I was one of the few who bought Kathy Rain back in the day and I enjoyed the point'n'click adventure enough to purchase the Director's Cut shortly after its release despite knowing those improved versions often are more likely intended to cash in. In this case though it was about an independent project in "hobby" production alongside a full time job between 2011 and 2016 that in some parts still felt rushed and showed some inconsistency.
It didn't matter that much in a surreal story highly influenced by David Lynch and his Twin Peaks, but to get this out of the lane, what I also wanted to support to pave way for a possible sequel turned out familiar but more polished, so I decided against dissecting Kathy Rain for a comparison, accepting the Director's Cut as the definitive version intended by Clifftop Games' Joel Staaf Hästö.
Hästö regrets a couple of his original decisions according to the interview linked above, but Kathy Rain sure profits from taking place in the mid-nineties. Recapturing the atmosphere of pixel art and a revival of the supernatural via shows like the X-Files goes very well with the absence of mobile phones and google that can destroy a lot of the mystery tropes.
Like I've mentioned in my recent review for Full Throttle Remastered (the playthrough actually interrupting my Kathy Rain sessions because her Corley Motors vehicle reminded me of having Schafer's game in backlog) it was also a good time slot for bratty girls to take over and protagonist Kathy, a student of journalism, appears a lot more gruff than Veronica Mars as one of the other possible inspirational sources.
It's quite possible it shows that the sarcastic and motorcycle riding Kathy Rain was written by a male, but what draws me into that game from the first minute is that both Kathy and her christian roommate could have totally been part of our clique back then. If you grew up watching Roseanne rather with a crush on Darlene than Becky you might instantly like her as well.
With Kathy Rain returning to her hometown for the funeral of her grandfather we get an insight to her shattered family structure leading to putting clues together for what might have happened in the past. Though this builds up in proportion, in a way it's the opposite of another retro Twin Peaks adventure from the same era, Thimbleweed Park, that geeks out on Plato's cave allegory to have us look to the outside, whilst Kathy Rain is rather pushing us to look for the insides.
That makes sense though, as Kathy Rain's hard shell as so often is put up as protection with her being actually vulnerable. What connects the inheritance of trauma to the incorporation of environmental abnormalities into a religious narrative and its misinterpretation sums up the absurdity of how human beings seek for a truth in their own selective perception to legitimize their actions quite nicely. With an ambivalent internal logic set up in the best surreal sense, this graphic adventure has all the potential to speak to you depending on your individual point of view either.
In that vein, Kathy Rain is a lot more concerned about its plot and creating an interconnection of events than to bore you with countless red herrings and weird item combinations. For the most part, even though you might drive back and forth between a limited number of locations, it's quite rewarding to try the possibilities and only a few lock puzzles might distract you from the atmospheric flow. It only happened on one occasion I got stuck, because I didn't combine two inventory items to trigger an obvious conclusion. It's possible to fail in some situations, but the game will reset to a convenient point.
Having spent my teenage years in the nineties, I can't deny Kathy Rain feels somewhat natural to me. It doesn't depend on obvious reference as much as a lot of the recent retro games and with the detailed pixel graphics and voice acting directed by Wadjet Eye's Dave Gilbert, it might as well have been released as one of the earlier CD-ROM exclusive adventures of the time.
Even though the Director's Cut improves on the controls and drops the dial for a perfectly functional cursor, Kathy Rain is an almost perfect in-between of when point'n'clicks have been quite laborious and when they got streamlined into graphic novels reducing interaction to a better page flip. That means the game has rather modern features without erasing the unwieldiness to a point it couldn't be authentic anymore.
See, I understand young folks being bothered by having to climb the Katmobile for any change of scenery in Kathy Rain for instance, but from a perspective of having to run around on maps extensively even in the nineties, just having to click on an icon with even some of the obsolete territories being grayed out is darn tootin convenient. I wouldn't go as far as declaring it a feature, but instead of being a bug, it rather celebrates the grace of imperfection.
Depending on how you rush through the game you can finish Kathy Rain in between six and ten hours and as much as I'd love to dwell in that world forever it's probably for the better to leave me wanting more as long as there are interesting ideas to incorporate. Whilst you find clues via communication as much as hacking and lock picking, you will have to use contemporary technology as much as encourage hilarious performances, yet the game isn't overwhelmingly comical.
Sure there is room for more and as well I feel about the game, at the age of 43 I've just seen plenty enough to not have my mind completely blown by what Joel Staaf Hästö achieved with Kathy Rain. But I don't expect that these days as much as well. To me it's like the graphic adventure equivalent to a party at a random house where you join a discussion in the kitchen at four in the morning chatting about wildest theories with like-minded people you didn't even know before.
It makes me look forward to that other occasion, hoping Whispers of a Machine (check this review how it turned out), that I've had in backlog for too long now, can live up to that overall pleasurable impression I've had from Clifftop Games so far. What I hope for even more is Hästö expanding on Kathy Rain, if he's got the ideas. It sure can't be the same and it was probably for the best to straighten up the original first, but now I'd really like to hang out a couple of days more with those characters.
Would you like to read more of my backloggd adventure reviews?
Detective Gallo
Broken Age
One Night Stand
The Little Acre
The Wardrobe - Even Better Edition
It didn't matter that much in a surreal story highly influenced by David Lynch and his Twin Peaks, but to get this out of the lane, what I also wanted to support to pave way for a possible sequel turned out familiar but more polished, so I decided against dissecting Kathy Rain for a comparison, accepting the Director's Cut as the definitive version intended by Clifftop Games' Joel Staaf Hästö.
Hästö regrets a couple of his original decisions according to the interview linked above, but Kathy Rain sure profits from taking place in the mid-nineties. Recapturing the atmosphere of pixel art and a revival of the supernatural via shows like the X-Files goes very well with the absence of mobile phones and google that can destroy a lot of the mystery tropes.
Like I've mentioned in my recent review for Full Throttle Remastered (the playthrough actually interrupting my Kathy Rain sessions because her Corley Motors vehicle reminded me of having Schafer's game in backlog) it was also a good time slot for bratty girls to take over and protagonist Kathy, a student of journalism, appears a lot more gruff than Veronica Mars as one of the other possible inspirational sources.
It's quite possible it shows that the sarcastic and motorcycle riding Kathy Rain was written by a male, but what draws me into that game from the first minute is that both Kathy and her christian roommate could have totally been part of our clique back then. If you grew up watching Roseanne rather with a crush on Darlene than Becky you might instantly like her as well.
With Kathy Rain returning to her hometown for the funeral of her grandfather we get an insight to her shattered family structure leading to putting clues together for what might have happened in the past. Though this builds up in proportion, in a way it's the opposite of another retro Twin Peaks adventure from the same era, Thimbleweed Park, that geeks out on Plato's cave allegory to have us look to the outside, whilst Kathy Rain is rather pushing us to look for the insides.
That makes sense though, as Kathy Rain's hard shell as so often is put up as protection with her being actually vulnerable. What connects the inheritance of trauma to the incorporation of environmental abnormalities into a religious narrative and its misinterpretation sums up the absurdity of how human beings seek for a truth in their own selective perception to legitimize their actions quite nicely. With an ambivalent internal logic set up in the best surreal sense, this graphic adventure has all the potential to speak to you depending on your individual point of view either.
In that vein, Kathy Rain is a lot more concerned about its plot and creating an interconnection of events than to bore you with countless red herrings and weird item combinations. For the most part, even though you might drive back and forth between a limited number of locations, it's quite rewarding to try the possibilities and only a few lock puzzles might distract you from the atmospheric flow. It only happened on one occasion I got stuck, because I didn't combine two inventory items to trigger an obvious conclusion. It's possible to fail in some situations, but the game will reset to a convenient point.
Having spent my teenage years in the nineties, I can't deny Kathy Rain feels somewhat natural to me. It doesn't depend on obvious reference as much as a lot of the recent retro games and with the detailed pixel graphics and voice acting directed by Wadjet Eye's Dave Gilbert, it might as well have been released as one of the earlier CD-ROM exclusive adventures of the time.
Even though the Director's Cut improves on the controls and drops the dial for a perfectly functional cursor, Kathy Rain is an almost perfect in-between of when point'n'clicks have been quite laborious and when they got streamlined into graphic novels reducing interaction to a better page flip. That means the game has rather modern features without erasing the unwieldiness to a point it couldn't be authentic anymore.
See, I understand young folks being bothered by having to climb the Katmobile for any change of scenery in Kathy Rain for instance, but from a perspective of having to run around on maps extensively even in the nineties, just having to click on an icon with even some of the obsolete territories being grayed out is darn tootin convenient. I wouldn't go as far as declaring it a feature, but instead of being a bug, it rather celebrates the grace of imperfection.
Depending on how you rush through the game you can finish Kathy Rain in between six and ten hours and as much as I'd love to dwell in that world forever it's probably for the better to leave me wanting more as long as there are interesting ideas to incorporate. Whilst you find clues via communication as much as hacking and lock picking, you will have to use contemporary technology as much as encourage hilarious performances, yet the game isn't overwhelmingly comical.
Sure there is room for more and as well I feel about the game, at the age of 43 I've just seen plenty enough to not have my mind completely blown by what Joel Staaf Hästö achieved with Kathy Rain. But I don't expect that these days as much as well. To me it's like the graphic adventure equivalent to a party at a random house where you join a discussion in the kitchen at four in the morning chatting about wildest theories with like-minded people you didn't even know before.
It makes me look forward to that other occasion, hoping Whispers of a Machine (check this review how it turned out), that I've had in backlog for too long now, can live up to that overall pleasurable impression I've had from Clifftop Games so far. What I hope for even more is Hästö expanding on Kathy Rain, if he's got the ideas. It sure can't be the same and it was probably for the best to straighten up the original first, but now I'd really like to hang out a couple of days more with those characters.
Would you like to read more of my backloggd adventure reviews?
Detective Gallo
Broken Age
One Night Stand
The Little Acre
The Wardrobe - Even Better Edition
I'm not very invested in scandinavian crime stories, so I might have been rather puzzled about what to expect from Whispers of a Machine, commonly described as a Sci-Fi Nordic Noir take on graphic adventures. With my love for pointing and clicking and long after the purchase also learning this is the second game by Joel Staaf Hästö's Clifftop Games after the awesome Kathy Rain, whose Director's Cut I just reviewed, I was looking forward to give the follow up a chance and wasn't disappointed.
Indeed I was very happy to have been recapturing the predecessor Kathy Rain just before, because whilst you can see technically the Director's Cut draws from the experience on Whispers of a Machine, Whispers just as well took over some establishments made previously via the Adventure Game Studio engine. But it's actually more than just a process in development. With recurring topics you can actually see a handwriting emerge.
Wait, how can a sci-fi story about AI and transhumanism be anything similar to a typical nineties mystery with Twin Peaks flavor? Well, first this is post collapse of AI, so what's hot these days and might still have been discussed rather on a philosophical level during the making of Whispers of a Machine is actually a thing of the past during the plot. So when we follow another turmoiled female protagonist to a remote village, there's not much tech involved besides some useful cybernetic augmentation.
It's true that as a legitimate investigator sent to solve a murder there's more of a case in the beginning of Whispers of a Machine, but with the involvement of another church and new questions like if humanity wants to create god in their image, it totally feels like jamming new riffs within the same scale. It's like both stories could be independent from each other, but also happening in the same universe at opposite ends of a timeline, that could, but doesn't have to cross our present. We kinda decide on that as we go.
Aside from functions like the notebook known from Kathy Rain, Whispers of the Machine also incorporates the use of devices like computers, which isn't exactly a throwback to parser games, but requires using a simple text interface that might not be familiar with the younger folks. It won't require a handbook for that reason, but it feels nice having a glimpse back on the past, when that was how we ran programs.
Another similarity to Kathy Rain is digital restoration. Then, you had to adjust sliders to make picture content visible. Whispers of a Machine caters to that virtual nostalgia by a form of retro futurism. Despite (or because?) in a world past the collapse of AI, not only are the computer interfaces old, the player also picks up audio tapes and in one case has to de-noise and compress them, which should fall into place easily if you at least tried that in Audacity before.
To me personally Kathy Rain had more of a hang around factor, because the two roommates felt like two outcasts that could have easily been part of our clique back in the day. It makes sense though Vera in Whispers of a Machine feels more cold and distanced in the beginning, because the player is supposed to give her a personality via irreversible decisions that define between the paths "analytical", "assertive" or "empathetic". Depending on what is tracked on a meter throughout the game there will be two additional out of six possible augmentations for example.
After one playthrough that felt natural to me and two other intentional attempts at the opposite extremes I can say in theory my first individual version of Whispers of a Machine would have been enough, though I'd like to acknowledge slight differences especially in the puzzles related to the specific augmentations. It comes in handy that the ending independently allows for three decisions, so it can be worth it, especially if you leave more time in-between your plays and don't end up rushing your third playthrough in two and a half hours like me.
Having said that, my first eight and a half hour playthrough really satisfied my analytical urges, especially with the scanner augmentation allowing me to search for traces. Whilst the possibility to double click for swift exits more or less compensates for having to walk a luckily confined area, the replays, for which a start from the beginning is mandatory, showed limitations quite distinctly.
After you know what to talk about with whom, you might want to create a little more havok by using augmentations like mind control or mimicry on random NPCs, but as the principle of Whispers of a Machine is to guide you gently through this sci-fi murder mystery, there's no chance to use your forces on anybody you're not supposed to. On the other hand that also underlines the absence of moon logic. Listen and watch for the clues and you'll be fine. It's quite thought through.
Knowing the dimensions of additional effort required to supply non-linear multiple choice like I was suggesting before keeps me aware that's nothing I should expect from an independent developer that's basically Joel Staaf Hästö hiring additional artists for artwork and Dave Gilbert to return for directing voice actors. For that, he's been doing another awesome job in giving us a fresh take on classic point'n'click gameplay and I can't thank him enough for trying to be significant with less stereotypical topics.
I know it's hard to rely on players to interpret a work of art in a world where any loose end has to be winded up by canonized sequels, prequels or spin-offs and the easiest way to find financial backing is to trigger some nostalgia with typical catchphrases on Kickstarter. But whilst the latter often can't come up with a story at all, Clifftop Games has become a quality seal for outstanding and slightly surreal adventures.
I can't wait to play another one of these, be it Kathy Rain 2 or another Whispers of a Machine, both of which have been presented as possible in the future by Hästö. With the required attention to continuity though I'd be fine with more of an independent expansion on his topics rather than a sequel - something that could happen in the same universe but at another time or place.
The worst that could happen is the Robert Eggers effect, like when you directed the brilliant The VVitch and The Lighthouse all it takes is some budget to make a nugatory The Northman. I'd say don't throw your money for that reason, but the truth is, you'd be missing out on some of the most relevant graphic adventures of our day and age and in reality there can't be enough support for this rather niche of gaming.
As long as you're not trying to squeeze it, but rather aim to make one definitive playthrough your personalized version of Whispers of a Machine, there's not much to criticize. It's a splendid, story driven mystery with moderate puzzles to solve and as long as you see playing the other paths as a bonus you're most likely keep enjoying this game.
Indeed I was very happy to have been recapturing the predecessor Kathy Rain just before, because whilst you can see technically the Director's Cut draws from the experience on Whispers of a Machine, Whispers just as well took over some establishments made previously via the Adventure Game Studio engine. But it's actually more than just a process in development. With recurring topics you can actually see a handwriting emerge.
Wait, how can a sci-fi story about AI and transhumanism be anything similar to a typical nineties mystery with Twin Peaks flavor? Well, first this is post collapse of AI, so what's hot these days and might still have been discussed rather on a philosophical level during the making of Whispers of a Machine is actually a thing of the past during the plot. So when we follow another turmoiled female protagonist to a remote village, there's not much tech involved besides some useful cybernetic augmentation.
It's true that as a legitimate investigator sent to solve a murder there's more of a case in the beginning of Whispers of a Machine, but with the involvement of another church and new questions like if humanity wants to create god in their image, it totally feels like jamming new riffs within the same scale. It's like both stories could be independent from each other, but also happening in the same universe at opposite ends of a timeline, that could, but doesn't have to cross our present. We kinda decide on that as we go.
Aside from functions like the notebook known from Kathy Rain, Whispers of the Machine also incorporates the use of devices like computers, which isn't exactly a throwback to parser games, but requires using a simple text interface that might not be familiar with the younger folks. It won't require a handbook for that reason, but it feels nice having a glimpse back on the past, when that was how we ran programs.
Another similarity to Kathy Rain is digital restoration. Then, you had to adjust sliders to make picture content visible. Whispers of a Machine caters to that virtual nostalgia by a form of retro futurism. Despite (or because?) in a world past the collapse of AI, not only are the computer interfaces old, the player also picks up audio tapes and in one case has to de-noise and compress them, which should fall into place easily if you at least tried that in Audacity before.
To me personally Kathy Rain had more of a hang around factor, because the two roommates felt like two outcasts that could have easily been part of our clique back in the day. It makes sense though Vera in Whispers of a Machine feels more cold and distanced in the beginning, because the player is supposed to give her a personality via irreversible decisions that define between the paths "analytical", "assertive" or "empathetic". Depending on what is tracked on a meter throughout the game there will be two additional out of six possible augmentations for example.
After one playthrough that felt natural to me and two other intentional attempts at the opposite extremes I can say in theory my first individual version of Whispers of a Machine would have been enough, though I'd like to acknowledge slight differences especially in the puzzles related to the specific augmentations. It comes in handy that the ending independently allows for three decisions, so it can be worth it, especially if you leave more time in-between your plays and don't end up rushing your third playthrough in two and a half hours like me.
Having said that, my first eight and a half hour playthrough really satisfied my analytical urges, especially with the scanner augmentation allowing me to search for traces. Whilst the possibility to double click for swift exits more or less compensates for having to walk a luckily confined area, the replays, for which a start from the beginning is mandatory, showed limitations quite distinctly.
After you know what to talk about with whom, you might want to create a little more havok by using augmentations like mind control or mimicry on random NPCs, but as the principle of Whispers of a Machine is to guide you gently through this sci-fi murder mystery, there's no chance to use your forces on anybody you're not supposed to. On the other hand that also underlines the absence of moon logic. Listen and watch for the clues and you'll be fine. It's quite thought through.
Knowing the dimensions of additional effort required to supply non-linear multiple choice like I was suggesting before keeps me aware that's nothing I should expect from an independent developer that's basically Joel Staaf Hästö hiring additional artists for artwork and Dave Gilbert to return for directing voice actors. For that, he's been doing another awesome job in giving us a fresh take on classic point'n'click gameplay and I can't thank him enough for trying to be significant with less stereotypical topics.
I know it's hard to rely on players to interpret a work of art in a world where any loose end has to be winded up by canonized sequels, prequels or spin-offs and the easiest way to find financial backing is to trigger some nostalgia with typical catchphrases on Kickstarter. But whilst the latter often can't come up with a story at all, Clifftop Games has become a quality seal for outstanding and slightly surreal adventures.
I can't wait to play another one of these, be it Kathy Rain 2 or another Whispers of a Machine, both of which have been presented as possible in the future by Hästö. With the required attention to continuity though I'd be fine with more of an independent expansion on his topics rather than a sequel - something that could happen in the same universe but at another time or place.
The worst that could happen is the Robert Eggers effect, like when you directed the brilliant The VVitch and The Lighthouse all it takes is some budget to make a nugatory The Northman. I'd say don't throw your money for that reason, but the truth is, you'd be missing out on some of the most relevant graphic adventures of our day and age and in reality there can't be enough support for this rather niche of gaming.
As long as you're not trying to squeeze it, but rather aim to make one definitive playthrough your personalized version of Whispers of a Machine, there's not much to criticize. It's a splendid, story driven mystery with moderate puzzles to solve and as long as you see playing the other paths as a bonus you're most likely keep enjoying this game.
Spielberg franchises didn't have the best start in video game history. Even though E.T. for the Atari VCS wasn't as bad (still not good though) as many say it is, it became the figurehead of the big crash in 1983. Steven Spielberg didn't show much interest in video game development back in the day, which many believe lead to a lack in quality control, but with his creative input to GameWorks, a 1996 joint venture of Sega, DreamWorks and Universal, things must have been different on the 1997 arcade adaption of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, right?
Fast forward to 2023, I'm at the arcades again, looking for the machines I haven't played yet and on a six hour gaming spree having a cabinet to sit down is always nice for a change. I'm just too old to stand at western cabinets like Gyruss forever, so I even started liking the Candy Cab section more recently. Anyway, I skipped The Lost World: Jurassic Park before, because it's been ages since I watched the movies and coming from a time when licenses had been almost a guarantee for a turd, my prejudice held me back as well.
On display was the original theater cabinet with two lightguns, a 50" rear projection screen, four speaker surround sound and a shaker. That might seem like a downgrade from the hydraulic Ford Explorer seat on Sega's 1994 Jurassic Park arcade game, though I didn't mind much as we've been playing plenty of racers like Midnight Maximum Tune 6R that day already and I prefer a lightgun over the then used joysticks. I sure wouldn't have played The Lost World: Jurassic Park in its standard upright version though, which has the same stereo sound cabinet as The House of the Dead.
That's actually a thing with the arcades, you know, having to draw from something to catch your interest. And even trying to spot hidden gems, I've got a little snob inside me, looking for something special. Producing a good game in that context could mean hoping for a sleeper hit, it seems, looking at cabinets from the nineties that I mostly remember as fighters or maybe NBA Jam and the larger cabinets, racers and lightgun shooters.
Now, I'm not saying I didn't have fun back in the day, especially with Daytona USA and Sega Rally or Time Crisis and Point Blank, but there might be a temptation to cheap out once you lured in your players with large advertising and there might not necessarily follow a lot of creativity, just like within every other established genre. So that plus a The Lost World: Jurassic Park license could make you suspicious.
I kind of needed that as an introduction to look a bit deeper into why I didn't feel The Lost World: Jurassic Park wasn't very convincing, at least played today. It's still a somewhat decent railshooter, please get me right, in my opinion still better than the 2008 Rambo arcade game or Transformers: Human Alliance, the latter looking much better, but playing like shit and having been outsourced by Sega to chinese developers rather than making it a prestige inhouse project illustrates quite well how the arcades had to compete with games you could play at home but just like cinemas still have a hard time when there's no substance.
The Lost World might not have created the same excitement like the original Jurassic Park at the cinemas. I fondly remember the queue being so massive back in 1993, the theater owners brought out extra foldable chairs and after a screening you had to use the emergency exit, because the lobby was packed. But I can imagine as a kid, who wasn't as disappointed those CGIs just didn't look as familiar as the awesome practical effects we were used to before, it might have been great to do anything related to a huge dinosaur parade like that and every cinema or shopping center that could wheel out this cabinet might have made more than their money back.
I trust others though The Lost World: Jurassic Park doesn't stay exactly true to the movie, because I've read up a little on the history of this arcade cabinet developed by Sega's AM3 division who in early 1997 started into a quite promising project given the above mentioned liaison between the japanese video game producer and movie mogul Steven Spielberg. It didn't turn out all that well.
First off, the ambitious AM3 team was the first to use the Model 3 board, allowing for 60 frames and 100k polygons a second, on a lightgun shooter and having a tight schedule didn't exactly help solving the difficulties they had to overcome in programming and researching. Announced in the first quarter of 1997 The Lost World: Jurassic Park was already unveiled at E3 in June of the same year. For that, AM3 had to start from just the script to compile action scenes for the game.
It was only three months before completion they received additional materials, but with little to none communication with the movie creators they had to go from what the promotional team provided. Developers sent to the US to visit the sets had been ghosted by ILM and as a fan of Stan Winston it was nice to read that his dinosaur creations had instead been available. Still, the procedure sounds very familiar to what I've heard from other Spielberg related video game projects and it makes you wonder less about the quality of licensed games back then, when they've been seen as nothing more than additional merchandise.
So if you wondered why I'm beating around the bush so much, it's because I don't want to be too harsh on a game that might actually have been supposed to be better. Usually you don't see these circumstances as a customer, especially at the time of release and having received quite generous contemporary reviews might speak for some of The Lost World's shine wore off over time, because polygons had been still wearing baby shoes compared to what beauty classic 2D graphics were capable of and I'd argue developers still have the tendency to overdo 3D objects for state of the art instead of making them look good.
However, with all that aside, in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, you're on a mission to save Dr. Ian Malcolm and Dr. Sarah Harding with your trusty lightgun. Having to reload by shooting off screen is a standard and to be honest, as nice as the hordes of mostly small raptors and fewer big ones are, they could as well be any kind of alien creatures. The game just keeps you occupied enough that you don't have much time to think about.
Of course you wouldn't finish off a T-Rex for example with just one shot, as lucky as it might be, so the big birds are sort of divided into sections to hit within a time limit and that repeated over and over. Might as well be a calibration thing, but it turned out I'm a lot more precise shooting from the hip than aiming like a cop, which might correlate with me spending more time with water pistols than on a firing range, despite I've actually performed a Robin Hood with a crossbow at the age of twelve.
So it felt a bit random not having that much control over the aim and having numerous enemies thrown at you in waves without any dodging option, but I somehow got used to the situation, so that I kept clearing screens also to help my girlfriend who joined me halfway through. I was happy she got into it for a while, but neither having a relation to gaming history other than through me nor being interested in dinosaurs, you could sense increasing boredom and that she'd have enjoyed butchering me at Mario Kart again a lot more.
I found it a welcome variety that you can save people in The Lost World: Jurassic Park in trade for refreshes and upgrades. That you've actually also have to rescue your teammate was a surprising function that we had to comprehend at first and I'm not sure we knew exactly what we've been doing though it seems to have been enough to finish the game on a couple of credits anyway.
It ain't over till the fat dinosaur stops roaring and with not much more clearly established in the heat of battle within a humble hulk of a story rolling, the short runtime of The Lost World: Jurassic Park is rather exhausting. With the shaker massaging the back quite nicely and the volume natively cranked to eleven it's probably the loudest and most stressful kissing booth I've ever been to.
I could conclude that it might have been a rather nice looking performance in its day and that I won't probably play The Lost World: Jurassic Park again although it was a still decent ride while it lasted considering how rushed development was, which actually showed in being rather average. It seems though AM3 wouldn't let that sit on them and so by January 1998 came out with a special edition I just did not have the honor to find in the wild, so please tell me if it's worth it.
With rotating and rocking seats, an 80" screen and an air blower they sure were after a fresh breeze and being rewritten to follow the film's plot more accurately and the inclusion of ideas left out from the original sounds like they might have really been wanting to make up for the original flaws with The Lost World Special. Now the problem is, it was only released in Japan where it might actually be hard to find these days, so all we're left with in the west is what AM3 could finish until the original release only a few months prior. I wish updates would have been easier back then.
You're welcome to read more of my backloggd arcade reviews for games like:
Teki Paki
Gunforce
Superman
Aliens
Stagger I
Fast forward to 2023, I'm at the arcades again, looking for the machines I haven't played yet and on a six hour gaming spree having a cabinet to sit down is always nice for a change. I'm just too old to stand at western cabinets like Gyruss forever, so I even started liking the Candy Cab section more recently. Anyway, I skipped The Lost World: Jurassic Park before, because it's been ages since I watched the movies and coming from a time when licenses had been almost a guarantee for a turd, my prejudice held me back as well.
On display was the original theater cabinet with two lightguns, a 50" rear projection screen, four speaker surround sound and a shaker. That might seem like a downgrade from the hydraulic Ford Explorer seat on Sega's 1994 Jurassic Park arcade game, though I didn't mind much as we've been playing plenty of racers like Midnight Maximum Tune 6R that day already and I prefer a lightgun over the then used joysticks. I sure wouldn't have played The Lost World: Jurassic Park in its standard upright version though, which has the same stereo sound cabinet as The House of the Dead.
That's actually a thing with the arcades, you know, having to draw from something to catch your interest. And even trying to spot hidden gems, I've got a little snob inside me, looking for something special. Producing a good game in that context could mean hoping for a sleeper hit, it seems, looking at cabinets from the nineties that I mostly remember as fighters or maybe NBA Jam and the larger cabinets, racers and lightgun shooters.
Now, I'm not saying I didn't have fun back in the day, especially with Daytona USA and Sega Rally or Time Crisis and Point Blank, but there might be a temptation to cheap out once you lured in your players with large advertising and there might not necessarily follow a lot of creativity, just like within every other established genre. So that plus a The Lost World: Jurassic Park license could make you suspicious.
I kind of needed that as an introduction to look a bit deeper into why I didn't feel The Lost World: Jurassic Park wasn't very convincing, at least played today. It's still a somewhat decent railshooter, please get me right, in my opinion still better than the 2008 Rambo arcade game or Transformers: Human Alliance, the latter looking much better, but playing like shit and having been outsourced by Sega to chinese developers rather than making it a prestige inhouse project illustrates quite well how the arcades had to compete with games you could play at home but just like cinemas still have a hard time when there's no substance.
The Lost World might not have created the same excitement like the original Jurassic Park at the cinemas. I fondly remember the queue being so massive back in 1993, the theater owners brought out extra foldable chairs and after a screening you had to use the emergency exit, because the lobby was packed. But I can imagine as a kid, who wasn't as disappointed those CGIs just didn't look as familiar as the awesome practical effects we were used to before, it might have been great to do anything related to a huge dinosaur parade like that and every cinema or shopping center that could wheel out this cabinet might have made more than their money back.
I trust others though The Lost World: Jurassic Park doesn't stay exactly true to the movie, because I've read up a little on the history of this arcade cabinet developed by Sega's AM3 division who in early 1997 started into a quite promising project given the above mentioned liaison between the japanese video game producer and movie mogul Steven Spielberg. It didn't turn out all that well.
First off, the ambitious AM3 team was the first to use the Model 3 board, allowing for 60 frames and 100k polygons a second, on a lightgun shooter and having a tight schedule didn't exactly help solving the difficulties they had to overcome in programming and researching. Announced in the first quarter of 1997 The Lost World: Jurassic Park was already unveiled at E3 in June of the same year. For that, AM3 had to start from just the script to compile action scenes for the game.
It was only three months before completion they received additional materials, but with little to none communication with the movie creators they had to go from what the promotional team provided. Developers sent to the US to visit the sets had been ghosted by ILM and as a fan of Stan Winston it was nice to read that his dinosaur creations had instead been available. Still, the procedure sounds very familiar to what I've heard from other Spielberg related video game projects and it makes you wonder less about the quality of licensed games back then, when they've been seen as nothing more than additional merchandise.
So if you wondered why I'm beating around the bush so much, it's because I don't want to be too harsh on a game that might actually have been supposed to be better. Usually you don't see these circumstances as a customer, especially at the time of release and having received quite generous contemporary reviews might speak for some of The Lost World's shine wore off over time, because polygons had been still wearing baby shoes compared to what beauty classic 2D graphics were capable of and I'd argue developers still have the tendency to overdo 3D objects for state of the art instead of making them look good.
However, with all that aside, in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, you're on a mission to save Dr. Ian Malcolm and Dr. Sarah Harding with your trusty lightgun. Having to reload by shooting off screen is a standard and to be honest, as nice as the hordes of mostly small raptors and fewer big ones are, they could as well be any kind of alien creatures. The game just keeps you occupied enough that you don't have much time to think about.
Of course you wouldn't finish off a T-Rex for example with just one shot, as lucky as it might be, so the big birds are sort of divided into sections to hit within a time limit and that repeated over and over. Might as well be a calibration thing, but it turned out I'm a lot more precise shooting from the hip than aiming like a cop, which might correlate with me spending more time with water pistols than on a firing range, despite I've actually performed a Robin Hood with a crossbow at the age of twelve.
So it felt a bit random not having that much control over the aim and having numerous enemies thrown at you in waves without any dodging option, but I somehow got used to the situation, so that I kept clearing screens also to help my girlfriend who joined me halfway through. I was happy she got into it for a while, but neither having a relation to gaming history other than through me nor being interested in dinosaurs, you could sense increasing boredom and that she'd have enjoyed butchering me at Mario Kart again a lot more.
I found it a welcome variety that you can save people in The Lost World: Jurassic Park in trade for refreshes and upgrades. That you've actually also have to rescue your teammate was a surprising function that we had to comprehend at first and I'm not sure we knew exactly what we've been doing though it seems to have been enough to finish the game on a couple of credits anyway.
It ain't over till the fat dinosaur stops roaring and with not much more clearly established in the heat of battle within a humble hulk of a story rolling, the short runtime of The Lost World: Jurassic Park is rather exhausting. With the shaker massaging the back quite nicely and the volume natively cranked to eleven it's probably the loudest and most stressful kissing booth I've ever been to.
I could conclude that it might have been a rather nice looking performance in its day and that I won't probably play The Lost World: Jurassic Park again although it was a still decent ride while it lasted considering how rushed development was, which actually showed in being rather average. It seems though AM3 wouldn't let that sit on them and so by January 1998 came out with a special edition I just did not have the honor to find in the wild, so please tell me if it's worth it.
With rotating and rocking seats, an 80" screen and an air blower they sure were after a fresh breeze and being rewritten to follow the film's plot more accurately and the inclusion of ideas left out from the original sounds like they might have really been wanting to make up for the original flaws with The Lost World Special. Now the problem is, it was only released in Japan where it might actually be hard to find these days, so all we're left with in the west is what AM3 could finish until the original release only a few months prior. I wish updates would have been easier back then.
You're welcome to read more of my backloggd arcade reviews for games like:
Teki Paki
Gunforce
Superman
Aliens
Stagger I
2016
Calling Swampstar "A brief meditation on the broken swamplands of Louisiana's future." sums it up quite nicely. You can "play" Swampstar for free on itch.io and being called a vignette or micro-narrative there hits the nail on its head, I think.
I'm not entirely sure where to put Swampstar in the ludography of Geography of Robots, like if it is a demo before or along the way the development of Norco, their first full release, but it kinda sets the mood for that nicely with a text monologue over some pixel art.
You press a couple of times to activate and continue the text, multiple choice at the end all leads to the same animation. Hardly two minutes and Swampstar is over. For that reason I won't rate it.
Swampstar seems to have the same melancholic origin as Norco and therefore underlines my understanding the latter is more focused on ambience than gameplay or even a very tight narrative.
It's a bonus, so I take it. It's art, so you can't hate it.
I'm not entirely sure where to put Swampstar in the ludography of Geography of Robots, like if it is a demo before or along the way the development of Norco, their first full release, but it kinda sets the mood for that nicely with a text monologue over some pixel art.
You press a couple of times to activate and continue the text, multiple choice at the end all leads to the same animation. Hardly two minutes and Swampstar is over. For that reason I won't rate it.
Swampstar seems to have the same melancholic origin as Norco and therefore underlines my understanding the latter is more focused on ambience than gameplay or even a very tight narrative.
It's a bonus, so I take it. It's art, so you can't hate it.
2022
Unlike the vignette Swampstar by independent collective Geography of Robots, Norco is too much of a game to spare it from a rating in favor of an appreciation as a piece of art on its own and in that context, it might look like I disagree with a majority of critics, giving the interactive amalgam of an RPG and a Visual Novel raving reviews, but I will actually not be able to say much different about it. My astonishing conclusion though is, that I'm still not all that impressed.
In theory, alternate Louisiana in Norco could be a fictional alien world to me just like Neo Tokyo or a city on Mars. I was even joking if the title describes narcotics for Trollans until I found out it was actually a brand name for pain medication. Little did I know, however, that Norco is also an actual census-designated place in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana that derived its name from the New Orleans Refining Company and is home to a major Shell manufacturing complex. I'm learning every day.
You don't have to think much about why the company in the game Norco is called Shield and with the Shell facility having experienced catastrophic explosions twice the story sure appears less far fetched. I recommend reading the Honeysweat interview with GoR's Yutsi if you'd like to know more on his growing up in sight of that factory, comparing it to Midgar in the world of Final Fantasy.
Even without knowing Norco specifically, I was of course aware of the condition our world is in and I think it's hard to not see how close the narration stays with things happening in reality. It sure is condensed and emphasized, but we have everything from AI to ponzi schemes, messed up religious beliefs, unregulated capitalism or privately organized space travel. It's not like Orwell is predicting the future a couple of decades away, it's more like holding up a mirror, showing us the dystopia we're creating for tomorrow or a day after.
Born and raised in a small town bordered by the dilapidated ruins of an industry, having watched a company burning down to the foundations and knowing the history of a group buying out farmers to build a production plant in the area, I can nothing but relate to protagonist Kay returning to Norco. It's what you recognize best at a carnival. There are those who are too young to escape and those who never made it out, but then there are other people in their thirties or rather forties, returning to family business - taking care of parents or bringing up children of their own in an environment that appears at least more family friendly than the big city.
For Kay it's late. She has tried to cut loose and ignored her cancer infested mother trying to get in touch. Time doesn't stand still when you're away and as much things don't seem to change as long as you're there, everything is weirdly different once you turned your back and tried to start a life of your own independently.
Norco uses pixel art to illustrate this story and I don't really understand how this can be seen as innovation, because digitizing photographs for instance is something going back to the old Amiga days at least. It's not ugly at all, but, especially with the retro trend of recent years, something I'd rather call standard opposite to some of the reviews I've read. Recreating that off grid Amiga feeling especially with the first person solo adventure layout is another cup of Grog.
I've mentioned it before in my review for One Night Stand, when playing Our World Is Ended as one of my first actual visual novels, I was missing interaction with the screen other than clicking text. Despite being described as a point'n'click I was lucky to read up enough on Norco before to not expect it being the familiar third person story puzzle, so I was merely amazed at first that Norco was allowing me to dive into the scenery as much as I'd define the character by text choices.
One thing I also enjoyed was the use of a mindmap to elaborate a thought process and reflect on the information received via dialogue, even though it often rather bothered me as doubling what I already understood. That tracking though also led to me speeding up reading to pass the character's annoying mumble (doesn't have to be voiced, but please…) and therefore forgetting key information I would have needed to authenticate for additional lore via the follow up Shield Nights (available for free on itch.io) that seems to consist mostly from background information I dug out elsewhere or could make sense of on my own, so I'm not tempted to replay Norco just to read some more liner notes.
The reason I'm not keen on revisiting Norco, not even to check for different character developments rather than the endings I think I caught the best from anyway, is that despite its captivating atmosphere it wasn't that much of a revelation to me. The fictional elements are better seen as surreal than to be dissected for a consistent explanation and the mood isn't the most welcoming happy place, so that adding an awkward fight system (autofight available after patch), clumsy boat ride or text adventure staircase mechanics acts as a repellent on me.
From a standpoint of classic graphic adventure gameplay Norco isn't very good even after the added expert mode. Most of the time it's either just not challenging, which is fine as long the plot goes on, or it's nerve wrecking in execution, which is destroying the flow. What Geography of Robots don't understand is guiding the player through puzzles alongside with the narration to unfold information seamlessly.
Ironically the distributor Raw Fury also has Kathy Rain and Whispers of a Machine by Clifftop Games in their catalog and Norco would fit perfectly as the spiritual tie in I was wishing for between those two brilliant point'n'click adventures. It's almost frightening how precise Norco combines ethereal elements from the first and a probably more obvious futuristic technology from the latter to another mystery plot. It's possible that makes me biased, but I'm actually more dreaming of how exchange of expertise between those indie developers could be a benefit to all of us.
With a splendid post-industrial depressive black metal track scoring the rolling credits it was rather a relief to end this adventure. I couldn't stop playing but didn't really enjoy Norco in the true sense of the word. For that, it's too much a reminder how fucked up this world is, it's too close to the somber atmosphere of a rat's nest I tried to escape but always returned to somehow after traveling around no matter how long. It also causes awareness, not only for losses of the past, but also how my parents are becoming older, giving me a hard time deciding to move to the other end of the country for an actually awaiting future.
Told from both the perspectives of Kay and her mother with party members joining on and off Norco to me is a maelstrom that should at least offer satisfaction by putting some things in order, though it treats its puzzles rather as part of a minigame cocktail, so you won't just click text and look at some scenic pictures. I always appreciate media including toilet needs, but I would have required a little more than a few gags to possibly miss while exploring the environment.
It feels harsh to say after an otherwise enthralling story, but maybe that's what you get after spawning from a multimedia documentary by a pseudonym collective that might not yet have the experience to make a full grown game rather than a gaming part within the initial project. It's sad that Norco could have been the equivalent to calling Grave of the Fireflies the best anime you never want to watch again, but it wasn't meant to be. It's far from being comparable as a full emotional experience.
For that reason and hoping Geography of Robots can find a way to create a more wholesome product, I don't even think their demo End Millennium is a step in the wrong direction. Maybe writing is their strongest capability, so focusing on a text adventure would be a logical conclusion until they find support in puzzle design should they want to attempt the genre at all.
Sure, Norco can also function as an exercise for the collective to improve on, but then we should not hype for something that isn't present. I wouldn't mind supporting them with my purchase as much, had I been downloading the game from a niche indie platform, but I bought it from a major distributor for way above my average price.
My expectations weren't sky high and maybe I'm wrong when so many others seem to love it anyway, but I would rather have preferred the packaging to say "This is the best we can do at the moment, support us so we can improve on our promising art", because that's what it comes down to. And with that in mind it's something like an unpolished gem for an atmosphere of desolation and despair, justifying a generous playthrough.
Check out more of my backloggd adventure reviews for games like:
Full Throttle Remastered
Detective Gallo
Broken Age
Thimbleweed Park
Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure
In theory, alternate Louisiana in Norco could be a fictional alien world to me just like Neo Tokyo or a city on Mars. I was even joking if the title describes narcotics for Trollans until I found out it was actually a brand name for pain medication. Little did I know, however, that Norco is also an actual census-designated place in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana that derived its name from the New Orleans Refining Company and is home to a major Shell manufacturing complex. I'm learning every day.
You don't have to think much about why the company in the game Norco is called Shield and with the Shell facility having experienced catastrophic explosions twice the story sure appears less far fetched. I recommend reading the Honeysweat interview with GoR's Yutsi if you'd like to know more on his growing up in sight of that factory, comparing it to Midgar in the world of Final Fantasy.
Even without knowing Norco specifically, I was of course aware of the condition our world is in and I think it's hard to not see how close the narration stays with things happening in reality. It sure is condensed and emphasized, but we have everything from AI to ponzi schemes, messed up religious beliefs, unregulated capitalism or privately organized space travel. It's not like Orwell is predicting the future a couple of decades away, it's more like holding up a mirror, showing us the dystopia we're creating for tomorrow or a day after.
Born and raised in a small town bordered by the dilapidated ruins of an industry, having watched a company burning down to the foundations and knowing the history of a group buying out farmers to build a production plant in the area, I can nothing but relate to protagonist Kay returning to Norco. It's what you recognize best at a carnival. There are those who are too young to escape and those who never made it out, but then there are other people in their thirties or rather forties, returning to family business - taking care of parents or bringing up children of their own in an environment that appears at least more family friendly than the big city.
For Kay it's late. She has tried to cut loose and ignored her cancer infested mother trying to get in touch. Time doesn't stand still when you're away and as much things don't seem to change as long as you're there, everything is weirdly different once you turned your back and tried to start a life of your own independently.
Norco uses pixel art to illustrate this story and I don't really understand how this can be seen as innovation, because digitizing photographs for instance is something going back to the old Amiga days at least. It's not ugly at all, but, especially with the retro trend of recent years, something I'd rather call standard opposite to some of the reviews I've read. Recreating that off grid Amiga feeling especially with the first person solo adventure layout is another cup of Grog.
I've mentioned it before in my review for One Night Stand, when playing Our World Is Ended as one of my first actual visual novels, I was missing interaction with the screen other than clicking text. Despite being described as a point'n'click I was lucky to read up enough on Norco before to not expect it being the familiar third person story puzzle, so I was merely amazed at first that Norco was allowing me to dive into the scenery as much as I'd define the character by text choices.
One thing I also enjoyed was the use of a mindmap to elaborate a thought process and reflect on the information received via dialogue, even though it often rather bothered me as doubling what I already understood. That tracking though also led to me speeding up reading to pass the character's annoying mumble (doesn't have to be voiced, but please…) and therefore forgetting key information I would have needed to authenticate for additional lore via the follow up Shield Nights (available for free on itch.io) that seems to consist mostly from background information I dug out elsewhere or could make sense of on my own, so I'm not tempted to replay Norco just to read some more liner notes.
The reason I'm not keen on revisiting Norco, not even to check for different character developments rather than the endings I think I caught the best from anyway, is that despite its captivating atmosphere it wasn't that much of a revelation to me. The fictional elements are better seen as surreal than to be dissected for a consistent explanation and the mood isn't the most welcoming happy place, so that adding an awkward fight system (autofight available after patch), clumsy boat ride or text adventure staircase mechanics acts as a repellent on me.
From a standpoint of classic graphic adventure gameplay Norco isn't very good even after the added expert mode. Most of the time it's either just not challenging, which is fine as long the plot goes on, or it's nerve wrecking in execution, which is destroying the flow. What Geography of Robots don't understand is guiding the player through puzzles alongside with the narration to unfold information seamlessly.
Ironically the distributor Raw Fury also has Kathy Rain and Whispers of a Machine by Clifftop Games in their catalog and Norco would fit perfectly as the spiritual tie in I was wishing for between those two brilliant point'n'click adventures. It's almost frightening how precise Norco combines ethereal elements from the first and a probably more obvious futuristic technology from the latter to another mystery plot. It's possible that makes me biased, but I'm actually more dreaming of how exchange of expertise between those indie developers could be a benefit to all of us.
With a splendid post-industrial depressive black metal track scoring the rolling credits it was rather a relief to end this adventure. I couldn't stop playing but didn't really enjoy Norco in the true sense of the word. For that, it's too much a reminder how fucked up this world is, it's too close to the somber atmosphere of a rat's nest I tried to escape but always returned to somehow after traveling around no matter how long. It also causes awareness, not only for losses of the past, but also how my parents are becoming older, giving me a hard time deciding to move to the other end of the country for an actually awaiting future.
Told from both the perspectives of Kay and her mother with party members joining on and off Norco to me is a maelstrom that should at least offer satisfaction by putting some things in order, though it treats its puzzles rather as part of a minigame cocktail, so you won't just click text and look at some scenic pictures. I always appreciate media including toilet needs, but I would have required a little more than a few gags to possibly miss while exploring the environment.
It feels harsh to say after an otherwise enthralling story, but maybe that's what you get after spawning from a multimedia documentary by a pseudonym collective that might not yet have the experience to make a full grown game rather than a gaming part within the initial project. It's sad that Norco could have been the equivalent to calling Grave of the Fireflies the best anime you never want to watch again, but it wasn't meant to be. It's far from being comparable as a full emotional experience.
For that reason and hoping Geography of Robots can find a way to create a more wholesome product, I don't even think their demo End Millennium is a step in the wrong direction. Maybe writing is their strongest capability, so focusing on a text adventure would be a logical conclusion until they find support in puzzle design should they want to attempt the genre at all.
Sure, Norco can also function as an exercise for the collective to improve on, but then we should not hype for something that isn't present. I wouldn't mind supporting them with my purchase as much, had I been downloading the game from a niche indie platform, but I bought it from a major distributor for way above my average price.
My expectations weren't sky high and maybe I'm wrong when so many others seem to love it anyway, but I would rather have preferred the packaging to say "This is the best we can do at the moment, support us so we can improve on our promising art", because that's what it comes down to. And with that in mind it's something like an unpolished gem for an atmosphere of desolation and despair, justifying a generous playthrough.
Check out more of my backloggd adventure reviews for games like:
Full Throttle Remastered
Detective Gallo
Broken Age
Thimbleweed Park
Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure
2013
Why must there always be a tragic hero in the third row? Ok, I know I'm late to this party again, having played my old pinball simulations for ages, totally ignoring what's happening more recently. I also have to admit, that I'm not investing enough into PC hardware to keep track with the state of the art in general and I actually don't have to, because most games I'm interested in are old enough or not very performance hungry. I did know of the Pinball FX family though and have heard of other projects, but Zaccaria Pinball wasn't amongst them.
Could be because it still seems to be early access on Steam, which makes me wonder why I found Zaccaria Pinball on Nintendo Switch recently, but having not seen Pinball FX/FX3 or Pinball Arcade pop up on the e-store as well when I was looking for the genre, I'm wondering about the quality of my searches in general anyway. With any of the three platforms coming with at least one free table I was having a blast nonetheless and having fun with the HD rumble on my pro controller and the OLED screen in vertical, I was also beginning to buy DLCs.
And here's where the tragic journey begins, the reason I'm picking Zaccaria Pinball as my review subject at this very moment, but let's please emphasize first that it's actually me spending dough on a free platform to buy everything extra for. Yeah, that's not me, except for deals on Capcom Arcade Stadium for instance, because I did find some sales for Pinball FX3 and though I don't see me buying individual tables for bloody 15€ to use on the recent Pinball FX, I just had to spend another tenner on the FX3 Williams three-pack containing Attack from Mars, the machine I was doing two hour train rides to play back in the nineties.
Given that favorite pinball tables can be very autobiographical, I actually appreciate at least a split to affordable bundles, but on the other hand I would maybe be interested in more tables, would I have the option for a demo that the Switch versions of both Pinball FX and Pinball Arcade don't offer. It's another huge problem Pinball Arcade lost a part of their licenses, so my only chance to access the AC/DC table for instance was ordering the Stern Pinball Arcade package sold individually. I still hope the code in box version will work when it finally arrives.
However, Zaccaria Pinball did impress me instantly with next to the two free tables every other installment is playable as a demo. They have nothing to hide and that's for a good reason. Zaccaria Pinball is a simulation dream. You've got everything essential from the competitor's systems,but you can go much deeper by setting ambient light or wear on the table next to physics and camera. It can take minutes to study the possibilities before even thinking of playing and the attention to detail is plainly awesome. Having played, you get statistics for each ball's points and the distance they rolled. You immediately recognize Magic Pixel Games love what they're doing.
I'm willing to believe simulations of their signature tables are authentic in design as much as they are in physics, but here starts that issue because of which I'm not dumping all my money into Zaccaria Pinball right now. What they do have is fifties to sixties style retro tables I'm not sure existed. Then you've got the original electromagnetic and solid state Zaccaria tables from the seventies and eighties I can't remember having played, though it's possible long ago at a bar or something. I just don't have a relation to those tables with typical themes from sports to space etc. and as much as I love pragmatic old school designs, none of them catches my attention enough.
Whilst you can set the gap in the middle to a more modern narrow spacing on the old tables, Zaccaria Pinball actually offers remakes of their popular themes not like fantasy tables by Zen, but more like an authentic built as if the company had released them at the beginning of the nineties when their production had ceased. Those tables use elements that could just work as well as a real table and they're really fun to play. Same goes for deluxe versions that are comparable to Pinball FX interpretations of cabinets like Fish Tales, where you have digitally animated figures enhancing the design.
It really seems like they're doing everything right, having something in store for any generation of classic pinball fans and though they might not have the captivating music and knocking on the remakes, they still manage to add more familiar elements without denying typical leveled structures for instance. I appreciate this a lot, but do they want to be a sleeper like that?
Licensing is a very big issue in this segment and on one hand Magic Pixel Games are my heroes for creating their own level of simulation, but on the other it was very brave to enter competition just with one catalog available. I'm sure there are ecstatic fans who are very satisfied, but in this niche of gaming, Zaccaria Pinball occurs to be a whole niche on its own, for that alone I'm willing to spend a few Euros.
They're not even asking too much, I think. The contents of the packs between 5 and 10€ still appear generous, even though single tables can be purchased for between 2 and 3€ each. So what Zaccaria Pinball at least is doing is showing how it's done to the other big players Pinball Arcade (who need to really be revived) and Pinball FX who are going in the wrong direction right now.
But of course right now I want to play tables I've once found in the wild or I'm still looking forward to. It so happens I have a huge history with cabs from the Williams sets on Pinball FX3 and I've just played the Ghostbusters table in the Stern pack a few weeks back at the Dutch Pinball Museum in Rotterdam. I'm still looking for Data East stuff as a simulation, especially the Batman 1989 license that I visited a local ice cream parlor for after school as a kid. But I doubt Zaccaria Pinball will ever go that direction.
So in conclusion this is probably the best game I'm not going to play very soon, which is sad, but Zaccaria Pinball seems like built on a limitation from the start being nothing but an impulse as a great example maybe, but I don't feel the table have enough charisma to carry the game on their own. It's great for fans and except for slight bugs of caught balls on at least one remake, which might actually rather add to realism, it looks finished enough to me to play it. On Switch that is, of course.
I don't know if we can encourage Magic Pixel Games to just use the same engine on a follow up simulator for other licensed tables, but we should at least honor them with a purchase or two. As soon as I'm back on budget I will start buying everything just to enlarge the collection and send my thanks for an operation that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense but that they mastered anyway. It's maybe only adding to the variety of my tables, but when I'll start Zaccaria Pinball, I'll sure enjoy it.
Perhaps you like other of my related backloggd reviews like
Psycho Pinball
Stern Pinball Arcade
Pachinko Challenger
Puzzle Uo Poko
Could be because it still seems to be early access on Steam, which makes me wonder why I found Zaccaria Pinball on Nintendo Switch recently, but having not seen Pinball FX/FX3 or Pinball Arcade pop up on the e-store as well when I was looking for the genre, I'm wondering about the quality of my searches in general anyway. With any of the three platforms coming with at least one free table I was having a blast nonetheless and having fun with the HD rumble on my pro controller and the OLED screen in vertical, I was also beginning to buy DLCs.
And here's where the tragic journey begins, the reason I'm picking Zaccaria Pinball as my review subject at this very moment, but let's please emphasize first that it's actually me spending dough on a free platform to buy everything extra for. Yeah, that's not me, except for deals on Capcom Arcade Stadium for instance, because I did find some sales for Pinball FX3 and though I don't see me buying individual tables for bloody 15€ to use on the recent Pinball FX, I just had to spend another tenner on the FX3 Williams three-pack containing Attack from Mars, the machine I was doing two hour train rides to play back in the nineties.
Given that favorite pinball tables can be very autobiographical, I actually appreciate at least a split to affordable bundles, but on the other hand I would maybe be interested in more tables, would I have the option for a demo that the Switch versions of both Pinball FX and Pinball Arcade don't offer. It's another huge problem Pinball Arcade lost a part of their licenses, so my only chance to access the AC/DC table for instance was ordering the Stern Pinball Arcade package sold individually. I still hope the code in box version will work when it finally arrives.
However, Zaccaria Pinball did impress me instantly with next to the two free tables every other installment is playable as a demo. They have nothing to hide and that's for a good reason. Zaccaria Pinball is a simulation dream. You've got everything essential from the competitor's systems,but you can go much deeper by setting ambient light or wear on the table next to physics and camera. It can take minutes to study the possibilities before even thinking of playing and the attention to detail is plainly awesome. Having played, you get statistics for each ball's points and the distance they rolled. You immediately recognize Magic Pixel Games love what they're doing.
I'm willing to believe simulations of their signature tables are authentic in design as much as they are in physics, but here starts that issue because of which I'm not dumping all my money into Zaccaria Pinball right now. What they do have is fifties to sixties style retro tables I'm not sure existed. Then you've got the original electromagnetic and solid state Zaccaria tables from the seventies and eighties I can't remember having played, though it's possible long ago at a bar or something. I just don't have a relation to those tables with typical themes from sports to space etc. and as much as I love pragmatic old school designs, none of them catches my attention enough.
Whilst you can set the gap in the middle to a more modern narrow spacing on the old tables, Zaccaria Pinball actually offers remakes of their popular themes not like fantasy tables by Zen, but more like an authentic built as if the company had released them at the beginning of the nineties when their production had ceased. Those tables use elements that could just work as well as a real table and they're really fun to play. Same goes for deluxe versions that are comparable to Pinball FX interpretations of cabinets like Fish Tales, where you have digitally animated figures enhancing the design.
It really seems like they're doing everything right, having something in store for any generation of classic pinball fans and though they might not have the captivating music and knocking on the remakes, they still manage to add more familiar elements without denying typical leveled structures for instance. I appreciate this a lot, but do they want to be a sleeper like that?
Licensing is a very big issue in this segment and on one hand Magic Pixel Games are my heroes for creating their own level of simulation, but on the other it was very brave to enter competition just with one catalog available. I'm sure there are ecstatic fans who are very satisfied, but in this niche of gaming, Zaccaria Pinball occurs to be a whole niche on its own, for that alone I'm willing to spend a few Euros.
They're not even asking too much, I think. The contents of the packs between 5 and 10€ still appear generous, even though single tables can be purchased for between 2 and 3€ each. So what Zaccaria Pinball at least is doing is showing how it's done to the other big players Pinball Arcade (who need to really be revived) and Pinball FX who are going in the wrong direction right now.
But of course right now I want to play tables I've once found in the wild or I'm still looking forward to. It so happens I have a huge history with cabs from the Williams sets on Pinball FX3 and I've just played the Ghostbusters table in the Stern pack a few weeks back at the Dutch Pinball Museum in Rotterdam. I'm still looking for Data East stuff as a simulation, especially the Batman 1989 license that I visited a local ice cream parlor for after school as a kid. But I doubt Zaccaria Pinball will ever go that direction.
So in conclusion this is probably the best game I'm not going to play very soon, which is sad, but Zaccaria Pinball seems like built on a limitation from the start being nothing but an impulse as a great example maybe, but I don't feel the table have enough charisma to carry the game on their own. It's great for fans and except for slight bugs of caught balls on at least one remake, which might actually rather add to realism, it looks finished enough to me to play it. On Switch that is, of course.
I don't know if we can encourage Magic Pixel Games to just use the same engine on a follow up simulator for other licensed tables, but we should at least honor them with a purchase or two. As soon as I'm back on budget I will start buying everything just to enlarge the collection and send my thanks for an operation that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense but that they mastered anyway. It's maybe only adding to the variety of my tables, but when I'll start Zaccaria Pinball, I'll sure enjoy it.
Perhaps you like other of my related backloggd reviews like
Psycho Pinball
Stern Pinball Arcade
Pachinko Challenger
Puzzle Uo Poko
2016
It's not a secret Stern are dominating the pinball business of the last 20 years, so giving them their own treatment just like Farsight did with Gottlieb and Williams wouldn't seem weird, if Pinball Arcade wasn't in-between. That framework for plenty of awesome pinball table DLCs did the job and tied a brilliant arcade together, well, until they started losing their licenses, which now makes Stern Pinball Arcade a great opportunity, so hear me out.
I've mentioned in my Zaccaria Pinball review that I'm again late to the party, so I've missed Pinball Arcade's golden era and though Zen did something right at sometime, I'm not entirely convinced by the recent Pinball FX plus they're missing out on Stern so far, even doing their own licensed versions of the same franchises and it might be a matter of taste if you prefer Zen's fantasy tables. I rather like simulations of existing pincabs with fundamental physics.
Anyway, noticing some previously released Stern tables missing from the eShop versions of either Pinball Arcade and Stern Pinball Arcade of which I at least wanted the missing AC/DC pincab, I understood why the retail version of Stern Pinball Arcade was actually a good idea to conserve those contents beyond the DLC availability. This also causes the Nintendo Switch cartridge to be offered between 45 and 110€ though, so I was willing to experiment if an Italian code in box version would work for me as well.
Good news is it does, so for 16€ shipped I got all the 11 tables of Stern Pinball Arcade unlocked as the retail version, which I think is a splendid deal considering Zen asks 15€ for the Indiana Jones table separately. The question though is, if it's something you'd be happy with as there are many gaps ranging from Lord of the Rings to Metallica or more recent Deadpool, Stranger Things and Godzilla that will probably never be available. I for sure would trade these against the Harley Davidson or Mustang licenses from this package and even Star Trek in a way is just a poor man's Attack From Mars, though all of them are entertaining for at least a while.
The highlight of this collection undeniably is the still available Ghostbusters Premium pincab, which is as challenging but fun as found in the wild when still running the unrevised 2016 code. It's a perfect representation of how Stern at best teaches you how to pinball these days, because it's easy to lose the ball without ever touching a flipper if you've got no idea how to play, but if you do, you'll hit over 100 million in bonus on one ball alone. It's a journey to activate the stages, toys and wizard mode, so don't be discouraged as an inexperienced player. Pinball is a game of skill after all and Stern learned to embrace that for the enthusiasts, making the games increasingly rewarding rather than just producing unfair moneymakers.
Best advertisement is probably Farsight giving away Frankenstein with the free download version, so you can already try one of the top titles. The remaining tables are Phantom of the Opera, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Starship Troopers, Last Action Hero and High Roller Casino. The latter is a bit odd, incorporating the gambling aspect pinball was criticized for, but despite the chance element the real table is a joy with its toys and the representation gives a good impression.
Being based on the aging Pinball Arcade engine, Stern Pinball Arcade does the job quite nicely, though for vertical play on the Switch screen I'm missing my favorite angle from Pinball FX3. It's also unfortunate the B button is used for the angle and as well to exit the score screen, so don't press too early in an impatient rush or your settings change between plays.
You could of course argue if the ball physics are really 100% accurate or if there should be more precise hd rumble, but Stern Pinball Arcade on the other hand is far away from detailed settings available in Zaccaria Pinball anyway though it's also not as keen on challenges or upgrade systems as Pinball FX3 is, that I've learned to love as my sole key to play Bally/Williams classics on my Switch. There's a rudimentary challenge mode nonetheless and table achievements as well, but I'm not yet very interested.
In the end it's a substitute until I will be able to revisit some of the original Pincabs on my next arcade trip in a few weeks and for that it does the job perfectly. I'm not a kid that's got to be lured into playing pinball by things I wouldn't find on the cabinets. Gee, I'm old enough to have enjoyed Space Cadet on Windows as a welcome throwback to my past, when despite not thinking of myself as a pinball wizard I still frequently found sponsors paying credits to watch me play.
These days I really want to play, but it's gotten even harder to find any pinball machine in the wild, so either Pinball Arcade, Pinball FX3 or Zaccaria Pinball are the closest I can get and all of them offer me basically the same satisfying use of the Pro Controller I'd like to add. So much at least, that I'm thinking of how to padhack the rumble into my planned pinball controller, something I hadn't considered when randomly buying leaf switches to add to an arcade stick project before even finding out all these games are available on the Switch.
Whilst I love building those controllers, it's not an ideal world for being a pinball aficionado due to those licensing issues that make the standalone Stern Pinball Arcade relevant at all, because the tables should just be available to one of the engines, not even dreaming of having a single framework to feature all pincabs ever produced. Right now it doesn't look like the virtual situation for Stern is getting better, so to purchase this set is the only chance to still get them.
You maybe want to at least have Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness before expanding into the cabs featured in this selection, but with AC/DC as a representation of a decent rock license and Ghostbusters as one of the best recent Pincabs plus a nice selection of other fun tables Stern Pinball Arcade is a must have package for any good pinball collection.
It's always been a niche with the best sales for a real table more than often produced in Chicago being hardly over 20k units, more commonly 3-6k, usually at a price of a couple of thousands bucks and even if I wish, I'm not amongst the collectors having space and money for a manager man cave, so I'd sure love to add Metallica as my favorite music pinball or look forward to a coming Godzilla adaptation to Stern Pinball Arcade, but this is as good as it gets until maybe things sort out - possibly for a newer platform to come.
Perhaps you're interested in other of my related backloggd reviews like
Psycho Pinball
Pachinko Challenger
Puzzle Uo Poko
I've mentioned in my Zaccaria Pinball review that I'm again late to the party, so I've missed Pinball Arcade's golden era and though Zen did something right at sometime, I'm not entirely convinced by the recent Pinball FX plus they're missing out on Stern so far, even doing their own licensed versions of the same franchises and it might be a matter of taste if you prefer Zen's fantasy tables. I rather like simulations of existing pincabs with fundamental physics.
Anyway, noticing some previously released Stern tables missing from the eShop versions of either Pinball Arcade and Stern Pinball Arcade of which I at least wanted the missing AC/DC pincab, I understood why the retail version of Stern Pinball Arcade was actually a good idea to conserve those contents beyond the DLC availability. This also causes the Nintendo Switch cartridge to be offered between 45 and 110€ though, so I was willing to experiment if an Italian code in box version would work for me as well.
Good news is it does, so for 16€ shipped I got all the 11 tables of Stern Pinball Arcade unlocked as the retail version, which I think is a splendid deal considering Zen asks 15€ for the Indiana Jones table separately. The question though is, if it's something you'd be happy with as there are many gaps ranging from Lord of the Rings to Metallica or more recent Deadpool, Stranger Things and Godzilla that will probably never be available. I for sure would trade these against the Harley Davidson or Mustang licenses from this package and even Star Trek in a way is just a poor man's Attack From Mars, though all of them are entertaining for at least a while.
The highlight of this collection undeniably is the still available Ghostbusters Premium pincab, which is as challenging but fun as found in the wild when still running the unrevised 2016 code. It's a perfect representation of how Stern at best teaches you how to pinball these days, because it's easy to lose the ball without ever touching a flipper if you've got no idea how to play, but if you do, you'll hit over 100 million in bonus on one ball alone. It's a journey to activate the stages, toys and wizard mode, so don't be discouraged as an inexperienced player. Pinball is a game of skill after all and Stern learned to embrace that for the enthusiasts, making the games increasingly rewarding rather than just producing unfair moneymakers.
Best advertisement is probably Farsight giving away Frankenstein with the free download version, so you can already try one of the top titles. The remaining tables are Phantom of the Opera, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Starship Troopers, Last Action Hero and High Roller Casino. The latter is a bit odd, incorporating the gambling aspect pinball was criticized for, but despite the chance element the real table is a joy with its toys and the representation gives a good impression.
Being based on the aging Pinball Arcade engine, Stern Pinball Arcade does the job quite nicely, though for vertical play on the Switch screen I'm missing my favorite angle from Pinball FX3. It's also unfortunate the B button is used for the angle and as well to exit the score screen, so don't press too early in an impatient rush or your settings change between plays.
You could of course argue if the ball physics are really 100% accurate or if there should be more precise hd rumble, but Stern Pinball Arcade on the other hand is far away from detailed settings available in Zaccaria Pinball anyway though it's also not as keen on challenges or upgrade systems as Pinball FX3 is, that I've learned to love as my sole key to play Bally/Williams classics on my Switch. There's a rudimentary challenge mode nonetheless and table achievements as well, but I'm not yet very interested.
In the end it's a substitute until I will be able to revisit some of the original Pincabs on my next arcade trip in a few weeks and for that it does the job perfectly. I'm not a kid that's got to be lured into playing pinball by things I wouldn't find on the cabinets. Gee, I'm old enough to have enjoyed Space Cadet on Windows as a welcome throwback to my past, when despite not thinking of myself as a pinball wizard I still frequently found sponsors paying credits to watch me play.
These days I really want to play, but it's gotten even harder to find any pinball machine in the wild, so either Pinball Arcade, Pinball FX3 or Zaccaria Pinball are the closest I can get and all of them offer me basically the same satisfying use of the Pro Controller I'd like to add. So much at least, that I'm thinking of how to padhack the rumble into my planned pinball controller, something I hadn't considered when randomly buying leaf switches to add to an arcade stick project before even finding out all these games are available on the Switch.
Whilst I love building those controllers, it's not an ideal world for being a pinball aficionado due to those licensing issues that make the standalone Stern Pinball Arcade relevant at all, because the tables should just be available to one of the engines, not even dreaming of having a single framework to feature all pincabs ever produced. Right now it doesn't look like the virtual situation for Stern is getting better, so to purchase this set is the only chance to still get them.
You maybe want to at least have Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness before expanding into the cabs featured in this selection, but with AC/DC as a representation of a decent rock license and Ghostbusters as one of the best recent Pincabs plus a nice selection of other fun tables Stern Pinball Arcade is a must have package for any good pinball collection.
It's always been a niche with the best sales for a real table more than often produced in Chicago being hardly over 20k units, more commonly 3-6k, usually at a price of a couple of thousands bucks and even if I wish, I'm not amongst the collectors having space and money for a manager man cave, so I'd sure love to add Metallica as my favorite music pinball or look forward to a coming Godzilla adaptation to Stern Pinball Arcade, but this is as good as it gets until maybe things sort out - possibly for a newer platform to come.
Perhaps you're interested in other of my related backloggd reviews like
Psycho Pinball
Pachinko Challenger
Puzzle Uo Poko
It's your same old Larry and it's not. I see the Lounge Lizards being a classic some people want to play it in a modern way and backed with Kickstarter Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded did happen. But it's not worth mentioning to me in more than just a few words.
See, the VGA remake of the original that already was sort of a remake of a text adventure called Softporn, did that job quite nicely though it might still be too old school for the kids. I, having played the original over and over, especially when it was installed on a school computer, would still prefer the parser version, that gives the game something truly mysterious and therefore adventurous no remake can offer.
In case of Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, that I like the general art style of, but can't familiarize with the digitally brushed close ups, I also sense a big difference in tone. It's basically the same story with slight changes that won't stop you from finishing in four hours even if you try out all the possibilities. But it's a lot less innocent, more like unnecessarily nasty.
Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded doesn't display the protagonist as a clumsy charming creep that can use your help and that might actually help you finding out a few things not to do if you're still an adolescent looking for love yourself. To me in Reloaded Larry isn't much more than a creep anymore and you don't have to try what phrase could cause something funny to happen. You just click through the icons looking for an effect that usually isn't played out anyway.
The magic has worn off, so despite the modern voice acted Point'n'Click outfit it's probably frustrating if you don't know what to do and a rather boring chase if you do. It wasn't as exciting as letting Larry finally score in the original, because the setting, that also doesn't punish your failures anymore, doesn't even allow for it. The original was short and not the best game after all, but it kinda drew me in having goosebumps whenever I could make Larry advance in his world. That's gone. Even more than in the VGA version.
See, the VGA remake of the original that already was sort of a remake of a text adventure called Softporn, did that job quite nicely though it might still be too old school for the kids. I, having played the original over and over, especially when it was installed on a school computer, would still prefer the parser version, that gives the game something truly mysterious and therefore adventurous no remake can offer.
In case of Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, that I like the general art style of, but can't familiarize with the digitally brushed close ups, I also sense a big difference in tone. It's basically the same story with slight changes that won't stop you from finishing in four hours even if you try out all the possibilities. But it's a lot less innocent, more like unnecessarily nasty.
Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded doesn't display the protagonist as a clumsy charming creep that can use your help and that might actually help you finding out a few things not to do if you're still an adolescent looking for love yourself. To me in Reloaded Larry isn't much more than a creep anymore and you don't have to try what phrase could cause something funny to happen. You just click through the icons looking for an effect that usually isn't played out anyway.
The magic has worn off, so despite the modern voice acted Point'n'Click outfit it's probably frustrating if you don't know what to do and a rather boring chase if you do. It wasn't as exciting as letting Larry finally score in the original, because the setting, that also doesn't punish your failures anymore, doesn't even allow for it. The original was short and not the best game after all, but it kinda drew me in having goosebumps whenever I could make Larry advance in his world. That's gone. Even more than in the VGA version.