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.

Universe (Amiga CD32) - Part 1

Developer:

Core Design

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Release Date:

1994

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Systems:

Amiga, CD32, MS-DOS

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Universe, by the makers of Rick Dangerous, Curse of Enchantia and later Tomb Raider. But Curse of Enchantia is the most relevant, seeing as this is a point-and-click adventure game.

Universe got fantastic scores from magazines back in the day, lots of 90s and high 80s... well, except for Amiga Power and Amiga Format, they both totally trashed it. Amiga Power gave it 21%! I've played the demo before so I have an idea of what my opinion's going to be, but I'll see if it changes as I get further into the story.

I should give you a SPOILER WARNING, as I'm going to be playing through a lot of the game. In fact, I'm going to try to finish it, though I'll try not to give the whole thing away. I'd suggest YouTube if you want to see the ending, I'm just showing off things that catch my interest and whining about the things that annoy me.

Alone in the Dark (MS-DOS) - Part 2

Today on Super Adventures, I'm going to try to beat the original Alone in the Dark!

This is the second and final part of my two-part article, so you'll probably want to check out PART ONE first. I wrote all about all kinds of stuff, even mentioned Resident Evil a couple of times.

One thing I didn't talk about though, and it's fairly important, is that the game came out in late 1992... so this is its 30th anniversary! It's getting a remake soon to celebrate and from what I can tell it's the kind of reimagining where they take all the stuff from the original game and put it to one side so they can make up a bunch of other stuff instead. I feel like it'll probably have better combat though.

Okay this is the last part of my Alone in the Dark playthrough and I'm playing this with the intent to finally finish it, so beyond this point the SPOILERS will be extensive. With any luck. I mean I can't make any promises here, you can count the number of true survival horror games I've completed on one hand, with all the fingers severed, but maybe this will be the first!

Alone in the Dark (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

Infogrames

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Release Date:

1992 (CD version 1993)

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Systems:

DOS, PC-98, FM Towns, 3DO, Mac, Archimedes

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the Guinness World Record holder for "First 3D survival-horror videogame": Alone in the Dark! I mean the original one, obviously. A sequel tried to steal its name in 2008, but the original proved too powerful and the PS3 release renamed it to Alone in the Dark: Inferno, so as far as I'm concerned this is the only true Alone in the Dark.

Well, except for the classic Uwe Boll movie I mean.

I know everyone that talks about Alone in the Dark also has to mention Resident Evil, but I think it's funny how the series both started off as critically-acclaimed genre pioneers and then suffered very different fates. Resident Evil has had seven million sequels and remakes, many of them pretty great, while the Alone in the Dark games have been racing to catch up to their own movie series down at the bottom of Metacritic. There's a bit of a disparity in how the two franchises are regarded these days, and it'd take a lot more than a terrible Netflix series to change that.

But I still remember how blown away I was when I saw the first Alone in the Dark previewed on the TV series Bad Influence! back when I was a tiny baby. It looked so much more advanced than anything I'd played on the Amiga, SNES or Mega Drive. I didn't know much about PC's at that point, but I was sold, I wanted one.

Then a few years later my family actually got a PC! I loaded up Alone in the Dark on it, pushed some furniture around, got killed by a monster, and turned it off to play Theme Hospital or Sam and Max or something instead. (I'm not a big fan of horror games to be honest). So I have played through first few rooms before, I'm very familiar with them, but otherwise I'm going into the game blind. I don't know what happens next or anything about the story.

Okay, I'm going to be playing the version I just bought off GOG (which I believe is just the 1993 DOS CD version), and I'm going to be writing about it in two parts. This first part is going to be a regular Super Adventures article where I stick with it for an hour and whine about how hard it is, but in the second part I am going to try to finish it. I want to see what this game actually is! So there will be moderate SPOILERS in the first part and hopefully some extreme spoilers in the second.

Alien Storm (Arcade)

Developer:

Sega

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Release Date:

1990

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Systems:

Arcade, Mega Drive, Master System, Atari ST, Amiga, C64, CPC, ZX Spectrum

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing one of Sega's classic arcade titles: Alien Storm! Man, I don't like it when title screens peer back at me like this. The creature that eye belongs to seem to have problems of their own though, seeing as they're floating around space in a chunk of debris. Somehow I get the feeling they deserved it.

I remember seeing magazine ads for Alien Storm and thinking "Damn that looks crazy." Or maybe they were Alien Syndrome ads; I always get the two games mixed up. In my defence they're both Sega arcade games with gross looking aliens that ran on a System 16 board (or close enough) and were ported to everything. Anyway, I didn't really get around to playing either of them in the end, so I'm curious to see if this is going to be anything like the image I've got in my head.

One thing I'm pretty certain of is that this isn't going to be a long game. I usually try to show off the first hour or so of gameplay in these articles, but I have a feeling I'll run out of game before then so don't be surprised if I spoil the ending. Also don't be surprised if I can't actually reach the ending due to being terrible at it.

Superliminal (PC)

Developer:

Pillow Castle

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Release Date:

2019

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Systems:

Win, MacOS, PS4, XBOne, Switch

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing SUPERLIVINAL.

I played a demo of this ages ago and made a mental note back then that I should write about the full game sometime, because it's interesting and worthy of attention. Well, that's what I thought at the time anyway, maybe I'll hate it now. Maybe the demo was the only good bit and it's all downhill afterwards. It happens sometimes!

A few years before that demo there was a tech demo, and that had the name Museum of Simulation Technology, but I think the title they went with in the end suits it better. Plus it's got the word 'super' in there, and that's always a plus in my book.

Anyway, I have a vague memory of how the game starts, but I'm sure I'm eventually going to reach some gameplay weirdness I don't expect. I mean I hope so, as it'll be a shame if it just repeats the puzzles in the demo over and over. Oh, I should probably warn you that I'll be giving a few of the puzzle solutions away. Only a few though, I won't be going through the whole game.

Donut County (PC)

Developer:

Ben Esposito

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Release Date:

2018

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Systems:

Win, MacOS, iOS, PS4, XBOne, Switch, Android

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing about indie puzzle game Donut County, from 2018. Because who doesn't love doughnuts? Donuts. Whatever.

The game was inspired by a tweet from Peter Molydeux (the twitter parody, not the notorious Bullfrog/Lionhead/22cans game designer and NFT fan), who suggested the idea "You play the role of a hole, you must move around an environment making certain elements fall into correct targets at the right time." He didn't mention anything about raccoons or doughnuts though, so that's all from the mind of creator Ben Esposito.

Oh no, I've looked at the title screen a little too long and now I need to go get a cup of tea and something to dunk in it. Then I'm going to play the first few levels and see what kind of game it is.

Katamari Damacy REROLL (PC)

Remastered -	Developer:	Monkeycraft	|	Release Date:	2018	|	Systems:	Win, Switch, PS4, XBOne
Original Game -	Developer:	Namco	|	Release Date:	2004	|	Systems:	PS2

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This year on Super Adventures, I'm mostly playing games that have appeared on a 'top 10' somewhere, and I found Katamari Damacy REROLL on Hard Drive's Top 10 Games That Came Out This Year After We Published our Top 10 List list. According to the site's 'About' page "Hard Drive is a very real video games news site that you should not question," (as opposed to being the video game equivalent of The Onion), and that's good enough for me.

I've played the game before, back when it was just called Katamari Damacy, but I've suddenly found a good reason to come back to it with this remake: my friend surprised me with a copy as a gift and is expecting a proper review in return. And he'll get a review alright, I'm going to tell everyone exactly what I think about this game...

But first here's some trivia, straight from Wikipedia:

Those kanji sticking out of the Earth up there are a bit wonky, but when they're written properly they look almost identical to each other, as a bit of clever visual alliteration. When you read them out they say 'katamari damashii', shockingly, which means something like 'clump spirit'. You know, like 'team spirit', except for clumps. The kanji are even on the American cover, because they go along with the wacky Japaneseness of it that they were using as a selling point. They assumed it would be too weird for Europeans though, so the classic PS2 game was never actually released in PAL regions. It never got ported to other systems either... until it was remade in Unity for this REROLL remastered re-release.

One more fact: it was not too weird for Europe. In fact the series has been a massive worldwide hit and now everyone knows what the game is and how it plays. Describing it for you would likely be pointless, but hey I've already explained how to play Super Mario Bros. and Pokémon Red, so this is far from the first time I've wasted both your time and my own. It's what I do.

Loom (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Lucasfilm Games

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Release Date:

1990

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Systems:

PC, Mac, Amiga, Atari ST, TurboGrafx-CD, FM Towns

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing about Loom, one of the final point and click adventures by Lucasfilm Games (because they became LucasArts later on that year). Lucasfilm Games was actually revived this January, but only as a brand to stick on licenced third-party games, so that's not much to cheer about.

My gimmick for Super Adventures this year is that I'm playing games that have appeared in someone's top ten list, and Loom made it to #8 in IGN's Top 10 LucasArts Adventure Games list (it could've possibly made it higher, but they were listed in chronological order). You might be wondering if LucasArts even released more than 10 adventure games, and they actually did! But only barely. (Spoilers: Zak McKracken and Escape from Monkey Island didn't make their list.)

Loom's maybe not LucasArts' most famous adventure game, in fact I imagine a lot of people only know about it because of the dude with the 'Ask Me About Loom' badge in Monkey Island, but I believe it's fairly well liked. Personally though I don't have an opinion on the game, because I remember almost nothing about it. I've definitely finished it before, played through the whole thing, but I have zero memory of it past the first 10 minutes. Possibly not a good sign, but at least it'll be new to me!

As usual I'm planning to play the first hour or so of the game and then quit so I don't ruin the whole damn thing for people, but I promise you'll get more than your recommended daily amount of screenshots.

Star Trek: Borg (PC)

Developer:

Simon & Schuster

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Release Date:

1996

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Systems:

Win, Mac

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm giving you a choice!

You can either keep reading this perfectly normal regular article on Star Trek: Borg, or you can jump over my other website, Sci-Fi Adventures, and get an enhanced review with additional Star Trek trivia and observations! Stay here if you don't give a damn about the series and just want to read about a video game, go over there if you want too many words.

> CLICK HERE FOR THE EXTENDED SCI-FI ADVENTURES STAR TREK: BORG REVIEW <

I really wouldn't recommend reading both articles. Well, unless you're into sitting through lots of the same content all over again, in which case I might have found the right game for you!

Star Trek: Borg apparently came out in late 1996, just a few weeks before the movie Star Trek: First Contact. That film's all about the Borg so they had their synergy figured out there. That means that in grand scheme of Star Trek games, Borg comes after 25th Anniversary and A Final Unity, but before Starfleet Academy and Elite Force. It was released right at the start of the Trek game explosion that lasted until 2001, where every year would have three or more games, some of them not entirely terrible! In fact this wasn't even the only Trek game by Simon & Schuster that year, as they also released Star Trek: Klingon, which appears to be more of the same kind of thing.

The game will apparently run on modern systems if you download this ancient installer from the Internet Archive: Borgptch, but I don't really know how well it gets along with Windows 10 because I decided to run it in Windows 95 using the PCem PC emulator instead.

I usually only play for an hour or two, but this isn't the longest of games so I'm going to be playing all of it this time. So there's going to be HUGE SPOILERS for this game and maybe a few smaller spoilers for Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes like The Best of Both Worlds.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (C64)

Developer:

Off the Wall

|

Release Date:

1989

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Systems:

C64, Amiga, DOS

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Today on Super Adventures, to celebrate Cyberpunk 2077 eventually coming out at some point hopefully, I'm kicking off Keanu Reeves week! I'll be playing three games this week, each of which is based on a movie starring Keanu Reeves, starting with the computer version of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Which works out pretty well I reckon, seeing as the third Bill & Ted film just came out.

I've already played a Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure game, on the Lynx, but I'm pretty sure this one's something completely different. Maybe even something better! This version came out on three systems, Amiga, MS-DOS and Commodore 64, and I'll be playing all three of them, because I'm hardcore like that. But I'm mostly focusing on the C64 game, because the poor system doesn't get much love here and it'll be a change.

There may be SPOILERS below for the first Bill & Ted movie... but I doubt it somehow.

Full Throttle: Remastered (PC) - Part 2

Congratulations, you've discovered the second and final part of my epic two-part Full Throttle: Remastered article! If you're looking for the first part, it's right here: PART ONE.

I spent all of part one just getting out of the town at the start, but part two covers the entire rest of the game, so if you haven't played the game before and have any interest in going into it without the plot and puzzles ruined, it's probably best not to read anything below this SPOILER WARNING.

Full Throttle: Remastered (PC) - Part 1

Remastered -	Developer:	Double Fine	|	Release Date:	2017	|	Systems:	Win, PS4, PS Vita
Original Game -	Developer:	LucasArts	|	Release Date:	1995	|	Systems:	MS-DOS, Win & Mac OS

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This week on Super Adventures, it's the legendary LucasArts classic, Full Throttle! Remastered!

It seemed like a good time for me to get around to this one, with the original game's 25th anniversary being just around the corner. It came out on April 20th so I'm a month early, but Super Adventures is taking a break during April (and May) so I'm playing it now.

I've played the classic Full Throttle before, in fact I've beaten the game, but I've forgotten almost everything about it since then. I'm fairly sure I used a guide to get through it, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I used guides all the time back then, because assumed I wouldn't make it though a game without them.

I do know one thing about the game though: it actually sold pretty well, better than any LucasArts adventure that came before it (but maybe not as well as The Dig), which the company appreciated as it also cost a fortune (though maybe not as much as The Dig). It's possible that all the expensive CD-filling cutscenes were the reason the game was such a big hit for them, though some have theorised it was actually because it had a big explosion on the box art.

Okay, I don't usually do SPOILER warnings on Super Adventures, but I'm going to play through the first third of the game and spoil a big chunk of the puzzles and story, so you might not want to read this if you haven't played through it before.

Riot Zone (TurboGrafx-CD)

Developer:

Westone

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Release Date:

1993 (1992 in Japan)

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Systems:

TurboGrafx-CD, Arcade (kind of)

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This week on Super Adventures we're going to the Riot Zone, on the TurboGrafx-CD / PC Engine CD-ROM².

Though it's also known by another name, as it started life as an coin-op called Riot City. The licensing agreement that developer Westone had with original publisher Sega said they owned the rights to the game, but not the characters, bosses or names, so when they ported it to Hudson Soft's console they had to give it a makeover and a new title. It's a bit weird they didn't just port it to Sega's Mega Drive / Genesis instead and save themselves the work, but I suppose they must have had their reasons.

The game never got a European release in either form, but the console version did reach America, so there'll be nice English cutscenes for me to completely understand. Well I'll be able to read the text at least.

Indivisible (PC)

Developer:

Lab Zero

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Release Date:

2019

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Systems:

PC

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Hey, guess what I'm writing about on Super Adventures this week! Okay maybe the title screen makes it a little obvious, but I didn't see it coming. Here's a life hack: get amazing friends who'll occasionally drop a brand new game on you with no warning or explanation.

The least I could do in return was write about it, and I'm all about doing the least I can do, so here's my review of Indivisible, the latest game by the makers of Skullgirls. I don't know much about Skullgirls as I only play fighting games when I feel like mashing buttons and being humiliated, but I do know it's got some fancy cartoon animation so I'm coming into Indivisible with the preconception that it's going to look fairly pretty as well. I also know it's a bit of an action RPG inspired by Valkyrie Profile, but other that that I'm fairly clueless about it.

SiN Episodes: Emergence (PC)

Developer:

Ritual

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Release Date:

2006

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Systems:

PC

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This week on Super Adventures, I am finally getting around to playing SiN Episodes: Emergence! To be honest the only reason it took me this long is because I decided to hold off buying it until it was really cheap on Steam, and then that never happened. Until it finally did. I even got a free copy of SiN with it, which I fully approve of. More sequels should include the first game as a bonus... even if it is a little bit censored and doesn't include the expansion (unlike the version sold on GOG).

The first thing I noticed when I put the game on, aside from how cheap that menu text looks, is how good the opening theme is. It's like they swiped it from a Bond movie; it has vocals and everything! It's a bit disappointing that they didn't awkwardly work the word 'Emergence' into the chorus, but they found a place to include 'sin' at least. Here, have a YouTube link so you can listen to it yourself: What's the World Come To?

SiN Episodes also managed to disappoint console owners by never being ported, and PC owners by only ever getting the one episode. The mid-2000s episodic gaming experiment really didn't work out so great for first person shooter sequels built on the Source engine. That said, I'm sure Valve's Half-Life episodes sold a hell of a lot better than this did.

The original SiN had the misfortune of being released just two weeks before before the groundbreaking Half-Life and being entirely overshadowed by it, then the exact same thing happened with Emergence when it came out three weeks before the massively hyped Half-Life 2: Episode One! The game launched on Steam back when the store was practically empty and still didn't sell enough for even one more of its nine planned episodes to enter development. But the SiN series truly died when developer Ritual was acquired by MumboJumbo shortly afterwards and sent to casual game development hell for eternity instead.

Content warning: this article contains a screenshot of a model in lingerie. A 2006-era real-time 3D model.

Phantom Brave PC (PC)

Developer:

Nippon Ichi

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Release Date:

2016 (2004 on PS2)

|

Systems:

PS2, Wii, PSP, Win

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This week on Super Adventures I'm playing the relatively new PC port of classic PlayStation 2 game Phantom Brave! Because trying to figure out and then explain a complicated turn-based tactics game from 2004 seemed like a smart use of my free time.

The trouble with these 'Phantom' games like Phantom Brave, Phantom Crash, Phantom Dust etc. is that it always takes me a few seconds to remember which is the tactical RPG, which has the mechs and which is the one with the cards. In fact I ended up playing The Phantom Pain for 142 hours before I realised I'd put the wrong game on. (That's totally the right game to put on by the way). To make things more confusing, the next year Nippon Ichi released a similar game with the Japanese title Phantom Kingdom, which then got renamed to Makai Kingdom in the West, despite 'phantom' being an English word already and 'makai' being a Japanese word. A word that just happens to show up in the title of their earlier game Makai Senki Disugaia, aka. Disgaea.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, there's a game that gets it right; no one's going to mix that one up with Phantom 2040. But someone might mix this game up with Disgaea, so I intend to mention the game constantly to point out the differences, and similarities.

Alright I'm going to play Phantom Brave's main story for a couple of hours or until I beat a proper boss, whatever happens first. I've played it before on PS2 so I'm sure I'll all come back to me... though I've never seen that mysterious 'Another Marona' button before. It's tempting, but I'll leave it for now.

(Click the pictures to view them in an incredible 1280x720 resolution, though I'm sure it can do better).

Doom (PC)

Developer:

id Software

|

Release Date:

2016

|

Systems:

Windows, Xbox One, PS4

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This week on Super Adventures I'm spending an hour or so playing last year's Doom! I know it's a new game and there's already a million reviews out there to read, but I played the other three so it seemed cruel to leave this one out.

Plus this gives me a chance to go on a rant about them pulling a 'Tomb Raider' with the title, meaning that we have to call the first game 'the original Doom' from now on to avoid confusion. This problem generally wears off over time for movies (no one can even remember that they remade RoboCop or Total Recall) but the trouble with games is that the reboots are often good and you have to acknowledge they exist.

There was actually a Doom 4 in development, which was to take place during the demonic invasion of Earth, but it was cancelled on account of it being soulless, heavily scripted and more like the Call of Duty games than Doom. That was in development from 2007 to 2011, then this game sprang from its ashes in 2016. So henceforth it shall be known as Doom 2016.

I'm very familiar with the earlier Doom games, but all I've seen of this one so far is the demo. I've been deliberately avoiding reading too much about it just in case it had an actual plot to spoil. Hey if Wolfenstein: The New Order of all sequels can have an emotional thought-provoking story then there's hope for every game series!

(Click the pictures to view screenshots at a slightly less pitiful 1280x720 resolution).

Day of the Tentacle: Remastered (PC)

Remastered -	Developer:	Double Fine	|	Release Date:	2016	|	Systems:	Win, Linux, OS X, PS4, PS Vita, iOS
Original Game -	Developer:	LucasArts	|	Release Date:	1993	|	Systems:	MS-DOS & Mac OS

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This week on Super Adventures I'm having a quick look at LucasArts' 1993 point and click masterpiece Day of the Tentacle! Though I'm actually playing the 2016 HD remaster by Double Fine, partly because it's the only version you can digitally download, but mostly because I want to.

I played Tim Schafer's latest adventure game the other day, Broken Age, and now I'm going back 20 years to his very first game as project lead! Well, co-project lead, with Dave Grossman. I wish I could say this is all to tie-in with the release of Full Throttle: Remastered today, but honestly I had no idea that'd come out until five minutes ago. The timing's pure serendipity.

Day of the Tentacle is the third of a trilogy of sequels released during the early 90s, back when LucasArts were the gods of adventure games. After a game inspired by a pirate novel and a theme park ride and another inspired by 30s movie serials, this time they went back to 50s sci-fi horror movies with a sequel to 1987's Maniac Mansion. Though you'd have to really squint to spot the name on the box and it's not written at all on the title screen. I'm not sure I even realised that this was a sequel back when I first played it. Well, until I found the original game hidden inside it in its entirety anyway. Hey I wonder if they remastered that Easter egg too.

(Click the screenshots to view them in a slightly more impressive 1280x692 resolution. Which incidentally is the aspect ratio of the original game, minus the box with verbs in it).

Broken Age (PC)

Developer:

Double Fine

|

Release Date:

2015

|

Systems:

Win, OS X, Linux, Ouya, iOS, Android, PS4, PSVita

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This month on Super Adventures I'm playing Broken Age, formerly known as Double Fine Adventure back in its Kickstarter days.

Though this isn't one of them Kickstarter success stories like Giana Sisters, FTL, Pillars of Eternity and the rest, this is THE Kickstarter success story, the one that kickstarted all the others by proving that game developers could actually crowd-fund niche video game projects that publishers would never touch. In this case Tim Schafer wanted to make an old school point-and-click adventure game like the ones he worked on at LucasArts during the 90s.

They asked for $400,000 ($300,000 for the game, $100,000 for a documentary), which seemed like they were pushing their luck a little, but soon people were lining up to take a risk in the hopes of getting another Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle or Grim Fandango. They ended up raising a massive $3,336,371 in the end, which is clearly $3,038 too much. Except not really, as even after getting over 8 times the amount they wanted they still ran out of cash and had to split the game up into two parts, with their plan being to fund the second half with their earnings from the first half.

Broken Age: Act 1 came out in 2014 (just 2 years later than planned), but I've written 2015 up there as the release date because I'm playing the complete product here, with both acts welded together into one seamless whole. I remember that its second act wasn't all that well received, on account of it being bastard hard due to overcompensation after criticism of Act 1, but that's about where my knowledge of the game ends, so I'm not really sure what to expect from this. Though I'm hoping it's like a cross between Broken Sword and Dragon Age, or maybe Brain Age and... damn I can't think of another game with 'Broken' in the title.

By the way, the game supports widescreen just fine, but it's making me rescale the window manually by dragging the edges around and every time I start it up it resets to defaults, so I'm leaving the title screen how I found it to teach Double Fine a lesson. Also I think I like it better in 4:3 anyway, as there's more clouds.

(Click the screenshots to view them slightly bigger than they are here but not as big as they'd be for most players.)