Report #9

Since my last post I have finished three games, so it’s time for a small update. I got quite lucky with my recent games, they all turned out to be quite good. Let’s see what I’ve crossed off my backlog:

• Sam & Max: Season One
  

  13 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Space Pilgrim Academy
  

  5 hours playtime

  15 of 15 achievements

• STAR WARS™ Republic Commando
  

  8 hours playtime

  no achievements

Sam & Max: Season One

Sam & Max was a LucasArts game in the early 90s. Telltale revived the franchise with some new games in the mid 2000s. The genre (Point’n’Click) remained the same, but the graphical representation changed a lot. First, you wanna visit PCgamingwiki and download a tool to rescale the game to widescreen. Unfortunately that does not work completely bug-free, but the bugs are minor and overall playing in widescreen is much better than playing in the original resolution. Now, the game itself: You play as freelance detectives Sam (a dog) and Max (a rabbit-like creature). In 6 episodes you try to solve several cases of people being hypnotized. The cases are quirky, as is the whole world and its characters. The humour is kind of silly and not very elaborate in most cases. But thats okay, sometimes you just wanna laugh about stupid jokes and the season isn’t too long overall. The game has a distinct 90s vibe to it, starting from the soundtrack to the maneurisms and overall setting. I enjoyed that, but maybe that is not for everyone. The puzzles were sometimes quite easy, but a few required a guide, because I couldn’t figure them out on my own. All in all, the game is quite silly, but still enjoyable. If you already own it, give it a try.

Space Pilgrim Academy

The sequel to the Space Pilgrim Saga takes place a few years after the first games. You meet some characters of the earlier games, but most of them only play a small role. Gail Pilgrim, now ambassador of the new political order that arose after the events triggered in the original games, rescues a little child called Maggie from a space station, that was attacked by unknowns. Maggie lost her parents and is without a guardian, so Gail puts her into a space academy (hence the name). Alternating between Maggie and Gail you either visit different classes in the academy or try to unravel the mystery behind the attack on the space station. It’s a RPG Maker game, but I would argue one of the best I have played up to date. It’s rather short and the achievements required me to use a guide to get them all in one playthrough (some of them are given for correctly answering test in the academy, but it’s rather unclear at times what the right answers are…). Of course it’s not the next big revelation, but for 2 bucks it’s a lot of fun. Although the plot left me a bit unsatisified (the revelation of the traitor inside the academy came absolutely out of nowhere, a major blunder in my book.). I really enjoyed playing it, even more than the original series. If you have played the original 4 games, you should definitely play this one as well.

Star Wars: Republic Commando

Republic Commando is a first person shooter set in the Star Wars universe. You play as a clone commando, leader of Delta Squad, during the early days of the Clone Wars. In three mission you lead your team of 4 through rather linear levels. Some tactical elements are included, as you can give orders to your squadmates. Neither the story (Although I love the Wookies I am so tired of a Kashyyk level appearing in almost every Star Wars game….) nor the gameplay are really outstanding, but I would argue that the game is very well-made. The graphics are of course outdated, as the game is from 2005, but still quite good for such an old game (again, make sure to visit PCgamingwiki for a widescreen-fix). The soundtrack is really good and fitting to the game. But most of all I was impressed by the AI of your squadmates. Yes, the commands you can give to your squadmates are rather limited, but on the other hand they work nearly perfectly. They always do what you say and even without giving them specific commands, your squadmates act quite reasonable. I was really impressed by that and I think that RC handles that better than a lot of more recent games. The story is not that important to the game and you basically play as some badass space cowboys, always pressing the fire button and never look twice. I guess, for a longer game that wouldn’t work, but for a few hours that’s a lot of fun. If you are a fan of Star Wars or SciFi in general, this game is a good investement of your time.

So long,
Vito