incredibly charming short point and click from tim schafer. while lacking in a lot of the narrative weight i'd maybe want in something like this, it more than makes up for it with it's dry humour, fun characters, and interesting world.
at first seeming like a stylized version of our own world the game starts to reveal itself as a kind of mad max meets blade runner desert cyberpunk, though keeps itself fairly light with it's overall world building. pretty much everything that can be surmised from the game is taken from it's art direction, incredibly detail rich interiors mixed with sprawling desert exteriors gives the game this really unique vibe, which is complemented by just stunning pixel art drawing from classic cartoons and animated beautifully for the characters. i also REALLY love this early 3d stuff the game has going on with some of it's backgrounds, vehicle designs, and driving sections, a mix of plastic and chrome looking textures bitcrunched to hell it just looks amazing to me. full disclosure that i was playing the remastered version of the game using the original graphics but i switched over to the new renders a few times to help me find some of the clickable areas and it is just so clear that this game is meant to be played with that original pixel art. i'm sure a lot of time went into making it look good but those new renders just feel kinda lifeless, at times even looking like when you use one of those emulator filters to smooth out pixel art algorithmically and it all just looks wrong. though it is a bit of a shame to miss out on the remastered audio and some of the quality of life improvements this way.
narratively it keeps itself pretty light, doing a pretty standard corporate corruption plot involving secretive murders, inheritance theft, and an evil ceo hell bent on destroying the biking industry with minivan manufacture. it never lets itself get too bogged down in the details, just moving from setpiece to setpiece, and while i feel that it's lacking a bit more of an emotional punch that i would want it's handily brought together by a superb cast of characters. each time a person or a gang is introduced they feel wholly unique and lived in, which is in no small part because of how well they are all brought to life by their voice actors. mark hamill plays about a dozen parts here and they're all done super well, roy conrad is perfect in the lead as the stoic and wry biker ben, and as a huge simpsons fan i was really pleased to hear tress macneille show up in a bit part near the end. just found myself very charmed the whole time and i got through it in about three and a half hours all told so the game never outstayed it's welcome.
the puzzles for the most part are much more straightforward than one might come to expect from a lucasarts point 'n' click from the mid-90s, most everything had a fairly logical conclusion and the only ones that really stumped me were when i just accidentally forgot to pick something up since it blended into the background and i had to do some backtracking. i think the only gameplay element here that really drags down full throttle are the action setpieces. the mine road section is fairly mind numbing more than anything else, unresponsive controls and lengthy loops until you finally have all the items you need, but not really ever especially difficult. what really doesn't work is the destruction derby sequence, with controls so unresponsive and finicky i messed around with it for about ten minutes without really getting anywhere before just skipping it altogether (a new feature in the remastered port).
overall though, a short but ultimately fulfilling experience, just puts a smile on my face.
at first seeming like a stylized version of our own world the game starts to reveal itself as a kind of mad max meets blade runner desert cyberpunk, though keeps itself fairly light with it's overall world building. pretty much everything that can be surmised from the game is taken from it's art direction, incredibly detail rich interiors mixed with sprawling desert exteriors gives the game this really unique vibe, which is complemented by just stunning pixel art drawing from classic cartoons and animated beautifully for the characters. i also REALLY love this early 3d stuff the game has going on with some of it's backgrounds, vehicle designs, and driving sections, a mix of plastic and chrome looking textures bitcrunched to hell it just looks amazing to me. full disclosure that i was playing the remastered version of the game using the original graphics but i switched over to the new renders a few times to help me find some of the clickable areas and it is just so clear that this game is meant to be played with that original pixel art. i'm sure a lot of time went into making it look good but those new renders just feel kinda lifeless, at times even looking like when you use one of those emulator filters to smooth out pixel art algorithmically and it all just looks wrong. though it is a bit of a shame to miss out on the remastered audio and some of the quality of life improvements this way.
narratively it keeps itself pretty light, doing a pretty standard corporate corruption plot involving secretive murders, inheritance theft, and an evil ceo hell bent on destroying the biking industry with minivan manufacture. it never lets itself get too bogged down in the details, just moving from setpiece to setpiece, and while i feel that it's lacking a bit more of an emotional punch that i would want it's handily brought together by a superb cast of characters. each time a person or a gang is introduced they feel wholly unique and lived in, which is in no small part because of how well they are all brought to life by their voice actors. mark hamill plays about a dozen parts here and they're all done super well, roy conrad is perfect in the lead as the stoic and wry biker ben, and as a huge simpsons fan i was really pleased to hear tress macneille show up in a bit part near the end. just found myself very charmed the whole time and i got through it in about three and a half hours all told so the game never outstayed it's welcome.
the puzzles for the most part are much more straightforward than one might come to expect from a lucasarts point 'n' click from the mid-90s, most everything had a fairly logical conclusion and the only ones that really stumped me were when i just accidentally forgot to pick something up since it blended into the background and i had to do some backtracking. i think the only gameplay element here that really drags down full throttle are the action setpieces. the mine road section is fairly mind numbing more than anything else, unresponsive controls and lengthy loops until you finally have all the items you need, but not really ever especially difficult. what really doesn't work is the destruction derby sequence, with controls so unresponsive and finicky i messed around with it for about ten minutes without really getting anywhere before just skipping it altogether (a new feature in the remastered port).
overall though, a short but ultimately fulfilling experience, just puts a smile on my face.