Thoughts by Herr M. (13 Oct 2018) – Interpreter (Glulx)
Imagine a rather bizarre setup: An industrial mech with remote control, which still relies on having a passenger on board, whose sole purpose is tagging items for the controller at the other end of the line. Since naming things is not that overly exciting you thankfully take over the role of the controller in this game. So your task will be remote controlling the robot around a research complex, ordering it to shove things out of the way and punch the one or the other object, while listening to the comments of your on-board companion.
Which brings us right to one of the game’s weakest points: Said companion is an extremely obnoxious guy, who does not know when to shut up and keeps on babbling about the most irrelevant things. Top this off with a bit of racism, sexism and bigotry and you just have to wonder why you would ever put him in this position in the first place.
At first it seems like this is just something which should give him some character, make him memorable or funny so to speak. Then, after the first couple of rooms, it gets really annoying and might make you want to quit. Especially since there is not much to do except for some pretty standard stuff which takes forever because you have to read about three to four paragraphs before you can do such simple things as picking up a rock.
Yet there comes a point when you realize that – thankfully! – there is more to the game than the simple rescue mission which is implied and that its main feature is not just a very talkative co pilot. Small details do not quite fit together and make you wonder whether you should not rethink your approach to this situation. And as blunt as the game seems at first, the hints at the deeper implications of your actions are placed really well. If you realize them in time this leads to a major turning point where a different kind of story unfolds and you set off to solve the real mystery.
Sadly, as exciting as this is, it comes with two major problems: First off there is only one real puzzles to solve and it involves only a handfull of rooms and items. Admittedly it does seem to have several solutions and some of them might make you feel quite clever. It is also interesting to note that things turn out differently depending on how you handle them. But it is hard to tell when you have reached some kind of conclusion, because secondly the game does not seem to have any kind of ending.
I gave it my best and kept going at it for hours (which actually speaks for the game, because it managed to keep up my interest) but everything I tried led to a non responding parser or nothing much left to do in the ‘end’. Although some of the scenarios seemed to be endings, the game did not acknowledge them in any way. It might be intended because logging off yourself seems to be a rather fitting ending anyway.