2019 Game Review Haiku, #30 – vApe Escape

An innocent ape
Must destroy vape dispenser
To find peace, homeland

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And we’re back with these little haikus of mine. Go on, gobble ’em up. However, if you want to read more of my in-depth thoughts about these games that I’m beating, just search for them by name on Grinding Down. As always, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry, even if they aren’t instant classics, such as the works of Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, or Kobayashi Issa. Hey, not everyone gets to be that great.

Cyberpunk romp Technobabylon shines with futuristic style

I desperately want to play Unavowed, but I have other point-and-click games from Wadjet Eye Games in my collection to get through first, along with nearly a  bajillion indie downloads from itch.io that all look super neat, such as Robin Morningwood Adventure and The Librarian. However, for this post, I’m talking about Technobabylon, which came out in 2015 and is a substantial reworking and expansion of James Dearden’s trilogy of freeware games that debuted back in 2010. I never tried them then, so this is all new information to me, but clearly Wadjet Eye Games saw something special in them initially.

Technobabylon is set in the city of Newton in the grand ol’ futuristic year of 2087. In this world, genetic engineering is the norm, the addictive Trance has replaced almost any need for human interaction, and an omnipresent AI named Central powers the city. CEL agents Charlie Regis and Max Lao are investigating a serial killer calling himself the Mindjacker who is tapping into the neural wiring of seemingly ordinary citizens, stealing their knowledge, and leaving them dead. Yikes. On the flip-side of this, an agoraphobic net addict named Latha Sesame might be the next target. However, Charlie’s past comes back to haunt him, and he and his partner find themselves on opposite sides of the law, with Latha’s fate stuck right dab in the middle.

Gameplay is your traditional, old-school point-and-click affair, and that’s perfectly fine. I know what I came here for, loving just about everything about previous works from Wadget Eye Games, namely the Blackwell series, Gemini Rue, A Golden Wake, The Shivah, and, heck, even Two of a Kind. You’ll acquire items into your inventory, combine them in strange ways, or simply exhaust dialogue options until you start making things happen. Technobabylon features multiple protagonists, and each one also has access to different bits of technology, such as the Trance or logging into Central. This helps open up options for puzzles while still keeping everything within the same system…though I fear it could become overwhelming down the line.

Speaking of that, there’s a ton of world-building going on here in Technobabylon. It’s seemingly a mix of things like Blade Runner, Black Mirror, and Ghost in the Shell…though I’m not sure how successful it is everywhere. For instance, I don’t fully understand how the Trance works, nor do I grok what “wetware” ultimately is or does, but maybe the point isn’t to fully explain everything happening in this dark, somewhat desolate future. You believe it works as they say it does and go with it. I also may not have paid as close attention to some bits of dialogue, so perhaps the fault rests on my shoulders.

I’m currently somewhere in chapter three of Technobabylon and am enjoying it greatly. I’ve only used an online walkthrough now and then after I felt like I had truly exhausted all my options, and the solution often makes me feel slightly stupid for not figuring it out on my own first. Oh well. That’s how some of these point-and-click adventure games go, I guess. If you miss picking up one single item, you are doomed, like I was for not finding the mag coil before entering Mr. Van der Waal’s apartment, which left me flustered on how to get the dang pistol out of the bloody Jacuzzi. And I do mean bloody.

I’ll keep plugging away at Technobabylon, though it seems like a longer game to get through. At least once I’m done I can move on to other point-and-click adventure games in my collection, many of which have been waiting patiently, for years, for me to…well, point and click on them. We’ll get there, I promise.

GAMES I REGRET PARTING WITH: G-Police

When I think of Colony Wars, I think of G-Police. Conversely, when I think of G-Police, I also think of Colony Wars. Which I’ve already covered via this blog post tag, sadly. Though I do have a retail copy of Colony Wars: Vengeance somewhere among my small collection of PlayStation 1 games, though I don’t know if it better than the original. I hope to try it out…one day. Anyways, the two simulation shooters for the PlayStation 1 share the same space in my brain, and that space is the zone designated to sci-fi games where you pilot a futuristic spaceship of sorts. I have to imagine that I traded both in at the same time, forever marking one of the darkest days in the history of me.

G-Police takes place in 2097, when most of Earth’s resources are depleted. Because of this, humanity is beginning to form colonies on other worlds. So, basically, our future future. You are a man named Slater, a member of the futuristic government taskforce known as the G-Police. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that stands for governmental-police. Or maybe grassfed. His role is to maintain order on Callisto, one of Jupiter’s moons, as well as discover the truth behind his sister’s mysterious death. Because there has to be something else driving him forward besides him driving forward his g-copcar after criminals. I honestly don’t remember much of this murder mystery plot, as I was more strangely focused on doing cop-like things, such as escorting people to safety and…uh, other tasks.

Speaking of Slater’s g-copcar, it’s actually a vertical take-off and landing aircraft called the Havoc. You end up piloting this VTOL piece during the game’s various missions. Some missions require the gun-ship to drop bombs on enemies below while others are straightforward dogfighting sessions. Other mission objectives include escorting ally ground units, preventing smuggling, bomb disposal, and scanning for suspect vehicles. Sounds like there were 35 missions in total, as well as a bonus training mode, but I definitely never beat G-Police, just like how I never beat the original Colony Wars. I did, however, play their early levels over and over again because I enjoyed them that much. Also, the difficulty ramps up quickly.

I do remember the Havoc being a pain to control though. Every button on the PlayStation 1 controller was used to maneuver the heavy-as-heavy-gets thing. You could thrust forwards, backwards, up, and down, as expected, and you could also hold your altitude by holding the upward and downward thrusts. This was ultimately tricky on the original PS1 controller, but vital for making it through the missions in one healthy, whole piece. Unfortunately, and this was just kind of before its time, you were not able to move left or right without turning, what we now know as strafing. I have this really strong memory of lowering the Havoc to street level and watching citizens and vehicles going about their way.

That said, the Havoc had weapons. The selection was robust and expanded as you progressed through the missions. Missiles were your main mode of enforcing the law, with a good balance between strength and tracking enemies on the map. Locking on to objects also scanned them, with some missions requiring you to look for contraband cargo and the like. I enjoyed these, and this is one of the earlier signs that I preferred less violent gameplay means when possible, which is why I’d always lean towards stealth over guns blazing in the years to come. Certain missions also outfitted you with special items, ranging from bombs that can perform an EMP blast to shut down fleeing vehicles or a flare launcher to mark a location for SWAT teams on the ground to move in on. Y’know, cop stuff.

G-Police was heavily inspired by Blade Runner, but I didn’t know that at the time I bought it. Why? Well, I didn’t end up seeing Blade Runner until only a handful of years ago. I know, I know–my bad. There’s plenty of futuristic city stuff to eat up, like advertising blimps, hovercars, and neon lights. Lots of green and orange-red in your HUD, which is pretty close to what it is like in Descent, though I’m only now making that connection. You could also pull the camera out and play from a different perspective, but I mainly stuck to the first-person, inside-the-Havoc view. Graphically, G-Police was not a stunner, with a dark, oppressive environment and pop-up around every corner, but the thwumping techno-driven soundtrack helped alleviate some of these limitations.

However, in the end, G-Police was another take on the Colony Wars experience, and that was enough for me to hand over my hard-earned cash from washing cars and watering lawns and procure a copy. Alas, I never got to see it all the way through before giving it up for in-store credit, but I still remember its earliness fondly. I should find a full YouTube playthrough of it for my next marathon drawing session.

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GAMES I REGRET PARTING WITH is a regular feature here at Grinding Down where I reminisce about videogames I either sold or traded in when I was young and dumb. To read up on other games I parted with, follow the tag.

2016 Game Review Haiku, #45 – Read Only Memories

Join Turing on quest
To find maker, stop Big Blue
Sick, killer mesh tunes

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Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.

GAMES I REGRET PARTING WITH: Colony Wars

I still can’t believe we haven’t seen a new Colony Wars game in this day and age of impressive technology, big TV screens, and unstoppable imagination. Or, at the very least, a half-hearted remake of the first 1997 space adventure from Psygnosis. Alas, it seems like the Colony Wars series was deeply cornered in the late 1990s, possibly too unique for its time, and never managed to break free from its own genre, and that’s a shame, because this is the series that really taught me what it might be like to fly an aircraft not of this world. Also, not in this world. Yeah, sorry, Decent.

Story stuff. In Colony Wars, the player assumes the role of a nameless colonist involved in the expanding League of Free Worlds resistance movement. As a skilled League fighter pilot, you take orders from the Father in an attempt to overcome the oppressive Earth Empire and its massive naval fleets, which are spread across multiple colonies. I don’t know if it is simply the American Revolution in space, but it’s close enough. What’s really neat is that failing a mission in Colony Wars did not mean “game over,” just a new branch to follow. You can “fail” every mission in the game and still see it end, albeit through dire consequences. This allowed for the story to really feel unique, like your own, and certainly softened that blow when things didn’t go as perfectly as you planned them. Evidently, there are two alternative “good” endings, though I couldn’t tell you if I saw any of them. I definitely witnessed my fair share of “failed” missions though…

Speaking of missions, I remember them being quite many, as well as varied, though they naturally all involve you flying in your spaceship to some capacity. I think there’s about 70 in total, and you have to remember that you’ll only experience maybe a third or so based on your success or failure rates, making multiple playthroughs worth the effort. Let me see what some mission types were: perimeter defense, guarding supply lines, protecting capital fleetships, taking down opposing capital fleetships, dogfighting, infiltrating Imperial territory, and surveillance-style objectives, like obtaining Naval technology.

At the time, the graphics in Colony Wars were capable of being described as light years ahead of other PlayStation titles (pun intended). It did that thing where when your spaceship goes faster, speed lines appear around you in a circular fashion, something I’d probably scene on Star Trek or some other space-themed TV show. And there I was, the one piloting the ship, zooming forward through the emptiness towards that massive hulk in the distance, my target to destroy. It’s also one of the rare games that I enjoyed using the cockpit view more than the third-person camera, as seeing the inside of your ship and HUD really helped immerse yourself in the action, especially when you’d be flipping this way and that, hot on some enemy ship’s trail. Also, a friendly warning that should be heeded by all: do not look directly into the sun.

The game’s soundtrack is not exactly memorable, but upon giving it another go via the YouTubes, I’m finding it thematically appropriate. Dark, brooding, and capable of building to something that feels almost entirely overwhelming–perfect for backing up a contested dogfight out in the middle of no spaceman’s land. A great use of orchestra and electronica, but maybe a bit too unnerving for listening to when writing a blog post. I feel the need now to take down an evil-as-evil-gets ginormous battleship hiding in an asteroid belt singlehandedly; that, or entirely rewatch Battlestar Galactica for like the umpteenth time.

I’ve had a disc copy of Colony Wars: Vengeance in my collection for some time now, untouched, the manual glanced at occasionally, and I guess if I ever do really get that itch to fly through space and shoot some massive vessels I can give it a go. I don’t know much about this sequel to the original, save that it retains the idea of fail-able missions, but also lets your spaceship entire planets’ atmosphere to shake things up. However, it won’t be the same Colony Wars that I remember so fondly from 1997, that opened before my blossoming eyes and stretched out endlessly, that put a dot in the distance and directly me towards it. Let’s leave with a fitting Carl Sagan quote: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

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GAMES I REGRET PARTING WITH is a regular feature here at Grinding Down where I reminisce about videogames I either sold or traded in when I was young and dumb. To read up on other games I parted with, follow the tag.