And when we first hear about Thomas Dangerfield we think of him as the only person in the expedition with a conscience, but eventually we find out he has also become a really bad guy who kills without remorse. Our client is actually a really bad guy who callously killed hundreds of people for personal gain. We get each character's different takes on the topics and they all add to the story to give a complete idea of what's going on.Īs we play the game we gradually discover that things are not as they seem. It's a story with twists that take you to a variety of locations, and all of the locations fit into the story. The story and setting are probably the game's strongest point. It's neither bad or good that this happens, I just thought it was worth noting. I'm thinking particularly of the BOOTS I picked up at Johnny Fedora's place and the FLASHLIGHT batteries I picked up in the alley next to Big Dick's Casino. I noticed that there were some inventory items I didn't even use, or if I did, I didn't realise I was using them. The game could also have been improved with tooltips so you don't have to LOOK at every part of the screen to determine which parts are clickable items and which are just flavour decoration/background image. Looking at it calls in an 'Identifier' Box, which ironically gives us no idea what it is This subtracts from the idea of an adventure game as instead of thinking about a solution, you more quickly resort to the brute force method of trying everything in turn until something works.Īn example of the confusing inventory is the Kevlar Box. As a consequence, you often have no idea where you got an item or what it does. Not only is there no way to 'look' at an item in your inventory, but inventory items are often named differently to what they are when you pick them up. But it's better than having extra words that take up lots of space but have very limited use (I'm looking at you, TURN ON and TURN OFF from Maniac Mansion.) USE is purely used to USE your inventory items. Having limited buttons caused a few weird things, like MOVE LIGHT SWITCH or MOVE DOOR to turn on or open things. The interface was fine, it did its job with the simple words on the bottom of the screen. I can see another likely dead-end by not taking the acid before going to Alexis' room in Mars.Īll in all, the game gets a pass for puzzles, but just barely. I fell for this one by not noticing the mound of dirt just past the pit trap in the jungle. If you don't do everything you have to before going to Mars, you're screwed. There was one significant dead-end in the game. You could limit every character to just three topics so you have to think about what information you need from them, but that would just be too gamey and end up with lots of saving and reloading before and after conversations, adding to the annoyance and boredom but not adding to the fun or challenge. Unfortunately, I can't think of a better way to do it. A drawback of so much information coming from dialogue is that they can easily be 'solved' by just asking everyone about everything in the list. They give me new locations to visit and new topics to talk about and occasionally give me new items to use. Much of solving the game requires talking to and getting information from people. But the only way to finish the game is to go through the same conversation path again/instead but instead of asking her to distract him we have to tell her we're doomed. The final Alexis conversation is particularly annoying because getting her to dance seemed like the right thing to do as it stops Thomas Dangerfield from thinking about the Oracle Stone. The Rhonda one is the only one that really makes sense in hindsight. The dialogue 'puzzles' were almost impossible to solve without trial and error. Some puzzles were rewarding when solved, like using the wrench on the magnet in the power plant. I'll discuss this in more detail in the “Interface and Inventory” section. In general, the inventory and environment puzzles of this game made sense, but some of them, even though they make sense on paper, were difficult due to lack of information. It's time to determine the Final Rating of Martian Memorandum.
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