Genre: Graphic adventure
Year: 1993
Developed by: LucasArts
Published by: LucasArts
Platforms: Every model of PC you can think of, PS4, Vita, XBOX One
#195
Feeling Like: I could…I could…TAKE ON THE WORLD!
There was a time where the name “LucasArts” was synonymous with quality and murdering hamsters in a microwave. It was also associated with a number of incredible adventure games, brimming with creativity, amazing graphics and, naturally, hilarious writing.
This was one of the few games I played with my cousin Jessica! You wouldn’t think this kind of game lends itself well to co-op, but when you had two young gamers with a large imagination who were both into acting (one of us moreso than the other!), this was a dream come true for a summer weekend with nothing else to do. Really our biggest challenge was convincing my Aunt and Uncle that we had already spent enough time outdoors.
The internet wasn’t a thing, so it was up to us to figure out the game’s puzzles. Solutions sometimes came to us immediately, other times we knew what to do just not how to do it. Other times we’d be completely stumped and try every conceivable permutation of pick up, look at, talk to before we eventually brute forced our way through.
All the while doing voices for the characters, as we hadn’t got the voice acting add-on yet. Jess was Bernard and Laverne and I was Hoagie (like the sandwich). It was a blast, even the most mundane line about looking out a window led us to giggling when we’d try variations on the voice, or emphasizing different words. Or ad-lib our own lines. It was like an interactive play and it’s still the only time I’ve gone through a game like this.
Looking back on it, the setting was quite brilliant. Each party member gets stuck in a particular time period, 200 years in the past, 200 years in the future and present day. You couldn’t jump time periods as a specific character, but you could swap items by putting them through time. So Laverne finds something, she can give it to Bernard or Hoagie. The game takes place in one location, so you got to see the results of your shenanigans in the past almost immediately. Some of the game’s best moments were the quick cut-scene showing how the American Flag now looked, or a statue switched positions thanks to Hoagie’s pleasant meddling.
The look of the game is terrific, jives perfectly with the zany tone they were going for. The remastered edition looks phenomenal, everything is exaggerated and goofy looking. Even benign objects like stairs or mantlepieces having interesting dimensions. Wacky is about the only word to describe it, but it’s tonally appropriate.
The characters, every single one of them, are full of interesting quirks and perfectly written. Benjamin Franklin is in this! I’m sure historians would be mildly insulted, he sounds more like a carnival maestro than an inventor/politician but I couldn’t get enough. Instances of slapstick and puns are scattered throughout, and I’m always game for a bad/good pun.
There may not be room in today’s modern landscape for a game like this to succeed. LucasArts’ heyday is long past and we’ve since seen an evolution on story-based games such as Telltale’s The Walking Dead that focus more on story choices rather than picking up a hammer and pushing a door. Still, there’s obviously enough of an appetite since they released a remaster in 2016 and a Full Throttle remaster the following year. I think since the game is short enough that the appetite for a strange, retro experience like this is large enough.
Or maybe the genre was always niche? I didn’t have much in the ways of a PC growing up so I’d never even heard of series like King’s Quest or Maniac Mansion, but it’s clear there was a dedicated audience for it. It’s likely this was the best genre to highlight beautiful artwork; I got this as a Christmas present and I absolutely adore it.
Switching eras in time in a flash meant we never got bored of a certain area. If we got stuck as Bernard, we’d give Laverne a try. Puzzles were logical within the context of the game’s world. Speaking to historical figures and giving them exploding cigars was hysterical. The titular Tentacle was a great villain, when was the last time a talking, evil purple tentacle was the focus outside of some bizarre hentai? Even after not playing the game for nearly 30 years (30!) I still remember certain locations and lines like it was yesterday.
What a funny, heartwarming, odd little game!
The 500 