosen one in the Healers' legend, or whatever that guy said in Boris' psychic vision.

It turns out that the henchman from the psychic vision cutscene, Baron Kaleev, is the one who sent the jet-packers after this guy's hand because he wanted his magic healing power. The dude never mentions if he was able to use his magic healing power to reattach it after I returned it to him, which is bothering me. How does that not come up in conversation? In fact, the man has barely told me anything. A clue about what this star chart is for would be nice!

He does at least mention that Silphinaa's friend Malinna has been captured by the evil Prefectorate, so I won't be meeting her any time soon. That was my one goal!

The other bad news is that Baron Kaleev has arrived to deal with Boris personally, with robots! Plus he already has a bunch of magic powers and I don't think these ones are for healing. I knew I shouldn't have agreed to meet the Healer on a street called 'Kaleev Way'!

Now it's up to me to race back through the city and escape the robots, with death or capture a real possibility. So this would probably be the right time to hit 'Escape' and save my game.

Escape is quit, not 'bring up the menu screen'.

Man, I knew I had to save using an icon, I knew that I shouldn't press Escape, but I'm so used to modern PC games that I hit it without thinking. The game could've at least asked if I was sure or if I wanted to save first!

This isn't a problem on the Amiga version as you can't play it from an operating system. You can't even read the disks. I imagine this was to help prevent piracy, though it also has the side effect of helping prevent hard drive installation. So if you're playing on an Amiga computer there is no escape from disk-swapping hell.

What's weird is that they did go to the trouble of giving the game an icon for the demo version:

I like how the message on the icon implies that the game is a greater achievement than the creation of the Earth.

Anyway, I escaped Baron Kaleev and got a ride on a starliner, so now I have this new area to explore, full of new characters to talk to and new adventure game puzzles to solve!

Oh, I'm mostly just running around a maze of identical corridors.

It turns out that the ship has been rigged with a bunch of timed explosives by agents of the New Rebellion. They actually phoned me up to warn me about them, seeing as I'm the chosen one and everything. I also got in touch with another Healer who wants to talk to me in his cabin, which means I have to get over there now.

LOTS OF WANDERING LATER

Oh cool, actual instructions! I need to use the two halves of the star chart to find the way to Haldebar and pick up the Power Gem. Then I just use the Power Gem to defeat Neiamises and overthrow the evil Prefectorate. Simple.

This is the point where Boris could warn the Healer about the timed explosives, or anyone for that matter. But he doesn't. He's just going to let everyone here die; it's none of his business. Well, maybe they're only small bombs.

RIP all the people in that part of the ship I guess.

It was lucky for me though, as I nearly had to get past an assassin using my wits! Instead, the explosion knocked her out, so I could get back to walking around this maze of identical corridors. This time I'm headed to steal her car and escape before the whole thing goes up.

There used to be a lot more shaking in this GIF by the way, but I used the power of motion stabilisation to fix that and got the file to a 20th of its original size! I'm actually solving more problems while writing about the game than I am while playing it.

Boris is having another one of his amazingly relevant visions, and look at this damn art!

Now look at that giant golden dude standing at the front. That's the Emperor King Neiamises himself, in his powerful robot body. He's just declared war on the Mekalien Empire, so his fleet's on the move. So that's happening somewhere in the galaxy, far far away from where I am right now.

Alright, I'm in a car and I've got a new set of planets to visit. I know the drill.

Man, look at this thing! Some of the art in this game is incredible. The backgrounds on this planet are so good that I had to put together an animated GIF of them both together. My screenshot stitching powers have increased.

Unfortunately the game loves to give me interesting new areas to play around in, but nothing to play with. You know what you do here? You 'push' the junk on the far left to acquire a metal bar and then you interact with the terminal.

There is a terminal here, trust me. But you might have to watch a walkthrough on YouTube to find it.

SOON

Alright, I used the star chart to open a portal to Haldebar so I can grab the Power Gem. It's going to take a bit of running around before I can pick it up though.

I mean that literally. I have to run around on this screen to hit all six pressure plates on the floor and turn the laser show off.

After recovering the gem I got picked up by the New Rebellion who were kind enough to give me a lift to Emperor King Neiamises's homeworld, seeing as they were heading that way anyway. Neiamises was just leading a fleet a moment ago, but he's apparently back now, so this is my moment to strike.

You might think it's a bit risky for the most wanted man in the galaxy to walk over to the Emperor King's palace, but it's fine, I've picked up a personal cloaking device.

Damn, Baron Kaleev saw right through my cloaking device!

Fortunately I know exactly what to do when someone's about to attack me: just stand there and do nothing at all. I have to run from the security robots, but Boris has been held at gunpoint by Snorglat the treacherous trader and an actual assassin and both times the story just carried on without any input from me.

Kaleev shoots Boris with an energy blast and gets hit in the lower torso regions when it rebounds! I have no idea what just happened, but I'm glad it did.

Oh okay, all of that just happened.

Generally, stories should give their audience enough information to understand what's happening in the moment and encourage an emotional response, but I suppose it's fine to leave things mysterious for a bit. Generally, puzzle games should have the player come up with solutions, but I suppose it's okay to have a few cutscene events.

But the hero getting the exposition downloaded into his brain afterwards via bullshit mind powers is just bad storytelling. At least when it's done with a wall of text.

EVENTUALLY

A bunch of other stuff happened, I fed a security robot to a giant alligator in the sewers, and now I'm meeting up with a buddy from the New Rebellion to prepare for the final attack on Emperor King Neiamises.

There's one thing I still don't get however: if the Power Gem reacts violently to evil energy then how can Boris carry it, huh?

Alright, we've come up with a plan: he's given me his special glove so I can throw the Power Gem at Neiamises and destroy him. Everything leading up to that point however will be up to me to figure out as I go.

Oh, Boris just walked over and I chose the dialogue option with the word 'THROW' in it to win.

That's it, I've defeated Emperor King Neiamises and saved the galaxy! Now the Rebellion has set up a new government, with my buddy as the leader, and Silphinaa and the other prisoners have been freed!

So Boris finally gets to meet Silphinaa's friend Malinaa! Closure at last.

You might be wondering how any of this helps Boris with his primary goal of getting home. The answer is: it doesn't. Fortunately, his uncle just shows up and brings him back! Turns out that Boris was in a parallel universe this whole time, not the future, so I'm glad that's been answered, but he's home again now.

The game pulls the book out again to show Boris sitting his uncle's egg again, back where he started. Only this time he's wearing his space jacket! I mean the art hasn't changed, but he mentions it in the text. He can't wait until his pals get a load of this...! The end.

Hang on though, if this is the end of the story, then why are there so many pages left? Is Boris' tale just one short sci-fi story in the Universe anthology?


CONCLUSION

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Universe is a gallery of stunning low-resolution digitised paintings that they tried to make an adventure game out of. I mean I'm sure the art was created for the game, but it was mostly created to look good. Boris is a tiny sprite running around huge areas with microscopic items to investigate and screens all over the walls to obscure the one terminal you have to use. And good luck finding the exits. But the backgrounds do look awesome, so the game can definitely tick that box. It's firing on one cylinder.

I've seen people saying that the music's good too. Personally, I had trouble even deciding if the soundtrack was different in the CD and floppy versions because it didn't stick in my head long enough to make a comparison. It serves its purpose but LucasArts it ain't. And the game doesn't feature voices in any version.

Then there's the gameplay and story...

I've just finished the whole game start to finish, but I kind of don't feel qualified to judge the gameplay because I was just hitting brick wall after brick wall. I'm not sure I solved anything in this whole damn game by myself, I was so reliant on the walkthrough that they should've put one in the box and called it the copy protection. The game is terrible at hinting at what you need to do. To be fair, sometimes it was just a lack of patience to blame, as I didn't have any interest in trying all of the verbs each time, but in my defence, the game has way too many bloody verbs and is really specific about what you need to use. You can't 'Use' the car door, you have to 'Jump' inside, etc. And half of them are hidden in a nested menu, so they all take two clicks to use.

Out of curiosity I ran my walkthrough through a word frequency counter, and commands like 'Open', 'Push' and 'Throw' are barely ever used, 'Wear' and 'Attack' seem to only get used once, and 'Eat' is never used. On the other hand, I got a lot of use out of 'Use', 'Talk' and 'Jump'. 21 times you have to jump in this game, it's the most important action.

There's none of the joy of collecting items and using them in inventive ways to achieve ridiculous things, which is part of what people love about adventure games. There are lots of red herrings though, which serve as just one of the ways that Universe likes to waste your damn time. Other games have puzzles where you have to use lateral thinking, this has you trying to find the right slot for the car key. The funny thing is, it took me about 2 hours 40 minutes to finish the game, which means I got through it quicker than I did the notoriously tiny Loom! Though to be fair I was actually playing that one properly, solving puzzles with my brain and getting into the story.

Another big part of what people love about adventure games is getting into conversations, and Universe fails there as well as they've gone for more of a basic RPG approach where you're pretty much only deciding whether to be a dick or not. I didn't get much of a sense of who anyone was as a character, probably because most only show up once.

The game grabbed my attention right away with its sci-fi isekai premise, there's a reason it's stuck with me for so long, but saying it has a story is maybe giving it too much credit. It has a synopsis of a story. You're playing through the ideas and notes for a plot that isn't quite there, with Boris having visions to fill in the gaps. The actual writing isn't terrible but its storytelling is abysmal, and for this genre that's a problem.

I was expecting there to be a big difference between the Amiga 500, Amiga CD32 and MS-DOS versions, but they look damn near identical, it's incredible. A technical miracle. I gravitated towards the DOS port in the end because you get mouse control and no disk swapping, but I'd almost recommend the CD32 version. The direct control works surprisingly well and it means you don't have to suffer Boris' awful pathfinding.

It's possible I'm getting a bit too enthusiastic about tearing this game down, but I think I've been pretty fair. I haven't even whined about the Sierra-style deaths, where it kills you off and laughs at you about it afterwards! And I will mention that the awkward arcade sequences only really show up around the middle of the game, and then disappear again afterwards, so they're not a big deal.

In the end, I'm glad I finally finished it and I've gotten some closure, but Amiga Power was right when they gave this 21%. The game looks like a 2000 AD comic, it could be neighbours with Beneath a Steel Sky, but I know which one I'd rather play.

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Thanks for dropping by and reading my words. The next game should be up sooner rather than later and you might be able to figure out what it is by studying that clue on the left. You can use the comment box below to take a guess, or you can even share your own thoughts on Universe if that's the kind of thing you're into.