Anyway, the point is that it's out at last, and I've played it. And like a good little blogger I can't do ANYTHING in life without subsquently writing about it on the internet for the edification of the millions of disinterested people who will never even see this page, let alone read far enough along to realize that I'm spending the first half of a puported review of a video game slagging them off with the worlds longest run on sentence. Still, attempting briefly to actually get to the point...
The world has been waiting for a good Doctor Who computer game. And no, Destiny Of The Doctors DOESN'T count. I could forgive it being not really very good, but it tried to kill my computer when I tried to install it way back when. So nil points there. Quite WHY it's taken so long for anyone to have a proper go at this is frankly baffling. Just because the series doesn't feature the main character mindlessly chainsawing his way through legions of faceless disposables doesn't mean you can't make a good game out of it. It's quite obviously possible to make a decent computer game that doesn't feature violence as it's main mechanic. And no, I'm not talking about bloody top trumps.
Oh, just fuck off
No, I'm talking about the good old staple of adventure games. Pointing, clicking, spending hours wandering around because you missed that one tiny item in the corner of the screen, mind shatteringly obtuse puzzles designed soley to piss of passing sphinxes and item combinations that simply MAKE NO RATIONAL SENSE in ANY universe. That's the sort of thing that would suit a Doctor Who game, right?
Right. That's more or less the sort of thing one may expect, so is it what we've got? Not exactly. What we have is an odd sort of stealth game, with a few puzzles thrown in along the way. There's a few items to be picked up, but it's not like you're having to duct tape a mobile phone to a cat at any point. Items are basically objectives for the sneaking around portions rather than functioning as part of the puzzles. The puzzles themselves take the form of the sort of logic / dexterity / reaction type thing you'll often find in the form of flash games on the web. So for example after sneaking around for a few bits and bobs you may then get an operation style buzzer game to do in order to assemble them into whatever gizmo the plot then requires. And I don't mean any of that in a negative way. That's just what it's like, though obviously with a bit of a Doctor Who polish.The way it's structured does lend the game a sense of variety and keeps things interesting over its admittedly brief play time.
Graphically it's obviously not on the hyper mega shiny bling mapped to the point of unrunability scale of things. It's actually kind of refreshingly old school in a way. But the point here isn't that it looks bad (because it doesn't) but a far more important development decision: This game is meant to be played by everyone. It's been designed to run on as many machines as possible. Might well be it looks a bit shinier on a better machine than mine, I couldn't say. But my rig isn't exactly cutting edge anymore, and I didn't have any problems. I reckon I could probably run it on my laptop, and that's even older. I think the part that really brought this home was when, after arriving in the titular city of the Daleks you can gaze out of a window over a spectacular matt job. No fully rendered scenery just out of reach or fancy polygons, just a texture on the inside of a box over a window. Simple and effective without breaking the bank. Pure Doctor Who in other words.
Being set up much like a normal episode, the game doesn't exactly run for hours. But then that's not what it's trying to do. I'm quite sure that it could all be expanded out, but that would be missing the point. Obviously one advantage of limiting the size of the game is that it makes it easier to download and run. The other point being that from the get go these have been marketed as interactive episodes, and judging by this forst installment that's basically what they are. Obviously they can be a little more ambitious in the visual scope, and the characters and plotting is going to take a bit of a hit in favour of actual gameplay, but that's a function of the medium. It does have to be said that the plot is a little... thin, but there are some good ideas in there, beyond the whole "Daleks have the macguffin of plot device, they must be stopped!!" bit. One bit I did like was how Amys temporal instability (on account of never having been born as the human race was wiped out in the opening bit of the game) actually plays into the gameplay a bit. As she fades in and out of existence you get moments of invisibilty that can help with all the sneaking around. Though I do have to say that the Doctors opening speech about the sixties did seem a bit too 10th Doctor, all pop culture and the like.
Overall, as part one of an episodic game this is a pretty strong release. It's diverting enough, tricky in places without being frustrating and accesable to a fairly wide age range. What of course really bumps it all up to gold standard is the subject of cost. I simply cannot believe they're giving this away for free. All this time waiting for a Doctor Who game and they just give it away? It's madness. They could easily have charged something for this project. Not loads, but something. But no, we get it scott free. The only real downside is that this means you're not likely to see it cropping up on your console of choice any time soon. Which is kind of a shame, as this would ROCK on the Wii. Maybe they'll do a full game in a similar style. One can always hope.
Still, at the end of the day we have a pretty good piece of Doctor Who gaming available for no money whatsoever. I litteraly cannot think of a single excuse to not play this.
No comments:
Post a Comment