I'm writing this on a woefully underpowered iBook G4, a laptop in desperate need of retirement after 4 years of heavy use. Today, it is as effective a computer as Pakistan is a democratic government. Still, I've bought into the Apple mystique to the point where I cannot fathom purchasing a Windows machine under any circumstances. Like a jackass. Why, if I was handed legal documentation by a Notary Public Officer guaranteeing a future with lots of sex with beautiful, intelligent women in exchange for buying a Dell, I'm not sure I'd take the deal. Even if the deal required said entourage of attractive ladies to make delicious pancakes for my consumption whenever I desired breakfast.. On second thought, I would buy that Dell if those conditions were met. But I wouldn't be happy about it.
One does not play games on Apple computers anymore. One does not purchase computer games for any platform very often anymore, what with piracy being what it is. Outside of AGS games, "The Ur-Quan Masters," The Battle for Wesnoth, and the occasional flash browser game, I never use my computer for videogame-related entertainment. But there was a time not long ago when I overclocked the shit out of an AMD Athlon processor. I think that was freshman year of college (soon afterward, the computer blew up while I was in Portland -- I don't think I left it on before leaving, but whatever). I bought computer parts from Cedar Mill Computers, and that place had to have been a front business for the Russian mob. At one point, I seriously entertained building a completely open source, Slashdot wet dream of a computer, although I cannot remember what drugs I was using at the time that gave the illusion that I was capable of doing such a thing. I haven't felt that way in seven years; this laptop has functioned much better than any of the wonky, crash-prone beige embarrassments I started building in high school. There is no denying that I am a complete sucker for OSX. The GUI just feels correct -- the resize, minimize & window closing buttons are in the top left hand corner of your windows, as it should be. The finder functionality is infinitely more sensible than explorer's clunky, haphazard organization.
Also, how could anyone not want their Firefox browsers to suck all your virtual memory in seemingly arbitrary intervals? If there's a credible explanation for this "feature" hiding in the flotsam and jetsam of the internets, I would read it.
However, recent developments in the games market have muted some of my Apple-centricsm. Games I find most intriguing rarely get a PowerPC Mac client, or at least a client that requires absolutely no effort to install and run. There is nothing I want to experience more than Tales of Game's Studios Presents: Bakley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden; most likely, it'll have to wait until I get a new Intel powered Mac some day in the far, far future -- with a Windows partition taking up valuable hard drive space. Space that should be occupied by 5 Days a Stranger/
Oh, yes. That.
from fully ramblomatic
5 Days a Stranger looks like an early 90's game developed by Legend or Revolution or some other long-forgetten member in the fraternity of developers not named LucasArts or Sierra. I mention this only because of the aesthetic. In general, the visuals are appealing, with just enough abstract roughness to trigger fond memories of Kings Quest. Objects look like reasonable facsimiles of their inspirations, critical in all point 'n click adventure games. However, some baffling decisions, paramount among them the color palate, actively hamper your ability to read much of the in-game text. The dialogue appears, in traditional LucasArts font, above whoever's saying what has to be said; everything else is grey text centered on the screen, superimposed over the environment. There are moments in which we are expected to read grey text over grey concrete with grey fences looming in the background. This kind of blunder in a rather text-heavy quest is unconscionable; however, I think limitations in the AGS programming tools are more to blame than Yahtzee himself. It's a testament to the overall quality of writing that I strained my eyes to read some of incidental stuff, not just because I expected to find a hint or whatever, but because I was genuinely interested in the story.
The title is not inaccurate, even if it's a bit nonsensical: the world renowned "gentleman thief," Trilby, breaks into the recently vacated DeFoe manor (using an absolutely badass umbrella grappling hook) and discovers himself trapped in the mansion by supernatural forces for five days. There are also, of course, strangers in the same predicament as Trilby, and a series of really awful things happen to pretty much all of them. While all this is going on, horrific things about the DeFoe family are revealed. Like really, really fucked up stuff. Exacerbating the narrative unpleasantness is the worst example I've ever seen of a pixel-hunting puzzle, the second most terrifying type of game-lengthening mechanic in the adventure game genre. Finding that one useful spot you need to progress further in the game is an established trope in this genre, so I would not be so upset had the game not innovated so radically. The puzzle of which I speak required me to turn my mouse sensitivity down so I could scour the landscape more precisely. This is how bad the pixel-hunt is: after accidentally brushing the mouse 1/16th of a centimeter off the hotspot when attempting to click on it, I had to spend 4 minutes trying to realign the cursor to that location again.
from fully ramblomatic
HOW-EV-R, the rest of the detective work is both within the logical parameters of the accursed mansion and make sound narrative sense. There are no "use the mayonnaise jar on the broom-handle" moments, in other words -- one of the puzzles is sort of an extended parody, requiring at least three ridiculous item combinations and the use of one very sarcastic "guide to white magic," pamphlet to solve.
This game would be a competent, if somewhat easy and predictable, freeware adventure title on the strengths of the brain teasers alone. No one would play it if that's all it was, of course. We like adventure games because they tell stories - stories that are very distinctively "adventure game-y," divorced from the Marcus Phenix-iisms so prevalent in our games today. Had Yahtzee slapped some generic motivations and ill-defined personalities for Trilby and the other trapped inhabitants of DeFoe manor, had he not bothered creating the eerie story of one seriously troubled family, I would not be writing about 5 Days a Stranger.
Awesomely, a group of modders began development on a remake of 5 Days a Stranger, using the Source engine. Less awesomely, the project appears to be dead.
So, yeah. Check it out, if you like adventure games. Get it here.
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