For this weeks offering, I’m going to be going back to the computer as it were, where I have recently been reintroduced to a game that I bought when I got my first DOS/Windows based computer in the early 1990s. While I personally never actually wanted to be a police officer, games involving the police always intrigued me for some reason. (Guess that says a lot about me!) The “Police Quest” series was always typically praised for it’s intense game scenarios and extreme realism to the profession. The third entry into the series would also show how many of the classic computers of the eighties were starting to fade away, as this game was only released for DOS computers and the Commodore Amiga. (The previous games were also made in Atari ST, and Apple II editions.) So for today, let’s take a look at this 1991 offering, “Police Quest 3: The Kindred”, brought to us by our great friends at the classic Sierra On-Line!

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Time for a brand new Throwback Thursday! This week, we are going to take a few moments to reintroduce you to a few of the funkiest aliens from Funkotron that ever had a chance to grace the Sega Genesis system. Two aliens that are just like you and me, if you can just get past the whole alien thing! Famous as a cult classic today, this game has a lot of great things going for it. Fantastic graphics, a funky soundtrack, simple game play, fun characters, and crazy comedy elements. What more could you possibly want in a video game? Tonight, let’s take a look at what is one of the coolest games for the Sega Genesis, the original “ToeJam & Earl”, originally released in 1991.

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Many of us have played and enjoyed the games of The Uninvited and Shadowgate, whether it was for the original Apple Macintosh platform, or in most cases, the original NES format. However the third game, “Deja Vu”, always seemed to get the short end of the stick in the trilogy, even though a sequel was made (alas only for various computers, not until later would it see a portable version). So why does Deja Vu always get the shaft? Well, this reviewer doesn’t think so, and he’ll show you why…

Deja Vu takes place in 1941, in Chicago, on a late December day. You play the part of Theodore “Ace” Harding: A professional boxer (and rather successful at that), who has taken a complete 360 in his life and began working as a private investigator. (I know, not terribly original, but that’s quite alright.) The game starts with you waking up from unconsciousness, unsure of your exact whereabouts, in a lovely bathroom stall, which turns out to actually be at a place called Joe’s Bar. You make your selections of what you want to do, examine, or speak to, using a point and click system very similar to Maniac Mansion. (If you’ve played the other games in the MacVenture series, you know exactly how to play the game.) You realize that you have absolutely no clue who you are, or how you ended up in the bar, and it is up to you to put the pieces of the mental puzzle together, to discover your identity.

Later on in the game, you learn that you are going to be framed for a severe kidnapping and murder. You will also notice a puncture wound on your arm, and you come to the conclusion that your amnesia is actually caused by an inflicted drug inducement. As the game progresses, you will discover that your memory, mentality and health will get gradually much worse, so you will have to find some kind of antidote to get back on your feet. You’ll learn clues as you play that make you realize of you taking the heat for the murder, and your goal in the game is to find out various clues to unchain you from that link, as well as discover who the actual murderer is. You will do this by visiting various areas throughout the game. As you find pieces of evidence, you will find yourself having flashbacks, that can usually help you in the assistance of coming up with all of the necessary clues to get your name cleared. That is, if you even remember your name!

Throughout the game, you will see (in the typical 40s-style gangster movie manner), various people and characters. Very few of them you’d want to meet; Most of them you’re prefer not to. You’ll find muggers that want to rob you of your belongings, or even worse, want to kill you for no apparent reason at all. The police are always looking for you, at least until you are able to provide enough evidence that you were not actually the one responsible for the murder. Of course, there is the typical 40s style prostitute that is always looking out for her own good. Not to mention an old acquaintance that seems to really have it out for you. All the while, you are trying to avoid death by various ways such as falling down an open manhole (seriously), exploding cars, getting eaten by alligators, and of course, the drug that is present throughout your bloodstream. Add to that the various ways of getting arrested, such as shooting the mugger in self defense, or going to the police before you have gathered enough proof of your innocence.

You will find yourself going through the various parts of the bar and surrounding areas, including visiting the wine cellar, going through sewers, visiting various offices inside the building, and even finding a casino like element which will help you with things where you need cash, for example, taking a cab to other areas. (What, you thought the entire game all took place on the same block?) You’ll learn as the game goes on about the evidence of the plans to kill Joey Siegel, and kidnap Mrs. Sternwood. It is important that you have ALL evidence in your possession (and make sure you destroy other parts of evidence that would link you to the situations), before going to the feds. Otherwise, it’s game over.

The graphics for game were not bad for an NES game of this style, however, the computer based versions seemed to have better graphics, even on the original Macintosh platform. (And that’s even with the fact, that when the game was released, all Macintosh systems were monochrome.) The Windows version of the game also has a lot of fantastic graphics. I know that it isn’t fair comparing slightly modern computer graphics with the original NES, but the computer graphics just seemed to be a lot more crisp. Also, the consistent “typewriter” effect that the NES uses to display what the outcome is with every action you take, is slow and not required at all, while on the Macintosh and Windows platforms, everything that needs to be shown to you, is shown instantly. (If you are a fast reader like I am, this feature alone will make the game go by a lot easier.) The computer versions by default just all around run faster, and I think part of that is obviously the power of the systems when compared with the hardware of the original Nintendo console.
The music is another aspect of the game that is kind of interesting. You remember the old saying, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it?” Well, the computer platforms certainly agreed. While the NES music is very upbeat and mysterious at times, it gets quite repetitive, and VERY fast. It’s basically a continuous loop that lasts about 30 seconds, with the occasional change in beat and style when something bad is about to happen or be witnessed. The computer versions have for the most part, no music at all, just sound effects. You have to realize that back then, CD-ROM was not invented yet. (Even with the Windows 3.1 version, CD-ROM was just starting to become commonplace, but just not “quite”.) So simple music was still being made, and in the computer versions, they decided that background music was not necessary. Personally, I prefer it without the music. For the NES version, an option to turn the music off would have been a nice fixture.

Deja Vu was originally released in 1985 for the Macintosh, and was released for other systems as the years went on. (The NES version got released in 1990.) During the time that the game was originally created, old style gangster movies were a big rage. Scarface had been released a few years prior, the first two Godfather movies were still quite popular, especially since home video had taken off, even comedy spoofs of them such as Harlem Nights had been released shortly after the original game was released. So it was not surprising that a game based on the old time criminal pictures was in the works and eventually released. But it makes you wonder this: If a game based on those classic films was going to be made, you would think that the games would have been made so that you were the criminal and not the victim. (Remember, the original game was released for computers, not the NES, so there really wasn’t any kind of “family” or “moral” standards that had to be kept.) It’s really a thing that makes you go, “Hmmm”.

Deja Vu wasn’t like today’s gangster and underground world games like “Scarface” and “Grand Theft Auto” where the criminals are embraced. You would also think that a game based on what is basically action movies, would be an action platform game and not a point and click (and read a lot) format. But that is what I like about it. At the time that I first purchased the game, I was absolutely terrible at sidescrollers and action packed games. (I was probably the last person on my block to beat the original Super Mario Brothers, even with hints!) But games of this nature very much appealed to me, which is why the slower pace worked well for me. The game is a combination of detective skills and good creative thinking, as well as the occasional violent act, which is just flat out inevitable. While the other games in the MacVenture series are quite good, I feel that Deja Vu is the most realistic since all of the situations at hand could actually happen, and there were no ghosts or supernatural occurrences happening, so if you like the other games that used this engine (The Uninvited and Shadowgate), and want a little change of pace, give this title a try.

It’s time for an all-new edition of Throwback Thursday! For this episode, I decided to review a launch title. As we all know, it’s launch titles that can certainly make or break a consoles success. The other launch titles for this system at hand were Red Alarm, Galactic Pinball and Teleroboxer. For those that are still having a mental block (which may be a good number of you), I’m talking about the other launch title for the ill-fated Nintendo Virtual Boy, it’s original pack-in game, “Mario’s Tennis”.

Obviously, Mario’s Tennis is the sport of tennis, played Virtual Boy style, pain in the eyes and all. I assumed that the reason that a sports game was packed in with the console, was because the concept of the Virtual Boy console was to be able to dab in the experience of Virtual Reality. It would be very easy to pick up a simple game of tennis, and be able to play it with the supposed virtual reality controls than a platformer game would have been. If not this particular game, I think any kind of sports game would have been a good choice. If some people may remember, back when the Intellivsion and Atari 2600 first came out, there were a lot of sports games made available. This was because sports games for the most part were very easily to recognize and understand without the need for a lot of instructions. This concept was probably what Nintendo had in mind when they made this decision to include a sports game as a pack in, and on the aspect of the reasoning behind Nintendo’s choice, I could honestly say, a better title could not have been selected.

However, as many of us know by now, the Virtual Boy was a far cry from the real deal. Remember, this was the mid 1990s when the console was released. This was a time period when a lot of movies based on the technology were out in theatres, and how quickly we forget how everyone wanted “the virtual reality chair” that seemed to be in all of the expensive catalogs and home shopping networks. (I actually asked my mom and dad for a VR chair for Christmas that year, and I got the Virtual Boy instead. They even wrapped the box in a large chair and let me bust, so when I opened the gift, it was a Virtual Boy sitting on a desk chair. How cruel!)

Mario’s Tennis allows you to play as one of 7 different Mario franchise characters: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Toad, a Koopa or Donkey Kong Jr. The game supports both singles and double matches, both casual play and tournament modes, and three levels of difficulty. What’s a real shame about the game is that there is no two player option. When the Virtual Boy was released, there was an EXT jack underneath the head of the console, which was eventually going to be used for a connection link for 2 players to play titles at the same time, similar to the Game Link cable used for the original Game Boy systems. However, this link never came to be, and the games that were slated to use the said cable, which were this title, Faceball and Waterworld, had all multiplayer features removed from the code before they were released.

The view of the tennis court was done as well as it could have been done with the console. With a lot of red! Visuals of the now famous Mario pipes in the background, with a tennis court (somewhat of a small size when compared to the game sprites), that, guess what? Is red. The viewpoint is directly behind the character that you are controlling. This was done so that you could see exactly when you would swing your serves and returns. While these days, sports games like those for the Kinect would allow you to not need a character on screen, you could say that on Mario’s Tennis, it is done in the same way as Nintendo Wii sports games are done. (That’s the best comparison I could give.) The game takes a few interesting ways of using the many buttons and D-Pads on the controller to make it seem natural. Even a control as simple as using the left D-Pad when serving from the left and vice versa were well produced.

The one major problem that I do have with the game is the actual controls from the hardware to software point of view. On many times, I had found the controls to be very slow in response time and more than a tad bit sluggish. And when you are playing a sports game like tennis, a situation like that is simply not acceptable. There were other games made for the system in which the controls were super quick and accurate, such as Teleroboxer and Tetris. (Even Red Alarm was accurate, but it suffered from projectile speed, but that’s for another day.) The fact that the game’s control response time is screwed up is really a shame, because the game is not all that bad-looking, especially for a launch title. It’s graphics aren’t as good or crisp when compared to games such as Wario Land or Mario Clash, but for an early attempt, they are quite good.

Another part where the game fails is with the music. However, part of that is due to the technology behind it. (Kinda funny how a “virtual reality” machine could only display a single color and have the music chip like the original Game Boy, isn’t it?) The music is very simple, and in some cases, not existent depending on your level of gameplay, and the sound effects are literally nothing more than basic “beeps, bops, and blips.” No fooling. Which makes me wonder if there was a lot of thought about the music and sound effects (or lack thereof), mostly when considering that some great music was made with the Game Boy Classic sound chip. It’s almost as if they didn’t even try for this title, almost like they knew that the title was either going to be a pack in (thus who would care since it was a free game), or that they didn’t have confidence in the system from the start, so why bother spending a lot of time on the programming?

The fact that there is no 2 player mode, and no way for your friends to see how good or bad you’re playing, it really makes the game much more of a solitaire experience than a party game, which is a shame because I think that if these two items were added, it would have been a lot more fun to play. Even though the game is not one of my favorites for the Virtual Boy, I have to admit that I spent many hours playing the game when I first got the system, and long after the fact. I enjoy games of simplicity most of the time, and this game certainly delivers. For a good time waster when you are laying in bed, trying to relax, Mario’s Tennis delivers. (For the record, I discovered that is the best way to get around the terrible design of the console. Laying in bed with the system laying on your body. Seriously. Try it if you still have the system.)